Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Venerable Lobsang Namgyel continues his teaching on Buddhist ethics, examining how motivation shapes moral action. Drawing on the principle that bodhicitta—a big heart or expansive mind—must accompany all virtue, he explores the framework of individual liberation vows and why ethics cannot depend on social whims. He uses powerful examples: the Buddha’s radical inclusion of untouchables in the sangha, showing that moral worth transcends social hierarchy; the changing norms around alcohol and smoking, illustrating how societal values shift; and the crucial question of what makes an action genuinely virtuous. Venerable Namgyel then unpacks eleven virtuous mental factors—faith, shame, embarrassment, non-attachment, non-hatred, non-ignorance, and joyous effort among them—treating each as an antidote to delusion and obscuration. His teaching style blends philosophical precision with accessible metaphors: the mind as clear sky, delusions as storms and clouds, the need to recognize wisdom as our nature rather than something foreign. He emphasises that enlightenment is possible for anyone in this lifetime, addressing directly how self-doubt—particularly among women practitioners—can limit aspiration. The session closes with the mental factor of joyous effort: never giving up on the path, regardless of obstacles.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 ethics 3.mp3
UUID: a0a24a45-cc29-4348-bd08-d283649c9188
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: VenNamgyel Thought Transformation (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 65.4 minutes
Words: ~8,693
So, yes, I keep saying yesterday, but, Thursday. So Thursday, we talked about the perfection of generosity and how that’s opening our hearts. And with whatever our resources, with whatever we have, even if we’ve got nothing, we’ve got the merit that we’re accumulating that we’re able to practice generosity with. So it’s not that we’re eliminating or eradicating poverty. You know, that’s not the perfection of generosity.
The perfection is you conjoining bodhicitta with your generosity. So then that brings me to a question. I’m sure somebody doesn’t know what bodhicitta is, isn’t it? You know what bodhicitta is? The ability to help.
Mhmm. The the desire to help with the motivation to— Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
That’s nice. The literal translation of bodhicitta— citta means mind. Bodhi means a great mind or a big mind. So the literal translation is a big mind. You can think big heart.
You know? So this is an easy way to remember, isn’t it? To have a big heart. So in every situation, trying to bring a big heart. I saw the— do you need more cord?
Wasn’t this morning. Okay. It may be the— oh, maybe it’s the spider. It could be the spider breathing. Anything’s possible, isn’t it?
With technology, anything’s possible. What about if I try moving the computer? There is something to call in the cord. Didn’t completely— It might have been that cord being too close to the computer. Okay.
So having that big mind, big heart. So before you practice generosity, you want to think about your motivation. Why am I doing this? Not to become egotistical, not to be thinking, I’m so great because I’m doing this, but thinking that, there is no self. Is there a self to practice the generous action?
Is there a self? Well, Buddhism says there is no self. There’s a conventional self. There’s the self that’s sitting here, but more than that, there’s no self. So this is hard, the emptiness of the self, the emptiness of the other, the emptiness of the gift.
But at least, you know, if you can’t get your mind around that emptiness, at least don’t promote your egotistical state of mind, isn’t it? That’s the main thing. Not to be thinking, I am an incredible person because I gave five dollars or fifty dollars or a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars. Just trying to empty any feeling of self, so just giving, but giving with a good motivation. I want to become enlightened as quickly as possible in order to benefit all sentient beings, or I want all sentient beings to become enlightened.
Whichever— whether you’re the boatperson or the shepherd or the king, the queen, what’s your motivation for doing this action? So try and have as good a motivation as possible. And then, we were saying that, well, along with generosity, you need ethics because you need to know how not to harm. So we need to know how to be a benefit, and we need to know how not to harm. So ethics is discussing, what would be harm and what would be less harm and ultimately what would be no harm.
So we go from harm to less harm to no harm, isn’t it? Don’t think you’re going to start out with absolutely no harm because then you’re setting yourself up for guilt and depression and beating yourself up because you make mistakes. So Buddha’s skill is that apart from talking about ethics, he also taught about how to purify the problems that we have with our ethics. So there are ways to purify. So we’re talking at the level of the individual liberation vows.
So the individual liberation vows are the lay vows and the monks and nuns vows. So these are the vows that say, for instance, not to kill, not to steal, not to lie. So we talked a little bit about this just very quickly this morning. And we need to know what to avoid in order to know what to do. So I used to give an example of, you know, how society changes?
So in society, you can have a time when alcohol is forbidden. And then that all changes, and then alcohol is being sold in supermarkets. Right? You see the big change that’s happened in society. You know?
So at one time, even in America, you had prohibition. Right? There was a time when alcohol wasn’t encouraged at all. Now we have a time when alcohol is being sold in corner stores. Right?
The same with smoking. Look at all the old films. In every single film, there’s somebody puffing away on a cigarette. No matter what the film, they were usually smoking. Now because of digital technology, they’re taking out the cigarette.
So who knows what they’re doing with their hands, but they’re sort of waving their hands around in the film. Maybe they put something else, a flower, you know? But I read somewhere that they’re actually taking the cigarettes out of the films because they feel that this will help the films, I guess, to be marketable because now it’s not so acceptable. Now what’s acceptable, it seems, is language. Right?
So now there’s language in films that you never heard years ago. And so now the advertisement says offensive language or really offensive language or something like that. Right? So you have to be warned before you go along. So this is how society changes.
And we don’t want our morality based on the whims of society. Because if we’re basing our morality on that, what we do and what we don’t do, and it’s going along with society, we could discover later on that they’ve changed their minds. And now what they were saying we could do and wasn’t harmful then becomes harmful later. So Buddha didn’t do that. He didn’t base his morality on what was going on at the time.
Because if he did, he would say, well, the caste system is good. There should be untouchables, etcetera, etcetera. This was what went on in his time. So even in Buddha’s time, it wasn’t a perfect time. He was born into a time where there were many changes happening, and he was one of the instruments of change.
So when Buddha saw the suffering that the untouchables were subjected to, his way of changing the situation was by saying, they can take refuge. They can become monks and nuns. This was radical. You know? This is very, very different from what was happening at that time.
So within the Sangha, within the monks and nuns, you could have a king and an untouchable person, all eating together, all sleeping in the same place, which was unheard of in those times. An untouchable drinking from the same well. Unheard of even until today in India. So there’s still problems with this. Even an untouchable looks at the well, it means the well has become dirty and needs to be purified.
It’s that serious. And we forget these things because maybe you’re in the West and you don’t hear about these things so much. But if an untouchable person looks at a Brahmin full on, they can be dead. Just like that. Because they looked.
You know? So I remember in Root Institute’s clinic in Bodh Gaya, this must be about two years ago now, they were talking about how there’s an untouchable boy who’s being trained in the clinic to do bandages and some nursing things. And the Western people were saying to him, you know, you should be strong. You should look at us straight in the eye. Don’t keep your eyes cast downwards.
Look at us. And then one day somebody said, actually, that could be really dangerous for him. Because if he goes back to his village and looks at a Brahmin straight in the eyes, he could be dead. So this is the culture of the country. It’s now changing quite rapidly in the cities because you could have a, say, a call center where many people are working together, and some of those call center people are going to be untouchables.
So this is the result of cities and education and bringing people together, you get rapid change. But still out in the countryside, it’s basically how it was thousands of years ago. So Buddha was the instrument of change. You know, he said this needs to change. We shouldn’t keep it as it is because the mind is not untouchable.
The mind itself is not untouchable. It’s not male or female. The mind is just the mind. So then we put a label on it and we say, untouchable. Or we say, dog.
Or we say, you know, whatever we want to say that we don’t like it. Right? And so because we don’t like it, we want to get it away from us, and then we’re willing to do negative actions in order to remove it. And this is where morality, ethics comes in. Because if the mind comes up with that negative thought, I want to harm, you need to know why you shouldn’t be harming.
What are the benefits for the other? What’s the benefits for you? Okay? And then you want to practice ethics because you think this has a value. It is worthwhile, not just for them, but for me too.
Right? Because we have self-cherishing. Might as well work with the self-cherishing in order to create better habits. Yes. The manifest teachings, you could call them, the manifest teachings of the dharmakaya are manifest teachings for our mind.
Because you need to see a man or a woman as a deity, because you need to see it in order to inspire you into doing a practice, the deities manifest in a certain way. So the dharmakaya is like an ocean of minds. There’s no form. Out of that ocean appears forms, and the forms are appropriate to various beings’ minds. So that’s why they say we have countless forms of Buddhas because they appear in all different ways.
And the mind itself, if you look at the definition of mind: clear, knowing, formless, that’s it. It doesn’t say clear, formless, knowing, and male or clear, knowing, formless, female or clear, knowing, formless, untouchable. It just says clear, knowing, formless. But is it male and female just the way there are male and female atoms? No.
They don’t know. No. There’s male and female forms. Dog forms, elephant forms, snake forms. But if you look at the mind itself, the mind is transient.
It’s utilizing the body. So the mind comes into the body, utilizing that form, utilizing the speech, utilizing the body, utilizing the thoughts. So the body, speech, and mind are being used by the mind. But the mind is just checking in and checking out. Right?
So the mind is not one with the form. The mind is able to leave the form, then go to another form, and another form, and another form. So when the mind becomes enlightened, then the mind joins an ocean of minds. They all know what each other’s thinking. They all know the individual drop of being a Buddha, but they all know each other.
So in that way, we say it’s a bit like an ocean, but not one because people think one. But you’re not one because you still have your individuality. And the individuality is expressed in the form. So for instance, Tārā, she said, I want to be female. When I’m enlightened, I’ll be female, and I’ll show a female form to encourage females to want to become enlightened.
Then other forms are quite wrathful. So if you’re quite heavy, you think, oh, I like that one. You know? I’m constantly angry. I like that Buddha, you know, with the fire coming out and the horns.
That’s a good one. And then others are very peaceful looking. And so if you want to develop peace, that one. But they’re not indivisible from the form. It’s just the mind creating the body, which is of use to you to inspire you to want to become an enlightened being.
So I’ve seen myself, I always think of Judaism now. Do you? Yeah. Oh, heaven forbid. Oh.
I do. I know I do. Yeah. It’s really interesting. Please don’t.
Of that. Yeah. Please don’t. Because then— Tārā very much. Yeah.
True. Yes, now. Yeah. But I— So what do you think Tārā is? I wonder if it’s from my Christian roots.
Roots. Yeah. But what did you think— well, what did you think Tārā was? You know she’s a Buddha. Being, my dear.
Yeah. But you know she’s a Buddha. Yes. And yet you don’t think of her as being a Buddha. I think of her as a female deity.
Yeah. But it hasn’t clicked really— No. That you can become that. Yeah. Isn’t it?
Could well be. Yeah. But it’s he in the sense of mankind, meaning all beings. But it’s very important to start thinking of the language in a different way because I think often the language is quite male. Right?
In the prayers, the language used to be quite male because it was taught mostly by men. It was the monasteries that were the biggest teachers. Not that the women were stopped from teaching, but they didn’t want to teach. It wasn’t what they wanted to do. Now you have more female teachers, less male teachers.
I think globally, generally, there’s more female teachers. And I think it’s probably the male teachers who are most interested in changing the language by feeling it’s unfair. So if you read the Heart Sūtra, in the Heart Sūtra, it now specifically says sons or daughters. It’s important to keep doing this, to make it very open so that anybody can become an enlightened being.
Lama Zopa says, you know, if the fly on the piece of shit, going around the stupa in Bodh Gaya can become enlightened, why can’t any of us? If that fly, just by the merit of going around the stupa, can become enlightened, why can’t we? But often we have a low self-esteem that thinks, well, they can, but I can’t. Or I’m a woman, I can’t. Or I’m a man, and I’ve done negative things, I can’t.
But what Buddha said was all of us, every single one of us can become enlightened, and it could be this lifetime that we become enlightened. How do we know we’re not just on the edge of enlightenment? So you always have to have that feeling of I’m on the edge of enlightenment. I’m nearly there. Just a little bit more.
Just keep going. Don’t give up. That’s the effort part. Just keep going. Because now we have this human rebirth.
And this human rebirth, whether it’s male or female, really doesn’t make any difference anymore. In India that long ago, it made a big difference. In many countries until today, it makes a big difference. Now you can be wearing clothes, and you can be in a type of society that really restricts you. But you are allowed to come here.
Right? Nobody stops you from coming here. We can equally sit here. You can equally ask questions and interact with the dharma in your own way. But still, there might be that type of mind right at the back that says, I’m not sure this applies to me, or doesn’t take on enlightenment as being an activity that you could achieve.
You know? And that’s what you came up with is, oh, that means I can do it as a woman rather than as a man. Right? And it’s interesting. You know about Tārā.
You pray to Tārā, and yet you didn’t actually develop a relationship with Tārā where you’re thinking, I should do it. I can become a Buddha as a woman. You know? Buddha just means the word— it doesn’t mean a man. It means an awakened being.
Does that mean you can’t wake up? But the possibility is there, isn’t it? If you’ve got a loud enough alarm, you can wake up. Whether we’re male or female, we can wake up. Right?
The word Buddha doesn’t mean a male who has woken up. It means a mind which has woken up. It’s important. So on behalf of all the women, thank you very much. Right?
Isn’t it? So then, thinking about keeping ethics, then Bodhisattvas need to retain the individual liberation vows because we have the individual liberation vows, and then you have Bodhisattva vows. So you know about the Bodhisattva vows, don’t you? I’m not gonna teach on those. So you have the individual liberation vows.
On top of that, it’s a bit like a sandwich. So you have the first layer, the individual liberation vows. On top of that, you have the Bodhisattva vows. You need to keep the Bodhisattva vows purely. In order to keep the Bodhisattva vows purely, you need to keep the individual liberation vows purely.
Because if you break the first one, it affects the second one. It works in that way. Right? So then on top of the individual liberation vows, the Bodhisattva vows, you have the tantric vows. And then you need to keep the tantric vows as much as you can purely because if you break those, you’ll break the Bodhisattva vows, and you could break the individual liberation vows.
All of them can be purified except for us. Right? We’re the two unlucky ones, just Venerable Gelong and me. If we break our root vows, we cannot purify them. So if as a monk or nun, you break the root vow, there’s no way to purify it.
You then have to take the robes off, and you leave the community. This is the way it is. We have secondary vows that can be purified. So monks and nuns have to be even more careful about not breaking the root vows. All other vows can be purified.
Lama Atisha, you know, when he went into Tibet, was constantly doing prostrations every few minutes. Get down, set up a little, you know, these little reliquary objects, you know, like a little Buddha or a Tārā. He was very close to Tārā. So he used to put a little Tārā or Buddha, do some prostrations, say some prayers, climb up on the yak or the donkey or whatever it was, down again, prostrations, up again.
And the Tibetans in the end said, excuse me, but what are you doing? We’ll never get to Lhasa at this rate. He was sixty-odd, so it couldn’t have been easy to climb down, get back up. Must have taken time. And they’re thinking, you know, okay, we can take our time, but we gotta get there.
What are you doing? He said, purifying. And they said, what are you purifying? They’re in the middle of nowhere. Right?
What are you purifying? I just realized I broke a vow. And they said, well, what vows are you breaking? He said, tantric vows break like rain. It’s like rain coming down.
So he said, it’s so easy to break, like raindrops. That number you can break easily. Bodhisattva vows, not so easy to break, and the individual liberation vows, much more difficult to break. Right? So the not killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, and intoxicants, this is difficult to break.
Right? Because you really think about it, and then you make a strong decision. I’m not going to do that. The Bodhisattva vows are in relation to others: cherishing, caring, nurturing. You know?
Doing things for others, the six perfections, easier to break. Not very easy, but easier because you could just think, oh, not today. I’m not going to help today. I’ll do it tomorrow. You turn away, don’t you?
The phone’s ringing, ringing, ringing. You know who it is. You can hear in the tone of the phone. You know? It’s a friend who wants to be helped, and you think, oh, not today.
I’ll do it tomorrow. Or you promise to help, and then you change your mind afterwards. So that, it’s possible. The tantric vows, very easy to break. So in the tantric vow system, there is definitely a method.
So if you have tantric vows and you’re not purifying, I would strongly recommend that when Geshe-la comes back, that you talk to him and you talk about specific means of purifying tantric vows. I think it would be very few of you here, but it’s important to know what the system is for purifying tantric vows. For the Bodhisattva vows, to purify, you just need regret. You need the four opponent powers, and you can do a way of purifying, which would be repeating the verse that retakes the vows, and you repeat it three times.
So it’s actually very easy. If you were here for Lama Chopa, we did it the other day. So it’s that easy that you just need to repeat the verse in Lama Chopa. It’s in there. Repeat it three times, and that means you’ve retaken your Bodhisattva vows.
That’s very easy to do on a daily basis. If you do it on a daily basis, it means that you always have pure Bodhisattva vows. Okay? Then the individual liberation vows, if you realize that you’ve broken any of them— and killing means, it has to be pretty strong. You know?
So usually, we’re talking about killing a human as being the level at which you would break the vow. Right? Stealing, you’re talking about an object of some value. It has to be valuable. Killing, stealing, lying, it has to be a big lie.
So we’re talking about, are you a Buddha? Somebody asks you, are you a Buddha? And you just smile enigmatically, you know, the way a Buddha would smile? And somebody takes that to mean yes. And so you’ve indicated you are a Buddha.
So the big lie relates to spirituality. It means it’s a lie that would indicate to somebody else that you have realizations when you don’t, and then they’re going to believe in you, and they’re going to follow you. So this confuses them. When they find out that you’re not what you were saying you were, they become even more confused. So this is not a nice type of lie.
Sexual misconduct, you know, having sex with somebody inappropriate, underage, that sort of thing, rape. And intoxicants, if you promise not to use intoxicants, then drugs, not the legal type, but drugs, alcohol. Even cigarettes could possibly be included, but they’re not up to now. But you know if you smoke enough, you can become intoxicated.
They can affect the mind. So if you’ve taken the vow not to take intoxicants, don’t smoke three in a row. Be careful. Yeah. So it’s not included in intoxicants, but it’s an intoxicated state of mind.
Because when you’re intoxicated, you can do anything. Then it said all the other negativities can happen because you’re intoxicated. Alright? So is that clear? Are we alright?
Yep. So then, we’re going to go on to the ethics of gathering virtuous dharmas. I finished the first one. So now we’re on to the ethics of accumulating something. So this includes all virtuous actions such as the six perfections, the ten virtues, and the ten virtues are the opposite to the ten non-virtues.
So instead of killing, you’ve got saving lives. Instead of stealing, you’ve got protecting others’ belongings. Okay? So when we talk about the ten virtues, it’s the opposite of the ten non-virtues. Renunciation, a nice easy word for a very difficult thing to do.
Giving up the attachment for the happiness of this life. Giving up the attachment to the happiness of this life. Now everything that you do in this life being for future lives. Can you do that? No.
So you don’t have renunciation. So that’s— I like to call them a work in progress. So renunciation is a work in progress, isn’t it? Keep going on that one. Keep thinking about it.
Don’t beat yourself up about it. Bodhicitta, so the big heart, the big mind. I always think of Lama Yeshe when I think about big mind, big heart because that seemed to be the aspect that he showed, you know, this radiant phase. And what was Lama Yeshe’s problem? The heart.
What was wrong with his heart? His heart was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. That’s what killed him. His heart getting larger and larger. But Lama had complete control over his body.
Complete. In the afternoon, he used to do special tantric practices that would regenerate his body. And the doctor said he would die within three to six months unless he had a bypass operation, and he lived ten more years. He said, I will live ten more years. And then he told all the students special practices to do to make sure he lived those ten years.
There had to be harmony in the sangha. No fighting. No divisiveness. And Lama lived ten years. When they looked at the heart after he died, he had developed a bypass.
Around his heart, he had grown his own bypass. So this is Lama Yeshe. I think bigger than normal, much bigger than normal. You know? So when the book comes out, I think it’s gonna be very interesting reading because there’s so many interesting stories in there from many, many different students’ point of view, many incredible activities that he did.
But this is the result of a big heart. When you have a big heart, anything is possible. At our level, we have our limitations, and we think not much is possible. Right? So now we need to change our motivation and start thinking anything is possible.
Stop making a limit on the number of beings that you can help, on the number of beings that you can interact with. So now, bodhicitta wisdom, I forgot to mention. So wisdom, particularly knowing what to do and when to do it, but also knowing that the I that’s going to do it is empty. The action that it’s going to do is empty, and the person towards whom it’s going to do it is empty.
So this is the most important part to know about wisdom. And now we’re going to talk about the eleven virtuous mental factors. So I’m sure you know them, but I just thought I’d mention them to you. The eleven virtuous mental factors. So the first one is faith.
Each one is a mental factor, but I’ll say it each time. Faith is the mental factor which when observing the Three Jewels, so this is the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha, the Three Jewels, the law of cause and effect, karma, generates a joyful state of mind that is without the agitation of delusions. When we have delusions, we have a washing machine going on inside the mind, don’t we? It’s like a whirlpool. You know?
It keeps going backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. And when you have faith, your mind locks onto what you want to do. Right? I want to become Tārā, or I want to become Śākyamūni Buddha. I believe I have faith.
But if you don’t have full faith, the delusions arise, and then your mind goes away from that. That’s what I want. And you sort of lose the object of your faith, don’t you? So how do you develop that faith? You need to think.
For you, what proves to you that the Buddhas are a valid object of faith. What proves it to you? I mean, you hear teachings on impermanence. You think easy. Death.
Yeah. I knew that. Rebirth, possible. Suffering, definitely. And you go through the Lamrim, and you think, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go to wisdom.
Go to the wisdom chapter. I often tell people, Śāntideva’s ninth chapter, read that. If you want to see an incredible mind at work, you have to read something like the ninth chapter of Śāntideva. You won’t understand it at all. And then you think, wow.
This is incredible. This is way beyond me. Right? So you want to have refuge, take refuge, in something that’s way beyond you, that’s something you can aspire to. So faith has the function of serving as the basis of aspiration.
When you have faith in something, it’s the basis of aspiration. You start to aspire to want to achieve that. Because remember, Buddhism is not about the Buddha saving you. Tārā doesn’t reach down and sort of grab hold of you and pull you up. How the Buddhas work is by you having faith towards them, then you create your Buddhism within you.
Right? So they’re the aspiration. They’re the energy. Faith can have the aspect of clarity, conviction, admiration, or longing with regard to a virtuous object. Clarity, conviction, admiration, or longing with regard to a virtuous object.
So you’re not looking at the Buddha thinking, oh, if only I could be with you, you know, like somebody you love, not like that sort of longing, but getting that feeling that you want to be closer. So you want to get closer. You want to have, I think, more of a mental closeness. It’s not a physical closeness, is it? But more of a mental closeness so that you feel that your mind is approaching the Buddha’s mind.
And faith is the beginning of that. Is that okay? Yes, American lady who doesn’t look like it’s okay. Oh, it’s okay. Okay.
Because it’s easier if I stop at the end of each one and you tell me it’s not okay. You want a little bit more rather than you continue your confusion, and then it gets worse. The second one is shame. This might be very surprising for you. Don’t talk about shame much, do we?
So the second one is shame, which is a mental factor which avoids negative actions due to personal conscience. It has the function of restraining negative actions of body, speech, mind. So is that popular these days? Shame? Don’t think so.
We normally think of shame post an action. Normally think of shame following the— After the action. Yes. Yeah. But if we had shame as a mental factor and we were going to do a negative action and shame arose, like you’re going to steal an object, you’re going to open that diary.
Isn’t it? And shame arose and you think, well, say I was caught in this moment. That used to be how we thought, wasn’t it? Yeah. I remember when I was a child, you didn’t do things because you didn’t want to get caught.
You were ashamed if you got caught. Right? But these days, is there as much shame as we used to have? I don’t think so. I think it’s changed a bit in the connotation of is shame a good thing.
I think we threw the baby out with the bathwater. When we were getting rid of some of what we used to do, I think shame went out, and then it was topless, bottomless, anything less. You know? And now society seems to be looking again. Well, what do we need in order to be happy?
You know? What do we need in order not to suffer? General society. So from a Buddhist point of view, shame is a positive mental factor because it’s your personal conscience. It’s you personally thinking, I wouldn’t want to do that because if somebody saw me, if I was caught or anything like that, I would be ashamed.
And so you don’t do it. And so this is how it’s a positive factor. It restrains your negative actions. It pulls you back. Okay?
The third one is embarrassment. Again, do we have embarrassment? Not as much, isn’t it? It’s also changed. Isn’t it one r, two s’s?
Is it? Two. Is it two r’s, two s’s, or one r and two s’s? Of each. Okay.
Because I took the r out, and now I think it looks funny. Yeah. I think it is two r’s, two s’s. It looked like a lot. There’s a lot in that word.
A lot of r’s. Embarrassment. Yeah? Embarrassment. So it’s a mental factor that avoids negative actions for the sake of others.
The shame was for the sake of you. Now embarrassment is for the sake of others. And like shame, it functions to restrain negative actions of body, speech, and mind, but due to wishing to avoid the disapproval of others and wishing to avoid causing them suffering. So its function is to restrain negative actions, again, of body, speech, and mind, but more from the point of view of others rather than yourself.
You wouldn’t want to cause them embarrassment or disapproval. You wouldn’t want to cause them any suffering. So shame and embarrassment are the main mental factors by which beings in saṃsāra— saṃsāra is this uncontrolled birth, death, and rebirth that we keep experiencing. So saṃsāra, cyclic existence. Shame and embarrassment are the main mental factors by which beings in saṃsāra are able to restrain themselves from negative karma, and so these two minds protect from suffering.
Alright. The next one is non-attachment. Number four, it’s a mental factor which acts to overcome attachment for cultivating non-attachment. You remain detached from attractions, and you’re prevented from grasping at them. Let go of that iPod, Janelle.
When it’s new, we’re really attached to it, aren’t we, when it’s new? And as it starts to get a bit older, you start thinking about changing it. The new one’s out. More memory. Smaller, better.
But you notice at the very beginning when you get something, how attached you are and how if you don’t let go of that attachment, it produces pain for you. Pain and suffering. Right? Because the object’s nature is impermanent. Your nature is impermanent.
The object’s nature is impermanent. So how can you grasp onto something and hold it as it was without it changing. It’s not possible. So the object has to change and also you’re changing. So non-attachment helps you to overcome attachment for the objects of cyclic existence, and the mind remains detached from attractions.
So you have the objects, but you’re not grasping onto them. You’re not mentally grasping. Don’t think you have to give up all your objects, all your money. It’s not like that. That’s not renunciation.
It’s the mental stickiness. Again, why is this important? Because we’re developing the mind that will become a Bodhisattva, able to use whatever you have in order to benefit sentient beings. Number five is non-hatred. Non-hatred.
It’s a mental factor that serves to overcome hatred and anger in relation to the repulsive, the harmful, and enemies. It’s an absence of the intention to harm. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Because you have harm. The absence of the intention to harm is actually the mind’s own nature.
The absence of the intention to harm is the mind’s own nature. And so what we’re doing when we’re creating a harmful mind is we’re going against the mind’s own nature. That’s why it feels uncomfortable. These negativities that arise. When the delusions come in, it’s like the mind is going against the mind.
The mind itself— from the definition, you know, if you keep thinking about what does mind mean, if you put a form on it, it would be like the sky. When we look up at that sky, you know, today, it’s a very good example. No clouds at all. Not one single cloud. Right?
But then the thoughts that appear are like the clouds, and the delusions are like the storms. Right? So you can have the thunderstorms, and they really sweep in, and they make the place look very small, very bleak, isn’t it? You know, the rain and the storms. This is your anger and your hatred.
Even desire can be like that. I love you. You know, I love you so much. And he says, well, I’m leaving. And you say, don’t you love me?
I made dinner for you. You know? And he says, I’m off. And then the storm. Right?
Then you can have the love story where you’re floating towards each other really slowly. You know? And you sort of go past each other. But anyway, the love story where you float together and you love each other and it’s all great. It would be very nice if it was like that, wouldn’t it?
The negative thoughts. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Are you Kathy? Are you Kathy?
Is it— oh, you’re not Kathy? I spoke to somebody on the phone, and I thought, oh, maybe it was you. Negative imprints. It’s negative seeds that are deposited in the mind from the past. The mind itself is just this blue sky.
Right? The thoughts, the delusions are adventitious. They appear. They take advantage. And so they sweep in.
You know, like I said, the storm can sweep in or the many clouds can sweep in. And because we have the habit of focusing on the thoughts, what’s interesting— we focus on the storm or the thoughts. We completely forget about the sky. Completely forget. You know?
And so we get very small and focused on me, my storm, my problem, and can’t see the blue sky. If we could wait, just wait. Don’t do anything. This is the main thing. Don’t do anything.
Don’t get involved in the story. Don’t get caught up in the story. Don’t start to star in it because, anyway, you wrote it, but now you want to star in it. You know? You’re pleading with the director.
Please give me a starring role in that movie. You know? It looks like such a drama. Put me in there. You know?
Go on. Give me the lead role. And the director says, fine. If you want it, remember there’s karma. And you say, oh, who cares about karma?
Just give me something dramatic. Life’s been a bit boring lately. And in you go. You know? And all this dramatic stuff happens, and you get confused and upset.
And afterwards, the clouds go away, and you think, what was all that about? Where did that come from? Isn’t it? It just seems to appear and disappear. When you’re Buddhist, you know more of that.
You realize, you recognize. When you’re not Buddhist, when you haven’t studied, it just seems life is about that, doesn’t it? It just seems everybody else is experiencing that too. And you switch on the TV, and it definitely proves to you that drama happens. Right?
Because you see these programs where it’s happening week after week after week. So what we need to recognize is the nature of our mind, which is looking for the space between the thoughts rather than the thoughts. We’re looking for clarity. We’re looking for the wisdom. We’re looking for the peace, the happiness.
You know, we’re looking for the good stuff. So the absence of something, you know, I was talking about non-hatred. The absence of hatred is non-hatred. So when there is no hatred, the quality that’s there is non-hatred. Non-hatred.
So that’s a quality of your mind. Right? So the quality of your mind is not to hate. What do we do? We force ourselves into hating.
Why? Because of attachment and grasping. We look at somebody. They’ve got what I want, and then we start making up a story about them. And so we start to hate them.
That happens because from beginningless time, we’ve had attachment and desire. From beginningless time, we thought things are permanent, not impermanent. From beginningless time, we’ve done negative actions, and we seem to get something good from it. Go into a shop and steal something and not get caught, and you think karma doesn’t work. Right?
Isn’t it? Go into a shop, steal something valuable, get out of the shop without being caught, and you think, oh, karma doesn’t work. But karma isn’t instant like that. But karma will come back on you. You know?
It may take a lifetime, lifetimes, but then you’ve got the most brilliant situation. You’ve got the most wonderful house. Everything’s going for you. And the taxman comes along and says, you’ve just lost it all. And you think, why me?
I do good things. You know? That’s how it happens. All the clouds sort of come in, the storm, and you’re there in the storm. So when these negative states of mind arise, recognize this is not the quality of your mind.
This is not who you are. These thoughts are empty. They don’t have the power to do anything unless you give them the power. Giving them the power is getting involved in them. Oh, interesting.
In Mexico, I used to say Dharma or drama. It’s really helpful to remember just those two words, Dharma or drama. But if you meditate, it starts to become slower. You start to see where you’re going. Oh, you know, you could— it’s— you can look at it and say, oh, I see where you’re going.
You’re off down the drama path. Well, I’m not going that way this time. I’m choosing the Dharma path. You know? I choose.
Your mind— the negative mind is not in control of you. But in the beginning, because of such strong karma and delusion, it can seem like it is in control. It seems like you’re a dog on the lead, isn’t it? And the karma and delusion’s taking you for a walk. But you start digging in your feet and saying, no.
I’m not going in that direction. You start being able to slow it down, and then you start being able to see when it’s happening. You can actually see the thoughts as they’re appearing. One of the scientific studies that was done in Canada was to see the difference of mind between somebody who meditates and somebody who doesn’t. The main difference they found was that the meditator can see split seconds.
Split seconds. The non-meditator sometimes doesn’t see for minutes. Right? Seeing— in what sense. See— well, the example that they used was, they had cards, like playing cards, and they flick them at a certain rate, and there were letters on the cards.
A meditator could see the letters on the cards. A non-meditator might space out and lose control for ten, fifteen minutes. You know? You might be supposed to be looking at those cards, but you’re thinking this is a really boring thing to be doing, but at least I’m earning a hundred dollars by doing it. And then you think, oh, back to the cards.
Whereas a meditator knows quite quickly, come back, come back, come back. So you’re developing the ability to see the negative thoughts as they’re appearing, and you apply the antidotes. When they’re not appearing, that’s the quality of your mind. When there is no hatred, there’s non-hatred. It’s the positive quality of your mind.
It’s very nice. When you’re not hating, you’ve got non-hatred. Then you think, whoopee. Well done. You know?
Instead of thinking, well, when there’s no hatred, there’s nothing. There’s non-hatred. It’s a quality. Then you’ve got something to rejoice in. It’s important to have things to rejoice in.
Then the next one is non-ignorance. Number six, non-ignorance. This is a mental factor of analysis that arises from innate disposition, study, or meditation. And its function is to overcome ignorance and accompanies strong intelligence. It’s a mental factor of analysis that arises from an innate disposition, study, or meditation.
So it means it can be developed. It functions to overcome ignorance and accompanies strong intelligence. So when we’ve got those moments of non-ignorance, that’s the quality of our mind. That’s what we really are is wisdom. Right?
This is the quality of our mind. We are wisdom. We are compassion. We have very beautiful qualities within. But these negative emotions, the delusions, they take advantage.
You know? They come in, and they sort of obscure the nature of our own mind. So we need to know that I want to have much more intelligence, isn’t it? When we’re aware of these minds that arise, what do you do at that time? Do you just allow it to arise and then you become interested, or do you counteract it?
When you counteract it, that’s wisdom. When you leave the emotions as they were and you get involved in them, then that’s ignorance. Okay? So we need to apply what we know to the emotions as they’re arising. And this is created through your innate disposition.
You might have been born with the ability to do this or study or meditation. So the Lamrim, the graduated path to enlightenment, is the antidote for these negative states of mind. You study the Lamrim, and then you know how to apply the meditations and the teachings in the Lamrim to those negative states of mind as they’re arising. This is what they’re talking about when they’re saying non-ignorance.
You don’t want to stay with the ignorance because the ignorance is what’s produced all our suffering up to now. The seventh one, and then we’ll have a break, is joyous effort. Joyous effort is a mental factor that delights in virtue and which overcomes laziness. It has the function to fulfill and accomplish virtues. It’s not an ordinary effort.
It’s a joyous effort. You take on a task, and then you want to keep going. So always think of His Holiness. You just think, never give up. It’s the easiest phrase to remember in regard to joyous effort, never give up.
Whatever you’ve undertaken, you make sure that you keep going. It’s very important when you take on a task that you know that you can finish the task. If you don’t think you can finish, don’t start. Once you’ve started, you can’t stop. Right?
That’s the difficulty. Once you’ve started, you can’t stop. But before you’ve started, you should think about, can I accomplish this project? Can I achieve it? Do I have the capabilities?
So you should think before you start any project. And then once you’ve started, you think now I’ve started. I’m not going to give up. Because, of course, there are going to be obstacles. There always are.
Things arise, particularly you arise. So your negative minds will arise when you’re doing something really positive. These minds arise and say, oh, what are you doing that for? You could be going to the beach today. Look at what a beautiful day it is.
You could be sailing. Look. And this mind goes on and on and on. You could be. You could be.
You could be. So once you’ve made a determination, whether it’s work, whether it’s home, whether it’s enlightenment, whatever it is, you’ve taken on that project. Now you said, I’m going to become a Bodhisattva. I’m going to become enlightened. It’s a project.
You’ve taken it on. It’s not too difficult. Now you say, I’m not going to give up. Never give up. And you don’t have to achieve it in this life, but it’s achievable.
You have to feel it’s achievable. I can become enlightened. Why? Because so many others have become enlightened before me. As Lama Zopa says, even the fly became enlightened.
So what about you? Are you worse than the fly? You’re a human. Right? So we have so much potential.
For sure, we can become enlightened. And somebody in Kopan just last year asked Lama Lhundrup, are people still becoming enlightened in this day and age? Because we don’t see people flying in the air and floating on lotuses and things like this. And Lama Lhundrup said, like this. Like every click of the fingers, somebody’s becoming enlightened.
That much. Right? Because of our obscurations, we don’t see it, but it’s still happening today. So many Buddhas becoming enlightened. And I read recently Lama Zopa Rinpoche saying something about Buddhas are countless somewhere.
Buddhas are countless. Right? So it’s not one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Buddhas are countless. So in here, we could have ninety-five percent Buddhas.
You know? And just one sentient being, which is you. You know who I’m talking to. You know who I mean. Right?
Because you know you’re not a Buddha, but the rest of us don’t know. Right? That’s the trick, isn’t it? The rest of us don’t know, but you know. If you’re honest with yourself, you know you’re not a Buddha.
And so, we should all view you as Buddhas because we don’t know. Buddhas manifest in whichever way is suitable to help us and be a benefit to us, for us to become enlightened. So in order for this class to happen, the Buddhas all manifested this situation, and you’re the only one who’s not enlightened. And I often say, saṃsāra only exists because of you.
Right? Everybody else is enlightened, and there’s only one left, and it’s you. Right? So everybody’s here. The whole situation’s here just to help you to become enlightened.
So if you think like that, you think I should get on with it. You know? Get some energy up to do it, and I’m not gonna give up because they’ve all gone to so much trouble for me to help me. Right? This is a perfect situation.
Having all the benefits of being a human, having met the dharma, a dharma center, you know, so many benefits. You think how rare is that? Even though we have so many dharma centers in the world, many, many people write to me, and they’re nowhere near a dharma center. They can’t change their job. They’re not near a dharma center.
What can I do? The only thing available is really correspondence. It’s not the same. Having sangha is so valuable. So then each day to rejoice and think, my karma’s pretty incredible that it ripened as this.
It could be a lot worse. Okay? So we’ll stop on joyous effort. Yes. Do people know when they’re enlightened?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was reading a book by Chagdud Rinpoche, and he was on a panel. It was like a new age and psychologist panel. Many, many people.
And one lady said, I’m enlightened. And so the first guy said, oh, that’s very nice. You know? What does it feel like? And she said, oh, it’s great.
You know, I really love it. And the second guy, you know, psychologist, I’m really happy that you’re enlightened. And it was like that. And it got to Chagdud Rinpoche, and he said to her, well, I’d like to ask you, do you still get angry? She said, yes.
Do you have desire? Yes. Do you have attachment? Yes. Do you get hatred?
Some. You’re not enlightened. That was it. Right.