Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 57-minute teaching on ethics, Ven Lobsang Namgyel explains how pure morality serves as the foundation for all spiritual progress. Building on the previous session on generosity, he explores what it means to refrain from harm and benefit others. He discusses the precious human rebirth and how ethics leads to better rebirths and eventually enlightenment; introduces three levels of motivation for dedicating merit—the king or queen, the boatman, and the shepherd—with the highest being complete altruistic dedication; and illustrates ethical practice through concrete examples including how to handle pest problems compassionately without killing. Drawing on Śāntideva and Nāgārjuna, he emphasizes that ethics acts like a fragrance that attracts others and enables the perfection of all other virtues. Rather than harsh self-judgment, he encourages recognising mistakes and learning to purify them. The teaching includes extended practical dialogue with students about managing fleas, aphids, and other pests ethically, and concludes with Tonglen and letter-writing practices as methods to transform difficult situations compassionately.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 ethics 1.mp3
UUID: 353506ed-1b74-44af-9241-bbafd077489c
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: VenNamgyel Thought Transformation (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 57.1 minutes
Words: ~8,716
So it said, if I generate loving-kindness towards all sentient beings, then all sentient beings will receive no harm from me and instead will have peace and success. So this is a really good motivation for today because today we’re talking about ethics, how to not give harm, and how to give benefit. So you have to bear with me because I’ve got sinus, so I’m sort of coping with sinus. There were some people who were not here for generosity. Janelle.
So you get to do double, karma yoga at lunchtime. Isn’t that? You get the roof. So, the main thing that we were talking about in generosity is the actions of body, speech, mind motivated by the virtuous oh, thank you. Motivated by the virtuous thought to give.
Okay. This is the most important part. I’m just gonna switch off sound. And then I can do emails and and the breaks. Wow.
Multitasking. This is great, isn’t it? So any generous action motivated by bodhicitta becomes the perfection of generosity. Okay? So you need to think, why am I practicing generosity?
If your motivation is bodhicitta, then the action becomes the virtuous thought to give, and then this becomes the perfection of generosity. So we’re not just talking about being generous. We’re talking about perfecting the action of generosity. We want to make much more of the action than just ordinary actions of giving. Okay?
So for those of you who missed it, that was key part was what is the motivation for your action. Okay? And then the other the other important part, I think at the very end, was, the supreme ways of performing the action, but it’s very similar for ethics. So when we go through ethics, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Well, I’ll talk about those again.
It sort of sounded like you were saying that if you wait long enough, it’s like a fruit ripening. Think it is, isn’t it? Because we have to purify our mind stream and our attitudes, attachments, so on. But if if you’re doing these conventional actions of giving, you know, you see a beggar, And then remember last time, and it’s the same for ethics, it’s the same for patience, each time you have your motivation, you have your action, and then you have your dedication. Yes.
Right? So then, what is your motivation doing this action? I want to look good in front of my friends. How little can I give? So you give the smallest amount.
You walk away without even thinking it was a good action. Is this what we’re talking about when we’re talking about the perfection of generosity? You know, we may look like we’re giving something, but is there any perfection in there? We’d say it’s a very imperfect action, wouldn’t be? From the point of view of a Buddhist, then we’re saying, well, we might be giving a similar amount of money, but what would be the difference between an imperfection of generosity and the perfection of generosity?
Where’s the difference? Right? So that’s what we we need to understand is there is a great difference because in the perfection of generosity, we’re thinking about the motivation. Why do we want to do this action? Well, one reason is that we have had countless rebirths, therefore, countless mothers.
Therefore, every being that we see has been a mother. And this is very important that you remember this because it’s the way of generating bodhicitta. Right? Is that every time you see a being, we’re not talking about human beings and not other beings, but any being that you see has been your mother. So this is extremely important that you see that being and you see the opportunity rather than you see the problem.
And this works for transforming the mind, doesn’t it? That when you see a being and you say, opportunity, opportunity, opportunity rather than a problem, problem, problem. All I see is people needing, needing, needing. If you see needy people, you you can think, this is incredible. What an opportunity.
Right? So you I think just just so I think that even thinking of an opportunity isn’t necessarily the best way to do it. Just to to make it natural to do it. Well, I I yeah. With with motivation of of of helping.
Yeah. So there’s no there’s no attachment on your side to the act of giving. You know what I’m saying? Well, of course, you know, that’s what you do when you’re thinking about the action. But if you don’t think about why you’re doing the action, it doesn’t necessarily become the cause of achieving enlightenment.
Right? Well, can you can remove the opportunity. I’d rather have the opportunity. Yeah. Well, what do you do if the giving isn’t natural?
Well, we’ve gotta try and we’ve gotta try and work on this one. So then you think up then you have to think opportunity. Trying I’m just trying to say that the development of body, you Yeah. And the development of giving, you don’t Yeah. Go sit about something and give for them.
You do. You do. You do. Mean, that’s why it’s in the six perfections. That’s why it’s taught is that because you have a formula which helps you to go about it in the right way, because you need to know what is the right way, which is the way that a Bodhisattva would go about being generous.
Isn’t it? It’s not just if it was that easy, then they’d say, okay. You just go and be generous. Maybe Lama Zopa will give ten or maybe twenty. Lama Zopa might say, can you can you lend me ten and I’ll give twenty?
You know? So I think, you know, everybody has a different way of teaching trying to I’m just I’m just thinking that this when when the the I’m trying I’m trying to I’m trying to get at this sort of the ego, the self self purging attitude Yeah. Right. So So what you’re saying? I’m not I’m saying that when you when you get involved in the giving, you know, you get the opportunity to get involved in the giving.
You know what I’m saying? But it’s an opportunity because in in the opportunity is you see somebody as a worthy opportunity to give to. Isn’t it? You’re you’re not you’re not turning away from the situation. It’s an opportunity.
Anyway, let’s not get hum up on the word. And and I think you’ve got three things. One is your motivation. Why are you doing it? If you’re doing it egotistically, you need to stop and think, should I be doing it?
Still, you might choose to do it because it’s still going to benefit the other person. But when we’re talking about these perfections, we’re talking about doing things in a certain way. Right? It’s not just any way. It’s a certain way.
Because what we want to do is create the situation where we’re going to become enlightened. Why? Because that’s going to be the most beneficial to all sentient beings. Us staying here as we are, as ordinary beings, is not so useful. Right?
We can be of some benefit, but we’ve been a far greater benefit as a bodhisattva. But the purpose is to be able to be bodhisattva. We become useful to other sentient beings as we purify our lives. Yeah. But you you have to become a bodhisattva.
And then ultimately, the best benefit is to become enlightened, isn’t it? Yes. You know? I mean, we we shouldn’t be turning away from that and thinking, oh, it’s better to stay here as an ordinary sentient being. Then you don’t get the energy to become a Bodhisattva.
Then you get to a Bodhisattva and you think, oh, it’s better to stay as a Bodhisattva not to become a Buddha. Right? Are you saying then the Buddha is less than a bodhisattva? Isn’t it better to be a Buddha than a bodhisattva? Of course, bodhisattvas are beneficial.
They’re around. Right? But as a Buddha, you can manifest in so many different forms, in so many different ways. You can manifest as a bridge. You can manifest as anything that sentient beings need.
If they need to cross water, they need a bridge. If they’re in a desert, they need a glass of water. Whatever they need, sent sentient beings have their own needs. So which way does a Buddha manifest in order to benefit those sentient beings? A Buddha can manifest in any way possible.
So a Buddha can manifest like this. Isn’t this a Buddha? All of this? This is Buddha. Right?
I mean, we can expect Buddha to sort of appear on a lotus out of the sky. But how did man a Buddha manifest in Auckland? Buddha manifested like this as a way that’s suitable for you. Right? Buddha manifests as a computer.
Buddha manifests as a person in the street who starts talking to you and your mind turns towards compassion. You can see a dog and you can think, oh, dear, that’s terrible, and you generate compassion. So Buddhas manifest in various ways. But if you keep limiting your expectation, if you think, well, I don’t want to get out of being a human being because I’m I’m quite good at being a human being and helping others, then you limit your aspirations. And then if you become a Bodhisattva and you think, oh, well, I’m quite good at being a Bodhisattva, and I don’t want to become a Buddha, you limit your aspirations.
So we all need to think, well, I need to become enlightened as quickly as possible, and how do I do that? So, on Thursday, we were talking about the practice of generosity as a way of generating merit. We’re benefiting sentient beings. We’re generating merit. And what are we doing with it?
We’re not selfishly. Holding on to it, we’re not saying, oh, yes. Mine. Mine. Mine.
Mine. Right? We’re not doing that. We’re thinking, well, now what do I do with all this merit? Where do I put it?
You know? So then this is your dedication. If you’re selfless, and we talked about three motivations on Thursday, I think you weren’t here for that. So then we talked about the three motivations, which is you can be the shepherd or shepherdess and the boat person and the king or the queen. So then, when you’re accumulating merit and thinking, well, where do I dedicate this merit?
There are three levels of motivation. And the three levels are, from the lowest one, the king or the queen, I’m going ahead of all of you. I’ll become enlightened, and then I’ll be back. Right? So this is like, you know, wait, wait, wait, wait, and I’ll be back.
So I’m just going to do it for myself with the motivation to come back. This is actually the lowest motivation. And then the boat person, I want to go together with you. So at the same time, you and I, I’m going to dedicate for you, I’m going to for me, and we’ll go together. But the highest motivation is, I want all of you to be liberated from your suffering.
I want all of you to be enlightened, so you all go, and I’ll be the one who stays behind. So I often make a joke and say, well, if if enough of us dedicate like that, there’ll be a fight over the light switch. When saṃsāra completely disappears, you know, and somebody has to switch off the lights, then there’ll be this fight at the end as to who switches off the lights. But, that’s a nice fight, not a bad one. Right?
So the the highest motivation is actually the person who’s saying, I really don’t want any of you to suffer. Like it says in the four immeasurables, you all go. I’ll make sure you’re safe, and I’m going to stay here, and I’m going to keep dedicating, and I’ll keep working on it. So this is the highest motivation. So for any of you, you have to decide what’s your motivation.
Nobody can tell you what your motivation is. We can say, these are the levels of motivations. But, of course, even the king or the queen, because it was always a king, but I like to say king or queen. Yeah. Well, no.
From the motivation comes off. Opportunity occurs. See, there’s not so From motivation comes opportunity. Right. So, you know, if you and you have to maybe be patient with me because I don’t talk in a normal way.
So I’m not linear, you know, so I go around and come back. So you have to sort of snooze off and then come back in. You know? Okay? So, when we have this motivation, you know, to be the king or the queen, nobody can say to you, well, that’s terrible.
You know, you really should go for boat person or, the shepherd. It doesn’t matter if being the king or the queen, I’m going to do it to benefit all sentient beings. This is still amazing, isn’t it? In this day and age, to have that sort of attitude is an amazing attitude. So then you think, okay, I’m going to do it.
I’m going to benefit all sentient beings. And the other day, we talked about generosity. It’s an easy practice to start. Where can I start? What can I do within my limited capacity?
Because that’s how we start. We start by thinking, oh, I’m just a human being, and I’m not that well off, and I have limit, limit, limits. How do we go beyond our limits? We start to open our heart. We start to see that there are things we can do.
So with the limited resources that you have at the moment, you start to give. If you don’t have any resources, where did the lack of resources come from? This is also important to think about because the result of practicing generosity is having wealth, is having resources. So if you don’t have the resources, what didn’t you do in the past? You know?
You you you weren’t generous. Right? So this is the result. So now we need to start. We need to do something in order to change the situation for the future.
Not because we want to live in a huge house and have lots of money in the bank and lock the doors and think, well, I’m okay, because we’re concerned about sentient beings. We want to be able to benefit sentient beings, not harm them, and we want to be able to benefit them. So the beginning is trying to benefit, opening your heart, what can I do for them? The minimum is at least you do your prayers and you dedicate the merit for them. And then you do it with the three circles of emptiness.
So at the end of the teaching on Thursday, we talked about the three circles of emptiness, which is I’m empty, you’re empty, and the dedication is empty. So we talk about that again today in relation to ethics. So then, practicing generosity then leads us on to ethics. Because when you’re practicing generosity, you don’t want to harm others. Okay?
So you don’t want to do anything that would be harmful. And then that brings you to, well, what does that mean to not harm? Again, we need to have some sort of definition because for some people, it’s quite obvious, and for others, it’s not so obvious. So what does that mean to us? So then we come to the practice of ethics, and ethics is the cause of gaining rebirth of leisure and fortune.
So, again, you will gain the rebirth of leisure and fortune, which is what we have, precious human rebirth. You could be reborn as a god in the desire realm, the form realm, or the formless realms. So these are various types of higher rebirths. But still, it’s said that the best rebirth to have is one as a human. We have an incredible opportunity.
And again, I use the word of opportunity. Sorry. We have an incredible opportunity. Why? Because we have this human body which we can utilize.
So you can utilize it in order to become enlightened in this lifetime. And if you’re practicing tantra, just by holding tantric vows, you can become enlightened within sixteen lifetimes, just by holding tantric vows. Not saying you’re doing anything with it. It said just by holding them, you can become enlightened in sixteen lifetimes. There may be there may be problems in there, but I don’t know.
You can ask Geshe la when he gets back or Google Google Geltsin. But what but what it said in what it said in the text, what I read was you can, if you’ve got the tantric vowels, just by holding the vows, you get enlightened within sixteen lifetimes. Holding purely? Didn’t say. It just said holding the vows.
That’s just my my question was holding purely, then we get into ethics. Right? So I would guess the bottom line is then purely. I think if you say in the very beginning everything in such a difficult way, people say, well, that’s me out. Well, I can’t do that.
Right? And so just by saying by holding it, somebody would say, oh, well, I can do that. Right? And then you start to investigate how to hold it, and then you discover the difficulty of holding it, and then you’ll get more interested and more involved in it, and it evolves, isn’t it? These things evolve.
If you start out with, I’ve got to be absolutely perfect in the very beginning, you don’t even want to try. Right? So allowing ourselves to be imperfect and knowing that even Bodhisattvas are imperfect. So how come as sentient beings, human sentient beings, we’re supposed to be perfect? And only Buddhas can be perfect.
Right? So please, when you’re hearing about ethics, don’t pick up the stick and be beating yourself over the head with it thinking, oh, bad me, bad me, you know, I make all these mistakes. The definition of human being is you’re going to make mistakes. The good thing is finding out what the mistakes are and knowing how to purify them, knowing how to fix it. That’s the habit that we need to create.
Okay? So hearing about this should not be the come come the cause for you to get upset, depressed, and beat yourself over the head with it. Right? It should be the cause for you to want more and to know what you’re holding as far as vows are concerned because whether you’re laypeople or monks and nuns, we have vows. If you want to become a Buddhist, you need to know what the vows are that you’re becoming involved in.
And so then you know whether you can keep them or you can’t. So, you can have a very good rebirth from practicing ethics, from practicing generosity alone. We were talking yesterday that practicing generosity on Thursday is a very good thing, and there’s many, many benefits from that. But if you don’t practice ethics with generosity, then you cannot ensure that you’re going to have a very good result from it. It’s, say, for instance, if you’re practicing generosity without ethics, if you are being generous but harming others, then the rebirth could be as a naga or in the lower realms.
So we need to be very careful when we’re practicing generosity that we’re doing it with a conjoining of ethics, not harming. So Śāntideva, I have a one of Śāntideva’s sayings. He said, having found such leisure, which refers to us being humans and having, the eighteen qualities, if you have it, freedoms, endowments, if I do not become acquainted with virtue, there is nothing more deceptive than this. There is nothing more foolish than this. Having found such leisure, if I do not become acquainted with virtue, there is nothing more deceptive than this.
There is nothing more foolish than this. So deceptive, we could think about the delusions, couldn’t we? That we have the delusion of ignorance. We have the many, many delusions. I don’t need to tell you about delusions.
But when the delusions are in our mind, then we could have the precious human rebirth, but we’re not actualizing the preciousness of it. We’re not utilizing the preciousness of it. There’s nothing more foolish than this. So we’re like, I don’t know, the beggar looking through the the pile of rubbish and finding a jewel, the sort of jewel that could solve all our problems. And because we don’t know about it, we throw it away.
We could be that sort of person. Right? So we don’t want to be that type of person who throws away this opportunity. We want to take the opportunity. You know?
Buddha said it is an opportunity because we have all these freedoms and endowments. We can achieve enlightenment in this lifetime, but we need to know how. And then Nāgārjuna, in his letter to a friend said, ethics is the basis of all good qualities just as the earth is the basis of the moving and unmoving. Okay? So the foundation that we all rely on is the earth, isn’t it?
So the buildings, the trees, everything is based on the earth. So Nāgārjuna said, in the same way, ethics is the basis of all good qualities. So from ethics, all advantages come. Even the realization of the perfection of generosity is dependent on ethics as are the realizations of all the other perfections. So we need to have ethics as a basis when we’re practicing any of the six perfections.
Now what I really liked is, I found a a saying from Śākyamūni Buddha that ethics is like a fragrance. It’s like a perfume. So when somebody is practicing pure ethics, pure morality, then this is like a fragrant perfume, and it delights and attracts others. So you become like, maybe like a beautiful flower with a really nice smell that others are attracted towards you. So this is very important when you’re trying to practice bodhicitta, is that you want others to be attracted to you.
And often think about now His Holiness the Dalai Lama. You know, when His Holiness started out, he used to give, quite small teachings comparative to today. Nowadays, you get stadiums of, you know, thousands, hundreds of thousands, and you think, why do so many people come? And it’s they have an attraction for him. You know, somehow he’s very attractive, isn’t he?
And so what is that attractiveness? What is he doing that actually attracts people to him? So, obviously, he has pure morality. And when you have pure morality, it’s like people are very interested in you because they want to listen. They want to learn from you.
So the basics of, wanting to benefit others is you practice pure morality. And from that pure morality, then you’ll be able to perfect all the other of the five the five other perfections. So ethics as the foundation, and then generosity and all the others are practiced from there. So if you’re practicing pure ethics, it’s like bees who are drawn to the honey. So they’re they’re very interested in the honey, and they keep going back.
So Śākyamūni Buddha said, his or her pleasant appearance, relaxed and open behavior, and lack of malice makes others feel comfortable. They feel safe because of the lack of harmfulness. That person’s presence and ambiance are attractive and comforting. The person who keeps their ethics will always be happy, unstressed, and at ease. No underlying guilt or regret.
Nothing to hide. So this is a huge advantage. If you get to the end of the day, you look back over your day, and you think, okay. How did I harm? Can’t come up with anything.
Right? Wouldn’t this be amazing? Look back over the whole day. Didn’t do any harm. But for us at our level, of course, we do harm.
Of course, we make mistakes. And of course, we should repair them. We should fix them. So this is the great benefit of knowing what we’re doing because then we can repair it. We can purify it.
So ethics controls your actions of body and speech as well as mind. We have three doors. We talk about the body, we talk about the speech, and we talk about the mind. So what is ethics controlling? It’s controlling all of those three.
K? By controlling the mind, you’re controlling automatically the speech, and you’re controlling the body. Because it’s the in external actions because it’s the external actions, those of body and speech that others are able to see So what do people see? They can’t actually see your thoughts. They don’t know your mind.
They don’t know what’s going on inside. So what can they actually see? They can see how you speak. They can see what you actually do with your body. So that’s an indication of what’s happening in the mind.
So why Buddha said it’s so important to practice ethics? He said, because of your external actions, those of body and speech, others are able to see what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Practicing pure ethics makes them happy as well as accumulating positive karma. So they see you doing good actions, and then they’re they’re going to rejoice. And then they’re all go also going to make something positive out of it.
Inner qualities can’t be seen by others. They can’t see the mind. They don’t know what level of realization you have. So they can only judge from the external what’s happening internally. Even then, it’s difficult.
I mean, we’ve had some extraordinary beings, in our Buddhist past, right, like Milarepa. So people talk about Milarepa now, like, oh, incredible. You know, Milarepa. To be like Milarepa, to do his practices. But very few Milarepas around these days.
Even if you had a very strong motivation, I’m going to be like Milarepa, and you go up into the caves, how long could you live on nettles? Yeah. Day after day, your hands being stung by nettles, boiling nettles, eating nettles. We like a little bit of variety, don’t we? So, you know, just thinking about it is incredible.
Just having that thought, I’d love to be like Milarepa. But you think about Milarepa and what he did day after day after day, sitting in that cave, meditating, meditating, just continually facing his demons, the inner demons. You know? And then it was said that the inner demons became external demons. And then he got really frightened, and he said, oh, you know, this demon in my cave is really bad.
And then he thought, but does that demon really exist, or does it exist as a manifestation of my mind? So we have our our demons that come up in our minds, and then we have to deal with those demons. So when we’re trying to practice morality, we’re aware of the demons. We’re aware of the negative states of mind that appear, and we’re trying to purify them, subdue them, do something about them. We’re trying to have better speech, better actions of of the body.
So, if you think about Milarepa and how we really admire and think Milarepa is wonderful, some of the lamas at that time said, yes, but you could have gone to see Milarepa, and all you see is a guy whose body is a funny color wearing virtually no clothes and, looking just like an old man. So from our side, it’s very difficult to look at anybody and see realizations or to, conversely, to look at somebody and say, that person has no realizations at all. So, actually, it’s said that it’s much better to perceive all beings as Buddhas. If you see all beings as Buddhas, you don’t get into trouble. But, of course, we don’t.
We we lose that. We lose that as a practice. And if we get tired and grumpy and irritable, we start seeing horrible sentient being, horrible sentient being. And that’s when you have to pull yourself up and say, uh-oh. You know, here here we go.
Here comes that demon. You know? That demon’s in there, and it’s going out there. It’s not about them. It’s about me and what I’m projecting onto the world.
So we don’t want to project those demons onto the world, but we do have sometimes perception of demons. So if you think about Milarepa, and even Milarepa, at his level of practice, was working with the demons. And he would say, well, what do I do with these demons? When the demons are appearing, you know, when I want to give harm to somebody, what do I do? Do I say the demon’s out there, and I need to remove the demon, or the demon’s internal, and I need to change something inside?
So that’s why, I think be very careful that you’re not critical and you’re not looking at others with that critical state of mind. But also when you have the appearance of the demon, recognize that that’s something internal that you’re about to, manifest externally. So try and live amongst those who are keeping their vows. If you’re having difficulty with keeping vows, try to be with people who are keeping their vows. At least try to speak to others who are keeping their vows.
This is very supportive. So whenever you’re experiencing difficulties, don’t talk to somebody who is against vows. You know, if you took the the laypeople’s vows and you said, well, I won’t kill and I won’t steal and I won’t lie. You know, you took these vows, and then you find it difficult for some reason. And you think, now who should I talk to?
Oh, so and so. She doesn’t like vows. And so you call her, and she says, oh, I don’t know why you took them in the first place. You know? So in that case, it’s going to encourage you to break your vows.
It’s not the sort of person to really help you in a negative situation, but much better to talk to somebody who’s going to encourage you and somebody who’s going to help you to understand what to do if you have broken the vows. Right? Because there’s always something to do. So then, better to maybe come to the dharma center and talk to Geshe la, talk to, the venerable Gelong. But if you have vows and you’re having difficulty with your vows, then good to try to maintain them.
But if you break them, good to know what to do if you’ve broken them. So the essence of all the teachings on ethics is don’t harm others. Right? The very bottom line is don’t harm others. But then you need to know what to do in order to not harm others.
Who should I not be harming? We don’t harm humans. We don’t harm animals. But then what about even smaller beings? Right?
So we get down to the ants or the cockroaches, rats. I don’t know if if mice, spiders. So what about those? You know? Do you leave the spider web in the corner?
Do you get rid of it? Do you kill it? Do you kill the ants? Do you spray? These are all ethical questions, aren’t they?
And Buddha said, protect all living beings. But can we protect all living beings? This is a it’s a very strong aspiration that we need to have to want to protect all living beings. I was talking to, venerable Bernadette Nangsel the other day in Mahāmudrā Centre, and she has a beautiful, fruit tree a fruit vine that’s growing outside of her house, and she’s not getting any fruit. So we were looking at, well, why isn’t she getting any fruit?
And there’s something that’s eating the whole plant. And so then we were trying to think of solutions that would help without killing. So we thought, what’s it called? Soapy water. Right?
Because it’s often said if you mix detergent with water and you spray it on, that the aphids or whatever it is will drop off, and then they won’t die. So she decided to experiment. So she sprayed it in a little part and then watched, and she saw that actually they die from it. So she said what she noticed about her mind was that it could be very easy to think, I want my fruit. And so you just spray, and you’re not looking at the creatures that are dropping to the ground.
You’re just looking at what you’re doing in front of you. And she said, it was really a good practice to have to focus on the aphids that were dropping, and are they dying? So this is quite fine. You know? It it means that your mind is becoming refined.
You’re really being aware of every action of your body, speech, mind. We have a big problem in India with ants. It’s a huge problem, you know, because we’re I’m in a a tropical place sometimes. And if you leave a little bit of food, you get masses of ants that come. They just appear from nowhere.
And what I discovered was that, you can sprinkle turmeric. And if you put turmeric, it’s a herb, it’s a a spice. They just go away. They don’t like it. They don’t like the smell of it.
So if you put it along the path where they walk, they just don’t come. And then you have to follow it back to the place where they’re coming inside the house. There’s there’s usually a place, and you put you put turmeric, you know, and they they just don’t come. So this is an Indian trick. I think in the West, you have this chalk line, isn’t it?
You you don’t know about this? If you go to the, hardware store, it’s like a crayon, and you draw it. And wherever you draw it, the ants won’t walk over it. It doesn’t kill them, but it they won’t walk over it. So, that might work if you have a painted surface.
It won’t work on carpet and things like that. And then there’s another one for cockroaches, and you can draw it around your fridge legs so that the cockroaches don’t go up into the fridge. So there’s one for ants and there’s one for cockroaches. So it’s really good to know about these things. I had one student who said to me, I’m really protecting life now.
She said, the only trouble I had was with cockroaches. So she said, I came up with the solution. I bought this box that I put outside, and then the cockroach cockroaches go into it. And I said, yeah. But don’t they die?
And she said, yeah. But it’s not inside the house. So this was a loophole. I said, oh, dear. I’m very sorry, but it’s not a loophole.
You know? The solution to the aphids. I was curious. Oh, well, she hasn’t she hasn’t got one. Yeah.
She hasn’t got one. Because I thought the soapy water was the solution. That was what we always said for rose bushes and plants like that. We’ve got the meeting, the lemons out there, we’re not getting any lemons. They just go through everything.
And she said, she took one leaf. You could experiment like this. Take one leaf and put a little bit of this soapy water on and see what happens. But what she thought was happening was that they were dropping to the ground and dying. Maybe you have to put soapy water on before they get there.
Yeah. Well, that’s the other thing that she’s tried is try and put it on the leaf Yeah. And then seeing whether they actually go to the leaf. Yeah. Because I think that solution, was that you needed on the plant.
But you need to be there before you’ve got them appearing, isn’t it? Yeah. So the problem is that we can be so self-cherishing, so self grasping about our fruit that we go out there with the water spray thinking, well, this is not doing any harm, is it? Only soapy water. But you could actually kill millions of aphids, millions.
So you have to be really careful. Yeah? Body, speech, and mind. Oh, garlic. Garlic.
You put garlic in the food. If the if the cat will eat, or you can get these garlic tablets. I’ve tried it on dogs. You can shove it down their throat. It’s not, I would think, not easy, but then they it starts to come out of the the skin.
So if you mix it with the food, then found it’s quite good for the dogs to get the fleas off. And then there is something else for dogs that you put on the back of the neck, and it and it actually goes into the bloodstream. No. It makes them jump it makes them jump off. Again, it’s some sort of smell thing, I think.
Oh, no. No. Then it’s not that one. There is one that it doesn’t kill them, but it just makes them jump off. But that was for dogs.
I’m not sure if it exists for cats. But if there isn’t anything for cats, then garlic. I mean, you might have a really smelly cat. Then you then you can change the name to smelly cat. Yeah.
You know? But you have to think of creative ways of doing these things because otherwise, you’re killing a number of of beings. His neck, but someone said, use a flea bomb. And I looked at the A flea bomb? Beautiful.
For the house? Yeah. Oh, gosh. Don’t do that. No.
Because you have to take bedding and stuff like that outside and put it in the sun, and then they they jump off. But if you’ve got carpet, it’s really difficult. Oh, what a life. Oh gosh. That’s that’s really hard because also they give quite a strong bite, don’t they?
Gosh. Yeah. Oh, well, if you discover a really good treatment to cure, if the garlic works, let us know. But I I did it with my dogs because we used to cook the food, and then I put garlic in the food, And we never had much problem with fleas. We used to have problem with ticks.
Ticks are horrible, but and taking them off. No. No. I mean, my I had a dog that was just completely full of ticks. Full.
I mean, like, thousands. And they go inside the paws, and I’d had to pick them out, and he was crying and crying. I had to move houses because of that dog. Because they were when I first moved into the house, I thought it was ants or something on on the steps. And then when I look more closely, it was ticks.
There were so many of them. They were they were walking on the steps, and then there was nothing I could do. The person who’d had the house before me had had lots of dogs, and they were really dirty, and there were many ticks, and the whole place was infested with it. And sometimes the only thing you can do is move. If you’re renting, you move.
You know? Because otherwise, constantly having to deal with spraying and stuff stuff like that. Who wants to do that? Different animal situation. I’ve got a question in relation to fleas.
This is a big situation. We have a flea situation in Auckland. Without being cultish or weird. I want to protect the fleas. You know?
Yeah. I want to live in a clean house too. You know? And I’m trying to find a middle ground of how I can explain this to them. You know, they’re just like, just vacuum it, you know.
Let’s live in a clean house. Well, I wonder if vacuuming kill kills them. Do you think? I would have thought it just It them into the bag. You put it out over Yeah.
So they don’t come in. Yeah. I mean, it it could be that if you’ve just vacuumed and get them into the vacuum bag, and then empty that outside, that might be a way of dealing with it. I mean, I remember somebody many, many years ago moving into a flat, and it was full of fleas. And then she went to a Geshe, and she said to this Geshe, I don’t know what to do, because if I don’t get rid of them, I can’t live in this place.
It’s just full of I mean, really infested. And he said, then you have to do it. Then you have to, remove them. Then you have to take on the karma. You know?
And that’s very heavy. Right? So, the best solution is always the least harmful. I think there is no solution which has no harm. You’re walking.
So just by walking, you must be creating some harm. You can’t become like that, that, you can’t even walk on the floor. So, you know, we we all have to accept that by being human beings, we’re going to do some harm in some way, but it’s to minimize the harm to the smallest degree. So I would start with, maybe vacuuming and see if vacuuming works. And then the main thing is to explain what Buddhists feel in their reference for all life, you know, to try and explain that side of it.
And the the the thing about rebirth, I mean, many young people now really believe in rebirth, I think. So if you believe in rebirth, it’s not so hard to understand why you would have a reverence for all life, that this flea or this tick can be your mother from another life. This is very important then in not wanting to harm. You know? And then just where do you draw the line and say, well, I don’t harm them, but I do harm them?
Where’s your ethical ethical line in Buddhism doesn’t even exist. Right? We don’t draw the line and say, well, we’ll harm them, but we won’t harm them. This is really what’s precious about Buddhism in that way is that we don’t say, harm those enemies and don’t you know, like that. We don’t do this.
So we just say all sentient beings. But in our quest to be a benefit to all sentient beings, we have to stretch ourselves a long, long way, and we don’t live in societies that support this. Right? So we’re not in, say, Tibet where everybody’s thinking the same way. So, therefore, you have to become very creative when you’re working with people who are non-Buddhist and what to do.
So at least, you know, recite mantras when they’re not around or put mantras on the CD player so that the fleas are hearing lots of mantras. Oh, one thing I did try, for flies, I had flies, in my retreat house once in Dharmasala. I moved into a new house, and immediately they put a garbage bin outside my house. And I thought, well, that’s useful. We don’t didn’t usually have garbage bins, and it was one of those huge metal ones, you know, really big one.
And then the Tibetans started throwing their garbage in it, and it was all wet garbage in plastic bags. And then the monkeys came, and they were throwing the garbage all over the place, and then these big blue flies came. And then my house was right opposite, so they lived all over the wall of my house. And every time I went in, they would come in. And just before I moved in, the landlord said, I’ll do a puja.
He was Hindu, but I’ll do a puja while you’re away in Delhi. When you come back, the place is purified. I said, well, that’s a lovely idea. Thank you so much. So what he did was he left all the doors and windows open.
He did the fire puja, and when the fire died down, all the flies came in. So instead of being out, they were in. And so when I got home, I opened the door, and there were flies everywhere, you know? And so I had to whirl this, you know, whirling around and doors open, and it took me ages to get most of them out and in incense and get them out, you know? So you do all this sort of thing.
And, but every time I’d open the door, flies would come in, and I’d be doing meditation. And they they like the Australian ones, you know, where they go around your mouth and up your nose and and in your ear. And you’re trying to meditate and thinking, including this sentient being. You know? But it’s really hard.
So then I wrote to a friend who’s a nun, and this is why you need these virtuous friends, the friends who are going to help you. Because she didn’t say to me kill or anything like that. She said, I had a similar problem, but with wasps. So she said she had a wasp’s outside her bathroom window, and she hadn’t been able to close the window. So every time she went to the toilet or to have a shower, the wasps would come in.
So she went to see a Geshe, and this Geshe said, oh, yes. Yes. Terrible problem. What to do? And he said, I think Tonglen.
So this practice of breathing in the pain and suffering, breathing out your happiness. He said, I think Tonglen. She thought, ridiculous. You know? How’s this going to help?
I need a practical solution. You know? I mean, we think as Westerners how to get the nest out, isn’t it? You know? But he was thinking, how did you get the nest?
It’s a completely different way of thinking, isn’t it? How did the nest appear in your bathroom window rather than somebody else’s bathroom window? There’s got to be a karmic connection. How do you remove the karmic connection? So she said to me, Tonglen.
So I thought, okay, I’ll give it a go. So I sat there and I thought about all these flies and the suffering of the flies. Because all they want is some food. All they want is to be happy, same as us. And it’s really hard when they’re doing this to think of how they want happiness, because you’re not happy.
Right? Because you’ve got all this going on. So you can easily go whack. You know, if you do if you weren’t Buddhist, you could easily do something that would harm them. But because you’re Buddhist, already there’s some restraint.
Right? You don’t want to harm. And then you start thinking about that fly and their life and the life that they’re leading. And I started feeling, more empathy and more compassion towards this fly. And then I multiplied it, all the flies, and and what they’re feeling and the happiness that they want.
So give me your suffering, fly suffering, and take my happiness. Not really thinking this was going to do much good very quickly, but anyway, no harm, isn’t it? When I went out the front door later, they virtually disappeared. From the wall being blue, and this is I don’t have any miraculous powers, I can tell you. And I didn’t have faith in what I was doing, and that I’ll I’ll give it a go, you know, but I’ve got to see the proof of the pudding.
So there it was. And I thought, it worked. It really worked. Came back from getting the shopping, virtually none there. The bin’s still there.
The monkeys are still there. The rubbish is still there. No flies. And this would last for about two weeks. And then gradually, they’d start coming back.
So my Tonglen could last about two weeks. If I was a Bodhisattva, it would be, right, forever. So I’d do it again. They’d disappear again. So this was really amazing for me, the proof of of a practice that you can do that has an effect on your environment.
It changes the energy. So with the fleas, with the whatever it is, try Tonglen. You know? Try taking on their suffering. Try giving back your happiness, and try saying to them, well, actually, you know, this is not a good place for you to be.
Oh, the other method that she gave me was write a write a letter. So you write a letter to the fleas. And I I had a friend who tried this. So she had a rat in retreat, and she wrote a letter to the rat. This was the same Lama gave this advice.
Dear mister rat or missus rat or miss rat, thank you very much for visiting, but, it’s not good for you to come here anymore because blah blah blah blah. And she left the note on the table, the rat disappeared. So in Kopan, I told people this, and there was a room with a spider, a huge spider. And this girl’s bed was underneath that spider, and she was completely terrified. Couldn’t go to sleep.
Had to have the light on all night because of this spider. I said, but they’re not harmful. It’s the daddy long legs type. They’re not harmful. She said, but I’m not going to sleep.
And and she was disturbing everybody else. You know? I think people were moving out of the room because they couldn’t stand it any longer. So I said to her, write a letter. So she did.
She wrote a letter, and she put it on the wall really close to the spider web so that the spider could read it. Right? So she said, I know this is taking it to an extreme. But she thought, just so the spider can see it, she stuck it on the wall. The spider went.
And she said, also there were eggs, the eggs went. She said, everything went. So I I’ve told these things, and people have tried, and it has worked for others, not just for me. So try the letter, try Tonglen, And then if nothing works, you think, well, this is a result of my karma. In the past, I haven’t kept my no killing vow purely.
And so this is why I’m now in a situation where I’m faced with killing. You know? Because I haven’t kept my ethics. I haven’t kept my morality purely, and the result of that is that my environment is now turning into a difficult environment. And so if you don’t keep your ethics now, when will you?
We haven’t in the past. This is why we’re faced with this difficult situation. If we don’t keep our ethics now, when are we going to keep it? Right? So this is the way to think, isn’t it?
Rather than just thinking, well, I have to kill. But what’s the reason? Why are you in this present situation? So, I was going to stop about eleven to you a short break. So maybe we take five minutes or so.
It’s not the generous day. So on the generous day, you’ve got eight minutes. Just a little bit over five minutes so that people can go to the bathroom. It’s always good to have everybody go at the same time.