Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 59-minute teaching, Ven Lobsang Namgyel guides students through the foundational logic and psychology of Tonglen, the Tibetan Buddhist practice of exchanging self-concern for concern for others. He begins by placing Tonglen within the larger Bodhisattva path, explaining how it addresses the core delusion of self-cherishing that he characterizes as a Trojan horse virus in the mind. The core argument unfolds across five key points: equalizing yourself with others (recognizing that all beings equally want happiness and wish to avoid suffering); the advantages of cherishing others (showing through examples and classical verses how all true happiness—wealth, health, good form, respect—arises from benefiting others, never from self-focus); the disadvantages of self-cherishing (demonstrating how suffering and negative karma stem directly from grasping at a false, separate self); the ability to exchange attitudes (the practical shift from grabbing things for yourself to giving to others); and finally, the practice itself. Throughout, Namgyel emphasizes that this is not rejection of food, sleep, or survival, but a radical reorientation of motivation—eating and sleeping with bodhicitta rather than mere self-preservation. He addresses common obstacles: procrastination, self-doubt, the sense that the task is too vast, and the fear that self-sacrifice will leave one lacking. The teaching is practical and direct, peppered with contemporary examples—lottery winners, speed bumps, supermarkets—to make abstract Buddhist logic tangible for a Western audience.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 38 tong len teaching.mp3
UUID: c1c400c2-b827-47dc-82c1-6370bf28e2d1
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: VenNamgyel Thought Transformation (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 59.0 minutes
Words: ~8,614
And when we’re trying not to harm. So then you’ve got three perfections that you’re conjoining together. Okay? So you’re not practicing one, then the other, then the other. You’re actually practicing altogether.
So it gets more and more difficult. The more you know, the more difficult it becomes because you’ve gotta put them all together. Then the fourth one is joyous effort. So this is, I’m not going to give up. So and we were saying in our motivation, we have all sentient beings who are suffering.
So the assumption is that if you’re born because of karma and delusion, you must be suffering because the karma and delusion makes you suffer. We tend to look at the world as creating our suffering, and it’s not about me. It’s about the world. And so if I can just change the world, then I’ll be happy. So Buddha said, well, actually, it’s the other way around.
If you change your mind, you change the way you’re viewing things, and you start to view the world with wisdom and compassion, then you will cease to suffer. And then, we’re using what we know on the Bodhisattva path in order to be a benefit to others, reaching out to others. So now we come to joyous effort, and I thought I should little bit, recap what joyous effort is because I know some of you weren’t here. And now we’re talking about, wanting to develop this compassion for all sentient beings, wanting to take on their suffering, wanting to give them back happiness. This is certainly not an easy endeavor.
It’s not something simple. So I just want to remind you, there’s the laziness of procrastination. This is the opposite of joyous effort. You have the laziness of procrastination. I’ll do it tomorrow.
So why we were talking about impermanence and death yesterday is because we need to stop that attitude of I’ll do it tomorrow, and we think, I’ll do it today. I must do it today. Because we’re assuming we only have today. We’re not assuming we have any more time. And, also, there is this, this feeling of all sentient beings being on my shoulder, not being on anybody else’s shoulder, not saying, well, somebody else can do it.
You know? We have his holiness, the Dalai Lama. He can do it. He can take care of all sentient beings. Why do they need me?
You know? So you could use that procrastination thinking, oh, well, I’ll put it off because, you know, it’s difficult for me, and I’ll try from tomorrow. So that’s the first one. And procrastination is is always thinking there’s going to be a better time. When I have a bit more knowledge, when I have a bit more compassion, when I have a bit more time.
Yeah. So in our busy lives, we tend to think, well, when I have a bit more time because I’ve got the washing to do, I’ve got the cooking to do, or I’ve got the cleaning to do, or I’ve got the kids. I’ve got to practice the song on the guitar. I’ve got to write this new song. You know?
I mean, there’s many, many reasons. There’s this great new Colleen McCullough book. You know, whatever it is, the new bestseller. There’s the newspaper. There’s the television.
We have many, many things that pull us away from our Dharma practice. Right? So if you keep putting it off, it doesn’t happen. Your bodhicitta doesn’t even start. So the laziness of procrastination was don’t put it off.
You think I’m going to do it today. Even something small, the smallest thing, but I’m going to do it today. So then there’s the laziness of attraction to meaningless activity, laziness of attraction to meaningless activity. And I think there’s a fire alarm going off this Yeah. Think I know what’s happening.
We’re on fire. Get out. That was a short day. One one way to get a holiday. So this meaningless activity, all the things I mentioned, if you’re not doing them with bodhicitta.
Right? So the important thing is, why are you doing these activities? You could be watching the news to know what’s going on to develop more bodhicitta. You could be reading the newspaper to know what’s going on, to develop more bodhicitta. I mean, we know about the people who died in Australia.
And so because we know about that, we can do something in the way of praying, doing practices for them. So what’s your motivation for these meaningless activities? And as you know, as I said in this life, we have many, many meaningless activities. So trying to at least put one meaningful activity in your life every single day. Because maybe up until now, you haven’t had any.
So that’s okay. You start with one. Just put one meaningful activity. Alright? And then the laziness of inadequacy.
This is the, what we call the two syndrome, two t, double o. So it’s, too old, too busy, too long, like the practices are too long, the meditation’s too long, he talks too long, too deluded, when I’m less deluded, I’ll start it. You know, that’s a very popular one. I’m just waiting until I’m a little bit less deluded. Been coming here for fifteen years still waiting.
You know? Like that. Too agitated to meditate. This is another one. Oh, you know, I’ve got such a busy life.
I’m so agitated. I just can’t meditate. So you don’t even try. The world is too fast. Buddha’s time was different.
How fortunate they were in those days. You know? So we think how fortunate they were, how unfortunate I am, and I’m just waiting for a time when another Buddha’s coming and it’s going to be all great like it was. So we can think of lots of excuses, and this is the opposite. It’s the antidote to joyous effort.
Okay? We want joyous effort, but we’re actually antidoting joyous effort by thinking, I can’t do it, meaningless activity, I’m not good enough. This is a very popular one these days, isn’t it? I’m not good enough. I couldn’t become enlightened.
I couldn’t help others. Really tragic when you think of being human beings and all the capability that we have, and we think, I can’t do it. I’m not good enough. Yeah. Somebody else is better than me.
So this is getting the feeling, I am good enough. I can do something, and I’m going to get on with it. Right? This is the fourth perfection. To have that joyous effort, I must get on with it, And I’m not going to give up.
So you know that saying by his holiness, the Dalai Lama, never give up. So now you keep this in your mind. This is your mantra. I’m not going to give up. So no matter what you’ve taken on, you must continue with whatever project you’ve started.
It’s very important to think about anything that you start before you start it, and then you think, is it reasonable to start it? Can I do it? So you think about it before you start. If you think, yes, I can do it, then you don’t give up. So then I said, but there is the power of rest, which gave a little bit of joy to some people.
So there is the power of rest. If you’re finding it’s too difficult, put it to one side for a while and then go back to it. This is the power of rest. Sometimes we’re sick. Sometimes, you know, we just don’t have that feeling.
Oh, I really want to do it. You know? So the power of rest, back off a bit. You know? Don’t just don’t think I’ve given up.
I’m hopeless. I can’t do it. You just back off a bit, rest, and then wait until you’ve got the energy to come back. Then, Thursday, we talked about meditation and how we need to start. There’s no point you can bring a chair if you want.
You want him to bring a chair? Yeah. No. You sure? Okay.
So, it’s no use thinking, well, again, meditation’s so complicated. I’m a simple minded person or I’m a very busy person or or or or just start. Don’t complicate it. Don’t get intellectual about it. Just start.
It’s nothing so complicated. Just sit on the cushion for ten minutes. Alright? We’re not asking for hours and hours. Just ten minutes.
Sit down, concentrate on the breath, and start to do something for yourself. Right? Because we are talking about doing things for others. But if you haven’t done anything for yourself, you don’t know who it is that’s offering something to others. It’s a two way street, isn’t it?
You’ve got to improve yourself in order to be a benefit to others. So you do need to sit down with yourself and discover what’s going on inside. And so lots of thoughts come up. You know? You start to meditate, and you think, oh, I can’t meditate.
Or you start to meditate, and you think, I could be doing something else. Always this, you know, I could be doing something else. I could be going somewhere else. So you discover your mind is actually quite agitated. It wants to go out.
Go out. Go out. How many times when you have nothing to do, do you just sit down and think, wonderful. A nice quiet evening alone. Or do you get completely freaked out by a nice quiet evening alone and you start frantically calling people?
What are you doing? Are you free tonight? Or you switch on the TV. You know, you’ve got to watch something. Or you’ve got to turn on music or the radio just to have sound in the flat or the house.
So often it’s like that, isn’t it, that we feel we just can’t be completely alone with ourselves. Meditation is going within and being completely alone with ourselves and discovering who we are. And you discover that, yes, there’s some good stuff and there’s some not so nice stuff. And you need forgiveness. You need acceptance.
You need many qualities to apply to yourself in order for you to understand where others are coming from. Because we often hold up others to a higher standard than we have for ourselves. You know, we think they should be perfect. They shouldn’t hurt me. They shouldn’t be angry with me.
They shouldn’t abuse me. They shouldn’t do anything harmful. But, actually, in your journey into your own heart, you discover that you’ve done so many things you wish you hadn’t done, and then you understand why others do it. It’s the same, isn’t it? Right?
So then you come to that’s the concentration going deeper and deeper inside. And we have two types of meditation. One is single pointed meditation. This is holding your mind on one object. So if you’ve never done meditation before, it’s really recommended you start there.
Just come back to the breath. Come back to the breath. Come back to the breath. And sometimes you think this is so worrying. You know?
Is there nothing more interesting than the breath? So you think, oh, yeah. There’s something more interesting. And then you focus on on another object. So this is discursive thought.
You know? You start to meditate. You start to concentrate, and you think it’s a bit boring, and you switch objects. And I think this is a bit boring. Switch objects.
So don’t do that. Stay on the same object. And it’s really good when you are getting bored. Then you’re hitting something. Something’s starting to happen.
You know? So don’t expect it to be all gleeful and happy and joyful. You’ll hit the boredom. You know? Again, I have to do the same thing again.
And then, actually, some development starts in that boring phase. So keep going. And, again, you need all the other qualities, generosity, giving time to yourself, not harming, patience, joy. You need all these qualities in order to give something to yourself. Yeah?
And you’re conjoining them all. It’s not that they’re separate from each other. You have to bring them together. Then you get to, well, how do we develop this bodhicitta? How do we do all of this?
Right? Because it’s something to do, but how do you do it? Where do you get the energy from to do it? Because we’re if we’re talking about countless sentient beings, it’s quite a lot, isn’t it? Countless means you start counting them, and you never get to the end of it.
And we’re asking you, the few, to take care of countless sentient beings. And so now we have this concept. Well, maybe my mother, my father, my brother, my sister, you know, you sort of count them off. My dog, my bird, maybe a cat. You know?
So you count them off and you think, well, I think I can take care of nine or ten. You know? Maximum, maybe twelve, fifteen. But this countless business, you know, it’s a little bit much, isn’t it? So there must be a method.
There must be ways of getting your mind around this. So what are we actually changing? We’re exchanging or changing this view that if I cherish myself, I’ll get everything that I want. This is a misconception. This is where we’ve got it wrong.
You know? That’s the view that confuses you, disappoints you, depresses you. Because you think, if I go shopping and buy all the things I want, I’ll be happy. If I, win the lottery, I’ll be happy. You know?
So we keep buying lottery tickets thinking, all I need is the one million dollars, then I’ll be okay. But did you see in the newspaper this survey about the lottery winners? In the beginning, they were happy, but then they weren’t happy. No happier than they were before they won the lottery. Why?
Relatives pop out the woodwork. You know? Well, one million dollars. Remember that cousin? You know?
That he just won a million dollars. We must go and see our cousin. And so the relatives can come out the woodwork. Everybody wants a sizable amount. Really difficult to say no to your relatives.
If you’ve only got a million, you know, ten people, a hundred thousand each, doesn’t go far. So the relative starts saying, give me some. Or you think, well, I need to buy a house. A nice house in Auckland. How much?
At least half a million. Right? So at least half a million upwards. Now it’s a good time to buy, so buy the lottery tickets now. Know?
You want to buy now and win now. So then you need a good car, don’t you? Because you can’t have this broken down old jalopy in the driveway because what would the neighbors say? And then you can’t have awful furniture, so you need to buy good furniture. And then you need the good clothes to go with it, and it goes on and on and on, doesn’t it?
Once you’ve upscaled, you know, then everything else has to go with it. So a million dollars doesn’t go far, really. We think, oh, million dollars is a lot, but it doesn’t go far. So if you even if you win a lot of money, would you really be happy? This is what we’re we’re looking at is is it coming from money?
Is it coming from possessions? Is happiness coming from, good clothes? You know, buying, Louis Vuitton or buying, whatever the brand is that you think, wow. If I buy that brand, I’m going to be a really happy person. And then you buy it, and then you think, I don’t feel much happier than I was before.
Quickly up and quickly down. So Buddha said, without all this shopping you know, he said a long time ago actually, it doesn’t come from all that. Doesn’t come from out there. The answer must be that it comes from inside. So then what’s the attitude that you’re trying to change?
This attitude of taking from the outside, getting what you want, and putting it inside. So me, me, me, isn’t it? If you think about the mantra that we use constantly, it’s me, me, me, me. And then somebody pops into your view and says, you know, can you help? And you say, well, what’s in it for me?
Right? That’s where we’re starting. What’s in it for me? So now, I was going to talk this morning about seven cause and effect, but I’ve decided to switch it around in case we run out of time. I really want to talk about, Tonglen and exchanging self for others.
This is supposed to be a more difficult method. It’s supposed to be the hard one. In Tibet, they taught the other method, equalizing sorry. Seven cause and effect because they said anybody could understand seven cause and effect or six causes and one effect. Depends on which way you want to describe it.
I find that the problem with that method is you have to see every being as your mother, and many people have had problems with their mother. So if you’ve had problems with your mother and now everybody becomes your mother, people get quite horrified. You know? They think, well, I could cope with one mother being difficult, but now you’re asking me to visualize everybody as being a mother. So, actually, you can switch it and make it your grandmother or, you know, a a nurturing person.
You know? You can change it into somebody nice. You don’t have to leave it as the mother. But, I think actually for Western people and, you know, Asians, whoever, I think nowadays this exchanging self for others has become the method that people really enjoy. It’s so difficult, but actually so worthwhile, so fulfilling.
So that’s why I wanted to talk about it with you. So the first point, the first obstacle to overcome or hurdle to overcome is equalizing self with others, and you want happiness just as they do. So what this means is that you’re now starting to look at others as equal, not different from you. What’s the sameness rather than what’s the difference? Okay?
So what you’re thinking in this point is, well, actually, I want to be happy. Me. Me. Me. Me.
Right? I don’t want to suffer. Again, May. May. May.
May. So that’s why I say you have to start where you are because this is reality. This is where we are. I don’t want suffering. I do want happiness.
And then using that experience, your world experience, you now look at others and say, well, what’s their experience? What do they want? So if you ask if you say, Janelle, what do you want? Do you want happiness? Of course, she says yes, isn’t it?
Do you want suffering? Of course, no. Right? Who wants suffering and who doesn’t want happiness? Who would put their hands up?
You ask anybody. Do you want suffering? Everybody says no. It’s what we avoid, isn’t it? Like the flames of the fire.
We sort of immediately suffering, we step back. Who wants happiness? Immediately, we reach out for it. Who doesn’t have that instinct? Wanting happiness?
Wanting to avoid suffering. So then you start investigating the people around you. You know, look more deeply than just on the surface. Who wants happiness? Do you want happiness?
Do you want happiness? Do want happiness? Look at the people in your life. Who wants happiness? You’ll find every single person does.
Who wants to avoid suffering? Every single person does. Now we’re talking about people, but what about animals? If you have a dog or a cat or a bird, also, same thing, isn’t Your dog or cat wants happiness, doesn’t want suffering. They come up to you and they go, meow meow.
You know? Let me sit on your lap. Stroke me. They know exactly how to get happiness and to avoid suffering. Right?
So they’ve got it all organized. They’ve got us organized so that we do what they want to make them happy. The dog, when you go home, you know, they look at you with those big eyes and, you know, you’re the most wonderful person in the world and wag their tail. And you think, yes, I am. You know?
And the most wonderful person you’ve ever met, what would you like for dinner? You know? So then you go to all that trouble for them because they’re looking at you so adoringly. You know? You buy them the special things in the supermarket, and you cook special things for them, probably more than you would do for yourself.
Yeah? So if you think about that experience, you get that feeling that if you do something for somebody else, another being, and they’re they’re happy, they wag their tail, they look at you with the big eyes, they love you. You know? And so you want to repeat that experience, isn’t it? So the first meditation that you’re doing in the five-point meditations, in order to persuade yourself to give and take, don’t just go straight into giving and taking.
You have to be convinced this is the method for you. This is gonna work. Right? So the first one is, are we all the same? And you might start out thinking, no, we’re not.
But you keep checking, checking, checking. Because Buddha said, this is a scientific method, not scientific in the way we talk about science now. But he said, if you’re going to buy gold, you need to know what’s gold. If you’re going to be given fool’s gold, you need to know how to avoid the fool’s gold, don’t you? So this method is gold, but you need to check it out for yourself in order for you to be fully committed to I’m going to do it.
There’s a really good reason to do it. Right? So the first one is you check it out for yourself. Is it true? We all want happiness.
We don’t want suffering. Yeah? You keep thinking about it. And if the doubts come up, check again. Go back to checking.
So then the second one is the advantages of exchanging self with others. The advantages of exchanging self with others. Some inspirational verses I have for you. Okay. So in the first one, everybody wants to be happy and not have suffering.
In the offering to the guru by Pänchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen, he says, no one desires even the slightest suffering nor is ever content with the happiness he or she has. As there is no difference between myself and others, bless me to rejoice in the happiness of others. So in that first one, you’re also starting to rejoice in the happiness of others. Because as you look at others and do they want to be happy? You see everybody else wants to be happy.
When you see them being happy, you can start to get that feeling of I rejoice. It’s so good that they feel happy instead of feeling disturbed by it or jealous of it. And then the advantages of exchanging self with others. Śāntideva said, whatever joy there is in this world, all comes from desiring others to be happy. Now that’s what you’ve got to start placing your mind on.
All joy that comes in this world only comes from desiring others to be happy. Now where have we just come from? Me. Me. Me.
Me. May. And we’ve discovered this is exactly the same as everybody else. We want happiness, not suffering, but that method hasn’t worked. Why are we sitting here?
You know? For sure, it hasn’t worked. We haven’t got all the happiness we want, and we’ve got suffering that we didn’t want. So the method that we’ve been using up to now hasn’t worked. That formula is faulty.
There’s a virus in your computer. You know? And you need to get it out as quickly as possible because it’s a Trojan horse. You know Trojan horse? There’s Trojan horse viruses.
Right? So you’ve got this very sneaky virus that’s got into your operating system, and it’s taking over. It’s taken over for countless lifetimes. It’s this me, me, me, me. So every time you typed in, you know, how are you?
Is everything okay with you? This sort of virus, this Trojan horse pops up and says on the screen, what about me? What about me? Be careful. You know?
Don’t use up your resources. Don’t don’t do that because there’s me. And so there’s this very strong feeling of, I must take care of myself. I must protect myself. I must do everything I can in order to make me happy.
So what we’ve discovered, because we’re the special ones, you have to be because you’re sitting here. Right? You’ve discovered that that me, me, me, me doesn’t actually make you happy. And this is what Mahāyāna Buddhism says, that it’s about others rather than about you. Right?
So the second point, then again, offering to the guru, the mind cherishing mothers and securing them in bliss is the gateway to infinite qualities. Seeing this, even should they rise up as enemies, bless me to cherish them more than my life, even should they rise up as enemies. So now we’re on the second point, the advantages of exchanging self with others. We know what we want. We know what makes us happy.
Right? So now we’re starting to switch this over. Using that information, we start to think about what would we do in order to exchange ourself with others. And we’re not actually taking something out and giving it to somebody else. We’re using what we know in order to make somebody else happy.
Alright? So you know that if you get the biggest piece of cake, you’ll be happy. If you get somebody making you a cup of tea without even asking you, you’ll be happy. These are simple little things. Right?
And then think about all the other things that you like. So what about instead of doing that for yourself, give me the piece of cake. Yeah. It’s for me. Giving yourself whatever would make you happy.
Now what about if you switched it over and instead of doing it for you, you did it for others? Would there be an advantage? Right? This is the second meditation that you’re thinking, would there be an advantage? Because you’re persuading yourself out of the Trojan horse.
You’ve gotta get that Trojan horse out. It’s in there. The it’s the me Trojan horse. And unless you do the antiviral program in the best possible way, there’s gonna be something left. So when you’re doing Tonglen, there’s a strong resistance.
This is wrong. I shouldn’t be doing it. It’s gonna harm me. Right? So now, in the second point, you’re analyzing examples to confirm the point that by cherishing others, there is an advantage.
So you start thinking karmically about where does patience come from. Patience we need in relation to others. Right? So without others, you couldn’t develop patience. And particularly without the difficult others, you couldn’t develop patience.
Then what do you get as a result of patience? What’s the reward, if you like, at the end of the time that you’re being patient? The karmic reward is that you have a good form, You can be tolerant. You can keep going in your practice of trying to benefit others. Happiness of mind and health are the results of pure morality.
So by deciding not to harm. So you take the not killing vow. I’m not going to harm others. Happiness of mind and health come from pure morality. Then where does wealth come from?
Wealth doesn’t just drop in your lap. Wealth comes from generosity. Who are you generous towards? Others. Right?
So without others to be generous towards, you wouldn’t be able to perfect the perfection of generosity. High position results from respect, which is a factor of cherishing others. So if you think about every benefit that you have or that you want, it all comes from cherishing others. Everything that you give becomes a cause for your own success. So then at the end of that meditation thinking, whatever benefits I want comes by cherishing others, then you stop and you single pointedly think about the recognition, the advantage of the mind cherishing others before you move on to the next point.
It’s really important to stop at the end of each meditation rather than just thinking, well, that’s true. That’s true. That’s true. And then I get on to Tonglen. Because many people, when they start Tonglen without going through these points, go straight into Tonglen and find there’s there’s a huge resistance to it because you haven’t counteracted this thing of but if I give, then I’m going to be lacking.
If I take care of them, who’s gonna take care of me? This is quite a fear for us. Then the third one is the disadvantages of not exchanging. The disadvantages of not exchanging. So again, I’ll give you a quote from Śāntideva.
Whatever suffering there is in this world, all comes from desiring myself to be happy. All suffering in this world comes from desiring myself to be happy. The second one was all the benefits, all the advantages come from cherishing others. Now where does all the unhappiness come from? All the downfalls, the problems, it all comes from desiring myself to be happy.
So then you think about when you want to be happy, what are you doing in order to get that happiness? What will you do? And we have the ten non virtues. We say this is what you should avoid. When you really want to be happy and you have the mind of desire, the mind of attachment, or the mind of aversion or anger, you can do any of those ten non virtues without even thinking about it.
People can kill, steal, lie, sexual misconduct. You can do anything thinking this all makes sense. You know? If I just get this person or this object or harm this person or harm this object, I’m gonna be happy. So then what’s the disadvantage of not exchanging?
You’re grabbing the cake for yourself and thinking this is gonna make you happy, but you know that up until now, it hasn’t. Right? It didn’t work. And what’s the problem with grabbing it? The negative karma that you’re creating.
There’s the seed that you’re planting in your garden, the negative karma, and what does that come back as? More suffering. Right? So another seed, more suffering. Another seed, more suffering.
So then if you think about short life sickness, where does it come from? Killing. So you’ve killed in the past. The result of that killing is that you will have a short life and that you will have physical problems. It’s not causeless.
You need to go into what’s the cause. And if you don’t understand this, then, you need to study karma because karma gives you the answer of why you’re experiencing suffering. You know, I had so much money, and I lost it all. You hear this. People who build up their businesses, and suddenly, it just collapses.
People have really good jobs, and suddenly, they lose their job. So people can be incredibly successful, and suddenly their life is over. You know, they lost their family. They lost their job. They lost everything.
And then they’re just trying to keep up the payments. You know, they’re just trying to survive, isn’t it? So you can go from one extreme to another, and you can think, I was really lucky, and now I’m really unlucky. No understanding of what creates that karma. So we said in the second one, all the happiness, all the goodness that you’ve got comes from you cherishing in the past.
And from a karmic point of view, this is provable. Now all the harm, all the suffering that’s coming to you in this third point is coming because you caused it, And, again, this is provable. This means we’re putting the ball in your court. We’re saying this is your responsibility. You can change the situation.
You can do something about it. Otherwise, it’s about the world and you changing the world. Right? So which are you gonna go for? Changing the world or changing you?
Much easier to change you than change the world. And so Śāntideva said, if there are thorns and glass all over the world and you’ve got no shoes, what would you choose to do? Make a pair of shoes out of leather or cover the world in leather. And people always say to me, well, of course, I would make a pair of shoes. And I said, yes.
But you’re so busy sewing this leather to cover the whole world. You know? Check it out. You’ll discover that’s what you do. You tell your friends how to behave.
You tell your fam family how to behave. Even in dharma centers, we tell each other how to behave. Yeah? Don’t hurt me. Don’t create any problem for me.
Isn’t it? So this is what we’re doing. Subtly, maybe we’ve lost the gross one, but subtly, we’re telling others what to do and how to do it in order to make me happy. Poverty is a result of miserliness. This is a self-cherishing attitude of clinging to your wealth.
You have resources, and you cling to them. You don’t practice generosity. Unreasonable fear is an interesting one. Many people now experience unreason fear. It means there is no reason.
It just arises. Okay? So unreason fear is the karmic result of malice. This is disregarding the happiness of others by wishing to hurt them. And is it something that you do?
It’s not something that you actually do. It’s just a thought. Right? So we think in our private world, we have these negative thoughts. That person who hurt me at work, they said something about me to the boss.
Or, you know, in the family, often it can get a little bit wild. And somebody says something that hurts you, and you go home and you feel hurt because it’s your brother or your sister or your father or mother. It could be a mother who says, oh, you couldn’t do that. You know, you say, I’m gonna become enlightened. And you say, oh, you couldn’t do that.
And you go home and you feel so hurt by it. No? And then you get these negative thoughts. And then afterwards, when you get out of the negative thoughts, you think, well, it’s lucky nobody heard those thoughts. I’m so happy that there wasn’t a picture that appeared of what I would do to that person.
And this is malice. We created the picture in our mind, but we didn’t do it. It’s a mental action. Now what’s the result? Fear arises in the future, and there’s no reason.
It just appears. Right? And you think, oh, this is terrible. I have so much fear. And where is it coming from?
Why me? Why am I experiencing this? You don’t realize that you have harmed others just with your thoughts. You know? If they could hear your thoughts, would they be hurt?
And those harmful thoughts then sometimes become hurt. You know? From those harmful thoughts, we can build anger, and then we do do something. Where does the killing come from? Where does the stealing come from?
The lying come from? The sexual misconduct come from? It starts with negative thinking. So if you if you look at all the sufferings that we experience, it all comes from attachment, desire, anger, hatred. And this is why we suffer.
It comes from self-cherishing because self-cherishing is the source. And then why do we self cherish? What are we self-cherishing? Right? So we believe there is a self to cherish, isn’t it?
We firmly believe inside us, there’s a little entity. You know? I say this is like the film Alien. If you saw the the film with Sigourney Weaver, then at some point, the chest burst open and there’s these tentacles, you know, that sort of come out and start waving around, and it’s an alien from another planet. Well, that little alien is called me.
You know? It’s that Trojan horse, and they just found a way out, and it’s just about to take over. You know? I will take over the planet. Let me run the planet.
I can do a better job than the rest of them. Right? I can make the world the way I would like it. If only they’d just do what I said, isn’t it? This is the way we think at work, at home, in the country, in the universe.
If only they did what I said, we’d all be okay. There wouldn’t be a crisis if they’d done what I said. You know? You can think like that. So this is this alien that’s sort of inside, and it can be very small when things are going along nicely.
What happens when things are not going along nicely? Things are not cruising along. You know, there’s cars in America where you can put the automatic cruise control. Amazing idea, isn’t it? So you put your life on automatic cruise control, and you’re just going along.
You know? Hundred kilometers an hour, you’re just cruising along. The wheel’s easy to drive. You know, it’s sort of it’s all effortless, isn’t it? What happens when you suddenly hit a speed breaker?
No sign. We get this in India. They put speed breakers. They’re massive. You know?
And you’re driving along looking at the view, thinking, oh, the world. Isn’t it great? And if you’re if you’re driving a scooter or a motorbike, it’s incredibly dangerous because you suddenly hit the speed breaker, and you sort of launch up into the air, you know, hanging onto the handlebar and then come back down on the seat, your whole world suddenly changed. Who put that speed breaker there? You know?
Why are they doing and somebody should paint it. You know? Isn’t it? Why? Because yourself was just threatened.
I nearly died. I could have had an accident. So when we’re on automatic cruise control, everything’s fine. You hit a speed bump, the boss, the partner, the children, whatever it is, you hit that speed bump, and suddenly it’s all over the globe, and and we’re off. Right?
And you can feel the chest starting to break open and those tentacles start coming out. You know? And people start to run away from you, and you wonder why. Right? Because it’s all happening.
So we go from, you know, extreme to extreme and then somewhere in between. There’s times when the the self is hardly discernible, and then there’s times when it’s very discernible, very obvious, I, me, what I want. Isn’t it? When it’s like that, I want. You know, it’s a little bit like a petulant child that say, I want, you know, three years of age and pounding its fist into the ground.
I deserve that new car. And your wife can be saying, well, you’re not getting it. The children need shoes and a good school. I want the sports car. You know?
It could be like that. So the the self, the I can arise, and it can be really unreasonable. You know the kids need clothes and the kids need to go to a new school or whatever it is. You know that, but you’re being unreasonable. So it’s that sort of unreasonable demon that arises, and then we grasp onto it.
You know? So there’s a self that we think exists. We grasp onto it. Within our our mental continuum. We’re grasping, and then we cherish that self.
I should get what I want in order to make me happy. And that’s where the negative karma comes from. It’s that state of mind. And that’s where the suffering comes from because it’s a negative state of mind. It’s what we call ignorance.
Right? Not understanding that there isn’t a self. There isn’t even a self there. There is no Trojan horse. There is no demon.
There is no alien. It’s not there at all. But because we very firmly believe it is there, we visualize it, we embellish it, we put details on it. So we very firmly believe it’s in there, and so it deserves everything it needs to get in order to make it happy. That’s where all the suffering’s coming from.
So the very root cause is ignorance. Right? And out of that ignorance as a ground, you know, a fertile ground from which the other delusions can appear, then we have, I want, I don’t want, give me, don’t give me, and any range, you know, of these type of thoughts. So where is all this suffering coming from? Is it just being dumped on my doorstep, or is it me creating it?
Very important that you think about it. Is it the world dumping it on me, or is it me dumping it on myself? And Buddha said, if you want the answer, if you’re confused, it’s you dumping it on yourself. And you think, well, that’s a bit harsh. You know?
Isn’t there a nicer way to put it? Well, I say, yeah. There is another way to put it. You throw all this shit on the fan, and then you you switch the fan on If you want it in a nicer way. You know?
I mean, get real. You know, it’s about time we woke up because we keep doing it to ourselves and saying, and why are they doing it to me? You know? Why do they keep putting all this rubbish on me, on my doorstep, on on my lawn, in my house? Who put all that rubbish up there, you know, in the attic?
We’ve got the mental attic. Right? Who put all that rubbish up there? Well, it’s not my fault, is it? It’s not me in the past.
It was some other me. Their fault, not my fault. And so we’re always busy blaming others and putting putting the blame somewhere else. But the thing now is to take responsibility. First of all, don’t switch the fan on.
Right? First sensible action, don’t switch it on. Right? Don’t want to give the harm back. And secondly, don’t throw the rubbish on the fan.
Right? So don’t do those negative actions, but we’ve done them. Haven’t we? We all, all of us, we’ve done them. We didn’t mean to, but we’ve done them.
So now we need an method to get rid of all that rubbish as quickly as possible. We need something radical because we’re fast people. We can trash a hundred people in a day. You know? In the good old days, it would be one a month, but we speed it up.
Emails, SMSs. You know? We can do a lot of harm very quickly. And so the amount of karmic retribution, if you like, the amount of negative karma that can come back on us is increasing because our lives are getting faster and faster and faster. So we need to be aware of the harm that we’re doing.
We need to be aware of changing that. What type of karma am I creating within the day? How much cherishing of myself? How much cherishing of others am I doing? The more I cherish myself, the more harm, the more suffering.
The more I cherish others, the more benefit, the more happiness. We have to switch it around and keep thinking in that way. Okay? So then the next one is the ability to exchange yourself with others. The ability to exchange self with others.
So now the exchange is swapping the attitude of cherishing yourself for the attitude of cherishing others. It’s an exchange of attitudes. It’s not an exchange of, you know, I’ll give you my heart if you give me your heart. And, you know, we’re not doing transplant operations or anything like that. It’s just an exchange of attitude.
And that relies on you being persuaded that this is the right thing to do. You need to be sure in your mind this is the right thing to do because you’ve thought about where did the suffering come from. You’ve thought about where did the happiness come from, and now you’re absolutely sure that it’s not coming from you being selfish, grabbing things for yourself. You’re sure that it comes from exchanging that attitude. You know?
The happiness will come from giving to others and then taking something from others. So what are we giving and taking? So for countless lifetimes, we’ve had an innate habitual tendency. Innate habitual tendency. Why innate?
Because it comes from ignorance. That ignorant mind thinking, if I grab it, I’m gonna get what I want, and I’m going to be happy. And, also, believing there is a self in there that is going to be happy. You know, this confused mind. So it’s an innate habitual tendency.
Once you’ve got that habit, give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me. It’s really hard to break it. Right?
So when you start doing this practice, of course, it’s going to arise again. It’s been there for a long, long time. There was a poem I had, and I should have brought it with me, and it was bless you. It was a lady’s life in five chapters. And it was something like I can’t tell you exactly, but it was something like, I’m walking down the road, and I fall into a big black hole.
That’s it. That’s the first chapter. The second one is I walk down the road. I fall into that same hole. How did I get down here?
The third one is I walk down the road. I fall into the hole. I got I fell into the hole, and I get myself out. The fourth is, I walk down the road. I avoid the hole.
And the fifth one is, I walk down a different road. Right? The habitual tendency is we walk down the same road, we fall in the same hole, and then we say, when are these people going to fix this hole? I pay my taxes. You know?
The Auckland government, local council, whatever it is, should fix this hole. I’m sick of it. You know? And so in all the ranting and raving, you just create even more karma to fall down the hole. You don’t you don’t understand the delusion that you’re creating that puts the goggles on your eyes that stops you from seeing the hole.
So now you’ve started to see the hole, but you fall in. And then you think it’s so deep. It’s so difficult. Why me? But you find a way out.
The next time you fall in and you think, but this is really silly. There must be some way I can get out of this situation. Instead of getting in, how can I get out? And then next time, you fall in, but quite quickly you find a way out. You’re not getting so deeply into the feeling of being in the hole, which is me, me, me, me.
You know, it creates a black hole, doesn’t it? When you’re in that sense of me and what I want, it really does separate you from everybody. There’s no connection. You’re out looking for what you want. Yes, my dear.
It’s tricky, isn’t it? Because when you look at us evolving from animals that survive on their instincts. Yeah. Sleep. We need to.
Well, then we have more evolved beings who don’t need sleep, who don’t need to eat. So where did those evolved beings come from? Same as us. Right? So yes, you change your mind, you change your attitude.
Doesn’t mean you give up eating, doesn’t mean you give up sleeping, but you give up your state of mind that is willing to harm others. Right? All we’re asking for is a change of mind, change of heart. You know? That starts you on the bodhisattva path.
And then when I see you next time and I say, how much are you eating? You say, hardly anything. I find that I’m living on on the the smell of, you know, the the happiness of others rather than having to go near the donut shop every day and live on that or having to, you know, go near the Chinese restaurant every day and get that smell. It’s like the happiness of others rejuvenates you. You know?
So I think once you’re on the bodhisattva path, there’s so much energy that comes to you, you need less sleep. You need less food. Because when it’s all about you, you need more food. You need more sleep. You know?
It’s more depressing. You fall down the hole. It’s dark. It’s dirty. It’s, the feeling is, one of a cut off place, isn’t it?
That dark black hole is a cut off place. And, actually, what we want is connection with each other. But our survival instinct is what actually now cuts us off from each other because we’re not in the situation of needing to survive. We have supermarkets. We can go berserk in the supermarket, you know, running up and down the aisles sort of and then the problem is the money.
But, really, if you want more money, there’s possibilities to make more money. You know? The amount of food we live on is far greater than what you really need for survival, isn’t it? It’s much more. And so I think you’ll come up with that mind, and it’s really good to mention that so what about me?
Won’t I need food won’t I need sleep well yes have sleep have food but eat with bodhicitta sleep with bodhicitta you know don’t just sleep don’t just eat do it with bodhicitta and then what you’re doing is becoming the cause of enlightenment rather than the cause of negative karma or just sleeping just eating So this is very good. This change of attitude that, yes, I do need to still keep eating so make it worthwhile eating. I do need to still sleep, make it worthwhile sleep. Isn’t it? Then it’s a beneficial action.
I’m glad you brought it up. So maybe we stop there since you made a noise. Yeah. So we’ll stop there and have a break, and we’ll come back at about you got about fifteen minutes. So when we see that you’ve had your cup of tea, we’ll ring the gong.
It’s Sunday. Little bit relaxed. Relaxed. Yeah? So please enjoy, have a cup of tea, and then when we see that you’ve had enough time, we’ll ring the gong.