Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 88-minute teaching on The Wheel of Sharp Weapons, Ven Jampa Ignyen begins with the foundational practice of mind training—observing the current state of one’s mind and identifying obstacles within it. He identifies self-cherishing as the root of all dissatisfaction, then walks through specific verses showing how common present difficulties—separation from loved ones, nothing pleasing one’s teacher, unaccomplished actions, lack of joy—arise directly from past negative actions. Rather than blaming others, he frames each struggle as feedback revealing one’s own karma and the law of cause and effect. The teaching emphasizes replacing self-cherishing with cherishing others, and introduces the practice of giving and taking (tonglen) as an antidote. Pitched at practitioners ready to take full responsibility for their suffering.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 WSW 2001 09 29.mp3
UUID: f9a7463b-a538-480a-808f-59aad2e7b8e4
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Wheel of Sharp Weapons 2011 Month 09-10 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-09-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 88.1 minutes
Words: ~8,902
Raise them. Again, this text is primarily designed as a text in mind training. It’s to help us train our mind in the present moment. So very fundamental to all of this is to, be mindful of the current state of our mind and examine just what is there, whether current state of mind is neutral or negative or virtuous. Certainly, that current state of mind is virtuous, then that’s fine.
That’s something we can rejoice in, and we should try and strengthen that. If it’s neutral, then we should try and mix it with virtuous states. If it is non virtuous, then we should at least take it to the point of being neutral. So mind training very much depends on being mindful of what our current state of mind is. And, there’s many different instructions within dharma on how we train the mind.
And of course, these different instructions arise because of the vast vast difference in beings. And the difference in beings arises because of the difference in their actions from the past. So it’s good to examine different types of instructions. Some are more appropriate, some are easier for us to comprehend and so forth. But all of these instructions are set forth in order to help us tame the mind of the present moment.
Even though the mind in the present may be relatively unagitated and so forth. Still, when we investigate, we notice that there’s elements within our current mind that are unsuitable. And in fact, in Tibetan the definition of afflictive states is really just any unsuitable, inappropriate type of mind that may exist that actually does tend to agitate the mind, does tend to be unsatisfactory and so on. These types of mind we need to deal with, not only for present benefit, but so that we gradually are able to completely eliminate them. We need to apply antidotes in the present, and eventually we need to overcome them at their root.
Now this text is specifically identifying the root of all that’s unsatisfactory in our mental continuum as self-cherishing. Along with self-cherishing, it’s also talking about self-grasping. And really those two together are what we need to overcome. But specifically here, we’re targeting self-cherishing. We’re seeking to replace self-cherishing with cherishing of others.
When we talk about self grasping, we seek to replace grasping at a self with wisdom comprehending selflessness. But again, what we’re really targeting here is our self-cherishing attitude. And again, being able to generate the opponents to self-cherishing depends on first identifying self-cherishing so that we know we can recognize it when we see it or when when we experience it. And then also we need to identify the faults of it. Why is it something to be abandoned?
And so on. These we need to think about at some length because already in the present moment we have self-cherishing. And this self-cherishing we have even in the the present is acting as an obstacle to our development of happiness. But, of course, if we don’t see it to be an obstacle to us, then there’s no way of overcoming it. It can it won’t go away by itself.
It needs to be actively opposed by its antidotes. It hasn’t gone away from beginningless time. It’s more or less remained there because we’ve never seen it to be our true enemy. So all of these things we need to be mindful of, we need to contemplate. self-cherishing itself is this type of awareness which holds ourselves to be more important than others.
That’s self centered to exclusion of other beings. Being self centered, it actively excludes other beings. And by doing that, then it acts as a foundation for all that’s unsatisfactory, all the unhappiness, all the negative mental and physical feeling that we experience, which is what we try and overcome day by day. So just Buddha nature basically what Buddha nature is is the emptiness of our current mind, and that emptiness really signifies that we have the potential, our current mind has the full potential to completely overcome all stains and faults and so forth. Well, that’s a good question.
What initially clouds us to our Buddha nature is really ignorance. That ignorance has no beginning. But it has an end. Exactly. Here it’s asserted that there wasn’t a point in the past where we didn’t have self-cherishing or self grasping.
And in fact, it’s they stem both of them stem from a beginningless process or beginningless processes. Exactly as you said, they have an end, but they have no beginning. It wasn’t as if at one point, you know, we were perfectly, you know, enlightened, and then suddenly we became unenlightened. That would that’s not possible. And in fact, when asked about these particular issues, the Buddha didn’t give an answer.
There are the the case of the fourteen unanswered questions, and they relate to this issue of how did we become in unenlightened and so forth. In fact, I think the question was, does the world have a beginning? Does it have no beginning? And in that, does the world have a beginning? Really, it’s talking about whether our mundane experience has a beginning.
And the Buddha didn’t answer when he was asked, does that have a beginning? He didn’t say anything. Does it have no beginning? He didn’t say anything. Does it have both a beginning and no beginning?
He said nothing. Does it have neither a beginning nor no beginning? He also did not answer. That is taken to be a teaching on the middle way that avoids all the extremes. But in general, it’s said that the mind and the self-cherishing, grasping are beginningless.
Oh, it’s there’s such strong and deep habits that even when the possibility of them being the source of all our unhappiness arises or we comprehend that, there is a possibility. Still just seeing that doesn’t oppose there being self-cherishing. We have to actually generate the antidote from now on. Not sure. That’s right.
The self in in the way we think the self exists doesn’t exist. That’s true. Although the mere eye does exist. But ignorance as such is said to be beginningless. The object grasped by the ignorance holding itself never existed to begin with, and that’s why it is ignorance.
What’s to be abandoned there is that ignorance. It’s true that we do have these things like self-cherishing and self grasping, and we also have Buddha nature. And even for Buddha nature, there’s two types. There’s the our current mind, our defiled mind in the present is a type of developing Buddha nature that we have, whereas the emptiness of our current mind is the naturally abiding Buddha nature. But they only develop through effort.
This Buddha nature that we have, which is our current state of mind, will not be enhanced, will not improve and evolve to the state of a Buddha unless we put effort into it. Left up to itself, if we don’t put any effort in and we just leave things as they are, the mind doesn’t, develop. Ignorance doesn’t, you know, wear out. It was fully developed now. We’ve perfected our ignorance.
It is, you know, like rock hard. That’s why it’s so and we have different levels of ignorance. And at present, we completely affirm the ignorant we don’t see our ignorance to be ignorance. There’s different levels. There’s, you know, like, innate ignorance, and there’s imputed ignorance.
There’s manifest and unmanifest and so on. Really understanding ignorance to be ignorance is a great step forward. Forward. Similarly, understanding our self-cherishing to support our afflictive states of mind also is a great step forward. But at present, we have doubts about this, and this is why we need to investigate it.
Yeah. From the lesser vehicle point of view, he was regarded as prince Siddhartha, as someone on the path of accumulation, and therefore, had ignorance. He’s a bodhisattva. Yeah. Bodhisattva.
But from the great vehicle point of view, even as from the time he was born, he was regarded as a fully awakened Buddha. And what he did in in his life as the Buddha was simply to go through the process of demonstrating the twelve deeds of a Buddha, although he was already enlightened. He was, yes, he was already enlightened in past lives. Maitreya has come. The Bodhisattva Maitreya.
There’s the Bodhisattva Maitreya and the Buddha Maitreya. The Buddha Maitreya hasn’t come yet. Even though Maitreya at present is the Buddha is a Buddha, Maitreya will come in future and demonstrate the twelve deeds of a Buddha. But when but he is the student. He’s the main disciple of Śākyamūni Buddha, one of the eight near sons of Śākyamūni Buddha.
And Maitreya also has this special quality that in all his lives he was called Maitreya. So as a bodhisattva, he was always called Maitreya. Whereas other Buddhas like Śākyamūni Buddha had other other names when they were a bodhisattva and so on. Alright. So here, essentially, we need to investigate and identify what the nature of self-cherishing is.
And then in verse number fifteen, we were saying that here we were born in an impure land. When the author talks about being born in an impure land, he’s also talking from a tantric point of view, that one of the practices with tantra is to develop awareness that everything, our abode, is a pure land. Everything is pure. Speech is mantra and so on. The physical appearance that one sees is part of a mandala or part of a pure land.
And if our practice is sufficiently good, that’s how we we will see it. But because we’re so used to seeing things as ordinary and as common and undeveloped, then that’s how we experience the world around us. Our experience is very much determined by our view of how things are. We view things in one way, we’ll tend to experience them in that way. So as it said here, when we are born in an impure land, it is through continuously meditating on impure appearance.
And that is exactly what we do. We’re always thinking about ourselves as impure, as ordinary, other beings as ordinary. Even though all beings have Buddha nature, even insects and so forth, that they have the capacity to become Buddhas. They will be Buddhas in the future. Still we look at things as being ordinary, even ourselves as being ordinary.
And therefore, we tend to experience ourselves and the world around us as ordinary. There was a story of Rechungpa, who was the disciple of Milarepa. And once he was meditating on the clear light, and during his meditation, he had a vision of a pure land. And in a pure land, there were these deities, these female deities who were gathered around talking to one another. And he was listening to the conversation.
And they were saying, you know, it’s wonderful that Buddhas spend three countless eons on the path, path of accumulation, preparation, seeing, and so forth. And after three countless eons, they attain the state of a Buddha. And yet, this being born in Tibet in one brief lifetime, in one on the basis of one body, was able to attain a state of complete enlightenment. It is extraordinary and so wonderful. And when Rechungpa rose from the meditation, then he began to reflect on the meaning of what they’d said, that he’d been taking his teacher, Milarepa, to be a teacher about, you know, quite ordinary.
And then he began to realize that this particular being, Milarepa, was highly praised even in the pure realms. And then he began to see that the habits of taking of seeing things as ordinary were very strong within him. And so then he began to weep on reflecting on this. Similarly, it’s the same for ourselves. We see things as ordinary.
We regard other beings around us as ordinary, and we hold to that so strongly. Our habits are very, very strong, but it may not reflect how things actually are. That in fact, we do need to examine our preconceptions of how things are. Because in the end it would be rather wouldn’t be that useful to us if we’re holding so tightly to other things being simply ordinary and impure and so forth, when in fact they may be better than that. So as the author then says, this is this is the weapon of negative action returning.
Now I shall meditate on pure appearance alone. So here he’s urging us to see things as to not judge things as harshly as we do, others as harshly as we do. Then verse number sixteen, when we are separated from friends who benefit benefit and love us, it is through oneself dividing others from their circle of friends. So being separated from those that enjoy being with, our friends, companions, parents, brothers and sisters and so on, those that benefit us and who also have great regard for us, It’s really coming from the past when we ourselves divided others from their circles of friends. So this is the weapon of negative actions returning.
Now I shall not separate others from their circle of friends. So here we have to be careful. It’s a little bit like slander here. We have to be careful of not using means to divide others. Otherwise, we experience that in ourselves in future, and that’s one of the basic reasons why in the present, we have difficulty or at times we have difficulty remaining with those that we want to be with.
Then verse number seventeen, when no holy being likes me, it is through casting aside holy beings and relying on evil circles of friends. So we often experience this. What we do doesn’t please our teachers. We would like to do something that does please them, but it it doesn’t seem as if it does. In fact, we seem to be trying very hard, and we can’t necessarily see the fault ourselves.
Still what we do doesn’t seem to please them. I think everyone has experienced this, whether it’s our even our parents. Our parents are really like our teachers as well in the beginning, even now, because they teach us so much we’re growing up. And at times we try and please them when we can’t. Our teachers at school, the same thing.
Then those spiritual friends that we have as well, at times we try and please them, and we think we’re doing okay, doesn’t our actions don’t really seem to please them. It doesn’t seem to generate a reaction that we want. This is through casting aside holy beings and relying on evil circles of friends. So here, casting aside holy beings really means casting aside their advice. So we’re often advised to act in one way, and while we’re near that particular person, we act in that way.
And then as soon as we’re off somewhere else, then we act in the opposite way. We forget the advice. We even act as if we didn’t hear the advice to begin with, or we interpret it now in a way that is convenient for us, which seems fine, self serving, but it’s okay. And then later, we might get a cold reaction from, say, our teacher, and then we can’t work out why. And it may take us a long time to work out why that’s the case.
But here it’s through putting aside the advice that’s given to us, which is often very simple and we don’t actually see it at the time. It may take a long time for us to realize this. So as much as possible, we shouldn’t cast aside the advice that’s given to us. We should in fact practice those things. And here, what Dharmarakshita is advising us to practice is cherishing others.
And in fact, if we can begin to practice cherishing others, then that will begin to include all all the types of practice that we should be engaged in. So as the author says, this is the weapon of negative action returning. Now I shall abandon association with evil friends. So really association with those that bring out our negative traits that make us forget that we should practice and so on. When when it said we should abandon evil friends, it because it doesn’t mean that we give up compassion for them.
It means that we abandon their advice. We can still remain with them, but we’re very careful on what advice we accept. And if they tell us something that is questionable, then we can debate it through and reject that advice. But certainly we don’t abandon those beings, because here we’re seeking to practice cherishing others. And then when through over or underestimation, we are blamed for the negativities of others, it is through myself disparaging holy beings.
This the weapon of negative actions returning. Now through over or underestimation, I shall not disparage others. At times, we are blamed for actions that others have committed through others, either underestimating us or overestimating others or for whatever reason. Being blamed for the negativity negativities of others is through myself disparaging holy beings. By myself putting down others, especially spiritual friends and so forth, then I, in future, I also am accused of things that I didn’t necessarily commit.
And in this life now, when we’re accused, wrongly accused, then the implication is that it’s coming from my past actions of disparaging holy beings. So this is a weapon, of negative actions. So this weapon we’ve forged ourselves. We’re like the blacksmith with the wheel, the weapon wheel, spending our days hammering it and putting it into the fire and then hammering it again and sharpening the blade, checking it and then sharpening it a bit more and filing it down. We spend a lot of time doing.
Unfortunately, we spend where the habit is so deep within us of forging these weapons that, we hardly have a break from the from the process. And these weapons inevitably return to us and create great pain for us. But then we have no one else to blame but ourselves. So in future, then we should not disparage others through over or underestimation. And then when the substance of our daily necessities is spoiled, it is through despising the daily necessities of others.
So this also, part of our livelihood, when our food or when our possessions, our resources are wasted, especially our food if it’s wasted and we don’t have anything to eat and so on. This comes about through not caring for the necessities of others. In the past we’ve tended not to help others in the accumulation of resources and necessities. When we’ve had the opportunity to help others in that way, for one reason or another, we’ve decided not to. And now, even when we get the resources, necessities, the foods, the whatever, we get a sack of rice or a sack of flour, before we can use it, it’s completely consumed by weevils or mold.
It goes moldy or something like that. The reason we can’t blame the weevils for that, the reason why it’s going going off we can’t use it is because in the past when we’ve had the opportunity to take care of the necessities of others, we’ve spurned that opportunity. Maybe we thought, ah, I’ll let them suffer now. I could give them something, but I’m not going to give them anything. Or I could help them in that way, but I’m not going to help them.
And so on. So through that attitude in the past, then now we find even our daily necessities from time to time goes to waste, and we have to go without. So again, this is the weapon of negative actions returning. Now I shall provide the daily necessities of others. It’s pretty heavy, isn’t it?
All of this. Sorry? It’s a bit heavy. The text at times is a bit heavy. But of course it’s deliberately so because it’s trying to sober us up.
And generally we sort of wander through our lives with a long list of others, long list of things that we’re blaming for our, for what goes wrong in our lives. And it’s a very destructive habit because it just perpetuates our situation. If we can stop this blaming of others, as it said in the seven point mind training, Place all blame on the one. Of course, the one what is the one that we should blame? Exactly.
It’s self-cherishing. At present, we have this attitude of blaming others. And it’s almost we’re almost so addicted to it that even if we come to a conclusion, I shouldn’t do this. We can’t stop ourselves. In the next moment, we’re blaming others.
So this is gonna take some time to stop. It’s almost as if we’re on heroin. Heroin of blaming others. Whatever it is, our our own situation, the situation of others, it’s what is the source of what is limiting or what is wrong is here, the self-cherishing attitude. But we have to separate the self-cherishing attitude from ourselves.
It’s not as if we’re blaming ourselves in a sense for our limitations in the present. We’re blaming our self-cherishing attitude. That’s not ourselves. In a way, have to separate ourselves a little bit. Otherwise, would seem to become very heavy.
We’re putting here all the weight of our situation, all that’s negative on our self-cherishing attitude. We’re blaming that. Perhaps that it has to be done skillfully. Yeah. If there’s a need and if if we could give something with help and they would accept it, then, yeah, we have to do it appropriately.
Sometimes we offer and people don’t accept or, yeah, it needs to be appropriate. But it can also be to animals, you know, feeding the animals, insects even. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We need to be skillful with that.
Otherwise, people can get quite annoyed, or they simply, may reject some help for one reason or another. So it has to be done skillfully. It could be. Yeah. We have to avoid that.
Yep. If if we can see a a particular need that, we can, address and it’s appropriate, then we should do something. But there’s no lack of opportunities that are there. People are always asking for money, for donations for one thing or another as well, so one can One needs to check on that because often, you know, people come to the house and they want money for this or money for that, and it’s nice to be able to offer something. There are many good causes there.
As Trijang Rinpoche once mentioned that if in India, and in India there’s many beggars of course, you were to give to the beggars, you should give evenly, equally to the beggars. You shouldn’t, like if You give to one and not give to the others. Or give one ten rupees and the other ten paisa. It’s nice to give in an even even way when one has the opportunity. In India, it’s it’s probably also a question of one’s own safety.
If you give to one and don’t give to the others, they may they may attack you. That used to happen in Bodh Gaya. You get you get another hundred racing chasing you down the street. Like in Bodh Gaya, there would be many beggars that would accumulate there, and you could go and buy all these coins from these coin sellers, and often people would be lined up along the road. There might be a hundred, two hundred, a thousand, and you’d start at one end and you’d just go along and give the coin to each one.
But if you got a bit slow, people at the other end of the queue might start getting up and and they start crowding you and oh, they can’t. That also happens as well. Sometimes they want one for themselves and they got someone at the back they want one for as well. And yeah, it’s I remember once I was with a monk, yeah, and we both had all these coins and we’re giving them out and then they charged him for some reason. And he just threw all the coins up in the air and fled.
And so I had to do the same because they were running as both. That’s not the way to do it. It’s, of course I remember once I was also in Bombay. I was with my father and we were crossing this railway bridge and there were all these kids, about fifteen kids at the age of five, seven, eight, ten, and they were all asking, Paisa, Baba, Paisa, Baba, give me some money, give me some money. And I’m telling my father, oh look, just keep walking.
You know, were quite a few of them. And my father’s looking at me and said, no, I’ll give him some. And he opens his wallet and he starts pulling out two rupee notes and passing them out. I’m saying, hey. Don’t do that.
Don’t do that. Actually, what he was doing was right. It was just that I’ve been living in India for some time and I know you know what can happen if you start handing out money. And but I remember he gave me a really dark look, you know, as if, what do mean these kids? They’re, of course, wearing rags.
They’re nothing. And it’s true. We need to give, as appropriate. And often the, you know, the fears we have or the the dangers that might arise are not in giving are not really warranted. So it is good to give, and there’s always opportunities arising to give.
Especially if we can give the the real necessities that others others require. And then on verse number number twenty, when our mind has no joy and there is no clarity in our heart, it is through accumulating negativities in other lives. So often that’s the case for us. When our mind has no joy, and there is no clarity in our heart. Of course, it’s through accumulating negativities in other lives.
That’s the yes, the short expression of our situation. The fact that we don’t have any joy in our life or joy in our life doesn’t arise as it should. And there’s no clarity internally. When we reflect on these issues, it’s hard to discern one thing from another, to see where it’s coming from, see what the problem is, and so on. It’s through accumulating negativities in other lives.
That’s all. Is it we’ve accumulated every possible negativity. And even in the present, we continue to accumulate them. So for that reason, it’s hard for us to develop joy. At times we because we do have joy in our lives, and that’s coming from generating positive states in the present, positive states in the past.
Past. So the fact of having no joy, when at times no joy does arise, often said, I got no joy out of that or and so on. Often it’s unsaid. We just go along day to day, but internally when we examine, we don’t have a sense of joy. Really no problem.
That no joy is coming from our past negative actions, and it’s how it should be. That’s exactly how it should be. Because it’s just the law of causation. And the law of causation is completely trustworthy and reliable. Otherwise, we’d be like a thief who’s hidden the loot.
We hide the loot in our own pocket and claim we’re not the thief. It’s really the fact that we have no joy is because of our past negative actions. And then we wonder why have I got no joy in my life in the present moment? Where’s the joy gone? Why aren’t I happy in the present?
Why don’t I have pleasant mental feeling arising in the present moment? Really, it’s as if we’re the thief with the loot in our pockets and claiming we’re not the thief. Again, when there’s no clarity, And here clarity refers to having the wisdom that’s able to see arise, why other things have not arisen. Not having clarity also depends on not generating the foundation in which clarity can arise. It’s a bit like having a nice clean body of water and then throwing bucketfuls of mud into it.
And then wondering why the water’s not clear. Our mind is like that. Our mind by its very nature is perfectly clear. But we just keep on pouring mud and so forth into it, the mud of negative actions. And then when the water of our mind is not clear, why is there no clarity?
It’s as if we want to commit negative actions. We want to harm other beings. At the same time, want clarity as well. They really can’t be established together. So those are coming from the weapon of negative actions that I formerly have fashioned in the forge of my negative actions.
Now I shall abandon the conditions supporting the negativities of others. Now I shall abandon all those negativities that create negativities for myself and for other beings. I shall abandon all those conditions. Why? Yeah.
That’s it’s true, actually. I’ll just check. Actually, there’s two versions. Some in Tibetan put it the other way around, some put it this way around. This is the corrected version.
This is the uncorrected version. I’ll just check-in. Oh, this is one of the uncorrected version. Yeah. That also has it.
Both versions have it that way around. But we can put it the other way around. No problem. When there’s no joy in our heart and there’s no clarity in our mind. But even this way around, it’s I think it’s still okay.
And then the next verse, when our actions are not accomplished and our mind is agitated to the root. So this also occurs for us from time to time. Our actions are not accomplished. We put lots of time and effort into achieving something and we don’t achieve it. And our mind is agitated to the root.
The very foundation of our mind is unsettled, unhappy. And our experience is unsatisfactory. It’s we can’t see our way forward and so forth. We’re not we’re not contented. It is through creating interruptions to holy actions.
So in the past, we’ve interrupted the virtuous actions of others and ourselves. We’ve stood in the way of those actions being accomplished. We’ve interrupted them for one reason or another. We’re jealous of someone, so we don’t help them to succeed in their goals, and their goals which are positive. We even stand in the way of those.
Or even in terms of our teachers in the past, we’ve stood in the way of them accomplishing what they want to accomplish. And so now we find our actions are not accomplished. When we think all the conditions should be there, and in fact, everyone else has accomplished it, and I’m the last one, and I can’t they’ve done, so why can’t I? We spend years trying to achieve something, we can’t achieve it. And our mind is agitated right to the very root.
This is through standing in the the path of others, interrupting their holy actions. Interrupting their holy actions. So this is the weapon of negative actions returning. Now I shall abandon all interruptions. Now we should really stand back and not someone is doing something that’s positive, even though we might not get on well with them, then we shouldn’t stand in the way of their accumulating merit or achieving positive goals.
We should help them instead, even though they might not like us, they might bully us, or they may take advantage of us. They might even seem to be using us and so on. We shouldn’t stand in the way of positive actions of others, especially our teachers. We should also we shouldn’t interrupt those actions, but work to establish them as we can. Then, when whenever when whatever I do does not please my guru, it is through being acting hypocritically to holy dharma.
So, again, this is similar to a previous verse. When whatever I do does does not please my guru. At times that happens. We try to do our best, but nothing seems to please those that we wanna please. Is generally it’s through acting hypocritically to holy in relation to dharma.
That is, saying we’re gonna do one thing, but actually doing another. Being two faced, not fulfilling our commitments, not acting in harmony with our words and so on. So by acting in this way in the past, even now we have difficulty in pleasing our teacher. So this is the weapon of negative actions returning. Now I shall diminish my hypocrisy.
In fact, now I will get rid of my hypocrisy. What I say I will do, I will do. I’m not gonna make a big show of saying that I’m gonna do something and then not get around to doing it, which I’ve done so many times in the past. Now, whatever I undertake, I will put my I’ll put honest energy into completing it, just as I’ve said I would. So in fact, as we begin to read through the text, see that there’s lots of situations that we’re familiar with, that we experience in the present.
And here the author is really speaking in terms of karma, that how our past actions in past lives have led to these results. And that we really should think about this quite deeply because our natural response is to blame those around us. We very strongly blame those around us. And we hold hold to that. We develop resentment, hatred, aversion, anger and so forth.
That’s very long enduring in relation to these situations we experience. But in acting in that way, we just we guarantee that we’re experience these things again. So it’s in a way as if we wanna continue to suffer, then we should just continue as we are. No problem. It’s guaranteed that all of these situations are gonna recur many, many times over.
It’s basically all up to oneself. This, though we need to examine. In the past, we’ve tended to blame other people for what we experience. And blaming other people doesn’t seem to work very well. It seems that way.
It seems that by harming others, for instance, we gain a certain degree of satisfaction. But this we really need to we really need to examine because here the author is suggesting that harming others and rejoicing in harming others or stopping them or preventing them from achieving what they want to achieve doesn’t actually generate happiness for us. It actually just means that in future we’ll again go through the same thing. Yeah. I think so.
Definitely. We often put the load of our happiness on other beings, which other beings can’t bear. It’s not our happiness depends on our past actions, and we should not give that responsibility to others. It’s not their responsibility. Just as our our creating happiness for others is similar, it’s other beings’ responsibility.
We can act as a condition, and we need to act as as much as we can as a condition for their happiness. True. It is another life. We’re we’re blaming the actions of ourselves in another life, but we’re the inheritor of that continuum. In fact, it’s the continuum, the prior continuum of the I of this present moment that we’re blaming.
In a way, we’re blaming the I of this life. If we don’t, we have to, in a way, get down to something in this present moment. It’s our actions of the past, but it’s the I in the present moment that’s still in a way affirming those past negative actions. That I in the present hasn’t developed sufficient regret yet for all of these negative actions. So even though we don’t remember committing these negative actions, by the law of cause and effect, if we can examine what the result is, we can determine what the cause is.
And we can establish that the cause was our actions of the past, even though we don’t remember. We can establish by the nature of the law of cause and effect that the cause of the actions, of course, is related to the result of the actions. The results of the actions manifest internally within our mental continuum, don’t they? They’re like internal experience, whether it’s physical or mental, isn’t it? The source of those results is also there within our mental continuum.
It’s actions in the past that remain dormant. The actions are committed, but the result doesn’t necessarily occur straight away. It may take one life, ten lives, a hundred lives, before that result again manifests. That’s also true. Yeah.
But That’s right. Although the things we do in this life are more like the conditions. The seeds come from our past lives. It’s like the actions in past lives are like seeds. And we lay those seeds in the field of our consciousness.
And in this lifetime, what we think, what states of mind we develop are like, you know, the conditions that are gonna awaken that seed. Not necessarily, it can be purified. If the karmic is destroyed, then it won’t give a result. Just like a seed can be burnt and so on. So it is possible to eliminate these past negative seeds.
Unless it’s very strong, a very strong negative action or positive action, it generally won’t occur in the same lifetime. But sometimes it does. Like with Devadatta, cousin of the Buddha, who tried to kill the Buddha on a number of occasions because of his great jealousy of the Buddha. In the end, he he died and was reborn in hell. And his death was really conditioned through the actions in this life.
And he experienced he experienced the maturation of those negative actions in this life, in that particular life. Well, the law of cause and effect is determined. But when the result arises is often, you know, like, indefinite. But in accordance with our strong habits, it’s possible to say that, you know, probably this result will or this result will occur, that result will occur in this lifetime due to the strong habits of a particular person. But for practitioners, when one achieves a certain level on the path, then one’s enlightenment is predicted, then it’s possible to say that, oh, at this particular time, that person will attain Buddhahood.
Yeah. And then that’s the sign of irreversibility on a path. And that depends. If one’s a very sharp faculty practitioner, it occurs earlier. Less sharp faculty occurs a bit later.
It depends on what point one is reached. For instance, when one first becomes a bodhisattva, it’s possible in the first stage to degenerate, that bodhicitta to degenerate. First generate bodhicitta, and then through one cause or another it declines. That’s possible. There’s said to be twenty two levels of bodhicitta and the first one is earth like bodhicitta, then gold like, and then fire like and so on.
When one has earth like bodhicitta, which is at the small stage of the path of accumulation, it’s possible under certain circumstances that one would give up bodhicitta. But when one gets to the second, that’s the intermediate stage of the path of accumulation, one has gold like bodhicitta and that is irreversible. That can’t be destroyed. But in the first part it’s possible. But then from the second point on, one will always be a bodhisattva.
There’s no possibility of declining or degenerating from the state of a bodhisattva once one has reached the second of the twenty two stages. It wouldn’t matter where you were born. Any born in hell or the hungry ghost realm. Even if one was born in hell and stayed there for a long time, one would still be a bodhisattva. And then next life I wanna be a bodhisattva, and from then on.
Then once one has become an aria being, one cannot degenerate from that. That’s impossible. But from the point of becoming an aria being, it still requires a further two countless eons to progress on the path. But still, once one has attained that level, once Buddhahood is ensured, it will definitely occur. Oh.
Not necessarily. No. So you still just keep going through some sorrow, but as opposed to it? Yeah. Yeah.
That’s right. It’s said that one takes, even on that level from path of accumulation and preparation, those two paths take one countless eon, which is a huge number of lifetimes. And, yeah, once one has attained a second of the twenty two bodhicitta stages, then, it’s impossible that that body cheater declines. Oh, these humanize. Yeah.
Do is work more. I’m just thinking. This is why in the beginning they talk about how body sufferers are brave. They don’t, it doesn’t matter to them. Suffering are they?
Yeah. They’re happy anyway because you have to choose. Oh, they’re not. I don’t think they’re that attached to it, to being happy. It’s really that they’re whatever occurs, doesn’t matter.
They’re going to work for the benefit of sentient beings. For ourselves, this is an issue. God, you know, is it gonna be a what are the conditions there? I become a bodhisattva and so on. For them, they seek out suffering.
If there was happiness there and suffering, they’d go to suffering. And they seek to take it all on. Sorry. For? Yep.
In order to generate bodhicitta. There’s said to be really three types of being. Those who in Tibetan they call nges pa’i rigs can, those of definite lineage. There are those that are of definite great vehicle lineage and those of definite solitary realizer lineage and those of definite hearer lineage from the beginning that have that sort of predisposition. What that means is that those types of being that from the beginning, they’re more interested in the great vehicle.
Others from the beginning are more interested in individual liberation. But one spends a countless beginningless length of time before those lineages are awakened. Once they’re awakened, then one enters that particular path. Just how long it takes? It takes an infinite.
It takes a beginningless amount of time to awaken those lineages. Yes. I think yeah. It’s also an element there that there are, there’s individual karma and collective karma, individual actions and collective actions. And at present, we experience both.
We have our own individual results that we experience on a day to day basis. The current state of our mind is a maturational result of our past karma. So that’s directly connected with our past actions. Also, what we experience as a group with other is the result of past group karma, so these occur simultaneously. And that we see in the world today, what’s happening in the world today as a result of past group actions as well as individual actions.
Yeah, it’s not an easy area to discern because there’s groups and groups, and even our own individual karma is not easy to comprehend. But certainly this can taken also in a broader sense, in a group sense as well. Because what is being spoken about here is karma and current experience. So the experience is always individual and grouped together. Right.
You don’t lose it. Right. What? Yeah. So strong and it purifies.
In in brief, definitely by the second level, one has understood emptiness. The difference there is that pretty much prior to understanding emptiness it’s possible to generate bodhicitta and yet lose bodhicitta as well, because one doesn’t have the wisdom comprehending emptiness at that point. Once one comprehends emptiness, then definitely it becomes stable. One’s bodhicitta becomes stable, like gold like bodhicitta. But up in up until the second level of the path of accumulation, it’s not certain that a bodhisattva will understand emptiness.
The sharp faculty to understand emptiness even before they enter the great vehicle path. Yeah. Probably. They would, I think. Here yeah.
Comprehending. It just means comprehending. There’s different levels comprehension as well. It’s a weak sense of comprehension and a strong sense. They can also but here it’s more talking about the strong sense of comprehending emptiness.
But here, conceptually, through valid reasons. Oh, it’s it’s quite amazing. The amount of that’s written about all of these issues. And then again, not from just one perspective. You get a presentation of this when you think when you read through it, you think, oh, that must be the ultimate presentation of and it puts everything so clearly and precisely.
Then you read something else coming from a completely different perspective that you realize, oh, wait a minute. They’ve actually included everything in that as well, but it’s and you know that it’s talking talking exactly about the same thing, but the difference in presentation might be vast. And in fact, for this reason, within Tibetan Buddhism, for instance, there’s been a lot of debate over the years whether different presentations are actually talking about the same thing. And at times, scholars have felt, no, they’re talking about something different. Like, for instance, in Tibetan Buddhism, you have the presentation of the middle way view, the Mādhyamika, or you have the great Mahāmudrā presentation, which is dealing with the nature of the mind itself.
Middle way view is dealing with the, what, the view of emptiness itself. Mahāmudrā is dealing with the nature of the mind. Dzogchen is dealing with the great completion and dealing with the nature of Rigpa, and so on. At times in Tibet, all of these things were not regarded as, you know, talking about the same path or the same basis path and result. But, ultimately, they probably are.
They are, in fact, talking about exactly the same thing, but it can be spoken of from many different points of view. And again, this is needed because there are different styles of presentation appeal to different people. And also it’s very important that we investigate the nuts and bolts of these processes. Otherwise, we don’t gain in confidence that actually it might be possible. That what we need is a conviction-based faith in these paths because it’s on the basis of convictional faith that we will eventually enter the paths.
And conviction-based faith really comes about through understanding things are that way, why the path actually does work, how the path is actually establishable internally through generating the proper causes and conditions. So eventually, it’s good to examine these these elements, the different the different stages of bodhicitta and so on. Anyway, here we’re basically involved with examining self-cherishing and the self-cherishing we have in the present moment, which we’ve inherited from our past lifetimes. None of our past lives have we managed to overcome it, and that’s why we have a fully fledged and viable self-cherishing in the present, inherited from our past. Right.
We’ll just do a few more verses. When every being contradicts us, it is through despising shame and consideration. So this often happens as well. For one reason or another, we seem to be contradicted by everyone or contradicted by a few other people or even one other person. When this occurs, it is through despising shame and consideration.
Shame and consideration here are, really having shame or being embarrassed, having a sense of embarrassment at our own negative actions, either for the sake of ourselves, which is shame, or being embarrassed for our negative actions for the sake of others, which is consideration. So because we’ve not actively generated shame and consideration in the past, that is being embarrassed for our negative actions and despising that attitude, then in the present other beings tend to contradict us. They tend to go against us. So this is the weapon of negative action returning. Now I shall refrain from that which is In other words, I’ll practice what is appropriate, and what is appropriate is positive actions and developing regret for negative actions.
And then when disagreement occurs, immediately our circle of friends gathers. Now this often happens. You get a few people together and there’s disagreement in first moment, second moment. All the old animosities and so forth come up. Oh, this happens all the time.
We gather together with our people that we know, our acquaintances, but disagreement erupts almost straight away. All those old animosities, hardened positions, one against another, resentments, and so forth are all there. And that is through inflicting our evil negative temperament on others. That occurs to us because we continuously inflict our self-cherishing attitude on others and all the attitudes that flow from it. So for that reason alone, we’re opposed by others.
There’s disagreement when we meet with our friends and so on. It’s all from our negative, evil temperament that we inflict on other beings. This is the weapon of negative actions returning. Now I shall act with good temperament to everyone. Now I’ll be even tempered towards others.
I’m gonna check on my self-cherishing. Is this self-cherishing there to begin with? Am I being self centered when I’m acting towards these other beings. Because by acting with a self centered motivation in the past, now disagreement erupts all around me. That It’s coming from myself cherishing in the past.
And then when all those considered dear rise as enemies, it is through entertaining evil thoughts within, similar to the past verse. When even those that we hold dearest to us rise against us as enemies, they criticize us and blame us for all manner of things. It’s just reflecting our own inner state. It’s nothing more than our inner state become externalized. Our inner state of the past has now become manifest externally.
This again is the weapon of negative actions returning. Now I shall diminish deceit and pretension. So from now on, I should diminish this deceitful attitude I have towards others and this pretension. All of these negative, negative states that I cultivate so carefully, grounded in self-cherishing. But all they do is, even though they’re internal and I deceptively cultivate them and pretend that I’m not cultivating them, still they burst out.
They manifest anyway in future lives for all to see. So it’s just my internal negative internal state of the past coming, becoming manifest externally. This is the negative. The weapon of negative actions returning that I’ve forged myself. Maybe there should be a assisted text to this one also written.
The wheel of the wheel of, positive benefit or something as well. We could read a little bit of that as well because at times this gets a little bit heavy. But on the other hand, thinking about the negative consequences of our past negative actions is of great benefit to us, but we need to apply a little bit of both. Also, we should think about the positive actions that we’ve done in the past and rejoice in those positive actions of the past and pat ourselves on the back and make the strong commitment to commit even more of them in this life. Because this life is purely a reflection of our past actions.
It is nothing more than a law of cause and effect. And the law of cause and effect is totally non deceptive. Certainly our future is in our own hands and we have complete responsibility for what we experience in the future. So because of that we need to be clear, as clear as possible, what we seek to experience in future and then what causes are going to bring that about. Also, it’s very useful to reflect on giving and taking.
Everyone’s familiar with giving and taking, I think? The process of giving and taking is a practice of helping to overcome self-cherishing. And that’s a practice of when we breathe in we take on the sufferings of other beings, and when we breathe out we breathe out our happiness and our merit in the form that would be of most benefit for other beings. So this also we should practice as much as possible. And in fact, it’s as we said in Tibet that some beings didn’t waste their breath, all their breath they’re giving and taking.
It’s a meditation technique which is suitable to practice while studying this particular text. We talk a little bit more about it tomorrow, but in brief it’s the practice of taking on the sufferings of others and in return giving them our happiness. But this we’ll talk a little bit more about tomorrow. Anyway, if it’s possible to continue to reflect on these verses we can do some more discussion on those first twenty five verses tomorrow, and then we’ll continue then with also the rest of the text. We might just do a quick dedication.