Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 87-minute teaching, Venerable Lobsang Namgyel explores the sixth verse of the Eight Verses on Thought Transformation, focusing on how to transform harm into spiritual opportunity. After opening with a visualization practice involving Chenrezig and a seven-limb prayer with mandala offering, he shifts into an extended discussion on pride in modern society—distinguishing between healthy self-confidence and destructive arrogance. He uses concrete examples (the fly circumambulating Boudhanath Stūpa, stories of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching style) to illustrate how even small virtuous acts accumulate karma, and how low self-esteem is equally damaging. The core teaching addresses the sixth verse: when someone you have helped then harms you, regard them as a guru. Namgyel unpacks the mixed motivations behind generosity (expectation, attachment, projection), then walks through practical scenarios—lending money, giving gifts, workplace dynamics—showing how to recognize impure motivation after harm arises and transform the betrayal into compassion rather than anger or victimhood. He covers maintaining bodhicitta through setbacks, checking daily vows, understanding karma as personal responsibility, and the role of wisdom alongside compassion in giving. This is pitched at serious practitioners engaged with Lamrim principles and the bodhisattva path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011 10 03 Ven Namgyel – 08 – Mon 3rd Oct.mp3
UUID: 8455b750-5b0f-4aca-b7cf-9ff6c7d8cee3
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: 8 Verses Thought Transformation (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Date: 2011-10-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 87.7 minutes
Words: ~10,228
Okay. Same as yesterday. We’re going to start off with Page hundred and fifty nine. So we start out by visualizing at the level of your forehead at a distance of a body’s length in front of you, your root guru. So if you don’t have a root guru, then you just think, Chenrezig is your inspiration.
Avalokiteśvara. So having manifested a thousand arms, wanting to benefit all sentient beings with love and compassion. And he’s standing on a moon disc which rests upon a lotus. So you think about the meaning of Chenrezig and how we also are trying to develop the same meaning, the same bodhicitta, taking responsibility. I want to benefit others.
I want to help. So I need an inspiration, and my inspiration is Chenrezig. Try to visualize, Chenrezig as small as possible, not big. So the smaller the visualization, then the easier it is to maintain. And if you can’t see anything, then you just think, Chenrezig’s in front of me.
Even if you see a small detail, you rejoice and you think, how incredible. And then remembering Chenrezig, we recite the seven-limb prayer. Reverendly, I prostrate to guru Avalokiteśvara with my body, speech, mind. I present clouds of every type of offering, actual and imagined. I declare all my negative actions accumulated since beginningless time and rejoice in the merit of all holy and ordinary beings.
Please remain until the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of dharma for living beings. Because of the merits of myself and others, may the two bodhicittas ripen, and may I receive the great enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. And then the mandal offering transforming everything into perfection, and then offering that perfection to all the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas. This ground anointed with perfumes, strewn with flowers, adorned with Mount Meru, four continents, the sun, and the moon, I imagine this as a Buddha field and offer it. May all living beings enjoy this pure land.
May the guru’s life be long. May all beings equaling space receive happiness and comfort. May I and all others without exception accumulate merit, purify obscurations, and quickly receive enlightenment. Precious guru, please grant me all realizations of the path from guru devotion to the completion of training, the unified vajra state. Please grant me blessings that my mind will become Dharma, that Dharma will become the path, that hindrances in the path may not occur, that I may cease all wrong conceptions and receive immediately the two precious bodhicittas.
Idam Guru Ratna Mandala Kam Nirya Tayami. And then think that guru Avalokiteśvara is very happy with you, very pleased with your request, and together with the moon disc and the lotus, moves from in front of you to the crown of your head. Radiating light in every direction, including to you, inspiring you to be able to achieve bodhicitta, to be able to purify and remove the obscurations, the delusions, the negative karmas. So feeling totally inspired. You feel, I want to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, But in order to do that, I need to achieve something myself.
I need to transform my mind, remove my obscurations, my delusions, my negative karma in order to benefit others. So the work I’m doing is in relation to others. I transform myself to benefit others. And then taking three deep breaths, breathing deeply into the abdomen. As you breathe in, breathing in space, openness.
If anything appears in that space, then let go of it. Breathe it out. And then breathing in space, openness. If anything appears, a sound, a thought, an emotion, breathe it out. Let it go.
Just three more minutes. Being aware of spaciousness as you’re breathing in. If anything appears in that space, let go and breathe it out. Gradually becoming aware of the room we’re sitting in, the cushion you’re sitting on, and the meditation we’ve just been doing. So good morning everybody.
A beautiful day in Adelaide, one of the few. Any questions from yesterday? Any problems? No? You’re all comfortable.
You’re not comfortable. You’re not comfortable. Oh, you would never have a problem with me. I I completely understand that. What?
Whatever. If there’s something bugging you, it’s better to say it, isn’t it? Yeah. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. But we’re supposed to have pride in our society, aren’t we? You know, aren’t you proud of what you’ve done?
That sort of thing. So I think there is a promotion of pride in society. But then when we think from a Dharma point of view, what does pride do to us? You know? And and it’s very relevant to me because I always think when I’m teaching, if I’m very proud of teaching, then, you sort of separate yourself from the people that you’re teaching, and then you can’t be as beneficial as if you remove the pride.
So I think pride is something also that can become quite subtle. It can be quite gross in the beginning, and then you remove it, and then it can become quite subtle. And so the Tibetans often say, you can be sitting in a cave, you know, proudly doing your meditation and wondering what the people in the village are saying. You know? Have I become famous now?
You know, and this relates also to the eight worldly dharmas. But, what are they saying about me? Do people think I’m a good person? Do I think I’m a good person? So then it comes to, okay, the good self esteem, good self confidence, pride.
Now where’s the line between the two? Because for sure, we need good self esteem, good confidence, but then when it goes into pride, it becomes an obstacle. It becomes a problem. So where’s the line that we cross into pride? And I think the line is when we’re exaggerating.
It’s okay to say, you know, I I can do that well, as long as you can also say, I can’t do something well. You know, in our evaluation of who and what we are, we have to be able to say, yes, I can do that. Because otherwise, in Lamrim, it says, you’re being lazy. If you say I can’t do something, but you can, you’re being lazy. So we need to own up and say, yes, I can do that.
Not in an arrogant way, not in a proud way, but just, yes, I can do it. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s when it’s exaggerated. Can you, can you lead meditations? And you said, well, I don’t know.
You know, I’ve done a little bit before. Yeah. I I guess I could. That would be okay. But if I say, can you lead meditations?
And then you say, can I lead meditations? You know, you should hear my meditations. I’m the best in the world at the you know, then we’ve gone into the exaggeration. Because for some people, you’ll be good. For some people, you won’t be good.
There’s always going to be that judgment from others. So are you the best? How can you say that? And so to keep this ability to be open, communicating from the heart without guile, without being sneaky, without being devious, without manipulating. This is all quite difficult in our society because we’re supposed to go a bit like this in many jobs.
Isn’t it? It’s difficult to just be straight on honest. But from your own side, as a dharma practitioner, you need to know who and what as we were saying yesterday, you need to know who and what you are without the exaggeration. And the exaggeration works both ways. I’m the worst, you know?
And the other way, I’m incredible. So avoiding those two extremes, knowing yourself. So that this is I think that as we’re saying, it’s a difficult dharma job because our mirror up to now has been ordinary sentient beings. So when you’re mirroring with ordinary sentient beings, they’re mirroring saṃsāra, and we’re trying to agree with saṃsāra because that’s the mirror. But now we’re using dharma as the mirror.
We’re using Chenrezig and perfection as the mirror. And so when we mirror when we look in that mirror and we say, well, am I fully compassionate? No. Do I have no compassion? No.
I have a level, you know, between zero and ten, where’s your level? You know? If it was perfect, you’d be bodhisattva. So am I perfect? No.
But am I aiming for perfection? Yes. So this is how you can work on, looking at the situation from different points of view without exaggerating, either very negatively or very positively. Very positively exaggeration would then become in Dharma negative because you’re exaggerating into the negative. Right?
So I think to think, meditate on the disadvantages of pride. What what’s the disadvantage? There must be an advantage. Yes. Right.
Yes. Well, maybe we use the affirmations and then we, you know, we go too far. You can get the Louise Hay book of affirmations, you know, and sort of I’m like the best, and and we can go too far. There’s yeah. Maybe you needed it for a period of time to have the confidence to do what you needed to do.
But now when you look back over what you’ve done, what you’ve done should give you the confidence to go forward into the future, then you don’t need a false pride. You know? But when we are not very confident, we’re not quite sure if we can do it, then we have to look like we can do it. You know? So maybe that’s where the the pride comes in.
It’s probably something like you need a boat to get across the river, but once you reach the other side of the river, you don’t pick up the boat and put it on your head, and then carry the boat across the land. Maybe it’s that sort of example. So the pride gets you to a certain place, but once it gets you there, drop it. Don’t keep holding onto it if you know that now it can create obstacles and problems for you, which is what pride does. Like I said, pride puts you up there on the mountain, and you’re saying, but where’s all the people?
You know? I thought there were going to be people up here. And yet there’s another proud person on that mountain, and there’s one on that mountain, and they’re all lonely. So pride is a separation. It’s a loneliness.
We’re we’re too pride to knock on the person’s door, you know, to say, hello. How are you? We can be too proud to do that, too proud to let people into our house because we’re not sure if it’s clean enough, That sort of thing. You know, pride can actually be, a separation from others. So I also don’t believe in destroying ourselves.
You know, that when somebody says, you’re doing a good job, you say, oh, no, no, no. I’m not. I also don’t believe in that. I think that’s also false pride, you know? Because if you’re doing a good job, you should be able to say, well, yeah, it was okay.
It’s not the best, but it was good. So if you’re exaggerating, you’re saying it’s the best. If you’re exaggerating, you’re saying it’s not. It’s awful. And that’s also not true.
Often we do that in society. You know, that when somebody says a compliment, you did well, people say, no. I didn’t. I say, why are you saying this? You know?
You did well. They say, no. No. I didn’t. This is also negative exaggeration.
We need to be careful of that too because that is, diminishing your positive potential. You have the potential to become enlightened, and you’re diminishing that potential by saying, I’m bad, I’m not, I’m you know, you’re beating it. Talking about positive potential, this this will give you, maybe a little bit of insight. This example is often given as the power of the object. So we have Boudhanath stupa, which was built by a woman.
I think she was a pig herder or a chicken farmer or something. I think pigs. And she had a few sons, and she wanted to build a stupa in Bodhunath in Nepal underneath Kopan Monastery, below Kopan Monastery. So she decided she needed some land. And she went to the king, and she said, I need some land.
And he said, okay. I’ll give you a piece of land the size of a piece of cloth. So show me a piece of cloth, and I will give you a piece of land that size. So she brought a piece of cloth, and she says, this size is okay? And he said, yes.
So she put the piece of cloth on the land, and she kept turning it over and turning it over and turning it over, and she ended up with a huge piece of land. And I think he probably thought, you know, she’s a little bit tricky, but anyway, motivation’s good. So she started building this stupa. Incredibly difficult. It stopped raining.
So in Nepal, there’s no rain at all to make this stupa. We’re talking about a very big stupa. So then they used to lay out cloth at night, and in the morning, they’d wring out the cloth, which would give them the dew from the moisture in the air. And, through all the difficulties, they built this massive stupa. So Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, this is one of the most powerful stupas in the world because of the motivation of how it was built.
It’s very pure. It was only to benefit others. And I think even she died and the sons continued in the memory of the mother. So Rinpoche always goes to the stupa and make prayers of this stupa. And he says, in this life, these prayers will be fulfilled.
So it’s a very powerful object with many holy objects inside, including the relics of the last Buddha, not Śākyamūni Buddha, the one before, Kāśyapa. So it’s raining as it does in monsoon, and around Boudhanath stupa, the water fills up. And I’d heard this story about how the water fills up, but one day, I was with Ani Pema from Kopan, and we were looking at statues for, I think Australia, one of the centers in Australia. We were down in Boudha, and it started raining. And we’re waiting for the rain to stop, and the water’s coming up and up and up and up.
And it got to, you know, nearly a meter deep like this. It just fills up. And so then everything’s floating on the water because of how much water there is. So the story is that it starts raining. There’s a a lot of, water flowing around the stupa, and there’s a piece of, cow shit, which is on that water, and then there’s a fly looking for lunch.
So we look for croissants. They look for something else. And the fly is, you know, flying around, and it sees this shit, and it lands on it, and so it’s circumambulating the stupa while it’s having lunch. So it’s going around and around and around. That fly in the next life was born as a human and, developed incredible qualities of love and compassion.
And then they asked a special lama, how does this person have such good qualities? And he said, well, in the last life, he was a fly floating around the stupa. So the story is told, one, to show the power of the object, but also to show that even a fly can achieve something incredible. So why can’t I? Right?
So that’s where you go when you’re pushing yourself down. When you’re saying, oh, I can’t do it. You say, but even the fly, you know, even didn’t know it was circumambulating a stupa, but incredible benefit just by going around the stupa. We know what we’re doing, so even more benefit from what we’re doing. Yeah?
So when you’ve got low self esteem, low confidence, you think about the fly. When it’s exaggerated, you think, oh, sitting alone. Who am I going to benefit when I’m sitting alone? And you like benefiting people. Right?
This is your nature. You want to help others. So then the danger in helping others for all of us is pride, conceit, arrogance, you know, this sort of look at me, you know. So understanding that that creates an obstacle to helping others to developing bodhicitta, then, don’t go to the other extreme. I’m terrible.
I’m bad. I’m awful. You think, no. Even the fly could become an an amazing being. You know?
And then there was a a bird, who was sitting in a Lama’s house in a cage and heard all these dharma texts, and in the next life born as a human, and from two years of age was able to recite all those dharma texts. There’s many, stories about this. So this gives you encouragement depending on which way you’re going. Heading down, you’ve got to bring your mind back up. Heading too far up, you’ve got to bring your mind back down.
Always looking for the middle way, the the medium. You know? But I think rejoice in the good that you’ve done. This is very important that we shouldn’t negate the good. Rejoice in the good that you’ve done and think that was really good.
And then look for how to improve it. And the improvement comes when you remove the pride. You know? I do what I do because this is who I am. Don’t need to be proud of that, you know?
Just this is who I am. This is what I do. This is what bodhisattvas do. Right? But then they don’t they don’t sort of go, wow.
I’m so incredible for doing that. Without the object of compassion, you can’t do what you do. Right? So it doesn’t exist from your own side alone. It depends upon the other side that needs help.
So in order for you to help, you need the other side, the the the one that needs help. Right? So there’s the helper and the one that needs help. So you don’t exist alone. You you must exist in relation to others.
So then they need help. You help. Where’s the pride in that? Is it necessary? You know?
Because you’ll separate yourself, then how are going to help others? You’re gonna have to come down from that mountain. Help, go all the way back up. You know? That’s really exhausting going between pride and helping others.
And to be of the maximum benefit to help others, drop the pride. Have confidence. Think about all the good things that all of you have done. Rejoice in the good things. The negative things are the things to know, to remove, to purify.
We need to know both. Yeah? That’s good. Thank you. Yes, Jack?
Oh. Oh, thanks. It happens every now and again. You know? They’re not always bad answers.
Some good, some bad. Some good, some bad. You know? Not always bad, not always good. Depends on the person listening.
That’s all. I would guess that you could have a really bad answer, and somebody says, wow. That was a great answer. I think. So what it tells me when somebody says, oh, that was good.
That’s the quality of their mind. That shows the quality of Jack’s mind. Right? So when you have a positive mind, then you see positive things. So when you hear something and you say, oh, that was good.
This is your quality. You’re increasing your positive potential towards enlightenment by seeing things in a good way. When we when we keep judging and criticizing and we have pride, and we have anger, and we have, you know, the delusions, we see things in a negative way. Our mind changes, and we put the dark sunglasses on even when we’re inside the house. The red sunglasses for being angry, the green sunglasses for jealousy and envy.
And we can only see things in that way. That’s where delusion forces us into, you know? We have no choice. But when you’re seeing things in a positive way, rejoice. You have to rejoice, you know?
And you keep thinking, well, that was a that was a good thought. That was a nice way of thinking. That encourages more positive thinking. And sometimes positive thinking doesn’t last for very long. So that’s why we need to quickly rejoice, increase the potential of the positive dharma thoughts.
You know, we can have positive thoughts out there in I must have an iPhone. Right? Like that. And we think that’s a great thought, But I’m I’m talking about positive spiritual thoughts. You know, when they come, then you think, oh, that was good.
You catch it and you say, that was good. Rejoice. Yeah? Anything else? Oh, Geshe-la.
Where did you appear from? The air conditioning duct. You dropped down from you beamed I think you beamed in, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yes. Yes. I think have a good motivation. You have to be very careful that you’re not saying something in order to manipulate.
Because often in society, compliments are in order to manipulate or to, get inside, isn’t it? There’s a there’s a barrier, a fence. And so, compliments are like the Trojan horse, you know, where you go inside the horse and you get through the fence and then you come out and you say, oh, now I’m inside. That was that was nice and sneaky and devious. So we have to be careful, I think, when we’re giving compliments that it’s not for our purpose if it’s for the purpose of the other.
That we see that they have done something good, but they can’t see it. You know, actually, over the years, I’ve always said, Lama Zopa Rinpoche never says thank you. You know? This used to be true, but it changed about a year or two ago, so I can’t say it anymore. But when I first met him, I’d I’d go and buy things for him, you know, a Satsa, Buddha image, different things, and I give it.
And then the next person who went to see him would be carrying it out. You know? So you give it to him. He wouldn’t say thank you. And the next thing it’s going out the door, and you think, my precious my my precious object, you know, going out the door.
So this was really a teaching for me coming from the West. Being with Lama Zopa was very stretching, because in the West we have a way about us. Thank you, please, you know, all this sort of thing. So, you know, somebody gives you a precious object, here you are, Rinpoche would never say thank you because the benefit is for you. You’re offering it, so you’re getting the karma.
Now he’s in debt. You put him in debt, karmically. So now you’ve made a bit of a problem for the other person in a way, and now they need to do something for you to repay your kindness. So this is interesting when you start thinking about dharma and karma. And so many, many years, I’d used to give things, give things, then I’d always see them going out the door.
And then one day, I thought, I know what to do. I got a small Tārā, went to see Rinpoche, put it on his table without him seeing, and left it there. There were other things on the table and left the small Tārā. And I talked to him and went out the room. And two or three days later, I saw him again, and he said to me, by the way, do you know who put this Tārā here?
And I said, well, yes, it was me. And he said, oh, okay. I’m sure then it was out the door. But he couldn’t give it away until he knew it was his. So this is how precise he is about everything, that you can’t just assume this is yours because it’s on your table.
He had to make sure it was his. So I always used to say, you know, Rinpoche never says thank you. Never used to give compliments. And then at this year, last year, this year, the November course, I think I said this in the November course. Maybe he was upstairs and listening.
And so, I was offering a cutter to Rinpoche, and he was leaving to go to Darjeeling. And he put both hands like this on my back. My batteries are running down. Yeah. It’d be so much easier if you could just put batteries in yourself, and then you’d be okay, isn’t it?
So I think this thing of compliments in society is a little it’s a little bit complicated, because we want to be nice people, you know? Oh, that’s a that’s a nice shirt, or that and that. You know? So we sort of do this sort of thing. And are we looking to get something out of it?
Are we ingratiating ourselves, trying to get inside that person’s mind. Is it for their benefit? Is it for our benefit? I think you always have to go back to motivation. What’s your prime motivation?
You know? So be be aware of motivation. And if you can’t be aware through the day of your motivation because there’s many things going on, be aware of the motivation when you get up. This is the most important thing. Get up, have a motivation for the day, and then that motivation touches everything throughout the day.
So if you motivate with bodhicitta, you’re living the day with bodhicitta. So your compliments are with bodhicitta. Your work is with bodhicitta. Your cooking is with bodhicitta. You sleep with bodhicitta.
You know? Your motivation is then mixed with every activity. Whereas if you just crawl out of bed, you know, one eye open, Oh gosh. You know, I just got to survive. Where’s the coffee?
Your motivation for today is survival. It’s no more than that. And so we have to be careful to have a good motivation for the day. And it could be interesting to have different motivations on different days. Today is bodhicitta.
Tomorrow could be compassion. May you not suffer. The next day could be love. May you be happy. The next day could be wisdom.
Seeing the emptiness of everything. This is a good one also when you’re working for others. They’re empty. I’m empty. The op you know, the, object you’re giving or the action you’re doing is empty, doesn’t exist from its own side.
It’s dependent. Therefore, why am I, being being proud about this? Like that. So, I think if you’re not used to motivation, decide Monday is this motivation, Tuesday is this, Wednesday is this, and maybe do this on a on a weekly basis. Sunday should be, bodhicitta motivation, for sure.
Because if it’s your day off, you should put effort, like I said before, into bodhicitta, wanting others to be happy, not wanting them to suffer. I take responsibility. I’m gonna put myself out. I’m not going to be lazy. I’m going to, have a compassionate attitude.
So if somebody calls and says, I need help, or would you like to do this with me, you’re considering more their needs than your needs. I think this is important for the Sunday rather than you meditate on Sunday, and you take the phone off the hook, you lock the door, and you cut yourself off from people, from others, or you do things that you want to do. Let’s go to this the cinema, and then you have this whole thing about which film to see, and, basically, you go to see the film that you want to see rather than they want to see. There’s the the self-cherishing arising. And so take Sunday as an example of how you would like to live the whole week.
We should be living like this all the time. But on Sunday, when there’s maybe less stress, less less to do, we have more space, we have more opportunity to do it. And then it might come in your mind, oh, this person’s so kind. You know? Sometimes it comes into my mind.
Oh, way back, you know, I was somewhere else. Oh, that person was really kind. And then I write them an email, like, month later. Must come as a big surprise because they’ve probably forgotten by then. But thank you so much for doing whatever you did.
But then I know if it’s later, it’s not based on, manipulation, wanting something out of them because I’m not there anymore. So that works for me. I tend to say thank you after I’ve left to make sure that there’s there’s nothing for me in it. You know? But always check motivation.
And if you have a good motivation, do it in the best possible way, and then dedicate the merit. You’ve made somebody happy, hopefully, unless it’s a big struggle. Oh, you look good today. No. I don’t.
I look terrible. No. You look good. No. I don’t.
I really you know, and it goes on and on. I mean, then it’s like a nightmare, you know, trying to convince somebody they look good. So you’ve got some merit because you’ve helped somebody, you’ve you’ve tried to benefit them, then dedicate that for all sentient beings to be happy, not to have suffering. Yeah. Compliments are it’s a difficult one because we can create, pride in others, false pride.
We need to be very careful not to have it as a habit. You just say it to anybody, you know? Oh, you look great today, and and they don’t. But you’re just saying it. They know they don’t, you know they don’t, but you say, oh, you look great today.
That’s not what we should be doing. That’s telling lies to make somebody feel good. You know? So look for the opportunity when you can truthfully say somebody’s doing well, somebody’s looking good, or whatever it is. And remember, it’s subjective.
It’s only from your side. Right? It’s not existent, truly existent. It’s coming from you that you see them looking good, or others see you looking good may not exist. Right.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s really difficult because, you know, if you’re if you’re honest and open about everything, oh, cut the bullshit, you know.
Don’t tell me that sort of thing. That’s not true. That can make working with people really difficult. Right? Doesn’t go down well in most offices because this deviousness, the, you know, the manipulation, it’s in our society.
So then, you have to be really careful from your own side, but then you start to recognize they’re not being careful from their side at all. Then your compassion arises. Oh gosh. Imagine being like that. You know?
Because they’re creating so much suffering for themselves, and I’m not. So you’re not in a superior position, but you’re in a better karmic position. And then using your compassion towards them, you try to find ways to minimize the damage. If you don’t believe in it, they’re not a liar. That’s one good thing.
You know, like how I said, if you don’t think they’re a thief, they’re not a thief. Until you label thief, there’s no thief. If you don’t believe the lie, they’re not they’re not a liar in the sense of the four parts are not complete. The objects there, they did tell the lie. They had the motivation to tell the lie, but you didn’t believe it.
So you take away the some of the power of the negative karma. This is the good thing about being aware. You are reducing others’ negative karma towards you even though they’re doing it. And then if you can get close to them, if they respect you, if you do get along with them, there is a possibility of affecting them. You know, you don’t need to say stuff like this to me because I don’t need it.
You know, you can once you become friendly, you can sort of try and give advice to change the direction a little bit. But I think in, businesses, there’s often a culture. It’s quite a an ingrained culture to be a certain way. And if you’re going to keep your job, if you’re going to work in that culture, have your best motivation, do your best, and try to get along with people so that they have a feeling you are a spiritual person. So that in some way, when they need spiritual advice, they need a spiritual person, they feel an affinity for you.
I mean, that’s what bodhisattvas do. They try to get close to others so they can help them. Again, if we get irritable and angry, we separate ourselves and we’re out we’re out we’re out of society. Then how can you help sentient beings if you can’t get along with them? Yes.
For yourself. Yes. Yes. Yes. It’s difficult, isn’t it?
Because we’re not brought up in a society where we say karma, karma, karma, karma. You see it in all the films now. Oh, that’s your karma. You know? There’s your karma.
But without understanding what karma is. So I think that having a deeper understanding of karma and maybe meditating on karma, you know, in the two hourly checking that I said is possible to do, what I often advise students to do is take all their vows. And if you don’t have vows, you have the ten virtues, the ten non virtues. So if you have vows, you need to become aware of your vows. So if you took vows of not killing, not stealing, not lying, no sexual misconduct, no intoxicants, there’s five things that you should be avoiding if you took all five.
Right? So, you wake up two hours later, you check. Did I kill in the last two hours? Now most people would say, of course not. You know, I’m not Arnold Schwarzenegger with the guns, you know, going and that’s what we think when we say killing.
But were we aware of the little ants? Just that level of killing. And then on the positive side, did I save lives? So did I avoid killing in the last two hours? Did I save lives in the last two hours?
Then the next one, stealing. So did I take anything that wasn’t offered? The pen from the bank, you know, that wasn’t on the chain. I just put it in my pocket. It’s easy to do.
Or some paper from work, just for myself. I just doodling as I put it in my my bag. Not talking about robbing banks, but small things. Usually, we’re dharma practitioners, we’re down to the small things. So did I take something not offered?
But also, did I protect others’ possessions? Did I think like that? Are you all okay? You know? Lying?
So am I using my speech to help and benefit others? We find this, you know, in society. But am I doing that, what they’re doing, or am I doing the opposite? So which which side of the fence am I on? And sometimes we might find we go over the fence, and we do things that we’re not proud of.
But now we know, whereas before we didn’t know, you know. So gradually, we’re evolving into what we want to be through checking the principles. In the beginning, this is the very basic principles, The killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, intoxicants. This is very basic. And often people say, oh, it’s so basic.
I don’t even need it. But actually, this is where we need to go. Speech is very important. Am I using my speech to divide? Divisive speech, gossip.
Just blah blah blah blah blah blah without any meaning at all. Very easy to do. We can sit in coffee shops for hours going on and on and on, and it usually comes around to politics. So Julia Gillard, you know, will she be elected next, and which party, and blah blah blah, and I hate her, and I like him, and and then we can start fighting over politics. And so the conversation can often become quite negative because of gossip.
Just wasting time and then it becomes negative. So do I use the opportunity for meaningful speech or meaningless? Which way is my mind headed? These are very simple things that we do on a daily basis. So I think very important to take the vows that you have.
If we have bodhisattva vows, we have a lot of vows. If we have tantric vows, we have even more. So take all the vows, and every two hours, check-in, and this can take a week or a couple of weeks or more, but just become aware of what you should be avoiding and what you should be promoting. And in that way, you start being aware of your karmic connection with your world and why you’re experiencing what you’re experiencing. Nothing is a coincidence.
There is no bad luck, good luck. You created it. You wrote the story. You’re the star. You’re the producer, the director.
You’re the writer. You’re everything. You know? So then you think, wow, you know, I’m everything. But look at the mess look at the mess I’ve made of it.
It’s a disaster movie. You know? Everything’s a problem. So you can write the disaster movie, but you don’t have to be in the disaster movie for the rest of your life. You can change.
Or you can be, in the the thriller, you know, the thriller movie, you know, like this. And you think, how did I get into a movie like this? This is not what I wanted to be in at all. I saw romantic comedy was sort of what where I thought I was going, but somehow I’m in this sort of thriller, you know? So we can feel like we’re in the wrong movie.
And how do I get into the right movie? It’s not about changing house, changing cities, changing countries, because I tell you, you pack your bags and you go with it. It’s about changing your karma, removing what you see that you don’t like, so never do it again. If the things that you found that you don’t like, you’ve done it. You’re experiencing it because you’ve done it.
And so now, make it a principle not to do it ever again. So what do you do? bodhicitta. How do you do it? We have the eight verses as the example.
Yeah. Well, if you drink enough, it’s definitely going to affect you, I think. It’s not include it’s not included in the vow, and also smoking’s not included in the vow because smoking didn’t exist at Buddhist in Buddhist time. There was no tobacco. But if you’re serious about it, you should include smoking.
You know? Because if you smoke enough I’m not talking about smoking. I’m talking about smoking. There’s different types of smoking. Right?
Well, one type is definitely included, because that will intoxicate you. But people think ordinary smoking will not intoxicate you. But, actually, it affects your winds and your channels, the subtle energies, and it makes it very difficult to have a clear mind and to meditate. So for for those of you who smoke cigarettes, then I think if you’re a Dharma practitioner and you’re serious about your Dharma, you have to head towards giving up. I’m not saying you have to give up now, but I’m saying have a program, have a plan in order to give up.
Because anything that changes your mind, intoxicates your mind, means you’re creating more ignorance, karma, more inability to see things clearly. And the whole thing about intoxicants is your antidoting wisdom. So think. What do you want? More ignorance, more wisdom?
So by doing what you’re doing, even coffee, strong coffee, you know, many strong coffees, you know, you know, and then you’re driving, you know, so that the horn’s coming up because you’ve had so many coffees. That can be dangerous. Dangerous to yourself and dangerous to others, isn’t it? So we don’t normally think at at that level. We’re normally thinking major intoxicants.
But when we come down to the fine level, yes, you can include strong coffee, smoking, cigarettes, because, for sure, they have an effect on your body or mind. But if you don’t take the vow, no intoxicants, then you don’t have to do this. You take the vow, you have to take it seriously. You have to start working on, what am I gonna do with this? I drink tea.
You know? I don’t think it’s a problem. Tibetans definitely drink tea. But if you find that it’s affecting your mind, you know. Should you stop or not?
Or should you reduce or not? You decide, you know? So Buddha gives a lot of leeway. You know, Buddha’s not there on your on your shoulder with a stick saying, you know, you had a cup of tea, I saw that, you know, it’s not like that. You decide whether it’s good for you or not.
Right? If we remove all the things that give us pleasure, we’re gonna be very bleak. Take out the chocolate, take out the tea and coffee, and, you know, take it all out, And you sort of sit at home and think, oh, being a Buddhist may be good, but not fun, you know? You have to go from the fun and gradually change things. Not give up everything like at New Year, make the long list, give up everything and then by the second of January, you’re so bleak and depressed that you’ve gotta start something.
So you start eating chocolate, drinking, smoking simultaneously because you just can’t stand this, purgatory anymore. So I think as dharma practitioners, don’t suddenly change everything. Gradually, change the things that are affecting you in a negative way. Why would you harm yourself? I think this is the question to ask.
Why would you hurt and harm yourself? And that’s what intoxicants do to you. So you are harming yourself. That’s what the intoxication is. It’s a poison.
By taking poison, you intoxicate yourself. There’s mild poisons and there’s stronger poisons. But intoxication is poison. Right? Why am I doing this to myself?
If I if I have respect and reverence for my potential, I wouldn’t want to harm it. The body that is supporting that potential, isn’t it? Then you see things in a different way. Then I should take care of the body. I should take care of myself because I’m unable to benefit others with intoxication.
It’s about me. It’s not about you. And sometimes I think people go out to bars and clubs and things like this, and they drink because they find if they’re shy, alcohol takes away the shyness, and then they feel that they’re in a group and they can talk with others. But you’re not necessarily the person you want to be when you’re drinking. So, again, these are decisions you have to make for yourself.
If you’ve taken the vow, you can’t do it. So if you can’t give it up, don’t take the vow. Don’t take the intoxicant vow before you can keep it. Don’t think the vow will help you to keep it. It doesn’t.
You break the vow. Right? So, if you want to be Buddhist and you take refuge, then it’s implicit in there you’re going to change. I want to change. I want to transform my mind.
So then we start being challenged by having these negative behaviors. We start to see it, and we think, I need to do something about this. How quickly you can do something about it depends on your willpower, your strength. So what are you going to give up? You’re definitely not feeling better.
Yeah. If you understand, happiness or pleasure as the alleviation of suffering, you can then definitely understand how smoking is an alleviation of suffering. So smoking causes what appears to be pleasure, but is actually the alleviation of suffering. Right? The suffering is caused by lack of nicotine, being addicted to the nicotine.
And then when you smoke, then the nicotine produces what we call pleasure, but it’s the alleviation of the suffering. Right? So then that’s the cycle that you get trapped into. You take it, you alleviate the suffering, we call it pleasure or happiness, and then quickly goes away, then we feel again, we have to repeat it, and then it goes away. And this is this repetitive cycle that is very difficult to break out of.
So understanding the nature of what we’re doing, we’re not experiencing happiness. We’re experiencing temporary pleasure as an alleviation of suffering. And so we have to increase the cigarettes in order to increase the pleasure and the happiness. Because as we resist, as the body’s resisting the nicotine, you have to increase the amount of nicotine you give to it. That that’s the addiction, the quality of addiction.
Right? So once you start to understand all of that, then you start to gain some control over it. Otherwise, we just think smoking’s happiness. Right? Drinking’s happiness.
But once we understand, then we can’t say that. We’re not cheating ourselves. That’s important, not to cheat yourself. Yeah. Okay.
I should tell you something before the break. So maybe we’ll talk about the sixth verse. When someone who am I whom I have benefited and in whom I have great hopes gives me terrible harm, I shall regard that person as my holy guru. Well, this is the person you’ve been praying for. I really hope I have a guru.
You just weren’t specific when you said what sort of guru you wanted. So there’s a projection onto somebody. I have helped that person. I’ve done a lot for them. I’ve lent them money, or I’ve given them a job, etcetera, etcetera.
So you’ve helped this person in many ways. And sometimes, maybe even against your own better judgment, you help them. And now what’s happened? They’ve done something back, but not something good back, something bad, something harmful to you. So someone had benefited, so this means we’ve put out a lot of positive energy towards them.
I have great hopes. So there’s also an indication the motivation wasn’t pure. I was saying, I’ll help. Through that help, they’re going to change. They’re going to improve.
So we have, something a little bit tricky going on. Right? It wasn’t pure. We were just giving. Here you are, and we forget about it.
We actually had hopes. We had some sort of projection involved in our giving. This is what makes it worse. You can have a positive motivation, you know, with with compassionate motivation, loving motivation, bodhicitta motivation. But once you have a projection, I want them to do something with this, you’re writing the story.
You know? You can’t write the story for others. You just have to give, but not with an expectation. If I give, Dharma teachings to Jack, within the week, he’s going to become enlightened, Then I’m putting all this pressure on you. You know, I keep emailing you.
Anything happened yet, Jack? You know? Enlightened yet, Jack? Where are you, Jack? Are you on a lotus or still in saṃsāra?
You know, can you imagine the pressure the person receiving something feels when it’s given with expectation? That’s what we do. When we give with expectation with the hook of attachment, we give, but we want something back. I’m giving you in order that you’re going to become enlightened, and it’s on my schedule by the end of the week, you know, by, October the tenth. I even give you the date, you know, and the place, the time.
I’m really projecting all of my thoughts onto you, saying this is how it should be. This is what I want to have happen. So you’re doing that out of expectation, and the expectation comes from attachment. I produce the story in my mind. I project it onto you, and then I’m attached to that story.
I’m attached to my concept of how your life is going to be. Now what’s happened? You know? I’ve done all of that, not purely, but impurely. Someone I’ve benefited.
I had great hopes. This is gonna be wonderful. You know? Now what do they do? They don’t say, thank you so much.
They do something awful to you. They sleep with your partner, or they, steal your money, or they don’t give you your money back, or they trash you behind your back. You know? You gave them money that you could hardly afford. Five hundred dollars, my last five hundred dollars.
But I know if I give it, this person’s gonna turn their life around. Because this is what this is what they always say. Right? You might have experienced it over and over. They’re going to turn their life around.
So you give your money or you take the money out of your credit card. Because they say within one week or two weeks, I promise you, I’ll pay you back. And they don’t. But that’s not it. It’s not just that.
In addition, now they’re trashing you behind your back. They’re saying you didn’t help. You’re a horrible person. You’re angry. You’re difficult.
And you think, this is a nightmare. What have I done? I helped this person so much, and now all this is coming back to me. So now what do I do? I go to war.
Right? One one choice, I go to war. And the other choice, transform it. Which way are you gonna go? Because he keeps presenting you with all of these difficult societal problems that we experience and we’re still experiencing today, isn’t it?
So it must have been a thousand years ago, two thousand years ago, these things were going on. They didn’t have their credit cards in those days, but, you know, they they were doing the same thing. They were lending things. They were helping others, and then something bad would happen. The result was something bad.
And this can really hurt your heart. You’ve got to number number six, you know. You’re nearly at the top there. You’re at number six, and you’re doing good things. I want to be a good person now.
I’ve got through one, two, three, four, five. I’ve got to number six. I must help others. You need some money? Oh, I don’t really have any, but I have a credit card.
Could you pay me back by the end of the month before the bill comes? Sure. Of course, I will. Trust me. You know?
So you draw the money out, you give it to them, you start calling them in a week or two weeks, they’re not picking up the phone. So you start making stories. Well, maybe they’re sick. Maybe this. Maybe this.
Maybe this. They’re not calling you. They’re not emailing you. You start getting worried because your bill’s coming. So what you did was incredible.
You put yourself out. But did you have wisdom? It’s not just about compassion and love. It’s about wisdom. Is the action going to benefit the other?
Because sometimes the action will not benefit the other, and then you should not do it. Yeah? Sometimes helping creates more problems, more dependency, doesn’t it? You have the good intention. You mean before you do the action or after you’ve done the action?
After. Yeah. You did it. Yes. Yes.
You you’re satisfied. You’re satisfied with who what you felt, good feelings. You had good motivation, but also check. And if you didn’t have good motivation, you say, Now the reason I’m suffering right now is because my motivation wasn’t pure. There must have been something in there that I didn’t expect, some attachment, some expectation, some projection.
I didn’t realize. I thought I was doing a good thing. I thought I was doing it from a a positive point of view, a good motivation. But by this attack coming back, we become aware that we’re not totally pure, that there was some impurity there. And, of course, you know, and it’s sort of like a light bulb moment, isn’t it?
Of course. I’m a human being. You know? What made me think I could be totally pure? Because I’m not a Buddha yet.
I’m an ordinary human being doing my best. So, of course, in there, I’m going to make some mistakes in that situation. If we can take it like that, the attack is not going to come. Now I want to attack back. But if we are now so hurt because of our projection, because of our expectation, we are going to attack back, and that’s going to destroy our bodhicitta.
So it’s true what you’re saying. You know? Be very happy with what you’ve done. Rejoice in what you’ve done. Don’t take away from that, but also look at maybe the subtle underlying negativity that may have created the boomerang that came back.
It’s extremely difficult to give without attachment. Extremely difficult because we’re trained in our society in attachment. Everything we do is mostly with attachment. We’re attached to enlightenment. You know?
So we talk about enlightenment. It’s enlightenment with attachment. But that’s okay. Desire to become enlightened is desire. We say don’t have desire.
But have desire to move you in a positive direction, then drop the desire. Get use the boat to get across the river, then leave leave the boat. Don’t keep carrying the boat. So we can use these negative emotions to create something positive, to move us in the right direction, but don’t don’t keep repeating it. So we’ve had a negative script, we can call it.
So we wrote a negative script. We acted it out. It’s all gone wrong, not how we thought. Now what are we going to do? Add more negativity to to the negativity, or use it as an opportunity to produce something positive, an understanding of the mind, an understanding of motivation, and an understanding of others’ delusions, similar to our delusions.
You know? They are experiencing delusions just like me. So why do I expect them to be perfect? Also, that helps your compassion to to build and develop your compassion. And this person is the one that I could become really, really upset and angry with because I put so much thought into this.
You know? You are going to improve. You’re going to be much better because of what I’m doing for you. Now they’ve done the opposite. So this person’s become my guru.
You must think this is my teacher, my guru to teach good qualities. If you don’t do that, you bring them down to ordinary level and the attack comes. You know, you lie awake at night, but why? But how? But but but but, you know, you’re doing this to your you’re stabbing yourself over and over and over.
And what good is that going to do you? How is it going to help you to be a happier person? To benefit others. And you may decide, I never want to help anybody ever again. There goes your bodhicitta.
No? The minute you say, that’s it. I’m not helping anybody anymore. bodhicitta gone. So it’s very important to keep an open heart.
But how? How? You know? This is so unfair. We think this is so unfair.
You know, I thought and I thought and I thought and I thought, well, you know, this person really needs this beautiful little singing bowl, you know, that I’m so attached to. Right? We do this. Oh, I love this singing bowl, but that person needs it. And so I’ll I’ll give it.
But there’s a sort of wrenching of the heart, you know, because you’re attached to it. So there’s a wrenching of the heart, but you’re a good dharma practitioner. You’re working with it. You give it. Okay.
You know, that was good. And then next week, you’re walking past the op shop, and you see it in the op shop window. The Salvation Army or something. And then you go in and you say, where did you get that from? And it’s the person that you gave it to.
And you go, oh, you know, I could have kept it. I gave it with such good motivation, but actually, there was still attachment in there. Often the motivation is mixed, mostly I would say, the motivation is mixed with delusions. It’s so hard to have this clean, clear, positive motivation, isn’t it? So all of these verses are saying, except we’re human being, karma and delusion, things are gonna happen, but when they happen, are you creating more saṃsāra or more nirvana?
Decide which direction. Yeah. Take be responsible. Right. Right.
Right. And and did you get the money back? Yes. Did it help him? Right.
Right. Right. That’s true. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Right. To own up. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. But did you do it with anger? Yes.
Oh. Well, next time, take them to court without anger. You know? We don’t need the anger to motivate us. If you have that strong feeling, I must help this person to improve themselves, you can go to court.
The lamas don’t usually advise going to court. Usually, you ask lamas, should I go to court? I think ninety nine percent of the time, they’ll say no, because it can be so distressing, so disturbing to the mind to go up against somebody, to have to prove this, disprove them. It’s it can be very difficult. But if you have a very positive motivation, and it’s the only thing to do to help the other person to own up to their negative behavior, it might be the absolute best thing to do.
Yeah. Well yeah. To yourself. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yeah. But that’s pretty good. You know, half’s okay. Rejoice in the good half, and the other half, you think, well, we’re all delusional.
We have our negative karma, and, now I know more, now I know better. So maybe it wouldn’t be fifty percent next time, or maybe I wouldn’t even do it next time. The mind’s changed, isn’t I think it’s wonderful when you look back and you see the evolution of your mind. When you see that in the past, you could have been cheated, you could have been lied to, and now you can actually see through these things a lot more. And so, in the situation where somebody’s lying to you or manipulating you, you’re also part of the dance.
When they say dip, you dip. You know? You know? And you say, why am I dipping? You know?
It’s not my fault. But, actually, you’re part of the dance. And so when it’s a negative dance, you’re joined in it. And so we need to step out and say, I don’t do that dance anymore. Now I cha cha instead of tango.
But you you choose your own dance instead of being forced into it and feeling like you’re a victim. There’s nothing worse than feeling like a victim, isn’t it? And so I know what you’re saying because when you feel like a victim, you feel you’ve got to do something to change that feeling. And also to stop the other person from victimizing because you’re not the only one. It can go on and on.
Once they get into a habit, it can be the way of using people to get something, and they move on to another, another, another. So I think, you know, this being in modern society and having resources is not easy. People know it, and people can abuse it. And so, like I said, sometimes you have to go, stop. You know?
Then in the six perfections, you have the perfection of generosity, of giving. You know? So then you should give, but then how much, which way, to whom, these are all the difficult decisions to decide how. For that, we need to be not angry and to have loving-kindness. Well, it’s time you had a cup of tea.
Actually, you can’t have tea anymore. Right? You’re off tea now. Water. Just I don’t think water’s an intoxicant, but we better check.