Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute teaching, Ven Margaret McAndrew walks a mixed group through the Six Perfections as the comprehensive framework for Mahāyāna practice, opening with a motivation check and recap of generating bodhicitta through loving-kindness and Tonglen. She addresses why enlightenment is necessary to truly help all beings, then clarifies bodhicitta as both the aspiration to benefit others and the commitment to achieve enlightenment as the means to accomplish it. She outlines the five Mahāyāna paths, describes different levels of bodhisattva realization, and explains what distinguishes bodhisattvas from arhats—the need to eradicate subtle obscurations beyond gross delusions. She presents the Six Perfections (generosity, morality, patience, effort; wisdom and concentration next week) and notes how tantra accelerates but does not replace this foundational practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 22 B & BL1999 11 11.mp3
UUID: 5f13f88f-0546-47c7-9625-b3ce79f857a3
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: Evening with V M McAndrew (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1999-11-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.5 minutes
Words: ~4,849
Thinking that we’re particularly here going to engage in this activity tonight, whatever our thought might have been up to this moment, we just check our thought and see what sort of motivation is in our minds, see whether we’re caught up with some worldly motivation. If we find that we have some worldly thought such as pride or concern with our short term well-being, just concerned with short term results and benefits, then this isn’t a suitable motivation so we cultivate a positive motivation for engaging in this practice tonight which will bring us long term and increasing benefits. We need to have a spiritual goal and direct our efforts towards a spiritual goal. The greatest goal, which brings the greatest benefit to ourselves and to others, is to cultivate the thought of bodhicitta, which means to think about bringing about the welfare of others and with this thought having the understanding that in order to do this we have to bring about the capacity within ourselves and the greatest way to bring about capacity to help others is to achieve the highest state of enlightenment, the fully accomplished state of enlightenment which has the capacity to help an infinite number of sentient beings.
The thought of bodhicitta means that we set our thoughts on working towards that goal with the intention of being able to help others. So with that thought in mind we’re engaging in listening and giving Dharma teachings tonight so this is a motivation which brings about an immense increase of the benefits. Before we start I’ll just do another check on the heater view. Do you want it on? No, you’re all okay?
Are you fine? No, I’m fine, yes. But I don’t want to it’s a bit borderline, you know, so maybe it might be more comfortable for some people if we put it on perhaps even just on the low setting. But yes, I haven’t actually named a monitor, have I? Yes.
Crawl forward. Should I point it that way? No, the other way towards the group. No, no, towards the group. Okay, I’ll get the kickback, I’ll get the air currents.
But I think, yes, if you turn it I think it’s better if you turn it towards the group. Yes. Oh no, no, we don’t yes. Okay, okay, we’ll turn it off. Yes.
Okay, well, turn it off. I’ll turn it off now. People really don’t want it. Was just afraid you might be a bit shy of saying so. Anyway, if it does if you do start to feel cold, if there’s anybody sitting quietly there feeling frozen and not wanting to say so, then you could come up and sit near the heater and put it on.
Yes. First of all, we’ll just look at the topic that we’re going to do tonight and that’s the Six Perfections. Is that coming across all right, David? Good. So we’ve been going through the graduated path and going through the three scopes of the graduated path.
Some of you might be new to what we’re looking at tonight, but some of you have been looking at these things for some time and you’ll have been following the thread of the graduated path explanation. So we’re right towards the end of it now. For those of you who perhaps might be a bit unfamiliar with the topics, never mind it will all come clear in due course. You might pick up a few useful things tonight and they will eventually fit into context. We’ve been going through the practices of generating bodhicitta in the last few weeks.
As you’ll remember, along we’ve been practising meditations to help us to see other sentient beings in a kindly way, in a way that makes them appear pleasant and attractive to us rather than labelling some of them as being nasty and unpleasant. In this way we can start to see them all as being kind, not to say that necessarily the sentient beings from their side are being kind to us, but we can see that whether they intend it or not that we can gain benefit from these sentient beings and that they are suitable objects for our love and compassion. Then we’ve been cultivating this sort of love and compassion in different ways. So the idea is that through doing this then we generate this great Mahāyāna love and compassion which wants to bring about the welfare of sentient beings. Then the next thought after that is to cultivate bodhicitta.
So we actually got up to doing the practice of Tonglen giving and taking. We may not have specifically meditated on bodhicitta but that’s something we do every session anyway at the beginning of the session so you’ll be familiar with that thought. So after coming up to the giving and taking meditation then the next thought is to think that although these thoughts are wonderful, they are not going to help the sentient beings unless we actually do something practical. We can’t do anything now because we’re so limited. At the most we might be able to help a few sentient beings with their specific problems perhaps we can give them something if they’re in need, we might be able to help them if they’re sick or do some work for them if they’re tired or something like that.
There’s not very many beings we can help even in that way. Our resources are so limited and In any case, this is only going to be temporal help because as soon as we help a particular being with one problem they’re going to encounter another problem. We can’t even solve our own problems yet we haven’t even found everlasting happiness for ourselves. So if we’re going to bring about the everlasting happiness of all sentient beings, which is a very small aspiration we might have joking, of course! But if we are thinking about bringing about the welfare of all sentient beings, then even if we are thinking about bringing about the welfare of all the sentient beings that we might happen to be connected with, or even if we are just thinking about bringing about the ultimate welfare of all the human beings that we’re connected with, these can seem incredibly difficult.
They can seem impossible goals to bring about. Of course, at present, we don’t have that capacity. The point is that through following the path to enlightenment and achieving enlightenment we can bring about this capacity to help others skillfully and there’s no limit to the number of others if we can help in this way because the works of the Buddha are incredibly extensive and they don’t end at any given time. Not as though Buddha helped others in this world until he passed away and then helping others. Buddha Śākyamūni is still helping countless others, not only in this world but in many other worlds, in ways that we don’t necessarily observe at present because of our limited minds.
As we develop, we will start to see Buddhas in their actual form as Buddhas. Bodhisattvas actually see Buddhas as Buddhas. They have that heightened perception. We at present, because of our limited karma, can’t see Buddhas as Buddhas. At the time of Śākyamūni Buddha appearing on this earth there were a certain number of people who had the capacity to see Śākyamūni Buddha as what he was, as a Buddha.
There were people even in his time who couldn’t see him for what he was. Since then, since he passed away in that body, the karma of beings in this earth generally, to see Buddhists in that form has passed. There are some beings who have built up a large store of virtuous karma and who do actually have a direct perception of Buddhas for being what they are. When I say seeing what they are I mean particularly in terms of seeing their bodies having certain marks and signs and radiance and so on which we can’t see but which doesn’t mean is not there. What we’re aiming at anyway is to be able to achieve this level ourselves so that we can also carry out similar actions.
The only reason for working for full enlightenment is in order to help others because otherwise if we are only concerned about our own welfare we would take the easier to attain goal which is liberation for everlasting peace and happiness for oneself. So we have to go past this state of liberation to the state of enlightenment. It’s a lot harder to achieve but if we start to develop our aspirations now then we can definitely achieve it. We’ve been fortunate enough to connect with the Mahāyāna teachings, to connect with Mahāyāna well we have the opportunity to connect with Mahāyāna teachers such as Khensur Rinpoche who are great teachers on the path who can inspire us, who can teach perfectly the different stages of the path. What we’re doing tonight is having a sort of preliminary run through of the practices and this is the Six Perfections.
So these are the things that we have to practice in order to achieve that Buddhahood, having developed this Mahāyāna thought, this Mahāyāna motivation. So we have been looking at generating bodhicitta and we’ve been looking at the thought training practice. I think I brought in the wrong notes. Sorry, that’s ridiculous. Brought in last week’s notes instead of this week’s notes.
Well, I think I’d probably better skip out and get them anyway. Just sort of proves that I wasn’t looking at notes while I was saying all that. But anyway I’d better go out and get my notes so I won’t be ticks. Anyway we’ve been looking at the meditations for developing bodhicitta. What would you say bodhicitta means?
How do you know when you’ve got bodhicitta? Okay, so if you meditate on helping others for a bit and feel inspired. Is this bodhicitta? Righto. Yes, I think the group in general has a pretty good idea of what bodhicitta is.
Yes, I’ve just been talking about it. Basically it essentially, so it has two aspects really: wanting to bring about the welfare of all sentient beings and setting your sights on the goal of enlightenment so as to be able to do that. Just wanting to bring about the welfare of others isn’t bodhicitta. That’s great love and compassion. But it’s not bodhicitta unless it’s also bodhicitta means, one translation is mind of awakening.
Essentially, bodhi means enlightenment or awakening, which here refers to attaining Buddhahood. The idea is that you have that as your goal because that is the means for helping others. So it’s not enough to just think of helping others but it has to be this thought of wanting to attain enlightenment. It would be like the difference between somebody who thinks, Oh, wouldn’t it be great if I could cure sick people? And somebody who actually thinks, I must become a doctor or I must become a naturopath or whatever, depending on but it’s the difference between having the thought of bringing about this benefit to others and the thought of the means of how it’s going to be done which is to have the qualities of enlightenment yourself because without having the right qualities then you can’t do that.
So we’ve been working on developing that thought through various meditations and then also sometimes now and then we’ve been looking at the five paths. Does anybody remember having looked at the five paths? I have talked about them sometimes. Essentially there are five paths to be gone through in practice, whichever path you are following. There are five Hīnayāna Paths to be gone through and there are five Mahāyāna Paths.
They have the same names but they are a little bit different in terms of practice and of what’s accomplished. Running briefly through them, I’m not actually going to give a talk on the paths tonight, but I just thought I’d bring them up to put them into context. There’s the path of accumulation, the path of preparation, the path of seeing, the path of meditation and the path of no more learning. The Hīnayāna practitioner has to go through those five paths and when he or she achieves the path of no more learning then they achieve liberation and they become an arhat. Mahāyāna practitioner also goes through paths with those same five names but at the end of it when they achieve the path of no more learning they achieve enlightenment and become a Buddha.
So The first of the five paths is entered at a particular point. Can anybody remember what the point is when you enter the first of the Hīnayāna paths? Good, yes, excellent. Right, okay so what about the Mahāyāna paths? Well, you might not have been here.
I think it’s a long time since I actually went through them as such, but I sometimes mention these points so I just thought I’d mention that. Does anybody remember? This? What do you call that? Okay.
Top marks! Okay, so right, that’s the point. Excuse me, putting you on the spot, but you’ll remember it better if you have to think about it. The Mahāyāna paths are entered at the point of generating bodhicitta, the realization of bodhicitta. Does that mean that the Mahāyāna practitioner doesn’t have to worry about renunciation?
Okay, so where does renunciation fit in for the Mahāyāna practitioner? The second scope, we have to practice the three scopes in conjunction. We have practice that, that’s very important. If we don’t practice avoiding a nasty rebirth then we’ll never be able to help other beings. That’s the first step.
Okay, now I just thought somebody might come up with the answer. Point is that in actual fact we cultivate renunciation. For the practitioner who is on the Mahāyāna path and cultivating bodhicitta, you actually cultivate renunciation and bodhicitta together and get them at the same time. If you’re on the Mahāyāna path from the beginning, then that’s what you have to do. You can’t generate bodhicitta before generating renunciation because that wouldn’t make sense.
You can’t want to save others from suffering of Samsāra if you haven’t even wanted to liberate yourself. So when you realize your own suffering situation in Samsāra and have a strong thought of being done with that, then if you’ve been following the Mahāyāna path and doing the meditations then that thought will apply to others as well. You will feel the same way about other beings very strongly. What about the other way? Is it possible to generate renunciation first and then bodhicitta, do you think?
What were you going to say, Dev? Right, yes. Okay, that was what I was getting at. There are some bodhisattvas who used to be arhats, or who are arhats, they are still arhats, they never stop being arhats. Having spent eons in the blissful piece of nirvana, having achieved their liberation, they are eventually woken up by the Buddhas who tell them this isn’t good enough, you should be working for sentient beings and they realize that they actually have to take rebirth in order to continue to follow the path so as to be able to bring about the welfare of sentient beings so they come back as bodhisattvas and have to follow this path to Buddhahood.
But they’ve already done certain of the work, they’ve already purified certain aspects that the beginning Bodhisattva, who has been on the Mahāyāna path from the beginning, is still having to work on. So in some respects they’ve done some of their work already but they still have to do a lot of work in cultivating bodhicitta and cultivating love and compassion more and they will eventually catch up with the higher bodhisattvas and have to finish off the whole path. Does this make sense? There are bodhisattvas at quite a variety of different levels, starting off from the beginning bodhisattvas who have just got bodhicitta, they’ve just achieved the realization of bodhicitta which means that they’re new bodhisattvas and these bodhisattvas happened if they’ve been on the Mahāyāna path from the beginning then they haven’t realized emptiness yet so they have to practice to realize emptiness. On the other hand there are some who have got a bit further along they’ve realized emptiness.
There are others who have got further along. Some of these have actually completely eliminated the Do you remember what it is that keeps us in saṃsāra? Okay, right. Do you know what are the delusions? Right, good.
So delusions or disturbing emotions or sometimes they are called afflictions. These have to be eradicated in order to achieve liberation and the arhat has eradicated these, so have some of the bodhisattvas, but they are not yet Buddhas because there is something else. Does anybody know what is the other thing that has to be eradicated? Doesn’t the arhat understand that? Right.
Okay, so what we are saying is that in terms of purifying the mind, bodhisattva has to do something that the arahant hasn’t done, as well as having bodhicitta, which all bodhisattvas have already accomplished. All these very advanced bodhisattvas are actually practising further purification of the mind beyond what the Arahant has done and that is, as he said, the subtle obscurations which very subtle and it’s compared to the difference between having a pot full of garlic and you’ve all the garlic out but you can still smell it and the smell lingers on so it’s a lot harder to get rid of the smell than just to get rid of the garlic. That’s what has to be done. The arhatship/arhat didn’t actually to do this work because it’s not necessary for the attainment of liberation, but for the attainment of full Buddhahood it’s necessary to deal with these subtle obscurations which obscure the attainment of omniscience. Buddhas are omniscient and they have all sorts of other qualities which I won’t go into tonight but I have an idea that that’s coming up in one of our topics before we finish this round of talks so I think that will be coming up.
It’s very interesting to look at the qualities of Buddhahood and we really need to do that because otherwise it’s just some sort of vague idea that being a Buddha is something that it would be nice to be but you don’t really understand why and in that way you can’t have strong motivation so we need to understand why we’re looking at becoming Buddhas and we have to look at the qualities of a Buddha. Anyway, what we’re looking at tonight is how we practice to achieve Buddhahood and this is the six perfections. Tonight we’re just looking at the first four of those six perfections. So the six perfections are essentially: Giving or generosity Ethics or morality patience, effort or enthusiastic perseverance, and then concentration and wisdom which we will look at next week. This topic of the Six Perfections is important because it basically contains our practice as Mahayanists.
That’s what we need to know about in order to follow the Mahāyāna path. Of course we’ve already learnt some basic things in the small and medium scopes but to look at the practice in full detail we need to look at these six perfections. Even if we are not bodhisattvas yet, maybe one or two of you might not be, not to mention myself, We need to know about these practices and they are very relevant for us. And we need to put them into action. So I’ve got a query here about ethics or morality.
Does anybody know the English words? Difference is in English? Not talking about the dharma definition but just in general English usage. What’s the difference between morality and ethics? Yes.
But it’s also unethical, isn’t it? I don’t know. Yes, I would have liked to have looked up a dictionary. We don’t have a decent dictionary in the house. That’s it.
Morality just seems to be one of those words that have gone out of fashion and I think it’s a pity because morality to me is this I think the problem is that morals have come to mean sex, sex, you know, in a lot of people’s thinking, that’s one thing, you know. Since we’ve been looking a lot at changing our views on what’s right and wrong sexually in this society, then I think we will just throw the word morality out. But to me it’s a pity because to me morality is a good strong word whereas ethics sounds weak and a bit sort of pussyfooting, yes. Recipe for enlightenment. Sanskrit word for morality is shila and it means cooling because it cools our minds.
I think that’s a very good term because when we’re drawn into the path of non virtue our minds get overheated. Basically lose control. Morality, Morality, a set of moral principles, something that cools the mind down. By following morality we are able to remain calm and peaceful in our minds rather than getting caught up in the mental agitation and the sort of painful emotions that come from getting involved in a way of life that’s too caught up with wrong actions. This is just everyday experience we can see it all around us.
In order to have equanimity in your mind, you have to have a basis of moral principles. It’s impossible otherwise. Anyway, we’ve been I’m sort of going right off the track here. Write We have been looking at how to practice the path in terms of the different scopes. In the small scope we were looking at basic moral conduct in terms of how to avoid the ten non virtuous actions and how to understand karma, how to observe the basic principles of karma.
Also in the medium scope we looked at the Four Noble Truths and we looked briefly at the three higher trainings which is the basic of practice set out in the medium scope, but we didn’t go into detail on that because we knew the six perfections were coming up. Also, if you study the Four Noble Truths in detail, there’s also the Noble Eightfold Path which is a setting out of practice. We didn’t go into detail in these medium scope sections because we were waiting for it to come up in the Six Perfections. A lot of the practices are the same, but when you’re looking at them in terms of the six perfections, they are explained in the context of bodhicitta and there’s a lot of emphasis relating to bodhicitta and the goal of achieving enlightenment for the welfare of others. Three higher trainings.
Three higher trainings. Yes. Well yes, they can be, yes, they are explained in the Six Perfections. Basically we will be looking at concentration and wisdom next week and ethics comes into, or morality comes into this week’s discussion. In order to become a bodhisattva, necessary to generate bodhicitta, but it’s also generally necessary to take the bodhisattva vows formally.
Really practice six perfections, probably you need to have taken the Bodhisattva vows. Some of you might have already done this, but in any case, whether you’ve actually taken the Bodhisattva vows or not, you can still look at the practice of the Six Perfections and it will still be relevant. At the time when you take the Bodhisattva vows, in that case you are actually committing yourself to carry out the practice of the six perfections. The vows are divided into groups. Actually, when you take the bodhisattva vows, they divide into groups that are connected with the various perfections and the idea of taking these vows is to help us to avoid doing certain things that would be harmful to our practice, particularly our practice of the six perfections.
In the graduated path, the teachings on there’s actually a section on taking the bodhisattva vows, on how to take the bodhisattva vows, and it’s sometimes included at this point before the six perfections. Pabongka Rinpoche includes it at the end of the teaching on the Six Perfections. So anyway I’m not going to go into how to take the bodhisattva vows, it’s basically just explaining about the ceremony and how the ceremony is carried out. In fact, the perfections are explained in connection in terms of a bodhisattva’s practice. In grounds and path they are explained in terms of the ten bodhisattva bhumis.
So this is another thing that comes into the that’s connected with the five paths. When you get up to the third path, which is the path of seeing, if you’re on the Mahāyāna path, then the next three Paths are divided up into ten sections that are called the ten Grounds. Starting with the third Path, you have ten Grounds or ten Bhumis. Those ten Bhumis are divided up among the practice of the six perfections. So you can actually count ten perfections.
The sixth perfection, which is wisdom, has four subdivisions which can be counted as separate perfections, four subsections. So there’s actually one perfection for each of the Bhumis or grounds and from the Path of Seeing onwards you work through those ten grounds and at the end of them then enlightenment is attained. It doesn’t mean that other bodhisattvas don’t practice the six perfections but it means that on each of these grounds these bodhisattvas give particular emphasis to one of the perfections and they really practice that perfection to its fullest, starting with generosity. Even though we might not be near that level yet, we can still find these perfections relevant to our lives, but we can’t expect to be practising them in the same way as one of these advanced bodhisattvas would be practising. In fact they don’t really become perfections until they are being practiced by bodhisattva.
So for us they are not really perfections, but we still need to know about them, still need to bring them into our daily practice. But we have to be sensible about what we are capable of doing in our present state and we can’t practice with the same intensity as the Bodhisattva does. Any questions? So the word perfection is the word that’s usually chosen in English to translate the Sanskrit term which is paramita or sometimes it’s pronounced paramita. I think paramita is a better approximation of the way the Indians would pronounce it.
And this is really more literally translated as gone beyond. So when we’re talking about generosity and moral conduct and so on, we’re not just talking about ordinary generosity and moral conduct, but we’re talking about something that’s gone beyond the ordinary. And so it’s in a sense transcendental. The term perfection conveys this also, that it is taking it as far as it can go. These six perfections are the whole path to enlightenment.
What about if you’re practicing Tantra? Do you need to practice the six perfections then, do you think? What about is anybody going to say why? So I’m getting some yeses and some nos. Everybody’s either nodding or shaking their heads.
I appreciate it. You still practice. You still have to practice. Okay, so how does it fit in with Tantra, you think? That’s exactly it.
Right here. Yes. Right. I’m hit the hammer on the hit the nail on the head. So Right, so with the practice of tantra we don’t ignore the six perfections by any means.
We have to keep them in mind and practice them, It can be speeded up considerably. It’s not different to practicing the perfections. Tantra isn’t a different practice to practicing the perfections of Pāramitāyāna. That was a misconception that was prevalent in Tibet. At one time that Atisha came to Tibet to correct.
Atisha showed how to combine the practice of sūtra and tantra, how to combine the practice of Pāramitāyāna and Tantrayāna. In order to do this effectively he also composed the first graduated path text, Lamp on the Path to Enlightenment, which is where all our graduated path practice comes from. Tantric practice enables the practitioner to complete the path very quickly, even in one lifetime, whereas if you are following the Pāramitāyāna path alone, it takes countless great eons. Is said that Śākyamūni Buddha followed the Pāramitāyāna path and because of certain very heroic deeds that he did, his path was shortened considerably but it still took him a long long time, many eons. I can’t remember exactly, I’ve got no head for these figures but yes, particularly certain stories like the one where he saved the lives of the people on a ship by killing the man who was going to kill all the passengers and take all their wealth for himself.
There was a story about that. Order to save the and in order to save the man from that karma.