Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Lobsang Namgyel teaches the fifth verse of the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation in this 33-minute session, focusing on the hardest teaching: accepting defeat and offering victory to others when faced with abuse and insults. He traces the chain of suffering back to self-cherishing and ignorance, then turns to practical strategies for when others mistreat you. Rather than fighting back or responding with anger, he instructs students to recognize hostile words and actions as manifestations of their own past karma and the other person’s delusion, to check whether criticism is true, and to choose responses rooted in patience and compassion instead of victory. Through extended examples—driving, relationships, workplace confrontations, and a mother with dementia—he shows how winning arguments separates you from your values, while accepting defeat paradoxically protects your integrity. The session balances philosophy with concrete psychology, suited to practitioners already familiar with the thought transformation framework.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 35 Teaching 11.mp3
UUID: 9a4394a4-98b9-470d-86d6-fe66ac5a7405
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: VenNamgyel Thought Transformation (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 33.3 minutes
Words: ~4,552
To, start reducing those eight worldly concerns. Don’t be so don’t be so bothered by them. They’re going to happen, but don’t be so pushed around by them. Have more equanimity. Seeing, sentient beings as your field of merit or as enlightened beings or as a manifestation of your karma because they’re appearing out of emptiness, whichever way you can see the situation depending on your level of mind will help you to change the situation.
Instead of you looking for others to change, you’re you’re changing your perception of the situation. Oh, thank you. And then, yeah, we talked a little bit about emptiness, how everything is an illusion, a dream. So remembering that nothing exists the way we think. So when the truly existent enemy, relationship, parent, whatever it is appears in front of you, and you think this is not what I wanted in my life, remember you created it.
It’s a creation of your karma. So don’t blame the other person. If you want to blame anything, blame negative karma and delusion. So you put the blame on negative karma and delusion. Where did that negative karma and delusion come from?
self-cherishing. So we cherish ourselves and we don’t cherish others the way we should. Where does self-cherishing come from? Self grasping. What are we grasping onto?
An illusion that there is a self that exists. So it starts with that ignorance, lack of wisdom, ignorance that a self exists. We then grasp onto it, thinking it exists, and then we want to cherish that self and take care of it. We want to give it the best because that’s what we’ve been taught and that’s what we believe and in order to do that, we grab what we want. We take what we want.
We create negative karma. We create anger, jealousy, hatred. Or we try and get what we want, attachment, desire. So look at how when we’re cherishing ourselves, we’re actually doing negative actions. We’re harming others and we’re harming ourselves.
And then how do we change that situation? How do we, produce what we want? Happiness, which is not conditional, but which is beyond conditions. We need to purify that previous negative karma and delusion. We need to change the habit.
We need to become more mindful and more aware of our behavior. In order to do that, then we’re doing our morning meditation whether we’re Buddhist or not, it doesn’t matter. Meditation is not Buddhist. Meditation is just meditation. So, what do you meditate on?
You don’t need to say, oh, Lama Tsongkhapa, save me. Beam me up. Take me to another planet. You know? Like Star Trek or something like this.
What we’re looking for is inspiration. And I tell you, in samsaric life, there isn’t much inspiration. They’re saying, buy an an LCD, you’ll be happy. Buy another car, you’ll be happy. So if you want inspiration of that sort, you switch on the TV.
You take your credit card and you go and buy something. Right? But we know that that sort of inspiration doesn’t last very long. That sort of feeling of I’m happy doesn’t last very long. And Then we feel that we need to consume, we need to buy, we need to do something.
So in order to start the day in a positive way, look at your diary, look at your book, and see what the overwhelming evidence is of irritability. We may never get angry, but you may get irritable driving the car, you know, people get too close, especially if you’re driving in Italy. Right? The horns going it’s very similar to India. You know?
The horns going no rules and just dodging in and out. Very similar to Mexico too. Extremely hair raising. Of course, everybody knows what they’re doing, but if you’re a visitor, it’s it’s quite frightening. But, you know, you can be driving along and then suddenly somebody comes too close and you wind or electric windows these days, isn’t it?
You know, the window goes down. Boy, stupid. You know? And you may think, that’s nothing. I just do that every day.
You know? But that’s that constant irritability. And if you catch it, then you start to notice actually on a daily basis you are being irritable. Becomes easier to be irritable with your friends, with your family, easier to say things that you didn’t want to say, easier to get angry. So you’re preparing the ground, you know?
The habit is there. You’re digging the hole. And then you’re falling in the hole and then you’re saying, who put me in the hole? Well, you say, I dug the hole. I put myself in the hole, and I’m going to get myself out.
That’s what the whole of thought transformation is. It’s putting the responsibility onto you. And you may think, gosh, this is a big burden. It is. You know?
What to do? It is. It is difficult, but it’s easier than changing the world. Changing one is much easier than changing all all your friends and all your family. So I know this is a confrontation.
It’s a confrontation with the self grasping. The self grasping says, there is a self. I should take care of it because if I don’t, who will? You won’t. So I have to.
So I have to take what I want. Now, these verses are saying, is that true? From beginningless time, you’ve been doing that. Are you totally happy? Do you have everything you want?
How’s your life? And then you think, ah, yeah, that’s true. It’s not all great. I have sicknesses I don’t want. I have problems I don’t want.
So where does all that come from? If I’ve been grabbing all this all this stuff and all these people from beginningless time, by now I should be okay. But I’m not. So what’s the difference between enlightened beings who are blissfully happy and they’re okay and me? What’s the difference?
I cherish myself. They cherish others. That’s the difference. self-cherishing or cherishing others. So we’re learning about self-cherishing until we get to the seventh verse where we switch it all around, like I said yesterday, in answer to a problem, we start to take on the suffering.
By understanding that we are suffering and the methods that we’re using are not solving our suffering, we have to switch it all around. Instead of getting rid of the suffering, we say give it to me. It’s very radical. So we’re up to the fifth verse. Before I go on, are there any questions?
Is there anything anybody wants to ask? Everybody’s comfortable? Just cruising along hundred kilometers an hour. It’s not too demanding. Okay.
So the fifth verse, this is when it gets tough. When out of envy you know envy, don’t you? Envy. Somebody’s looking at you and they’re thinking, oh, he’s so lucky because he’s got that white shirt. You know?
So that or he’s so fortunate. He can meditate like that. It’s a perception and it’s an imputation. From your own mind, you’re looking at somebody and you’re envying them. So envious.
Yeah? So when out of envy, others mistreat me with abuse, insults, or the like, I shall accept defeat and offer the victory to others. Yeah. Might as well. When out of envy, others mistreat me with abuse, insults, or the like, I shall accept defeat and offer the victory to others.
This is tough going. Right? It’s now got to the point where sentient beings are becoming pretty horrible. Your karma’s really ripened into a horrible situation. So hopefully, by the fifth verse, you’ve got this feeling of the How can I say this?
The situation that you’ve got yourself into. The power just went off, didn’t it? The situation that you’ve got yourself into. In the past, you have written your karmic story in a certain way. You are now experiencing that karmic story, whatever it is.
And what you imagined in this life was that you were going to be in a romantic comedy, but you find yourself now in a horror movie. Okay? So you’re in a horror movie. You never wanted to be in a horror movie. You wanted to be Tom Cruise or Reese Witherspoon or Meg Ryan or something like that, you know, you imagined yourself just in a a really nice, light hearted, you know, sort of comedy.
You find the right partner. You have a nice house. Two point three children. I’m not sure who has two point three children and what the point three is. Maybe it’s a dog or a cat or a bird.
But, you have two point three children, you live in the right suburb, you know, you love each other, you take care of each other. Everything should be like that. Isn’t it? This is the western dream. Everything’s like that.
But a lot of people end up in extremely difficult situations and they don’t know why. They wanted that sort of movie, but they end up in the Scream Scream three or something. You know? A horror movie where every corner you turn, you feel there’s a knife there and somebody’s out to get you. That’s where the fifth fifth verse has brought us to.
The knives are out. They’re sharpening the knives, and you don’t know why you. Up until now, you’ve been a good person. You’ve done good things. Right?
You’ve done some negative stuff too, but nothing to deserve this. You think. Right? So now they’re coming at you with abuse, insults, or the like. They’ve really brought out the big guns, and they’re aiming it at you.
Your work is useless. I mean, this is probably the one who loved you in the past. You’re useless at work. You don’t earn enough money. You don’t work hard enough.
You’re this. You’re down, down, down, down, down. What would be your instinct in that situation? Fight back. But we fought back in the past and have we won?
Or if you win, do you win a nice victory in the sense of the winning brings you together? Winning tends to separate you. But also, anyway, it separates you from yourself, from the values that you want to have, from what you’ve decided that you want to be. You want to be in the romantic comedy. You want to be kind and compassionate and loving.
When your kids come home, they say, hi mom. Hi dad. And you say, hi son. You know, like this. Instead of, you know, sort of grumpy, irritable every day.
We can also go home grumpy and irritable every day from work. We can be grumpy and irritable at home and feeling like the situation is out of control. So if you have that feeling because somebody’s abusing or insulting you, think, this is your past karma out of emptiness it’s appearing. Now if I respond in the same way, what is the movie I’m writing for the future? What are the karmic imprints I am now producing?
Sixty five boomerangs with razor edges or sixty five ninja stars. You’re very good at doing the abuse or the insults and you’re throwing them out and throwing them out and you won. You know? After all these battles, you won. But in the future, it’s coming back on you and you’re going to lose.
So here, it’s saying to you, accept the defeat. Somebody’s abusing you, insulting you. If you have good self esteem, it’s just like air blowing past your ear. Because you check it, is it true? No.
I don’t need to believe in this. I don’t need to listen to it. If it is true, then there’s something I need to change. Something I need to listen to. But mostly, abuse and insults are not based on facts.
It’s just somebody’s way of getting to you, of provoking some sort of response. And then when you go crazy and you start frothing at the mouth and your arms are whirling all over the place, then they say, you see, I knew you were like this. I knew you couldn’t control yourself. You’re always angry. And you think, but this is incredible.
You made me angry and now you’re blaming me. You’ve lost. Right? So often by responding, you’ve lost. So now it’s saying, lose anyway.
And you don’t say, oh my enlightened being, you know, you have won. I’ve been on this seven day course. Everything’s great now. You know, love and compassion. This will really make them angry.
And don’t sit at the kitchen table with some weird smile on your face and sort of, you know, smiling. Yes, yes, dear. Whatever you want to say. And you’re looking at your eight verses of thought transformation. Now, which verse does he fit into now?
Don’t do that. I’ve had people who’ve done this. I can tell you, it makes the other person extremely angry. So if you think there’s a fight going on before, now it’s going to escalate. I knew you shouldn’t have gone to that Buddhist cause.
I, you know, and that’ll all be dragged into it. Right? So, again, this is a secret practice that helps you that instead of you responding with anger, hatred, saying things that you don’t want to say, you go back to your resource. What’s your resource? Patience, compassion, love.
Which is the operating system that you want to use? Do you want the very negative one or do you want the positive one? So in these situations, being mindful, you’re aware of the delusion as it’s arising. Anger exaggerates the object to which it doesn’t want to give any kindness. You’re now your mind is exaggerating.
When you’re angry, you’re exaggerating. You’re you’re making it much worse. And when you calm down, haven’t you ever received an email that really upset you? Have you ever done this? You’ve read an email and you got really upset and then you read it later when you’re not upset and you realize you completely misread it?
The trouble with emails is it’s all too fast. We read it and we reply quickly. So often say, if something upsets you, leave it for a while and go back to it. Check again because you’ve often misread it or misheard, misunderstood. And now you’re responding and the other person doesn’t quite know what’s going on because they didn’t mean what you think they meant.
So anger is an exaggeration of the enemy. Desire and attachment is an exaggeration of the person that you like. It exaggerates. It’s a fantasy. Right?
So you’re not seeing reality. You didn’t see that they don’t do the dishes, that they don’t clean up, that they squeeze the tube from the middle. They don’t put the top back on so the toothpaste drips all over the place. They throw their clothes all over the place. In the beginning, you think it’s charming.
You know, oh how sweet as you’re picking it all up, you know. After a year, it’s not sweet anymore. Right? But in the beginning, you chose to not be bothered by it. After a year, you chose to be bothered by it.
That’s the difference. The person’s the same. But we choose to perceive things in a different way. Tree is just a tree. Right?
Person is just a person. Then we say, nice person, handsome person, or beautiful person, good person. I want that person because if I get a good beautiful person, I’m going to be a better person. There’s a fantasy going on, you know. But when you wake up to the reality, you smell the coffee, you know, and then you think, uh-oh, this person’s gotta change.
You know, and then you start You can start subtly abusing them, subtly insulting them. Not very pleasant, but it’s just subtle. You know, if you cleaned up after yourself, I’d have more time to whatever. If you do, you know, this sort of way of getting at somebody and then it starts fueling the arguments. So whenever this is happening to you, abuse, insults, the like, whatever, look at are you putting it out?
And if you’re putting it out in even the smallest way, make a decision because you don’t like it, you’re never going to do it again. You try not to do it. Right? And then you accept defeat in the way of thinking. I don’t need to win this argument.
What’s more important to me is love and kindness and compassion. That’s the way I’m going. That’s the direction I’m going in. Not victory in this moment. In order to have victory in this moment, you might need to bring out your nuclear bombs, your AK forty sevens.
You know, you bring them all out. Isn’t it? When you’re in an argument, particularly a a relationship argument, out come the AK forty sevens, out come the nuclear bombs, and you’re gonna win. And you win. And then afterwards you say, I’m really sorry.
I didn’t mean those things. But that person remembers them. It’s never the same again because they remember the things that you said. So it changes the relationship. There’s a lot more to get over.
So I say to people, instead of insulting somebody and then having to buy chocolates or flowers or, you know, cook a dinner or whatever you do afterwards to solve it, try not doing it in the first place. It’s easier. It’s less trouble than having to solve the problem after. You have now created a problem. You’re going to have to solve the problem.
Right? So try not to do it. And whenever possible, if you’re in an argument, somebody’s abusing your boss, you know, looks at Something you’ve done. You’re so stupid. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the feeling could come up. What?
You can’t speak to me like this. You just think he’s full of delusion. You know? In the same way that we have delusion, others have delusion. Remember?
We’re all born from karma and delusion. So when you’re experiencing delusion from somebody else, you think they’re like a crazy person. The delusion has sent them crazy. They don’t know what they’re doing. So, one of the one of the examples in the Buddhist text is You love your mother so much, but for some reason she went crazy, conventionally crazy.
Right? So you think, what can I do with my mother? She needs treatment. I have to put her in the best possible hospital. So you put her in the hospital and they say, don’t worry about it.
We’ll take care of her. We’ll look after her. And then after a few days, you go to see her and you say, mom, how are you feeling? And she grabs a stick and she hits you over the head screaming at you, you know? You’re stupid.
You’re bad. You know, like this. Would you get really angry with your mother? This is a mother that you really love. Or would you think my mother’s gone crazy?
All beings are your mother. According to Buddha’s definition, they’re all crazy. We’re in the Samsaric hospital, mental hospital. Right? Because we have ignorance.
We’re not seeing things clearly. We have delusions. We get full of these negative states of mind. We have negative karma. So we’re all in the mental hospital.
So how am I going to be perfect, and how do I expect you to be perfect? How is it possible? If you understand the imperfection, then you allow people a bit of leeway instead of they must be perfect. Buddhas, you can expect to be perfect, but sentient beings are not perfect. They’re going to let you down.
They’re going to abuse you. They’re going to do negative things towards you. Of course, they will because they’re sentient beings. Don’t expect them to be perfect. Even the person you’re in a relationship with, your best friend, sometimes they’ll do the wrong thing.
So if you’re going to take refuge, take refuge in enlightened beings. Don’t take refuge in ordinary beings. Don’t take refuge in phenomena. I buy this iPod. I take refuge in my iPod.
You know, you put it on the altar and you do three prostrations to your iPod every day. Oh, please enlighten me, iPod. You know? But iPods are beautiful, you know? Apple phones and all the rest.
It’s beautiful. But if you take refuge in it, it’s an impermanent object that is gonna break down one day. And you may think it’s funny to say taking refuge in an object, but we do take refuge in objects. We use them that way. The pills or the films or the TV, whatever it is, the book we read, the magazines we read, it’s taking refuge for a while to remove us from the suffering and to give us some happiness.
And we do that with our friends, with our family. Take away my suffering. Give me happiness. But they have their own suffering, their own problems. And sometimes they’re going to make mistakes.
And when they do, you remember. This is my crazy mother. Right? So when your mother goes crazy in the hospital and she hits you, what actually causes the pain? Isn’t it the stick hitting your head?
Isn’t it? When your mother hits you with a stick, isn’t it the stick hitting your head that hurts you? Why don’t you get angry with the stick? Then if it’s not the stick, is it, your mother? But then you think, no, but my mother’s gone crazy.
She’s not responsible. So what’s responsible? The craziness. So the same way with sentient beings, it’s not the stick or the words. It’s not the person because they’ve gone crazy.
It’s the delusion. So if you want to blame something, blame the delusion. Right? And when you put the blame on the delusion, then you understand you’re deluded sometimes, they’re deluded sometimes, and what sentient beings need is patience and compassion. Not more anger, not more aversion.
So you take the responsibility to change the situation. Okay? So that means we’ve we’ve finished five verses now. So one to five. I went quickly this morning because some people are leaving.
Any questions? Clear. So the discussion groups, I would particularly like you to talk about, delusions. The type of delusions that we have in our lives, how we’ve been dealing with it, how we could deal with it now. This one that we were just talking about in in relation to others abusing you, insulting you, and our normal reaction.
We don’t like it. You know? We think it affects us in some way. Can we take on this giving victory, taking on the defeat? Can we use it in a very positive way?
Not putting ourselves down, but not continuing the argument, and not upsetting ourselves. Because again, it goes back to somebody with the bow and arrow of insulting words shoots it at you. It drops in front of you, and you pick it up. And all night, you say, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. They said this.
They said this. They said this. This is where you get to with the abuse and the insults. You’re stabbing yourself. You keep repeating it over and over.
So can you think of an another way that you could do it using this verse? And then there’s nothing else that you come up with. And? Okay. Maybe they can all meet at the cafe.
Who’s been Has anybody been to the relic room before? You’ve been. Who? No. So you you’ve been.
So can you go with them? If everybody who wants to go to the relic room can meet at one thirty near the the cafe. Relic room. Yeah. Near the cafe.
Do you know the word cafe? I think it’s French. So, Sacre bleu. So meet near the cafe and, then what’s your name? Siri.
Okay. So then Siri will show you where the relic room is, and then you’ve got about half an hour to look around the relic room, and then afterwards, you’ve got the discussion groups. So it’s one thirty. Then the other thing, I need a fresh fresh new, because it’s usually you who says you’ll do it. A fresh new organizing person who can, make a list of names and collect fifty cents from each person who wants this disc.
So I can make one disc, but then the library has agreed to make copies of the discs. So if you want, we’ve asked them how much it’s gonna cost and for them to do it because I can do the recordings until Thursday night, then make the disc, and then Friday morning, they’ll have to do it. Otherwise, I don’t have time to do it. So, fifty cents for each disc. So if one person can make a list and collect the fifty cents from each person and then on Friday, we can give you the discs.
So which volunteer? Oh, two volunteers. So maybe you can work together. Maybe you can do it together. Okay?
So, if you get a piece of paper and maybe, after lunch sometime, just organize. Yeah? Maybe, tea time is a good time. You know, in the dining room at tea time? Maybe it’s by tea time, make sure that your name’s on the list, you’ve given the fifty rupees, and then you can give it to me tonight, and then I’ll organize it.
Okay? So relic room, meet at the cafe. Siri will show you one thirty. Two o’clock is discussion group. And there may be a puja tonight, but there may not.
It’s either tonight or tomorrow. Did you hear something? No. It’s tonight or tomorrow. So we’ll keep you informed.
We thought it was tomorrow. I think it was said the lamas were talking about. It could be today. So we’ll let you know. Oh, is it the school?
Lama Zopa suddenly went down this morning. So I think again things have changed because the pujas down in Bodh Gaya were supposed to have finished yesterday. Then last night they decided to do more pujas, so this morning Lama Zopa went down. So I’m not sure if this still applies or whether it’s still on. So we can check lunchtime and maybe if there is an opening at three o’clock, it’s that new school building below.
You know, below. You see it from the dining room, that new school building. So, if it is on, it would be an opening of that school building, which means Lama Zopa Rinpoche would be there. He might give a talk, and if he does, it could go for six hours. That would be a short talk.
Usually Rinpoche just he’ll talk about the compassion and the kindness of the people who’ve done this and the benefit for all the children who are going to be going there. So this is Rinpoche’s favorite subject. So I think it could go on a long