Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 102-minute teaching, Ven Jamyang explores why Candrakīrti opened his philosophical text praising great compassion before the buddhas and lamas—revealing compassion’s centrality to the Mahāyāna path. Using the harvest analogy, he shows how compassion is the seed at the beginning, nourishment in the middle, and ripening at the end. Jamyang distinguishes three types: great compassion observing sentient beings; compassion rooted in understanding impermanence; and non-referential compassion rooted in emptiness. He walks through the six-point cause-and-effect method—recognizing all beings as mothers, understanding their kindness, developing the wish to repay. The session closes with Q&A on remaining grounded when witnessing overwhelming suffering. For practitioners beginning the path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Jamyang – Geshela's teaching.mp3
UUID: 54756cac-51a2-46b9-ae15-c40c727711fd
Teacher: Ven Jamyang
Collection: Ultimate Healing (Ven Jamyang)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 102.6 minutes
Words: ~7,148
To, first of all, to one of the great Indian philosophers, Buddhist philosophers of all times who composed the the text, a very famous text on Buddhist philosophy called entering the middle way or engage engaging in the middle way. He was Candrakīrti, if if I’m recollecting right, the Indian name is Candrakīrti. And traditionally, at the beginning of every composition of every text, the authors make praises and honors and the right references verses of reverence to the lamas or to the buddhas and so forth but Candrakīrti in this text before he made reverence and and praises to all the lamas and the buddhas, he made first of all praises and prostrations to great compassion. And that is because great compassion is the single most important thing of the Mahāyāna tradition, of the of the great vehicle tradition. Geshe-la is quoting a verse which explains very well the importance of great compassion.
The first line of that verse is saying that hearers and solitary realizers, foe destroyers, the so called arhats, Pratyekabuddha and arhats, they arise, they come about in dependence on the teachings of a buddha, a fully enlightened being. Buddhas arise or come about in dependence on bodhisattvas. And bodhisattvas can only come about in dependence on great compassion. Because great compassion is the source of every good quality of the Mahāyāna of the great vehicle. Again because of that all the oh no sorry, conqueror’s children, all the bodhisattvas, they engage on great compassion, they cultivate compassion equally in the beginning, in the middle and in the end of their practice or the path In order to explain, to give us an idea of how is it that great compassion is important in both the beginning of our practice in the middle of our practice and at the end of our practice it is important all along all through our paths and Geshe-la is giving the analogy of field or a harvest.
If you want to plant something, whatever it may be, then first you need the seed itself is great compassion. In order for the seed to sprout, we need very good conditions. We need water and fertilizers and so forth. We need good sunlight. We need all these very good conditions.
Again, then Geshe-la points out to great compassion as being all these good conditions that provide all the nutrients for our good qualities to arise. In the end, at the time of the harvest or the time of the fruit, the ripening results, again that ripening of the fruit happens again due to great compassion. Compassion. In the context of the harvest, we need, in order to reap the harvest, need the seed, and we need the seed at the beginning, we need the water and nutrients in the middle, and we get the harvest, we get the ripening results in the end. In the same context of our spiritual path, at the beginning of our spiritual path, we need great compassion as the seed itself.
Then as the nutrients of that pliancy that we are cultivating, those good qualities that we are cultivating, we practice all the six perfections, the six paramita. And the perfections, all those actions which are the perfections, generosity, morality and so forth, in order to be perfections they have to be steeped in great compassion. So again in the middle, at the time of caring for what is being cultivated, we need great compassion again. And again in the end, the fruit ripens, when the result of all that ripens to its fruition and we attain full enlightenment, again full enlightenment is characterized again by being endowed with great compassion. So again, compassion is present and is all pervading in the Mahāyāna path in the beginning, the middle, and the end is all important.
Then Geshe-la is quoting Asaṇga, who is another great Indian scholar, a great Indian master. And he says, in one of his major texts, he says, the source of that, or the root of that, is great compassion. Geshe-la was explaining that he was making reference to bodhicitta. So the very root of bodhicitta, the very source of bodhicitta, of the mind of enlightenment, is compassion. So, Geshe la is explaining again, in the Mahāyāna vehicle, for someone or some practice or some path to be called either Mahāyāna or non-Mahāyāna depends entirely on its being endowed with bodhicitta or having bodhicitta or not having bodhicitta.
Having the mind of enlightenment or not having the mind of enlightenment. bodhicitta depends entirely on great compassion So that being so, every good quality of the Mahāyāna depends entirely on great compassion, on having great compassion What is then the essence of great compassion? It is that wish or that superior determination to that wishes all sentient beings to be free. So let me put it this way. It’s it’s first is it’s first is that uncontrived wish to have all sentient beings without exception, completely free of every suffering there is without exception.
And then together with this supreme determination that I myself will free them. When we’re talking about great compassion, can divide it in three different ways. We can talk about the great compassion which only observes sentient beings or the great compassion which observes phenomena in general or we can also talk about non referential great compassion. When we are talking about that great compassion which only in reference to sentient beings, Geshe saying, is that wish, that mind that wishes then to free all sentient beings without exception from every suffering there is. And Geshe la was saying, but not just any such thought, not a mere thought of freeing all sentient beings from every suffering, but an unmovable, unchanging, uncontrived thought.
And a thought which is, in order to come about, it has to be gradually cultivated by means of cultivating its causes, are, Geshe-la was making reference to the six point cause and effect training, first of all one recognizes all sentient beings as one’s mothers, and then one recognizes the great kindness, which is to repay their kindness. There are other further steps where one cultivates great compassion itself. So one generates a fully characterized great compassion, which is unmovable. When one has generated this thought deeply within one’s heart, unmovable and strong as a mountain, again, wishes to free all sentient beings from every suffering, then one has developed this sort of great compassion, is the compassion that observes sentient beings. This So Geshe-la was just saying, just explain to us how already this type of compassion alone is very difficult to produce, to give rise to, because we have to produce the causes of the great compassion, which is recognizing all sentient beings as one’s mothers, recognizing their kindness, developing the wish to repay their kindness and so forth.
We have many causes to cultivate. It’s a long process and it’s not easy. It’s very difficult. And then I will have to rectify myself of the three types of great compassion. The first one which observes sentient beings, the second one I translated the word chos as phenomena but chos has many meanings and depending on the context again it can mean Dharma or spiritual practice.
Geshe la was making reference to Dharma. So Geshe la was explaining that the great compassion which is observing the Dharma is a great compassion which is steeped on On top of that great compassion that is observing sentient beings only, then again this great compassion that is reference to is developed in reference to the dharma, in relation to the dharma, a great compassion which is steeped on the realization, on the wisdom that realizes impermanence. It’s what Geshe-la said at first. Generally, we explain it as realizing impermanence but truly is, Geshe la was explaining, a mind that realizes all the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths, each one of the four noble truths, the truth of suffering, of the origin of suffering, origins, true path and true cessations. Each one of these truths has four aspects which make up sixteen aspects.
Realizing each one of those aspects, including the suffering, the cause of suffering, impermanence and so forth. Again having all this realization and then developing and having that compassion steeped on that. That is the second type of great compassion which is the great compassion that is observing the dharma. And then lastly we have the non referential great compassion. That great compassion, non referential great compassion, non referential makes reference to the realization of emptiness.
So again that great compassion which is developed in dependence on having realized emptiness, is steeped on that realization of emptiness. One has produced the realization of emptiness, the realization of emptiness in one’s mind stream and then dependence on that right after that one develops a great compassion. Again, such great compassion is called non referential great compassion. So again, we can see again this third type of great compassion again involves the realization of emptiness itself. So we can understand how neither of these three types of great compassion is something easy to accomplish.
And Geshe la was saying: Now every one of us, all of us here have great compassion. We all have great compassion in our mind streams. And Geshe-la was saying, possibly all religions value compassion. They all value compassion but for these three specific types of compassion that we were talking about the great compassion towards sentient beings, great compassion in relation to the Dharma, and the non referential great compassion. Geshe la was saying that possibly there is no other religion except the Buddhist religion which propounds these specific types of great compassion.
So, generally, what we understand to be compassion is that wish the wish feeling that we have that other beings aside from ourselves be free from suffering. Such wish that we develop in relation to other beings is what we call, generally, we call compassion. This thing that we are defining, this compassion that we have just defined here, we have, all of us here have, and not only ourselves, every human being has a degree of compassion in their mind. We all have this compassion. We all have the understanding that just in the same way that I do not wish to experience any suffering for myself, others do not wish to experience any suffering also.
And we can develop, and we do not need to go very far to understand that. We have this feeling towards our own children. We feel compassion, we do not wish them to experience any suffering. We wish them to be separated from suffering. We it towards, we have this wish towards our parents.
We wish them to be free from suffering. We wish that towards our close friends, our close loved ones, and so forth. We do not need to go far. We all have compassion. So what we aim, what we try to do here is to cultivate this compassion that we already have, to nurture it, to make it larger and larger, more and more encompassing.
So we start with our child that we already feel compassion for, and we keep on developing that compassion so that it starts including our whole household, or the whole block where we live or the whole neighborhood, the whole city of Adelaide, the whole of South Australia. And we keep on developing it until we embrace the whole of Australia and eventually the whole the whole planet and the whole universe itself. So if we do that, if we cultivate our compassion in this way, we are going to be happy. We are going to experience a great amount of happiness. Everybody is going to like us.
Everybody is going to lend us a hand. Everybody is going to help us. So we have these immediate benefits. On top of that, we have all these other benefits that Geshe-la has been already saying in relation to the Mahāyāna path and the great qualities that come from it. We have so much to profit from developing compassion, cultivating compassion in this way.
In this way and we aim at making it grow fully into great compassion. So we cultivate our compassion until it develops into great compassion, which is the greatest form of compassion there is. Now in order to be able to make our compassion grow into great compassion, we need to develop an understanding of the great kindness that all sentient beings have shown us. Because great compassion is something that we develop to all sentient beings without exception. So we need to have an understanding of how is it that all sentient beings have been greatly kind to us.
All sentient beings without exception. And that’s a prerequisite to being able to develop great compassion. Now, the way we are, the way we presently are, is that we regard ourselves alone as the most important person in our lives. And we do not give much care or do not think very much about whatever whatever it is that is happening to others. And in this way, we go about our lives.
So, Geshe lah is explaining, and this attitude that we have that is centered in ourselves, is wishing only ourselves alone to be free from every suffering and endowed with every pleasure and happiness there is, and has no concern for whatever it is that happens to others. This is what hinders the cultivation or the growth of compassion itself. This is the main obstacle to break compassion. And Geshe la was saying, attitude is not good. This attitude is the cause of much trouble and suffering for ourselves.
And whilst we live our lives in this way, we never think of accomplishing the benefit of others or freeing others from suffering. And Geshe la saying that also there is another aspect of this mind, is the wish to benefit beings, the wish to endow beings with happiness is what we call loving-kindness, or we could call it briefly love. Geshe-la is saying it is like two sides of a coin. If you have compassion, you also have a measure of loving-kindness. And if your great compassion is developed strongly, if your great compassion is strong, then your loving-kindness will be just as strong.
So again, I was just brushing through it, I guess I was going back again and saying, just explaining how not easy it is to produce great compassion, how it is not a small deal. It’s a big job that we need to realize, we need to develop an understanding of how it is that all sentient beings were our mother, so that we can then secondly understand how all sentient beings have been equally very kind to us, and then we can develop the wish to repay that kindness and so forth, there are all the three steps after that. And as a prerequisite to even start this process, need to develop equanimity towards all sentient beings. So, equanimity in this context here is making reference to developing that understanding that all sentient beings are equal to me or equal to oneself in that just like myself they do not wish for any suffering. And just like myself again they only wish to experience happiness.
So this is of the aspects of equanimity. There’s another aspect that comes also right after that, is also understanding how all sentient beings have been equally kind to oneself. Of these three aspects of equanimity, the most important is understanding how all sentient beings have been equally kind to us. And in regards to that, Geshe la starts explaining that we ourselves make reference to the compassion that we feel towards our relatives, parents or our children. We have this natural compassion towards them, which is the thought that may my children be free from suffering, or may my parents be free from suffering.
We all have that feeling, that thought. The same way, our parents have had that towards us. We have that because of the strong relationship that we have, the strong bonds that we have with them. Our parents have this of compassion towards us. And in this way we can understand how they were or how they are very kind towards those kinds. So, this is what was saying.
So, can see, we can already see how our parents have been or are kind or very kind to us. They have provided a lot for us. And in the same way, we keep on, this is not the only reasoning. There are many more reasonings to that, many more profound reasonings. But briefly speaking, we also have to contemplate how they have been kind to us not only in the present life, but they have been kind to us during many many lifetimes.
And not only them, because we have been born innumerable times, and that means pretty literally, we have been born innumerable amount of times. That means that every sentient being there is has been our parents, father, or our mother at one point or another. So every one of these beings have been, at one point or another, greatly kind to us. And we have to engage in such reasonings very many times so that we can develop a very strong and clear understanding of the great kindness of all beings. So again, if we engage in such lines of reasoning long enough and repeatedly, we’ll be develop this understanding that all beings have been greatly kind to us.
All sentient beings are greatly kind to us. And when we develop this state of mind, then we will have the same level of compassion towards all beings as we have presently towards our children or our parents right now. We have that wish that our parents and our children be free from suffering, and then we’ll have the same feeling towards all sentient beings. We’re going to like all sentient beings equally in the same way. And having developed this feeling, thought towards all beings in this way, where we appreciate the great kindness and how kind they all have been to us, then almost naturally the feeling that all of them be free from suffering will arise in our minds hearts, in our heart minds.
So when we have produced that feeling thought for the first time towards all sentient beings in this way, then we have to get that feeling thought, and we have to cultivate it, have to become familiarized with it, habituated with it. So we take that again as our object of meditation and we continually bring it to mind so that it stays as our object of observation for longer and periods of time, until eventually, after a long practice, a long cultivation, or long familiarization, so to speak, it will immediately arise in our minds naturally. In the same way that when we see something that we are attached to, we immediately have a feeling that desires to possess that. And the same way we hope that we develop our compassion to such an intensity, that when we see suffering, naturally, the wish to free that being from that suffering will arise in our minds. Then we have developed a genuine experience of great compassion.
Have developed developed great compassion. So, Geshe-la added, so then, if we cultivate our compassion in this way, then we will eventually develop this experience of great compassion in the way that Geshe la was describing and that amounts to what we have called great compassion that is observing, that is in reference to sentient beings. And if on top of that, we then develop a realization of impermanence, and again, steeped on that realization of impermanence, continue to give rise to produce a great compassion, and we steeped one another, then we have that great compassion that’s in relation to the dharma. That arise in relation to the dharma. And again, if we eventually realize selflessness, or realize emptiness, and again, and start to continue to produce great compassion, steeped on that realization of emptiness, then we have non referential great compassion.
Also, on top of all that we have been talking already, Geshe-la was saying now, bodhicitta, or the mind of enlightenment, is a mind that is characterized by two aspirations. And there is the aspiration to accomplish the welfare of others, basically, and the aspiration to attain enlightenment, that one self attain enlightenment, so that one can accomplish that. Now, as for the aspiration to accomplish the welfare of others, there is great compassion itself, that amounts to great compassion itself. So if one has realized great compassion, one has realized one of the major and most difficult aspects of bodhicitta. in dependence on which bodhisattvas come about.
Okay? This one. And then again, you start quoting again Candrakīrti that says: beginning it is extremely important. And we can see again how very important great compassion is in the beginning of our path. Because it is independent of that great compassion that bodhicitta can arise.
And again, Geshe la says, in order to engage in the perfections, or in order to accomplish the great accumulations of merit, is done by the force of engaging in the perfection, the six perfections, again one needs bodhicitta. bodhicitta is what makes possible for one to transform those actions into perfections, the perfection of generosity, morality and so forth. Again, that bodhicitta depends entirely on having great compassion. So we can see how again in the middle of our practice, compassion is still extremely important, essential. So if one does not have great compassion, then one will not have the real bodhicitta, the fully characterized bodhicitta, those actions of generosity, whatever virtuous actions of generosity one might perform, will not be the perfection of generosity, they will not be an action of the Mahāyāna, will not be a cause of enlightenment.
Whatever morality one may practice, again, it will not be the perfection of morality, will not be a practice of the Mahāyāna again. And all those actions, because one will have only the aspiration to become enlightened and alone, without aspiration to accomplish the welfare of beings. One will have this half hearted bodhicitta, so to speak. By performing those actions, one will not get the cause of enlightenment. So, again, all those actions which performed, which we call the perfections, the generosity, morality, patience and so forth.
Again, if one practices those actions whilst endowed with great compassion, then they become actions of the Mahāyāna, and they become causes of enlightenment. If those actions are performed without compassion, without bodhicitta, without compassion, then they do not become the causes of enlightenment. They become the causes of liberation alone, for liberation for oneself alone. And if one is motivated only by the attainment of happiness in future lives, then that’s what become the causes of it. In the end, we have seen how extremely important it is in the beginning, how extremely important it is in the middle of our path, of our practice, and again, at the time of deriving results of our practices which is then at the time of enlightenment itself when we attain enlightenment again we have a lot of work to do.
It is then that we start truly accomplishing the benefit of all sentient beings. And that we have a lot of work to do, we have many tasks to perform to benefit beings. So we can see how in the very beginning, when we started to develop the wish that may all sentient beings be free from suffering, may I myself accomplish that, and we have words to accumulate the causes of that and eventually we develop into that being, that state of being that is able to accomplish that benefit. Here, again, the presence of great compassion is of utmost importance because that’s what’s going to drive us to keep on working for the benefit of being. So again, we can see how here at the time of the ripening results, great compassion is again essential, extremely important.
If we have that uncontrived great compassion spontaneously arising in our hearts will be ready for action at all times and be prompt to teach the way to liberation enlightenment, help and so forth, to work for the benefit of sentient beings. Whilst if we do not have that uncontrived compassion, we will not be ready at all times. We will not be promptly helping and working for the benefit of sentient beings. And again, again, Geshe-la reiterates how important it is, how important compassion is, great compassion is, and it points out to the fact that again we all have compassion. We already have compassion, we just have to cultivate it And we can see how in the very beginning of our lives, you know, it was due to the very loving care of our mothers That we learned about compassion.
Is due to the kindness of our mothers that we have compassion in our hearts. Geshe la was pointing out to the fact that the Dalai Lama always constantly repeatedly teaches that. It is due to the loving care of our mothers, to the nurturing loving care of our mothers that we are able to develop compassion. Of the care that they have shown us, they’ve given us, we come to like them above everybody else. We come to like them so much that if when naturally when suffering occurs to them, we are displeased with that.
It pains us to see our mother suffering. So, can see how our mothers are extremely important. Without having making reference to other lifetimes, this life alone, I feel like I was gonna say, our mothers are the ones who give us compassion. So our mothers have given us compassion. Now it is up to us to look after it and care for it.
It is our job and our task now to care for that compassion and nurture it so that it grows ever stronger. Cultivating that compassion, eventually it will become the very essence, it will grow into the very essence of great compassion itself. And then it will turn into the very heart of the Mahāyāna path, of the great vehicle. And Geshe la was saying, we can see, we can all understand this. Everything that Geshe has been saying is something that we are all able to understand.
We just have to think just a little bit and we can see how we all have compassion, how if we cultivate we will generate these results that we have been, Geshe la has been talking about. We can all understand that very easily. There’s nothing mysterious about it. But still as we live our lives, remain servants, we remain enslaved by the self grasping mind and the self-cherishing mind. We remain, how to say overpowered by the attachment that arises from the self grasping self-cherishing minds, from the anger that arises from the self-cherishing self grasping minds, from the jealousy that arises of this self grasping self-cherishing mind and so forth.
And that’s how we live our lives without lending, without exercising these thoughts in relation to other sentient beings. So, we we remain living our lives in this way. So, all those and this this is what we should we should not do. We should not give in to such mind, such states of mind. But that’s how we live our lives.
That which we ought to do, we we we keep away from us. We we avoid it. So the cause of the real cause of happiness, we avoid. So instead of cultivating compassion and so forth we avoid it. That’s what we should avoid, we should be avoiding the very cause of suffering.
This is what we keep on continually working for. We work so very hard to accumulate the causes of that. And we keep on giving in to attachment, to anger, to jealousy, and pride, and arrogance, and so forth. So, I guess I was saying this how we keep on living our lives. That which we should be practicing and cultivating, we lock it away from us.
That what we should should be avoiding and arresting at all times, abandoning and giving up at all times, we keep on cultivating. In this way we keep on the gates of the Mahāyāna path, completely locked. And Geshe la briefly wants to mention that in the Buddhist teachings there is also another type of compassion we talk about. So we have been talking about great compassion. There’s also another type of compassion that we talk immeasurable compassion.
Is the word in English, immeasurable, right? Immeasurable compassion. And Geshe la was saying there is a slight difference of, how can I say, of vastness between these two types of compassion? Explaining that these two compassions, great compassion and immeasurable compassion, they are different. And that great compassion is sort of a and this is a good one, I got a bit technical, but it’s sort of a main mind and we have minds and we have mental factors concomitant mental factors and immeasurable compassion in the cultivation of immeasurable compassion there is a great emphasis not only on the compassion itself, that wish to free all sentient beings, there is a great emphasis on developing other mental factors that are concomitant with it, they’re described as intelligence or wisdom.
Then you have mindfulness, alertness, we have to develop concentration. And most importantly, one of the most important defining aspects of immeasurable compassion is that immeasurable compassion is producing dependence on having attained higher levels of concentration. We’re talking about the first concentration. It’s something which is developed. So, it’s something that depends on having realized, calm abiding, and then attaining to the concentrations, to the meditative absorptions which are superior to calm abiding, the first, the second, the third, and the fourth concentrations.
And in dependence on this one gives rise to this immeasurable compassion. So there are some very distinctions. Okay. If immeasurable compassion is the mental factor, and great compassion is the main mind, was that what we were saying? No.
No. No. It’s just that there is a difference in the emphasis. In the great compassion, there is a is is major mainly this main mind alone without emphasis in the cultivation of other mental factors. Whilst immeasurable compassion, there is a strong emphasis because order to develop immeasurable compassion, one has to have the attainment of the concentrations.
It’s it’s necessary. It’s in dependence on having the concentration that one develops immeasurable compassion. That’s the difference. Whilst great compassion, You do not have necessarily to focus on this other mental factors. One just focus on that wish to free all sentient beings.
So is it a main mind or a mental? They they are both main minds. Immeasurable compassion and great compassion. So it is that’s the thing. With immeasurable compassion, it is it is both main mind and mental factors.
Mhmm. The the it it is characterized by having all these things together. Compassion is actually only a mental factor. So, Geshe la was explaining this great compassion is this I’m trying to find the right word to translate. Geshe la was reading the technical definition.
One of one of the many definitions of great compassion is always this wish. It’s not a it is this is is a sort of maybe the best way to translate it, in this context, be an affection, an affective state. It’s sort of So it is loving affection, which is a wish to free all sentient beings from the suffering. And that is a mental factor, because I wasn’t saying, because it is because it is this loving affection and that means it is only a mental factor. What’s the definition of immeasurable compassion has all the factors to it that make it both a main mind and a mental factor, that make it clear that is the main mind and the mental factors. And it has not only this wish, but it has concentration and other major factors around that.
Okay. Any more questions? Yes? Just so I understand a bit better. Once I become compassionate, once someone becomes compassionate self, then the compassion becomes a vehicle in which one can travel the universe because it’s then compassion in itself also like a being, and I’m talking to the extreme level of compassion.
When one becomes compassion itself Yeah. One becomes the vehicle that is compassion. When one becomes the vehicle which is so compassion then becomes a vehicle to travel the universe. To travel travel the universe. And I mean this I mean it honestly.
Expansion of mind into the universe. How can I say that? How can I say? Omnipresent. Omnipresent.
Can I say that? Maybe omnipresent. I do not become You become present in the whole universe. I don’t know how to say that in Tibetan. I say how I know to say omniscient.
Well, that’s fine. Would that work? Omniscient consciousness. I can I can say that? Yeah.
I’ll try to omniscient consciousness is also a vehicle at the same time. So yes. Omnipresent. That’s part of the I I I will use omniscience. Understand.
I will use omniscience. So let’s see. So Geshe la wasn’t saying, and this is very technical. Okay? So when you ask if it becomes a vehicle to travel the universe this is a very loose question and I don’t know if you’re being literal or metaphorical or whatever so and here in this context because this is a very ancient tradition this everything is very well defined and very well divided so when talking about realizing great compassion no it does not mean that one will be omniscient or that one will be able to travel the universe or go whatever it is that one wants or emanate whatever it is that one wants.
Great compassion alone is just wish, it’s just a wish, a feeling mind that wishes all sentient beings to be free from suffering. All sentient beings without exception to be free from every suffering without exception. Now in dependence on having developed compassion, you can develop something else which might lead you to a state of mind or to a state of being in which you can be omniscient, which is enlightenment itself. So, in dependence on having compassion, you can grow into another state of being which is bodhisattva hood and if you keep on practicing you grow into a state of being which is buddhahood itself and then you are omniscient. And then not only that if you keep on developing compassion continually, there is a point in your practice where you develop compassion become you develop also what is referred to as the union of calm abiding and special insights.
Insight and having developed a calm abiding special insight and that being steeped in great compassion and also you develop the ability to emanate, to send forth emanations of yourself. So you could maybe say that by then you could travel whatever you like. You could send emanations to whatever you like. Does that become a bit more So he says, you want to go everywhere? Do you want to go to hell?
He says. I’ve got a question in relation to the cultivation of the understanding that everyone has been our mother, and that they’ve offered us great kindness. I’m wondering how to deal with that in a different context. So say you go to a very poor country where there are a lot of people suffering quite intensely in front of us, and we feel helpless and overwhelmed by that and displeased, I think, was the word that you used earlier. How to be able to deal with that so that we’re not rendered completely useless because we feel we feel very upset and displeased by what’s happening.
So how how to how to address that? How to So, yeah, advice on how to deal with that outside of the context in which we live at the moment. So it’s a bit easier to walk down the street in in Adelaide thinking that everyone has been our mother and offered us great kindness, and and we owe that to them to to provide them compassion as opposed to a a third world country with that same feeling. It has it potentially could overwhelm you if you’re in the early stage of development, the spiritual path. So, Geshe-la is saying, look, this is something easy.
And Geshe-la is saying, and here, yes, here in Adelaide our situation is very privileged. I mean, we have a very easy life. And it’s very likely that we go about our lives happily about our lives, and we do not actually lend any thought to other sentient beings, much less ones, the suffering people that we see in other countries. We do not actually think of of people on the streets as being our mothers or as being kind to us. We’re just involved with our own happiness, and we do not think about anything else.
And this is basically how we go about our lives. And this this is this has nothing to do with with recollecting the recollection of all sentient beings as one’s mothers, as being have been one’s mothers. We we do not see the people on the streets as our mothers. We do not see the people in other countries as our mothers. We do not see the all the countless living creatures in the oceans and the seas as our mothers.
And when we’re talking about recollecting sentient beings as our mothers. We’re talking about recollecting all sentient beings as having been our mothers. So it is something which is extremely difficult to accomplish. As it is, we we do not really think much about it. So, when we’re talking about recollecting our mothers and repaying their kindness, it’s the first two steps in the cultivation of the six point cause and effect.
Geshe la was saying: to start by considering our own mother. And we have to see how we feel about her, how much we like her. The reasons why we like her so much is because she has been caring for us, has been nurturing us and protecting us and so forth. We have to contemplate all these things. So she has been extremely kind to us and we have to develop the understanding that all beings have been at one point or another our mothers.
They are are not presently our mothers. Have only one mother in this life. We have to understand to know that they have been our mothers and as such they have been equally kind to us just like our present mother has been. If we cultivate in this way we develop this understanding of these two first steps in the cultivation. Understanding of recollecting all beings as our mothers and then recognizing their great kindness.
We do not presently know all beings as having been our mothers. We do not know that they have been our mothers. But we can know. We are able to know. We just have to reason a little bit.
We have to think just a little bit. We know that our next life will have a different mother. We know that in previous life, we have a different mother. The life before that, we have a different mother. And we know that we have had countless lifetimes, and we have had countless mothers.
And Geshe-la was saying, we might think that those beings who have been my mother in such a lifetime before this one, they are not present in my life now, so I have no reason to like them. And this is not a correct reasoning, Geshe-la was saying, because also the mother that you have today, it is not the same mother that gave you birth twenty two, twenty three years ago. It is not the same mother. So, you know, it’s right to think like that. So they have been our mothers, and they have been great kind to us.
And that remains unchanged. So one has to engage in a lot of analytical meditations. One has to perform a lot of analytical meditations. Many times, thinking along these lines, like Geshe la has been teaching us, so that we will eventually develop a more clear and solid understanding of how all sentient beings have been our mothers, how all of them have been kind to us. And eventually, you know, the whole thing starts to develop from that, and we will wish to repay that kindness, and eventually, almost naturally, the feeling to free all of them from suffering will arise.
Did you understand? Yeah, I understand. I guess, just to qualify what I was saying. So you’re in a very specific situation, walking down the street and someone is in need of medical assistance. They need a house because they’re homeless, and they’ve been a mother in one lifetime or another.
If it was a mother in this lifetime, we’d take them to our house and feed them and look after them. But I’m incapable of doing that for everyone because of my capacity as, you know, my current situation. And so I guess there’s this feeling of feeling useless in in that particular situation? In those situations, when you are So, of giving in to such thoughts, what you should be doing or what you could be doing, what you would be doing as a practitioner, recognizing the great value of your present precious human rebirth, recognize the importance of your precious human rebirth and how much your precious human birth can accomplish, understanding the precious human birth for what it is and what it can accomplish, you cultivate the causes of enlightenment by there and then developing again one more time when you see that person, when you see that being, you develop again the wish that may all beings, may that person, may all beings be free from suffering. May I myself do that, in order to accomplish that I must attain enlightenment.
And that’s what you have to do. Aside from that, giving the person money or food or medicine, that’s not going to end that being suffering. I might relieve it temporarily, but that’s not going to end that being suffering. So, ultimately, the most important thing that you have to do is to, again, take that chance to cultivate the causes of enlightenment itself. Yeah?
This one. Oh, yeah. Any more questions? Is that okay?