Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Margaret McAndrew structures this 41-minute session with a memorable analogy: reaching Brisbane requires first passing through Mooloolaba, then Caboolture. Similarly, Buddhist practice has three scopes. The small scope stops at Mooloolaba, seeking good rebirth; the medium scope continues through Caboolture, seeking liberation; the great scope travels all the way, seeking enlightenment for all beings. She teaches the three higher trainings—ethical conduct, concentration, and wisdom—that form this progressive path. For the medium scope practitioner, she details the five precepts and explains why practices like avoiding intoxicants become essential when the mind aims at liberation rather than worldly happiness. The session concludes with a guided meditation on observing consciousness without judgment. Pitched for those with basic familiarity with Buddhist teachings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14 GPK 1998 03 11.mp3
UUID: 8a8c33b6-1c60-4cb0-9ab2-edd8b8d74b00
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: Evening with V M McAndrew (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1998-03-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 41.3 minutes
Words: ~4,611
Picture, it’s very good as regards human beings and death also in other religions. You might you might find faults with certain aspects of other religions, perhaps, but you also find a lot of basic things that we would share in common. So anyway, I won’t go into the poison of secondary delusions, but it would be interesting to read some of the texts that have an exhibition of these. So due to these clashes anyway, we’re bound in saṃsāra, and under their influence, we create karma. And we create both bad and good karma.
The fact that we’re under the influence of these passions doesn’t always prevent us from creating good karma. Under the particularly under the influence we’re always under the influence of ignorance. And the particular ignorance of not understanding the absolute nature of things. But at least we can be free of ignorance that understands that doesn’t understand the difference between virtue and non virtue. And if we can understand this difference and create virtuous actions, then we can avoid creating non virtuous karma and create virtuous karma.
But we’re still under the control of the most basic kind of ignorance, and we’re still under the control of karma and delusion. But while we’re under the control of these various delusions, we also create non virtuous actions due to the delusions which lead us into these kinds of actions, and the negative states of mind, which cause us to do the non virtuous actions and other kinds of actions which create non virtuous karma. As a result of this, as we learned when we were talking about karma, the result of karma is suffering. There’s various different kinds of suffering, such as suffering rebirth, and also even when we get reborn in the human realm, experience various different sufferings in human life. And another result from these karmas is that we tend to get it’s called results similar to the cause, and that has two aspects.
So one one result similar to the cause is we have to experience something happening to us similar to what we did to the sentient being that we harmed. For instance, if we say harsh words to a sentient being, then we’re going to get harsh words back in some future lifetime. But another result is a tendency to keep on repeating the action. So we keep on creating these harsh words. And if we created these harsh words out of anger, that that’s going to mean that our anger is going to be strengthened, and we’re going to have a tendency to to speak more harsh words out of anger.
So it keeps the whole thing going round and round and round. So when we have anger arising within ourselves, that’s one of our that is a non virtue in itself. And also the actions that we do out of anger of body and speech strengthen that. They reinforce it. And so we create non virtues out of anger, and we experience the karmic results from these.
We also, at the same time, are strengthening our anger so that in our future lifetimes, we’ll experience more anger, we’ll create more non virtues, we’ll have to experience more suffering results. So we’re creating the cause for more and more saṃsāra all the time and more and more suffering in saṃsāra. And this goes on and on and on, so we we have to cut it off. Even when we’re creating good karma, we’re still creating the cause for saṃsāra. But it’s a better kind of reverse that we’re creating, and we can use these good rebirths as the basis for going on to to do the practices that can get us right out of this cycle.
So good karma is something that’s very important, But it’s not enough to just create good karma. As we’re always being told, we have to dedicate our karma, we have to set our motivation, and we have to dedicate our karma so that it becomes cause to enhance our spiritual practice. So any questions up to this point? What’s really the best way to dedicate our Yes. Well, whereas we’re practicing Mahāyāna Buddhism here, we’re always told that the right way to motivate and dedicate is for enlightenment for the welfare of all sentient beings.
So we get what basically, we get what we motivate for and what we dedicate for. So if we motivate and dedicate for fortunate rebirths, we’ll get that. If we motivate and dedicate for liberation, then we’ll get that for ourselves, individual liberation. And if we make it wider and motivate for the welfare of all, then we progress towards that. But that includes the understanding that the way to do that is to achieve enlightenment.
So, in actual fact, if we create good karma, but we don’t dedicate it, and if we haven’t done it with any particular motivation, then that might bring about a good rebirth, or might bring about a result of happiness within a particular lifetime. If it’s strong enough, it can actually bring a particular rebirth, which would be an upper rebirth as a human being or a god. But it’s still a passing result, one that just brings its result and passes. So what we have to do is make sure that these results get built on by this practice of conscious motivation and dedication. And the what was I going to say?
Oh, I’ve forgotten now. I was going to say something that was relevant to that. Yeah. So anyway, if we dedicate for liberation, then that’s the medium scope motivation. But what we’re trying to practice here is the the great scope motivation, which is the Mahāyāna motivation working for all.
But anyway, what at the moment, we’re just talking about the the medium scope. Yes? That’s what you have to do. Yes. But what That’s right.
Yes. You can’t reach enlightenment without wishing that. Only higher leads to enlightenment. But the three scopes are practiced together by the higher scope person. We have to the the lower scope practice is the basis for further practice.
So we have to do the practices of the three scopes. But the motivation has to be the motivation of the highest scope. So the motivation of the person of small scope is just to get a good rebirth. But in actual fact, if they’re a Buddhist practitioner, they have to be interested in either liberation or enlightenment anyway. But in the but they they are not terribly interested in doing the practices for this yet.
They’re only interested in doing the practices to get good rebirth. Is that clear? But it brings its result. A lot of people are practicing to gain individual liberation. A lot of people get drawn towards that form of practice.
It’s it has to do with their karmic tendencies. And and it does bring its results, so it’s a valid motivation. But from the it it does get you out of Samsāra. But from the Mahāyāna point of view, it’s it’s limited. It’s it’s very limited because that person can only help a limited number of others get out of Samsāra.
Whereas an enlightened being can help an unlimited number of people get out of Samsāra. So that’s just talking about motivation, and you have to be not confused between the motivation and the practice. We’re trying to develop here the great scope motivation, But we have to practice all three scopes because the scopes, the practices which are concerned with the small and medium scope, are essential bases for the practice of attaining enlightenment. And I’m just going on to talk about that now. So the most basic practice of all is the practice of observing karma.
But by itself, that will only get you better rebirth. You have to add more practices to it in order to attain liberation. So we’re going to go on and talk now about the practices for attaining liberation, which is concerned with medium scope. And then when we get on to talking about the great scope, we’re going to be particularly concerned with cultivating great love and compassion and understanding why Buddhahood has to be attained, understanding the qualities of Buddhahood so that we understand that that’s something that has to be worked for. So the analogy is that see, I don’t know the geography of South Australia.
So I’ll talk about in Queensland terms. But if you if you’re Institute, you want to go and you want to go to Brisbane. This is one that Geshe Geshe Tashi Tsering is always telling us. He tells us if we want to go to Brisbane, which is how he pronounces Brisbane, we have to, first of all, go to Mooloolababa, and then we we might have to go through some other places on the way such as Caboolture, and then we get to Brisbane. And so the the first step is to go down to to Mooloola.
And one person might stop at Mooloola, and and that’s equivalent to the small scope. And then the next person goes on as far as Caboolture, and that’s equivalent to the medium scope. But that person has to go to Molloola first, and then they have to go on to Caboolture. So you still take if you follow the same path as far as Molloola, and then they go on further to Caboolture so that they share that first bit of the path. And then the the next person is the the great scope, and they want to go all the way to Brisbane.
But first of all, they have to go to Mooloolaba, and then they have to go to Caboolture. And so they are sharing that path. So in the same way, we have to go through these practices that are shared, that are common to the three scopes. And then we have to go through the practices that are shared with the person of medium scope. Is that clear?
So And actually, these practices are very, very important. Really, the ones we have to concentrate on most of all are the ones which are concerned with the lower scope. Because if we don’t do those, we’ve got nothing. So this person anyway, they’re ready for some really serious practice at this stage, and they want to know how to at least make a start on doing these practices. They’re they’re getting really interested in getting out of saṃsāra.
To be in the medium scope, you have to be really interested in learning these practices and starting to put them into into action. You’re not you’re not satisfied to leave this for some sort of future life practice. You want to do it now. So what these special practices are are the three higher trainings. And does anybody know what these three higher trainings are?
Okay. So the the first one is the the higher training of conduct or ethics. And or in Sanskrit, that’s called shila. So that’s a the basic practice of conduct is similar to what we’ve already learned, but the person who’s practicing it as a higher training is wanting to refine it and carry it further. So we already talked about the practice of avoiding the ten non virtuous actions and avoid and observing basic morality.
And this person on the level of the three higher trainings will be wanting to carry that as far as they can. So probably this person at this level would be much more interested than the person at the lower scope level of would be in taking various different levels of vows and so on because they’re really very aware of how much these these vows are helping them how much importance they have for the accumulation of the kind of merit that they need to gather for their practice of the other higher trainings. So through the practice of conduct, the person can not only avoid negative karmas, but it brings about a peaceful state of mind. The person here so the the three practices are conduct or ethics, concentration or meditative stabilization, and and wisdom. So in order to practice the other two, you have to have conduct.
Because a person who isn’t practicing conduct, a person who’s engaging in wrong actions, in negative actions, is a person who’s going to be unpeaceful in their mind. They’re going to have an unstable personality. They’re going to be very agitated. This is just common sense. You can see this.
In order to have the kind of mental stability and peace of mind that we need in order to engage in higher concentration and wisdom, it’s absolutely necessary to have this foundation of morality. And the person will realize this and they’ll be very interested in refining their morality. And So this particularly involves vows, and the most basic level of vows, as I already mentioned before, is the five laypersons’ precepts. Does anybody remember what they are? Right, yes.
Okay. So what about intoxicants is quite interesting in this context, generally where we might think that a little bit of alcohol isn’t going to do us much harm, but we’re particularly in the medium scope concerned with developing concentration, developing clarity of mind. What we have to do with Buddhist practice is to increase the power of our mind, increase our clarity, increase the focus of the mind and any kind of intoxicant alcohol or drugs is going to reduce that. Of course we might have certain problems that need us to take certain medicines or so on, on a doctor’s advice. So if anybody’s in that position, I’m not saying that you should stop taking these, certainly not.
But in general, what we’re trying to do is avoid anything that’s going to blur our mental clarity. And this is something that’s that’s actually, even if a little bit of alcohol doesn’t interfere with even if we can take a little bit of alcohol and and not be, you know, obnoxious or whatever, even if we can handle our drink. We might start to realize at this point that it’s having an adverse effect on our clarity of mind, on our ability to concentrate. It can be something that at this stage the person wants to avoid, that they feel very strongly about avoiding. These kinds of things become more important to the person at this level of the scope.
They they really have a very strong a very strong impulse, very strong feeling of being drawn towards working for liberation so this doesn’t actually mean the person’s attained the realization of renunciation yet but they’re starting to feel very interested in it they’re starting to work towards achieving this realization So the practice of conduct or ethics alone doesn’t produce liberation, but we have to have this practice as to so when we talk about merit, sometimes the word merits might sound like something very technical and very sort of esoteric and it might not mean much to us. It’s a kind of good energy. As the person develops more merit, they can feel that they’re becoming more stable in their personality, more more calm and peaceful. And this enables them to go on to other forms of practice. It it gives them this kind of strong energy to support their spiritual practice.
And it it it brings it brings this sort of energy that that can be used in in spiritual practice. So concentration or meditative stabilization, the Sanskrit word is Samādhi. So it’s something that’s not easy to achieve. It’s quite difficult. It requires a very firm foundation and a very determined practice.
And the person has to be at the right stage to achieve this practice. We can build up to it, but you can’t achieve this foundation you can’t achieve this practice until you have built up the foundation and it needs an accumulation of merit. So it’s a very interesting practice. I’m not going to talk about the different stages of development of Meditative Stabilization tonight, because that will be talked about later on when we get to the six perfections. And it comes it’s explained actually in the third scope section under the six perfections, but it’s mentioned here because it’s actually a practice that is carried out by both people of medium and great scope.
And the person of medium scope is carrying out this practice in order to attain liberation and the person who is practicing great scope is carrying it out in order to attain enlightenment, but it’s the same practice. And it has to be practiced in the same way. And it involves all sorts of very interesting things that have to be learned and understood. There’s so we have to understand the the five the five faculties that have to be developed, the eight antidotes sorry, the five faults. The the eight antidotes to overcome the five faults.
The eight antidotes. And there’s nine stages of mental abiding and six powers that So so these are all explained in some of the texts, and it’s really extremely interesting interesting and inspiring to learn about these things. And and you read about them and you go out of the teaching and you think or you hear a teaching, you think you’re going to go out and practice this right away because it’s such an interesting practice. But then when you try to do it, you find it’s it’s not so easy. So the definition of concentration is that it’s the mind’s abiding one pointedly without distraction on any virtuous object.
And the purpose is to achieve calm abiding, which is not just the ability to remain concentrated on an object, but it goes way beyond that. It’s a very, very focused state of mind. It’s a state of mind which brings physical and mental bliss, and harnesses the full clarity, the full energy of the mind’s awareness. And the purpose is to achieve this calm abiding and combine it with special insight. And special insight, the word for this in Sanskrit is Vipashyana.
And so what we have to do is attain this special insight and combine it with this calm abiding. But in actual fact, we need abiding not only to combine with Vipashyana, but we also need calm abiding for the achievement of all special qualities. So for the achievement of the realization of any analytical meditation, for meditating on impermanence, for meditating on renunciation of bodhicitta, to attain realization of suffering, of precious human rebirth, all these meditations, to really attain the realization of all these, we have to meditate on them in a state of single pointed concentration or calm abiding. So it’s a very, very important realization. But it’s explained here particularly in terms of combining it with Vipashyana because that’s what we have to go on and do.
And having achieved calm abiding, actually, there are also stages beyond that. There are absorptions related to the form and formless realms. And in particular, we have to attain the absorptions of the form realm in order to achieve true cessation. So this is another interesting topic. These absorptions are related to the attainments of the gods of the form and formless realms.
But we’re not talking here about becoming reborn in these realms, but we’re just talking about having to attain this level of concentration. So these are really fantastic levels of meditation. So the next training is the training on wisdom. And oh, the Tibetan for that is sherab. In in Sanskrit, it’s prajna.
And this means the discrimination the definition is discrimination of phenomena through investigation and analysis. So, there’s actually three kinds of wisdom. There’s wisdom realizing selflessness. There’s wisdom realizing conventionalities, and this includes such things as science and so on. And there’s the wisdom realizing how to bring about the welfare of sentient beings.
But what we’re talking about here in relation to the higher training of wisdom is the first one, the wisdom realizing selflessness. So, also, we won’t be talking about this tonight in any detail because it’s a very profound topic, we’ll be talking about this later on with the six perfections or the six paramita. So, yes. Yes.
Actually, it depends which school of tenets you’re following. But I’m following His Holiness’s book on the opening of the eye of new awareness here, and he used the term selflessness. So he’s obviously talking according to one of the lower schools, probably the Vaibhāṣika school. So So I just use that term there, because we have to understand selflessness before we can go on and understand emptiness. So it’s the starting point.
So anyway, yeah, there’s there’s a lot of different texts that present the wisdom of selflessness or or realizing emptiness. And, generally, these are texts that are from our point of view of what we’re following here, these would be the texts that present the middle way school, the or the Prāsaṇgika school of tenets, which was presented by Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti. So this also is something which can entail a tremendous amount of study. It’s a very profound topic. The monks in the monasteries spent a lot of time on these texts.
Anyway, we’ll be talking about that a little bit in one of the future talks. But here we’re just having to understand that the reason why we have to do this practice of calm abiding is so that we can also gain an understanding of selflessness or emptiness of inherent existence, and combine it with this practice of calm abiding, and then applying this in single point of concentration or Vipashyana meditation, it leads eventually to a direct realization of emptiness. The person, first of all, has to gain the realization through study and apply it to gain an understanding through study, apply it to meditation. First of all, they attain a realization which is a conceptual realization, an analytical realization. And then through this analytical meditation, they eventually refine it more and more and more until it leads to the direct insight into emptiness.
And this direct insight into emptiness eradicates the afflictions and karmas together with their seeds, until true cessation is attained. And progressively, through attaining true cessation of one affliction after another, eventually all the and also all the the karmas are eradicated so that the person is released from bondage to karma and affliction, which is the root of cyclic existence. So this person attains liberation. It’s not that the first direct realization of emptiness is just the beginning. They have to continue with that through the different paths.
So if you study the paths, the path of seeing is the third path at which this direct realization is gained. And it’s through the third and fourth paths that the practice is carried out of doing this meditation and attaining the different levels of true cessation until the final true cessation is attained, which is the eradication of the whole of cyclic existence, and that is the attainment of the fifth path, which is the path of no more learning. So it’s very interesting to look at this in terms of the paths. But for the person of medium scope following the Hīnayāna path, this is something which brings about the result of the path. This is the result of their path now, and they become an arhat.
So that person being an arhat, once they pass away out of that body, they won’t get reborn again. They’re not under the influence of karma and delusion. There’s nothing forcing them to get reborn. It is taught in the Mahāyāna teachings that they will eventually come back anyway, because the Buddhas are sending them continually messages to come back and work for others. This will eventually, after many long eons, break through their Samādhi and bring them back into rebirth again as a bodhisattva.
But that’s a beside the point here. What we’re talking about is they’re achieving the goal that they were working for, which is liberation. And when they have attained that liberation, are capable of leading other beings, leading disciples to that point also. But once they die, once their bodies are left behind, then they’re no longer capable of communicating with others, and so their work ceases. So that’s why we’re advised to follow the Mahāyāna path so that we can keep on working for others by attaining full enlightenment.
Any questions? So anyway, I thought it might be nice to have a meditation tonight. You don’t have to be shy of asking questions if you do have any, but maybe I’ve just been going the topics have been too full, and given you too much information to digest. So anyway, if you want to ask some more questions afterwards, we can have a cup of tea and come back here afterwards anyway, so you might get a chance to discuss and chat with each other and talk about these things a bit more. So we can do some meditation now.
And this is a meditation on the mind. Okay. Anybody who needs to go, don’t worry. Just get up and go, please. Be aware of one’s thoughts, the view of one’s thoughts, and the motivation behind them.
Just be aware of the essence of the thought, not conceptualizing that it’s good or bad. Just be without thinking ‘I am doing this or that.’ Be aware of whatever your consciousness is experiencing in the moment. Experience. Don’t think.
Be aware. This meditation does not mean making your mind blank or squeezing, but being aware. When we can be aware of surrounding activity, but not make conversation with or about it, we have mind control. Mind control means the mind does not react when the object of our obsession arises. By meditating on the mind, we break the habit of reacting.
How was your experience in the meditation? It’s plenty to observe, it’s plenty to be aware of. Page five. May I quickly become an awakened spiritual teacher and lead each and every sentient being to that enlightened realm through these skillful actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakening heart that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more.
And then page ten, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. But we can think that we’re praying for the long life and health of Lamas of Rinpoche and Khensur Rinpoche and all other teachers that we might have. In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and good, all powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso. Please remain until cyclic existence is ended. Right.
Now don’t forget about the tea and cakes. And also there’s a course on Saturday, if anybody’s interested in learning about setting up their altar and doing preliminaries such as prostrations and so on. I’m going to be starting off with prostrations this week, and generally how to embark on meditating on the merit field. It’ll be on the I forget what time, but it’ll be on the board. It’ll be in the program.
Oh, you’ve you’re going to do some some work. Yes. You might be able to fit in a bit of it as long as well as the veggies. You might be able to fit in some of the coals as well as the veggies. What were you doing with the veggies?
Where are you catering now? It’s McLaren McLaren Vale. Yes. Loam, man. Walnut.