Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 74-minute teaching on the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, Ven Lobsang Namgyel emphasizes that genuine practice must be grounded in real conviction and applied to daily life, not merely recited or meditated on in isolation. He opens with a practical meditation on impermanence and the futility of saṃsāra, then introduces the first verse, which asks us to recognize all sentient beings as more precious than wish-fulfilling jewels worthy of our deepest care. Namgyel walks through the meaning of determined intention, explores how this challenges our self-cherishing mindset, and explains why sentient beings—including difficult ones—are our true field of practice. He uses concrete examples: the kindness embedded in a cup of tea, the thousands of people involved in a single journey, the role of enemies as teachers of patience. The meditation that follows uses visualized white nectar from Chenrezig to dissolve obstacles to actualizing this first verse. Suitable for practitioners new to these teachings or familiar with the Eight Verses who wish to deepen their understanding through both philosophical investigation and contemplative practice.
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File: 2011 10 01Ven Namgyel – 04 – Sat 1st Oct.mp3
UUID: fb19c7b2-931f-4425-8cad-41da3cd9108f
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: 8 Verses Thought Transformation (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Date: 2011-10-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 74.1 minutes
Words: ~9,615
I hope you’re all well. Oh, I see a big black cloud. Just when there was hope. So yesterday, I sort of gave an overview of what we’re doing, which is transforming negative situations, what we would think of as negative situations into something positive. And then, how to do that?
Because in our world, everything’s moving so fast. We have a lot of distractions. So we need to have a clear awareness of developing the mind of bodhicitta. Because if we don’t have that clear awareness, we may have that sense of, well, you know, I’m a good person. I’m sure it’s going to happen.
But how does it happen if we don’t have a plan? You know, if you don’t have a pension plan or you don’t have a health plan, and you just keep saying, oh, Buddha, please make sure that when I get older, I have a pension plan, but you don’t do anything about it. It’s not Buddha’s problem. You know? It’s not he didn’t do something to help you.
It’s that you haven’t been practical. You need to take things into your own hands. So I think this weekend for me has to be practical, has to be something that we put into practice in our everyday life. It’s not just something that we talk about or we meditate on, but how can I use it in order to produce a better mind, a better connection, a better feeling? So I hope in these days that we can discuss the the difficult issues because there’s definitely difficult issues in transforming your mind.
It’s not easy. It’s not I think, like, I guess here, now each country has a different method. But in in Australia, you have thirty first of December, isn’t it? You make a list. You still do this?
So you make a list. In in Mexico, I think they do it on the second of January, something like that. They do it in the New Year. Because I say, thirty first of December, and they say, no. No.
We don’t do it then. They must do it after the New Year. So you make a list, and you say, probably outrageous things, you know, like, I’m going to exercise every day. I’m going to lose weight, or I’m going to put on weight. And if you’re going to lose weight, then you’re going to give up chocolate, alcohol, maybe maybe give up smoking, give up drinking, whatever.
So we make these lists, and it’s always outrageous. So exaggerated. Right? Like, we can just click our fingers and we give up everything negative, and we become totally positive. This would be the ideal, I think.
If we could just do that, if we could just make the list and it happened, everything would be great. The transformation would happen. So on the first of of January, new person, totally transformed. All negative gone, only positive. But in actual fact, to develop bodhicitta in this day and age is really, really difficult.
There are obstacles. Right? Because when you’re trying to develop great love and great compassion, you may not have people patting you on the back and saying, wow. That’s incredible. Your compassion is so amazing.
People might say, what are you doing? You know? Why are you trying to do it like this? Oh, I want more compassion. I want more love.
I said, but why? Why would you do that? You know? These days it’s about being top of the heap. So I want to be best and you’re worst.
I want to be the winner, so you’re the loser. I want to be the one who gets everything, and therefore there’s got to be somebody who loses everything. So is that, in a spiritual sense, what we call the winner? That’s what we’re investigating in this time. Right?
Not just me saying, this is the way it is and you’re gonna follow, but you really thinking about it. How do I want to live? What do I believe in? Because unless we have a strong feeling about what we believe in, we’re not going to live by it. We’re not going to change.
We’re not going to transform. So it’s not just the list. You know? We get the oh, I think I’ll yeah. I’ll go to yoga every day.
That’s only an hour. No. No. It’s two. Okay.
So I’ll do a Ashtanga yoga every day, two hours. Meditation. I’ll do meditation every day, and I’m going to this and this and this and this. So you break one. You know, you’ve decided on all these things you’re going to do.
You break one, the whole list crumbles. One after the other, you give them up. So then, how do we maintain our strategic position heading towards enlightenment? Without telling others around us, the people in the office, be good to me. You know, I’m a nice person.
I’m trying to develop bodhicitta, and you’re my object. You know? You’re the one that I’m trying to help. Actually, you’re the enemy, and you’re so important to me. You know?
So we can’t do things like this. We can’t go around saying to people, treat me better, respect me, be kind to me, whatever, because of what I’m doing. I’m trying to develop bodhicitta. I want to become enlightened to liberate you from your suffering. We can’t do this.
So it’s a secret practice. It’s something that we’re doing internally. The transformation is happening internally. And the proof of it, Didn’t we used to say the proof the proof in the pudding? Do you still say the proof in the pudding?
You don’t. You don’t. We do. You’re gonna have to get on board, you know, with these good sayings. So the proof of the pudding we used to say the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Right? That’s the proof. Because when you stick your spoon in the pudding, may maybe it looks good, but it’s gotta taste good, hasn’t it? That’s the point. We can’t just go around sort of smiling in a certain way, you know, with the halo slightly to one side because it’s modern.
I’m a good person, you know. I’m so patient, so compassionate. Oh, used to be angry before and irritable, but now, wow, this really gets to the family, you know? Then they start poking and prodding. Let’s see how patient you are.
Let’s see how irritable you can be. So we can set ourselves up for difficulties with the family, with our friends, with the people we work with. So this transformation that’s happening, I guess what we have to think is, is it more important that it happens on the outside or more important that it happens on the inside? And in our society, it seems to be about external things changing. You know, changing the shape of the hair, the color of the hair, the shape of the body, the clothes.
That seems to be important in our society. But changing the mind, we might want to change the mind, but when it comes to a method, we don’t have one unless we’re studying Buddhism. Buddhism has lots of methods to transform your mind, then the problem is, are you putting it into practice? So we have the methods, but if the methods fail, it’s not because of the method, it’s because you don’t put it into practice. So then we come to what would be a method that I could put into practice in my daily life?
What would really help me in order to transform my mind into bodhicitta? And this is where the eight verses, I think, are really important. So like I told you yesterday, his holiness said, this for him is the most important thought transformation text. There is no more important. There’s many other texts, but he thinks this is the most important because there’s only eight points.
It’s not like you’ve got fifty things to memorize. You’ve only got eight. Okay? And it’s really good to write them down, maybe to have little cards. I have one little card.
I don’t know where I got it from, but it’s a little business sized card, and on both sides, it has the eight verses. So you can put it with your mobile phone Every time you have a difficult conversation, maybe you can take it out. Remember, not getting angry, not reacting. So we need some way throughout the day reminding ourselves of the eight verses. So today, we’re starting the discussion with the first verse.
Oh, was I meant to mention to you. We’re going to be doing this meditation on removing the obstacles to actualizing these eight verses, but we have to talk about it. So that’s why I didn’t finish it. We need to have a talk about Chenrezig. I’ll just find my notes.
Okay. So the eight verses. We have the very first one. It’s in your book on page hundred and sixty at the bottom. Determined to obtain the greatest possible benefit from all sentient beings who are more precious than a wish fulfilling jewel, I shall hold them most dear at all times.
All sentient beings. Not just some, all. So that includes the difficult person in your life, the boss, the friend who used to be be the friend but now turned into the enemy. So there’s a few key things in there. The first is all sentient beings.
It doesn’t say you can leave somebody out. It doesn’t say you can have a little room where you put your enemies and you lock the door and you never think about them, and I’ll be able to develop bodhicitta even though I have enemies. You can’t develop great love, great compassion bodhicitta if you’re leaving one sentient being out. So we’re including not just humans, every living being. Usually, in in the monastery, I mention spiders.
In Mexico, I usually mention cockroaches. There’s a horror of cockroaches, but they have them. In Australia, I don’t know, maybe snakes, scorpions. There’s often a karmic form that we don’t like. May not be human, but a karmic form that we don’t like.
It’s a karmic appearance. So there can be a karmic appearance of negative actions, which can be a scorpion, karmic appearance of negative actions, which can be a spider, cockroach, rat, mouse, whatever. But for you, you look at that form and you think, I don’t like it. So in this case, we’re starting to consider not just humans, but every living being. And when you consider every living being, does your mind sort of go, uh-oh, accept?
You know? What’s the exception for you? Is there an exception for you? A being or beings that you’re leaving out. So if you’re an environmentalist, it could be the people who don’t like the environment.
Right? The polluters. So if you’re an environmentalist, you might dislike the polluters. So if you’re in the greens, they’re in the reds. I don’t know.
You love trees, they hate trees. If it’s you love music, they hate music. You love studying, they hate studying. There’s always somebody else who likes something other than you. Is that a problem for you?
So with this verse, we’re starting to consider our selfishness. Not their problems, not their selfishness, but our selfishness. Oh, I don’t like that. I don’t like them because and we have our reasons. Right?
And the reasons make it good, make it okay. I don’t like them because and so then we exclude them from our compassion, our love, our wisdom. We want to remove them. But while you’re removing them, you’re creating an obstacle. So, first word, determined.
You are not going to give up. Have you seen this teacher of his holiness? You know, never give up? I think this is the way to think. You’ve started, and now you’re not gonna give up.
You can have a holiday. Lama Zopa said, you can have a holiday. Lama Yeshe might not say you can have a holiday, but Lama Zopa said, you can have a holiday. In the Lamrim, in enthusiasm, joy, in the four perfections, the fourth perfection, Lama Zopa says, if you’re doing practices and you reach a point where you’re tired, you just can’t go on. Don’t give up, but you just say, okay.
I’m having a rest, bit of a holiday, and then I go back to it. Then I continue. Okay? So when we’re saying the word determined, yes, I’ve started. I’m on the path, but there’s going to be times when you feel I can’t go on.
So you don’t say, now I give up. You just say, I’m putting it to one side, I’m having a break, and then I’m going back to it. This is still important to me because this applies life after life until you become enlightened. If you take the bodhisattva vows, the bodhisattva vows are in your continuum until you’re enlightened. So even when you die and you’re reborn, you still have the bodhisattva vows in your continuum.
You take bodhisattva vows until enlightenment. So when we start these practices, we don’t start for a short time. We say, well, for two thousand eleven or two thousand twelve, we just say, year after year, life after life, I continue until I’m bodhisattva, I’m a buddha, and then I can benefit all sentient beings. So this is incredible. You know?
It’s this sense of it just goes on and on and on. Not for a certain time, but just this is what we do. What else would we do? We want to benefit others. What else would we do?
We want to transform our minds. So we’re determined, and then it says, to obtain the greatest possible benefit, right, from all sentient beings. So we want profit in the sense of we don’t want to go into a situation that is going to be a loss. If you were looking at it in a in a business sense, you’re going to invest in something that gives you the best profit in the shortest possible time. You’re not gonna put your money into something that lose you know, you’re gonna lose.
You know? You go to the casino and you put your here’s my hundred thousand dollars, and you spin the wheel, and you put all your money on five, and the wheel spins and it’s seven. I lost all my money, you know. Now I’ve got nothing. So in the same way, these practices are very clever because they’re they’re connecting with your selfishness.
Because right now, we have selfishness. I wanna get something. You know? I’m not going to just do these practices because they sound good. I want something now.
So what am I going to get from this practice? Some profit, not loss. So how do I get a benefit from all sentient beings? Up to now, I’m saying, I want this. I want this.
I want this. From my selfishness, I’m taking what I want. Has it worked? Are we totally happy? Have we eradicated all selfishness?
Doesn’t the selfishness increase the selfishness? Doesn’t it make more instead of less selfishness? Don’t you think that when you shop, this should be the end of it? You know, you go shopping in the department store with your clutching your credit card, and you think, all I need to do is buy some things and then I’ll be happy. So you shop.
Because we’re told in our society that when we shop, we’ll be happy. Then how long does it last? You shop, you buy some new clothes, or you buy the new iPad two, or the Kindle, or whatever it is. You you shop, you buy what you wanted to buy. For a short time, you’re happy, but not long term happy.
So we try to get happiness out of external objects, or we try to get happiness with others, but we haven’t achieved the greatest possible benefit, the benefit of removing the selfishness. Because this selfishness of I want, I need, and so, you know, I buy it or I mentally think, oh, that’s really nice. I want that. This way of thinking actually increases the potential for more selfishness. Like I said, what’s the difference between Buddhas and us?
The main difference is they’re thinking about others. We’re thinking about ourselves. And we may call this survival. You know? I think about myself in order to survive.
But it’s not enough, is it? Just to survive. Just to have clothes, just to have a home, just to have a car, or just to have a relationship, it’s not enough because we’re spiritual. We want to have something more than just survival. We want to go beyond survival.
Maybe it should be a dharma program beyond survival. That’s a good one. Write that down. We’ll approach the discovery channel. Right?
We can get a lot of people to star in that one. So just to survive, if you really think about, is it enough for us? I hope not. Just to hang on that cliff and think I must survive and I’ll do anything just to survive. Because in that state, you will kill, steal, lie, sexual misconduct, all the negativities are possible when I just want to survive.
Because it’s about me, not about you. I don’t care about you. It’s about me surviving. So I I’m feeding myself. But in the process of feeding myself with this survival technique, I’m also encouraging more selfishness.
The potential of more negativity is being created. So that’s how it keeps coming around and around and around. We don’t break out of that cycle of selfish, creating problems, selfish, more problems. So we have this sense of wanting to break out, isn’t it? Wanting to be more than just surviving.
So then it says, we need to get the greatest possible benefit from all sentient beings, more precious than a wish fulfilling jewel. So in the old days, there’s many, many stories about these wish fulfilling jewels. First of all, you find them at the bottom of the ocean, and then you have to take it out of the ocean, and then you have to clean it of the mud. You have to remove all the mud, the obscurations, the delusions. You have to remove it, and then you’ve got this beautiful jewel, but you have to recognize it is a jewel.
So now what we’re saying is, every sentient being is a jewel. Not every human being, every sentient being is a jewel. So we need to recognize each person as a jewel. Not to be abused, not to be hurt, not to be beaten, not to be ignored, not to be hated, but to be seen in a particular way as a jewel, something really special. And in the Chimresic practice that we’re going to do, is the jewel in the lotus.
Right? So we have this jewel. So it’s like each one of us in our hearts has a jewel, the potential to become enlightened. That’s a jewel. But it’s obscured.
It’s dirty. Right? The dirtiness is not a natural dirtiness. It’s the dirt from every time we have a negative thought, a negative emotion, a negative action. We’ve created dirt.
We create the dirt. It’s not naturally there. It’s something that we’ve created around this jewel, which is our potential. We have an amazing potential to be able to achieve amazing things. So we’re not stuck in the sense of we’re not trapped, we’re not victims.
We have the ability to get out of our present situation of being obscured by negativities. So first of all, we need to recognize the jewel, that we have this jewel. Right? So the jewel is the potential of all the qualities within ourselves. And not only do I have it, every other living being has it.
And once you start to recognize that, it gives you the ability to start seeing others in a different way. The transformation starts to happen. Instead of saying, oh, that boss, you know, abused you know, said horrible things to me, said I made big mistakes or whatever. You start to see the boss in a different way. Anybody difficult in your life, anybody who’s let you down, you start to see in a different way.
So this is really important to start recognizing the jewel in each person instead of looking for what’s the opposite of a jewel? Is there an opposite of a jewel? In Spain, in Mexico, we say caca, but I’m not sure whether it works in Australia. Do you have caca in Australia? You use that word?
Caca means shit in Spanish. Yeah. We don’t wanna be shitty, do we? You know, we can We say we have shitty lives. Right?
So we don’t wanna have shitty lives. But somehow, we also know that we’re involved in the process of creating the shitty lives. Not the lives that we want to lead. And so it’s important to recognize there’s something really special about me. Not in an egotistical way, not in a proud way, exaggerated, but there’s something very special about me.
One, I’m human. So when we talk about human rebirth, precious human rebirth, human rebirth is, the six billion. Doesn’t mean they’re all precious, but there’s six billion of us now. Special precious is what conditions do you have around you to help you to transform your mind. And then how you’re using that that change of mind to benefit others.
What are you doing? How you’re putting yourself out? This is special. Right? So when we think about the the jewel that we have, the very first one is we have precious human rebirth.
I had an an incredible dog, one of, Lama Yeshe’s dogs, Rime, and she died when she was thirteen. But Rime was more human than human. You know, she understood if you were talking, she understood. I could not get Rime to say, Right? So I could say to Rime now, listen.
You’ve got to memorize. This is good for your future. But I never caught her with the mala, you know, first thing in the morning with one pour or like this and no. Never found her doing this, but she was incredibly intelligent. She had a really good feeling for people, and she was very kind.
So she had those qualities, but she didn’t have the ability to listen and use what I was saying in order to transform. We have that ability. Then we need to think how incredible that we have this ability to change our minds. We’re not trapped in our present situation, whatever that situation is. We’re not trapped.
We’re not victims. We can decide to transform into the mind of bodhicitta. Then once you’ve made that decision, it becomes the question mark, so then how? So what am I gonna do? It’s not enough to just say, I want to do it, but how?
I need a method. Like I said yesterday, Lama Zopa says, you can’t just keep saying, you know, I want bodhicitta. I want bodhicitta. Like it’s going to drop from the sky. Because it’s a change of mind, it has to happen inside.
The transformation is happening within. So we’re looking for the greatest possible benefit from all sentient beings. And those sentient beings, according to this verse, are more precious than a wish fulfilling jewel. Now you might think a wish fulfilling jewel is much better. You know, you get the jewel and like Aladdin’s lamp, you rub it and you say, what I really want is a big house, and big house appears.
Oh, that’s nice. Oh, now what I need is lots of furniture, good furniture. Oh, design furniture appears. And then I think I need a sports car now. So, what I really need is a Lamrim, and Lamrim appears.
You think, wow, this is incredible. Having this wish fulfilling jewel is really amazing. You know? I couldn’t be happier. But this wish fulfilling jewel does not give you enlightenment.
So always it’s mentioned in the text. Yeah. How incredible to have this jewel where you keep rubbing and saying, give me this, give me this, give me this. And it appears out of emptiness, but how does it appear? You have to have the karma for it to appear.
You’re using up your karma for the appearance of these desire objects. What happens when your karma runs out? Somebody steals the jewel, the jewel disappears. Right? This jewel cannot give you enlightenment.
What can? That’s what’s contained in the first verse. What can? Sentient beings. So then you think, wow.
This is incredible. I’ve got so many sentient beings who are helping me to become enlightened. And the more difficult ones I’ve got, the more opportunity I have to become enlightened. So this is amazing. Rather than thinking, oh, sentient beings, you know.
Why are there so many of them? Or why do I have so many bad ones around me? Or why can’t I be living in a cave? How incredible it would be to be out of Samsāra. You know?
Because we think, Adelaide Samsāra. So if I was out of Adelaide Samsāra, in a cave, nirvana, I’d be okay. I’d be happy. Wouldn’t it be amazing? So you go to a cave and you sit in the cave, you’ve got nobody to practice on.
You’re alone. And so you may be thinking, patience, patience, patience, compassion, compassion, compassion, but you don’t know if your mind is developing patience if there are no sentient beings around. We know whether we have patience. We know whether we’re angry or irritable or jealous or we have pride. We know about our delusions because we live in society.
We know whether we’re intolerant because we’re in society. But if you’re living alone, you may have no concept of what’s going on. And so being in society, it’s saying here, is something to rejoice in. You say, wow. Incredible.
This is my opportunity to transform. So more precious than a wish fulfilling jewel, I shall hold them most dear at all times. Hold them close. Don’t develop the mind that says, go away. Leave me alone.
I’ve had enough. But develop the mind that says, come closer because you’re precious. To me, you’re precious. There’s something very special about you, and I want you to be close to me. Because when we consider, what we’re talking about is the self-cherishing mind as opposed to the cherishing other’s mind.
They’re the two opposites. Okay? self-cherishing mind, me, me, me, me, as opposed to me cherishing you. Okay? They’re the two opposites.
So think about the self-cherishing mind and what we’re developing, what we grow into when we have a selfish mind. We can become mean. We can become, selfish in the way of being selfish often means being alone, being lonely. And so many people in our society are now lonely. We’re surrounded by people, and yet people are lonely.
They can be living in their flat or their house. They don’t know the people around them. So that that feeling of not connecting. And then we blame others and say, well, they never come to see me. It’s not my fault.
You know? The selfish person says, it’s not my fault. It’s their fault. Then you say, well, have you ever knocked on the on next door? Have you ever gone upstairs in the flats and baked a cake and given somebody a piece of cake?
These days, probably people think you’ve got poison in the cake or something. You know, in the old days, you used to be able to give cake away to people. I don’t know if you can anymore. But do we make the effort in some way to reach out to others and connect with others? So the selfish person will sit there and think, why is this happening to me?
I’m alone. I’m lonely. Nobody is communicating with me or connecting with me. Whereas when we reach out, we’re making connection. So in order to achieve enlightenment, we need sentient beings.
Without sentient beings, no enlightenment. So without sentient beings, there’s no individual liberation, nirvana. There’s no enlightenment. It’s not possible without sentient beings. And you really have to meditate on this in order to get this strong feeling sentient beings are really important.
Because I guarantee when sentient beings harm you, your view will change. Radically, oh, sentient beings. You know? Then we we go against them. We don’t like sentient beings when they’re harming.
So we have to have a very firm feeling sentient beings are good. Team sentient beings, you know, instead of team Manly or team Geelong or whatever it is. We need team sentient beings, you know. We keep going on the path of wanting to benefit sentient beings no matter what they’re doing. Our principle is we want to help.
We want to benefit. So with no sentient beings, no nirvana, no enlightenment. Without sentient beings, no compassion. You cannot develop compassion without sentient beings. Without compassion, there’s no bodhicitta.
Without bodhicitta, there’s no enlightenment. So the kindness of sentient beings and the kindness of Buddhas is the same. This is a hairy thought. You know? You have to get your mind around that one because we often say, oh, Buddhas, you know, like, they’re really important.
Oh, Buddhas. Yeah. I like you and all sentient beings, may be lower, but actually, Buddhas and sentient beings, same. Why? Because Buddhas teach us how to become enlightened.
Sentient beings are the field in which we plant the seeds of enlightenment. So without the sentient beings, no field. Somebody might give us a plow, the tractor, isn’t it? You have to have a tractor and a plow. I was thinking buffalo.
Right? So I’m back in India now. So but a plow and a tractor. Somebody gives you a plow and a tractor. You don’t have a field.
You have the ability to turn the field and plant the seeds, but you can’t because you don’t have a field. So you need a field, what we call a field of merit, which is two fields of merit, all sentient beings and Buddhas. So then we think, how incredible. Six billion sentient beings, you know, just human sentient beings without carrying counting all the others. How incredible.
I have so many fields around me in which I can plant my seeds of compassion, my seeds of bodhicitta. So then we start to get this feeling of good fortune. My life is really valuable because of what I can do with it and because of what I can do for others. Then you get this sense of joy about your practice, about how you’re connecting to others, and how you’re doing things for others. So then, for new students, for those of you who haven’t been studying Dharma for very long, then for new students, then it’s important at the beginning to think about the kindness of others.
So under this verse, what you’re particularly concentrating on is the kindness of others, and then you think about, how many other beings are in our lives. This takes a little bit of work. So for instance, we have electricity in this room. We have, air conditioning, heating in this room. We have a course that’s happening because of the people who organized it.
So you start thinking out and out and out and out. How many people are involved in this present activity? We might assume it’s just the people in the room, but it’s much more than that. So how many people to provide the electricity? How many people to provide the heating?
How many people to organize the course? Then for me to get here, I had to fly from Mexico. So I needed one plane from Jalapa to Mexico City. How many people support that airport so that I can fly to Dallas? Then you get to Dallas.
How many people work in that airport to support that airport? Right? The customs people, the immigration people, the people who support the airport. Never mind the people who built the airport. Then we’re talking about thousands of people who build.
Right? So you think about, Veracruz, Jalapa, where I came from, one airport, one set of people. Mexico City, another set of people. Flying to Dallas, another set of people. Flying from Dallas to, Brisbane, another set of people flying from Brisbane to Adelaide, another set of people.
So how many airports? How many people? How many planes just to bring me to this place? So it’s I’m not just one. I’m supported by this whole team of people.
Thousands of people have ensured that I got here safely. So that’s just me. And then in your life, how many people do you have supporting you? We go to the supermarket and we just take the things off the shelf. We don’t think about how the things got on the shelf, or we think, anyway, they’re paid to put things on the shelf.
That’s their business. You know? They get money. But where does the money come from? The kindness of others.
If we have jobs, then we earn money, and we use the money to buy things, but then we don’t think. So where does the money come from? The kindness of others. So that way of thinking, that meditation is really unbelievable. Your mind keeps going out and out thinking, so where does the water come from?
Just the water I’m drinking. The tea. Where does the tea come from? I’ve been, up in Ooty. There’s an area, in Southern India.
It’s called Ooty, and you drive up and up and up and up and up and and and up. It’s a long way up, it’s about seven thousand feet up, and it’s full of tea bushes. Very beautiful. You know, these design the designs of the tea bushes and they grow between the rocks. So it’s a a sort of rocky area and you have all these tea bushes just going up and up and up.
But these women, it’s not men, but it’s the women who are out there in all sorts of weathers picking the leaves, and they have the first flush and the second flush. And, you know, it’s a very delicate job, and they have to squeeze between all these bushes and get these leaves in all sorts of weather so we can have a cup of tea. And then there’s other areas in Southern India where they have coffee bushes. Also, very difficult job. So not thinking about how much money they earn and all this sort of thing, but we just think about the number of people that it takes to make one cup of tea.
The people picking, the people drying, the people packing, the people shipping, then it goes into the shop, and then somebody puts it on the shelf, and then you arrive and you just take it off the shelf. We don’t think about the background, all the people involved. So a simple thing can start you thinking on this train of how many people are involved with their kindness towards me. Because if you don’t get that feeling of how kind they are, we don’t want to repay the kindness. So we have to build this feeling to the point where we say, wow.
I must repay this kindness. I must give it back. They have been unbelievably kind to me, and I haven’t even recognized it. I didn’t even think about it. So that’s one way you can do it as a beginner.
Because another way you can do it is all sentient beings have been my mother, and this is difficult. This is problematic. People always, on every course I’ve done at Tuśita, Root Institute, Kopan, always these hands that go up and they say, excuse me, but are you saying every sentient being has been my mother? Yeah. But I don’t like my mother.
So do you mean that now I have countless sentient beings that I don’t like? This is the way our minds can go. If we don’t happen to like our mothers, then all sentient beings have been your mother. Now you got a problem with all sentient beings. That’s not the purpose behind that way of thinking.
In Asia, you had an amazing connection with your mother. At least you respected her, but we may not like her. We may not have a good connection with her. So then you can think father or grandfather or grandmother, somebody who nurtured you, who took care of you. So that person that you really connect with and you really like, then imagine that person has been repeated over and over in different, forms, different lives.
I’ve had numerous nurturing people in my life in order for me to develop and to grow. Whether I was a dog, a bird, a human, whatever, we’ve all had, nurturing beings in our lives. But as I said, this can be difficult. So if you’re starting out on how to connect beings, we can connect to them through kindness. Have they been kind to us or not?
In order to have this, in order to have this, in order to have this, this, this, we need countless sentient beings. It’s inconceivable how many sentient beings are involved in our lives. How can we repay their kindness? So whether we think about friends, enemies, strangers, actually, they’re equally kind. Friends, enemy, stranger.
Here’s the question for you. How is the enemy kind? Yeah. Without the enemy, you’re not in the university of patience. Right?
You bump yourself up into the PhD level when you’ve got an enemy. Without the enemy, the friends, you know. What’s your name? Jack. Oh, Jack.
You’re such a nice person. You know? Right? This is what your friends will do for you, isn’t it? They stroke your ego.
So they say, oh, Jack, such a nice person. I really like you. And your curly hair is so nice. You know? And you and the ego can be reaffirmed.
It may not get bigger and bigger, but it can be reaffirmed. Yeah. What does the the enemy do? Jack, I really don’t like you. You know?
That curly hair should be straightened. The opposite, isn’t it? So the friend says the things that we agree with, the things that we like, and we get attached to them. We like them. The enemy says things that we don’t like, the things that we want to reject.
So there’s the reaction. As soon as we hear things that we don’t like, we get some sense of, psychic shock. Why are you saying this to me? I’m a good person. And so from that anger, irritability, rejection.
So who’s more important? The enemy or the friend? In Dharma terms, the enemy. We value the enemy. We say, oh, thank you, Buddha.
I’ve been praying for a guru. Now the best guru has appeared, you know. But not in a cynical way, you know. We can do it in a bad way too. I know students who’ve gone to their enemy, usually in in work, and said, you know, I’m working on you.
I’ve I’ve learned this teaching where my enemy becomes my teacher, my guru, and you are definitely on the crown of my head. You can’t do this at all. That’s why I said, this is a secret practice. It’s not something that you go around telling everybody about. It’s something that you do in your heart because you want a healthier heart.
You want a better connection with others, not a worse connection, a better connection. And you want your reactions under control. When somebody says, I don’t like you. I don’t like your hair. I don’t like your clothes.
There’s nothing about you I like. You know, the way you walk, the way you talk, the whole lot, I don’t like it. And you think, gosh, you know, there’s nothing about me that this person likes. Then your reaction can come back. And that is when you’re creating future causes of suffering because of the mental reaction.
What provokes it is the self-cherishing mind. That self-cherishing mind taking care of me, not taking care of business, but taking care of me, is what provokes the reaction, is where we come back. Really? Oh, so I’m ugly. Well, I can tell you.
Let me tell you. You’re twice as ugly as I am, you know? And then we want to be bigger, better. We exaggerate even more. It’s like children, isn’t it?
When they go backwards and forwards. They say, you’re ugly. No. You’re twice as ugly. No.
You’re four times as ugly. And it goes backwards and forwards. So if we’re doing that, we may end up the winner. So you’re the ugliest, but in actual fact, spiritually, we’re the loser. And that’s what the text is pointing out.
Are we talking about materially winning in the world or spiritually winning? They’re different. They’re not the same. Right? It’s often said to check with your dharma practitioner, see whether others, ordinary people, are agreeing with you.
If they’re agreeing with you, start to worry because maybe you’re not spiritual. Because dharma and ordinary are opposite. What we’re talking about is opposite. The difference between self-cherishing and cherishing others. And if you tell others, I’m trying to cherish others, others may think, well, why are you doing that?
What’s the benefit to that? How are you going to be on top? The winner, you know, in the material world, how are going to be the winner if you’re cherishing others? So think about your friends, your enemies, the strangers as being equally kind. Not the friends being really kind, the enemies not being kind at all, and the neutral people, the strangers.
Anyway, I don’t know them. I don’t care. We have this sorting mind. Right? So we see the three as being the same because food, clothing, happiness comes directly or indirectly from all sentient beings.
Directly or indirectly. We get all our happiness, everything from sentient beings. So now is the time to start repaying that kindness, not thinking it’s because of the dollar. You know? I have my money and I bought it.
Where does the money come from? Sentient beings. How did you earn the money? Through sentient beings. If your boss or the company didn’t have a business serving sentient beings, you wouldn’t have money.
If you didn’t have a government, if you didn’t have this, if you didn’t have this. So we start to go out and out and out and thinking, how incredible. How incredible. Even when we’re born, we’re not born fully clothed. Right?
We’re born naked. We come out of the mother naked. We have nothing. So where does all the benefits come from? The clothing, the food, the education.
Where did all that come from? The kindness of the parents, the kindness of the hospitals, the doctors, the schools. There’s a lot of people involved in our lives that we’d never even thought about. We just took for granted. This is the way it is.
And then we say, my body. This is an interesting one. My body. Is it your body? Did you make your body, or did your parents make your body?
So where did your body come from? What’s the cause of the body? Sperm, ovum. Who gave the sperm? Your father.
Who gave the ovum? Your mother. Who gave the mind? You. You are the continuity of your mind.
So your mind took advantage of the form. Okay? So your continuity, your mind, your mental continuum took advantage of the sperm and the ovum, which created a form, and you took advantage of that. But is it your form? Did you create it?
So even your form is not yours. It’s created from others. So others have donated the the form to you. Your parents gave you the form. And you think, oh, well, that’s good.
All the problems can go back to them. Right? If I get a headache, it’s their fault. If I have bad back, it’s their fault. Not to use it like that, but to think, wow, how incredible.
Even my form was created by others, not by me. So the only thing created by me, my way of thinking, this thought leading to that thought leading to that thought, that’s me. That’s under my control. I can change that. But the rest, my body created by others, clothes created by others, food created by others, jobs, electricity, water, everything that we think about, all the conditions around us created by others.
Then we start to get the feeling, how incredible. Thank you very much. Nearly time for tea made by others or coffee made by others. So I hope you can start to think that, especially in these days, it’s really important, you know, to start getting a strong feeling of the kindness of others. So do you have any questions about any of that?
Yes, Ganesh. Like animals, ghosts are a good one. How can you say thank you to ghosts for haunting you? Yeah. Because we’re looking at the conditions that we have around us, and most of those conditions well, all of those conditions are created by humans.
In India, you do have, a lot of animals working, you know, the buffalos and, the donkeys in Bodh Gaya. Often see these poor donkeys with tiny bodies and big carts and pulling many people, you know, up these steep streets and being beaten. Then you feel this is really awful. Dogs and cats, the domestic ones, you can get some sense of, how they make people happy in that sense. Some people like birds, you know, so they keep birds, and they have a a good relationship with the birds.
But generally, how do you have that feeling of kindness, for animals? I guess maybe we’d have to research the food chain. What’s interesting now about the world is the number of species that are disappearing. There’s every day the species disappearing. And they’re saying that this is producing a crisis in the world because, we have a food chain.
When you’re a big bird, you’re looking to smaller as food. You are lunch. So if you’re a small bird and there’s a big bird, your lunch or your dinner. So they’re they’re looking for you to eat. So, when we have numerous species around us, they’re providing the conditions for the food to grow.
We think about the birds, the worms. You know, there’s many, beings involved in the fields and, the propagation of seeds and the pollination, this sort of thing. So I think, maybe when you investigate more deeply, you start to think it’s not possible to separate some beings from me, from the benefit that’s given to me because of food, because of, the environment that we live in. I think it appears from a scientific point of view that all species have a role to play in the health of the planet. But maybe we’re not so aware of it, you know, on a on a subtle level.
We may say, well, yes, I get the birds. I can understand the worms in the ground. But what about this creature? I mean, what about, cockroaches? You know?
What about rats? You know, things like this. There’s a rat temple in India, right, where they worship rats. They love rats. For them, rats are incredibly important.
For others, they hate rats. From the rat side, the rat just wants to be happy, not to suffer. Right? So they’re objects towards whom we can practice compassion, like the rat temple. We could generate compassion towards the rats, or we could generate anger and aversion towards the rats.
The rat is the same. In actual fact, the friend, the enemy, the stranger, same. The basis is the same, human being. Right? If I look at three people sitting here, I can say, friend, I don’t know you.
Enemy, I can say like that. So I like you, I don’t like you, and I don’t care about you. This is the normal for the three. But from the person’s own side, just human being. Wanting happiness, not wanting suffering.
So from the side of the animals, it’s the same. Wanting happiness, not wanting suffering. So you can benefit them. You can help them. You can want to repay their kindness because they haven’t always been that animal.
They’ve probably been your best friend. If you believe in reincarnation, your best friend, your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, they’ve been related to you. They’ve been connected to you in other lives. But that’s why I said, this way of thinking, takes a very much broader path. You need to broaden your mind in order to incorporate all sentient beings as having been connected to you in a beneficial way.
But it’s good to start thinking that way. That animal wasn’t always that animal. That cockroach wasn’t always that cockroach. That cockroach was also a butterfly. You know?
It’s interesting to look at a butterfly, you know, in the garden, sort of fluttering around. You think, oh, how beautiful. And that butterfly could die, and within a few weeks, it could be a cockroach, and then we’d you know? Just that immediate response to the form is very interesting. The shape and the color, and we respond so quickly.
I really like, I really don’t like. Cockroach, butterfly. Just like that. Right? So cockroach, you’re looking for the shoe.
The butterfly, you think, oh, how sweet. How lovely. How nice to have a butterfly in the garden. Alright? Even if it’s a black butterfly, still it’s beautiful.
But if it’s, the caterpillar eating your bush, you may not like it. So this is where we’re starting to investigate the mind, The causes of happiness, the causes of suffering. It all comes from the mind. And so these immediate reactions to forms we don’t like cause the the happiness or the suffering. Which is it?
Of course, causes the suffering. So try and I think maybe through scientific means because now there’s a lot of research into what we all need around the world in order to be happy. We need every being in some way. We remove a certain class of beings, it causes problems. It causes instability.
So I think we need to start thinking about that, the relationship, the interrelationship we all have with each other, that we need every being, not to think of removing one being. I mean, I wonder what mosquitoes play, what part mosquitoes play. You know? Because now we want to remove mosquitoes because of malaria. But I wonder what part they play, what we’ll discover afterwards when mosquitoes don’t exist anymore.
Then they’ll say, oh, no. You know? Those mosquitoes were feeding blah blah, and now that blah blah is becoming extinct because we don’t have mosquitoes anymore. This is what’s happening. It’s happened in Australia.
We’ve made terrible mistakes in Australia. The cane toad frogs, you know, go up to Brisbane and experience these huge things, this spit poison. You know, they’re massive. They were introduced to remove something, but now they’ve proliferated and now and they haven’t learned from this. Now I read recently, they’re going to introduce something else to try and remove something up there.
We don’t learn. You know? There’s no balance. It all goes crazy. Rabbits.
We had a problem with rabbits. Right? So then we tried to control the rabbits, and then this, and then this. When everything’s in balance, everything works. But when we start playing around removing species, the whole thing starts to collapse.
So I think we need to investigate this more deeply. Don’t we need all beings in order to have a harmony? Okay. Time for tea. You deserve it.
So we’ve got a half hour break, twelve o’clock. We’ll ring the gong, and then we do twelve to one. And please, if you have any more questions, you can ask after the break. There’s also a discussion group after lunch, so you get to discuss amongst yourselves. I don’t believe in that at all.
Right? And it’s important to be able to say, I don’t get it, and I don’t believe in it. I don’t know how to put it into practice. Whatever. I don’t mind at all.
We can talk about it. So, after lunch, you have a an opportunity to discuss and then to bring your questions back, and then we can discuss it more. Okay? So, please, thank you. Have a cup of tea, coffee, whatever.
Apart from the sock. No questions? All clear. Okay. So then now we’re switching to the the meditation.
So does anybody not know about Chenrezig? Okay. So the visualization of Chenrezig, there’s we have two available. On the right, we have the thousand arm Chenrezig, which is also the statue or the statue below. That’s a thousand arm Chenrezig.
And to the left of that one is the four-arm Chenrezig. So the visualization for this practice is particularly the thousand arm Chenrezig. So this is standing with a thousand arms and a thousand eyes. So then you might ask, as we do, why a thousand arms and a thousand eyes? So, originally, Chenrezig was an ordinary person wanting to benefit others with compassion, worked with compassion for a long, long time, looked back over time, how much have I removed suffering?
Very little. So then developed four arms. Work very hard. Over time, look back. How much have I benefited sentient beings?
How much have I removed suffering? Very little. So then broke into a thousand arms and a thousand eyes. So this is indicative of having so much compassion, really wants to benefit you, really wants to remove your suffering, but you have to connect with Chenrezig in order for that to happen. Coming undone.
Okay. So it’s up to you to develop your love and compassion. Chenrezig can’t develop your love and compassion for you. You connect with him for him to inspire you to develop your own love and compassion. So he provides the inspiration.
He’s not the creator of your love and compassion. He inspires you. And then, Chenrezig has a particular connection with Tārā. I feel like I’m kinda undone here. Okay.
You know the connection between Chenrezig and Tārā? Okay. So there’s two stories about Tārā. I prefer the story, the true story, that she was a woman who, developed qualities and became a Buddha. I prefer this story.
The other story, the tantric story, is that, Chenrezig, again, the same Chenrezig, looking back over time, is thinking, well, how much did I benefit sentient beings? How much suffering did I remove? And a tear came from his eye. And in that tear, there was a lotus, and Tārā appeared. And then Tārā said, don’t worry.
I’m always here for you. I’m going to help you to remove suffering and to, enlighten sentient beings. So it’s said that Tārā and Chenrezig have a very close connection on the tantric level. Tārā is enlightened energy, enlightened activity, wanting to benefit others, wanting to help them, in their enlightened activity. And Chenrezig, particularly for compassion, bodhicitta, and wanting to remove obstacles to developing bodhicitta.
So this particular meditation was written by Lama Zopa, like I said yesterday, thirty five years ago, And, we’re using blissful white nectar to remove each one of the obstacles to each one of the verses. So I thought for this retreat, it would be really nice to do some talking, some meditation, because otherwise, we just talk all day and talk and talk and talk. And then often, you don’t feel that you’ve meditated. So when you meditate, you get the feeling of connecting with your jewel, with your inner wisdom, and developing that inner wisdom. So I think it’s also important to do meditation.
I don’t know why, but this is definitely coming loose. Okay. So to go back to the beginning, so we’re going to start on page a hundred and fifty nine with the seven-limb prayer. And then the next page, we do the mandala offering and then the request, and then we’re going to do the meditation. So when it comes to the actual practice, I’ll read it to you, and you’re doing the visualization of Chenrezig with the nectar coming down.
And as the nectar comes down, removes obstacles to the first verse. We’re we’re concentrating on the first verse, determining to obtain the greatest possible benefit from all sentient beings. So if you have any obstacles, any mental obscurations that would stop you from having the ability to do that, you want to use the nectar to remove those obscurations, those delusions, those negative karmas, those negative habits. So particularly, we’re focusing on the first verse, but I’ll go all the way through.