Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute evening talk, Ven Margaret McAndrew explores the secondary mental afflictions—the psychological obstacles that fuel suffering. She grounds each obstacle in everyday life: spite arising from unresolved resentment, jealousy preventing happiness, miserliness and the five wrong livelihoods (flattery, hinting, concealed threats, deceptive offerings), dishonesty undermining spiritual progress, and harmfulness in its various forms. She details subtler obstacles—lethargy, excitement during meditation, non-faith—and the two forms of laziness: idle pleasure-seeking and the paralysis of self-doubt. Throughout, she emphasizes practical antidotes: generosity counters miserliness, inspiring examples counter despair, and a firm personal code counters shamelessness. She reflects on moral restraint within the sangha community and the power of Buddhist artwork and life stories to rekindle motivation. Suited for practitioners with some grounding in Buddhist psychology.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 74 1998 12 10 no topic name.mp3
UUID: 21a90ed5-1251-4b6a-8a86-e96cc65f6b39
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: Evening with V M McAndrew (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1998-12-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.1 minutes
Words: ~5,347
So we went through the non virtuous, the six non virtuous major ones. We went through the eleven virtuous mental factors. I’ll just read those out while we’re at it. Faith, moral shame, consideration, non attachment, non hatred, non confusion, effort, suppleness, conscientiousness, equanimity and non harmfulness. So we have those eleven virtuous mental factors.
Some of them we haven’t yet got because some of them are things that only come with advanced stages of meditation and some of them we might have in a small way that we have to cultivate them. So we don’t have to worry about cultivating the non virtuous ones because we have those and we have to get rid of them. And the virtuous ones are the antidote to the non virtuous ones in a general sort of way. You find that some specific virtuous mental factors are specific antidotes to specific non virtuous ones, but they’re explained in terms of having six root afflictions and twenty secondary ones. So the six root afflictions are attachment, hatred, pride, ignorance, doubt, and afflicted views.
And the the topic that these came into was actually in the four noble truths. And these come into the second noble truth, which is the cause of suffering or the source of suffering. We went through the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause or or the source of suffering. And we’re still really on that topic, so I’m going to have to finish off the other two tonight, but that won’t take as much time. So I’ll go fairly quickly through the what’s left of the secondary afflictions.
We went already through belligerence, resentment, and concealment. And so we’re on to the fourth one, which is spite. Does anybody want to ask any questions before we go on? Okay. So spite is a mental factor wanting to abuse others, and it arises from hatred and resentment.
So these are other non virtuous mental factors. And if we have hatred and then if we resentment holding on to and continuing our hatred, then spite can arise in situations where we want to then abuse somebody. So the example is that somebody points out our faults and then we we, first of all, feel some sort of hatred and resentment or anger in this instance, perhaps might be the more appropriate term. So we feel anger at having our faults pointed out, and then we allow the resentment to hang around. And then if this happens, then we’re likely to get to the point where we retaliate by abusing that person who pointed out our faults.
And instead of just accepting that we’ve got these faults, we turn around and point out all the faults in the other person. And so this this is a problem because in actual fact, we can learn something from these people who point our faults out. But if we don’t listen, then we can’t learn anything. And this can lead to really disturbed states of mind and to creating more negative karma and creating a sort of situation where our negative karma is going to cause us to be criticized again in the future. And then, of course, we’ll react again with more anger, and it keeps on going on.
So any questions about that? The next one is jealousy. And this is a mental factor that’s disturbed by seeing the good qualities of others. And it has the entity of hatred. So it has the desire for good things possessed by others, but it also has this quality of hatred that we don’t want the other person to have them and we can’t be happy seeing the other person having what we want to have.
The Kadampa Lama say that when or said that when a person is jealous, they can never be happy. Because whenever they see whatever they see in the way of the qualities of others, whether it’s possessions or personal qualities, they they feel unhappy by seeing that. And it also creates unhappiness for the future because it creates cause for rebirth in the lower realms. Any questions about jealousy? Okay.
In general, I say it doesn’t actually say that here, but in general, it said that rejoicing is a, an antidote for jealousy. Miserliness. It’s a Tibetan word for miserliness means yellow nose. And, apparently, it’s derived from the fact that a lot of the dogs in that part of the world have yellow noses, which they do actually. They they tend to be rather dark with a yellow nose.
And, I think that being miserly is a dog like quality. I suppose we have a similar idea because we talk about being a dog in the manger. So they like to keep something and keep all the other dogs from having a bite of it. So, it’s a mental factor that holds onto objects of attachment with intensity, unable to give them away to others. And its antidote is generosity, especially dharma generosity.
Do you have any questions about that? Okay. So generosity doesn’t just mean our material possessions. If we studied the topic, we saw that it had all kinds of branches and it included things like giving our time and energy and giving of dharma, giving the protection and so on. So, the seventh one is pretension.
This is a mental factor that in order to deceive others claims qualities that one does not possess. This is also moreover, it’s also related to attachment. For instance, claiming to have some sort of clairvoyance if this is not true. This is pretension. And it says that pretension is the basis of wrong livelihoods, which is some behavior that has to be avoided particularly, Particularly, I think, relevant to monks and dharma practitioners who are dependent on the generosity of others for their livelihood.
Perhaps not so relevant for people who have to work. Although it might it might have some sort of relevance there too. Things like flattery and hinting and so on can be something. Do you want me to read those out? The five wrong livelihoods.
It’s gonna be quite interesting actually. Was thinking of skipping them to save time, but one is contrived behavior. That is pretending as it means essentially pretend to be better than we are. If you’re a monk, then you pretend to have more humility or or more subdued mind than you really have. And, of course, we all I’m doing that all the time.
So yeah. But then I’d have to stop doing it. So then it’s not a so if if it’s sincere, then that’s alright. But to pretend when you’re not really like that is a mistake. And flattery is speaking soft and pleasing words to another with a desire to receive presents or praise or honor from them.
So if you just say nice things to other people because it makes them feel good, that’s alright. But if you’re thinking of getting something, whether it’s something material or just some sort of perhaps emotional reward from from them, then it’s it’s contrived and false. But these things particularly relate to the idea of doing these things so as to get material gain or perhaps status in your, like, in your in your field of work or whatever. The third one is hinting, saying something like, I wish I had a watch just like yours with the hope that I’ll keep it to you. And concealed threat is like saying, you have so much wealth.
It’s good to be generous, and there are so many faults of miserliness, so it’d be good to make offerings to me. Dear. That’s what yes. No. So so I’m talking about hinting about things that you’d like them to give you.
Other kind of hinting is alright. Sometimes it’s better not to be too blunt with people because they might not listen to us. But if we just hinge gently, then they might get the idea. On the other hand, sometimes people don’t take a hint. But it’s probably better to try hinting first because it’s more tactful and generally socially desirable to hint than to be too blunt with people.
So that that’s alright if it’s for their own welfare or for the just the general sort of common good, but or or if you just can’t bear the way they’re behaving. But if it’s if it’s some sort of devious mind for getting some sort of benefit for yourself, this is what we’re concerned with. It seems to be it’s concerned here with livelihood. The topic is the five wrong livelihoods. And we’re not concerned with general hinting, even if it is for some sort of benefit such as, you know, hinting that you wish they wouldn’t, play that kind of music or something like that, when you’re around, you know.
It doesn’t say you can’t do that. But what what it is saying is that you shouldn’t hint. Oh, you know, I I really like, you know, this kind of food, you know, so I I sort of wish they could give it to me or something like that. It’s alright to ask them straight out. It’s perfectly alright to ask straight out.
What what this is getting at is the the devious kind of mind because that’s bad for us to to cultivate that kind of mind. So if we have to ask something for something straight out, then that’s coming out in the open and, you know, maybe the other person doesn’t agree or maybe they do, that there’s no wrong in it. So the fifth one is making a small offering with the hope of a large return, such as saying such as, you know, giving a little present to somebody, a little sort of token gift having that they’ll then give you something really valuable. So these things, perhaps, you can say that they’re probably very relevant to monks and nuns and meditators and so on who who had to sort of rely on patronage. And, oh, saying that it’s good to be generous.
So because, you know, there’s so many faults of miserliness. You get get so much bad karma for being miserly. So if you give me something or other than, you know, you’re going to save yourself from that sort of bad karma. And this is the thing that you could say that non religious people in particular tend to think that all priests and monks and so on and on about when they when they sort of rely on offerings from the laypeople. And you can see that there is actually always a danger of falling into that sort of attitude, so you do have to be wary of it.
So that’s, okay. So these are wrong ways of of livelihood, and, it’s alright. Buddha told the monks to beg openly, so that’s perfectly alright. So the seventh, eighth of the secondary mental non virtuous mental factors is dishonesty. And this is a mental factor that through desire to receive offerings from others hides one’s faults from others.
I wonder how that differs from concealment. I’ll go back and look at concealment again. Well, concealment seemed to be through ignorance. It’s based on ignorance, and dishonesty is hiding. So perhaps perhaps there’s more of a factor of hiding it from yourself in the case of concealment.
Whereas in dishonesty, it’s a case of deliberately hiding your faults from others. So we try to cover up our faults and pretend to be much better than we are. And from the Dharma point of view, this is a bad move because we can’t hide our faults from the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. And of course, we also can’t hide them from our karma. So we have to what we really need to do is to try to improve our faults.
And if we’re open about them, then this will help us to overcome them. And, of course, if we’re open about our faults to the the teachers and the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and so on, then we can also receive instruction that can help us to overcome these particular faults. Any questions about that? So the ninth is haughtiness. And this is a puffed up mind that delights in the vigor of one’s life, one’s body, friends and possessions.
Attributes which are not actually possessed. So it seems a bit like pride. We did pride as one of the six major, mental factors, which are non virtuous. So I’ll go back to the definition of pride. So pride is a mental factor that arises from the view of the transitory collection as a real in one’s mind.
It has the aspect of feeling higher than others. So this doesn’t necessarily say that you feel higher than others, but you just feel sort of exalted about your the figure of one’s life, one’s body, friends, and possessions. You sort of exaggerate the the good qualities of the things that you have, and it’s a it’s a branch of attachment. And it’s a problem because it can serve as a basis for non conscientiousness and and other afflictions and prevents us from engaging in Dharma practice and advancing towards liberation. There’s the Kadampas have a story about one man who was called I think he was called Lucky Tashi or something like that because he had so many good, you know, good qualities in the sense of being very intelligent, having a pleasant character, having lots of friends and a good family and possessions and all that kind of thing.
The sad story of his life was that he never did any Dharma practice. And when he came to die, he was very regretful and wished that he hadn’t had all these good things because then he might have been stimulated to do more Dharma practice. So, the tenth one is harmfulness, and this is a lack of compassion that wishes to cause disturbance or harm to the minds or bodies of others. So, it can be either wanting to cause harm oneself or ordering others to inflict harm or rejoicing at the news or sounds of others being harmed. So this is easy enough to do particularly in the third case.
Often, we hear about somebody on the the news getting some sort of bad luck, and we think, oh, well, he deserved all that. You know? Perhaps we hear of somebody who’s been very rich and famous, and we don’t think that they’ve been very good. So then when we hear that they’ve lost all their money or something nasty has happened them, then we can sort of feel a little bit complacent and sort of think, oh, good. You know?
He got what was coming to him. So Buddha strongly condemned harmfulness, and he said that anybody who indulged in these three ways of harmfulness was not a disciple of his. So what this is saying is that even just indulging in harmful thoughts, let alone actually carrying them out, is contradictory to Buddha’s teaching. So there’s an interesting little comment here in these notes that one of the students asked Geshe Tekchok what what about in the situation of having to defend your village or monastery or country and having to cause harm to somebody in order to do that? And he his answer to that is the Buddha said that we shouldn’t possess harmful mind to anybody.
But in regard to difficult situations, we have to weigh up the risk and compare the the risk of creating negative karma with the potential for benefit of our actions. And if the risk is small and the benefit is big, we can do it. We can, for instance, defend the village benefit is small and the risk is big, then we shouldn’t. And Buddha said that if we lose our life, that’s not a big problem. But if we violate our morality of not causing harm, then we receive negativities that are going to influence hundreds of our future lives.
So this is something that has to be checked out carefully. I know that at the time when the Chinese invaded Tibet, a lot of monks left their monasteries and gave up their ordination so that they could become soldiers country because they felt that to defend their religion against the persecution of the Chinese communists was the, you know, the the the pressing demand of the the moment. So whether they were right or not, who can say? But that was the choice they made at that particular time. His holiness of Dalai Lama never wanted the people to engage in armed resistance.
Okay, so I think that was also partly because he thought it was hope less anyway, so he didn’t want to get killed for nothing. Shamelessness, eleven. Shamelessness. So we saw shame as being one of the virtuous mental factors when we went through the virtuous mental factors. So shamelessness is a mental factor.
It can arise from either ignorance, attachment, attachment or hatred and it’s an attitude of not restraining oneself from committing a negative action by not caring about any personal code of conduct. So shame was not wanting to to commit non virtuous actions due to your own inner reluctance to to create that action. Other words, regard for your own opinion of yourself. So shamelessness is the opposite of that, really. Yes.
So so to to avoid a wrong action because of having this personal code of behavior is the opposite of shamelessness. So, number twelve, inconsideration. So, we had consideration. That was the second one, one of the other. It was the following virtuous mental factor.
Remember, those two went together, shame and consideration. And consideration was what makes us avoid non virtuous actions through consideration for the opinion of others. And in cons or or consideration for others in general, either for the yeah. Herd would do them or for the opinion they would have of you. So inconsideration or non-embarrassment, it’s also a branch of ignorance, attachment or hatred and it’s a mental factor of not abstaining from unwholesome activity by not caring about the opinion of others or the effect upon them.
And it’s the opposite of the virtuous mental factor of consideration. So, for instance, if you think I won’t do this non virtuous action because it would make others unhappy, then that’s consideration. So monks and nuns have to think about the opinion of laypeople, not just of them personally, but of how laypeople are going to view the whole community because whatever you do, whole Sangha community has to be judged by it. And that’s one thing that actually makes us think quite a lot about how we how we’re behaving. It’s it’s quite a strong factor to make us control our behavior.
And this is this is because engaging in bad actions that cause the cause the lay people to have a bad opinion about the monks and nuns or about monasticism in general is something that causes a loss of faith among the lay people which is very harmful to them and so it’s actually by behaving in a way that causes lack of respect, we’re actually harming the people who who lose this respect. And so this is creating quite a lot of negativity on our part. So thirteenth is lethargy. This is Tibetan, it’s muk pa. It’s sometimes sometimes sometimes translates more like dullness.
Anyway, here’s called lethargy. It’s a branch of ignorance that renders the mind inflexible and unwilling to work and makes it difficult to engage in virtuous activities. In causes of illnesses in Tibetan medicine, you’ve got all of them. You get a lot of lung then it’s due to this fact that Pardon? Wind, bile and phlegm. According to Tibetan medicine, all diseases are caused by one or more of those three factors, by imbalance.
Of course, we’ve got all of these three in our bodies and when they’re in balance and working properly then we’re healthy and when things go wrong then we get illnesses. Well, it’s not quite the same because we’ve only got three in Tibetan medicine. What’s the other one? Oh, yes. Yes.
I don’t know why that one got left out. They don’t seem to feel the need for it. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. They that seems to be well, it’s probably also derived from Ayurvedic medicine. I’m not sure how Ayurvedic medicine views these different elements, but I think also Chinese medicine has something similar, but I’m not quite sure whether it has three or four. Do you know? Don’t know anything about Chinese medicine.
So anyway, not to worry about it, but these these things can arise from this mental factor. It’s interesting how our our physical elements can arise from our mental factors. So then the next one is excitement. Number fourteen. And this is related to attachment and it renders non peacefulness to the mind because it leaps towards contaminated objects instead of remaining on a virtuous object.
So it considers these contaminated objects to be important and wishes to experience them again and again so it cannot remain concentrated on the object of virtue. So it’s this obstacle that prevents the mind from remaining on the object during meditation. So, when our mind goes off to all sorts of other things when we’re meditating, generally, not always, but generally that’s a factor of excitement. It isn’t always excitement because sometimes the mind can jump away for some other reason. For instance, it says that anger and ignorance can also cause our mind to be distracted from concentrating on a virtuous object.
So that’s a different factor. Excitement. It’s anger or ignorance. Also, sometimes the mind can be distracted from one virtuous object to another. So for instance, you might be meditating on impermanence and then you might get distracted by some other virtuous object such as, for instance, thinking about Tārā or, you know, thinking about your teacher or something like that.
So that would be a virtuous object, but it wouldn’t be this particular factor of excitement. It could still be an obstacle for your meditation, though, because if you’re trying to remain single pointedly concentrated, then any sort of distraction to that is an obstacle. So number fifteen, non faith. We did faith as one of the mental factors. And there were three kinds of faith: admiring, believing and aspiring or aspirational faith.
And non faith is the opposite of these three. It’s a branch of ignorance. By not believing true statements such as Buddha’s explanation of cause and effect, it functions as a basis for the generation of laziness and to distance oneself from liberation. So it’s a fact that when we feel strong faith in the Dharma or in some particular aspect of the dharma, then we feel very motivated. And when we’re motivated, then we’re not lazy.
And when we tend to feel a little bit less sure, when we tend to feel, oh well maybe it’s not going to work or maybe it’s not true, then we don’t feel so motivated and then we don’t get anything done in terms of Dharma practice. So, it says here a person with non faith has no joy in listening to an explanation of cause and effect. He doesn’t like to listen to teachings on karma or past and future lives. So these are the particular things that we need to have faith in in order to have the basis for our Dharma practice. Also, doesn’t believe in the qualities of Buddha, the ten powers, four fearlessnesses, six clairvoyances, magical powers and so on.
Don’t ask me to say what all those Pardon? No. It says that the person who doesn’t have faith won’t believe in these qualities of Buddha. So these are the qualities of Buddha, ten powers, four fearlessnesses, six clairvoyances, magical powers and so on. And he doesn’t believe in the qualities of Dharma, that there are remedies for the various levels of obscurations, and he doesn’t believe in the qualities of the Sangha.
This is talking about the Ārya Sangha, the holy beings who are on the path of seeing or beyond. So that’s something that we don’t want to have. So laziness. So the Tibetan word for laziness is le lo, and it’s a branch of ignorance, mental factor that does not delight in virtuous activity but is distracted by the wish to sleep or simply amuse oneself, idling one’s time away. So a lazy mind is preoccupied with current pleasure and takes no interest in virtuous activities performed to attain pleasure in the future.
Thus, it acts as an obstacle to future happiness because it prevents us from engaging in virtuous activities such as listening to teachings, thinking, studying, meditating and so on. And it says here the disadvantages of laziness are not so visible because we’re indulging in pleasure so we don’t notice the time and energy that we waste. Whereas with some of the other non virtues like anger, it’s very obvious. We recognize anger. We when when we’re angry even for a little while, we we realize that we’re indulging in this non virtue.
And if we’ve been taught that it’s a non virtue, then we understand that we have to engage in applying the antidote. Whereas with laziness, we can go on being lazy for quite a long period of time watching television or something and it’s easy just go on watching television and when one program comes to an end then you start watching the next one or you switch it over to another channel to see if there’s something better on somewhere else and it just keeps going on and on. So this is the disadvantage of it. And it prevents us from ever developing any real virtue. And in some of the more detailed explanations of laziness, it goes on to explain the different subdivisions of laziness.
And it’s quite interesting that some kinds of laziness are what we actually consider to be hard work. In other words, pursuit of worldly goods. If we’ve put all our energy into into attaining fame or fortune from the dharma point of view, these things are meaningless. It doesn’t mean that they’re bad, and it doesn’t mean that we can’t, you know, work to acquire material goods and so on if this if we can bring Dharma motivation into it. We do have to work for our upkeep.
There’s nothing wrong with having the normal good things of life and enjoying them. To be preoccupied with these things is an obstacle to Dharma practice so we have to be careful not to fall into that. And another kind of laziness which is very relevant to Dharma practice is the laziness of discouragement. And so if we think that we’re no good, if we think we’re not good enough to practice Dharma or to get results for our Dharma practice, then this is a real obstacle to our practice and to our attaining any achievements. And so it’s not enough to just have faith in the Three Jewels of refuge, but we also have to have faith in ourselves.
And this is implied having faith in the Three Jewels of refuge because the Dharma teachings tell us that we do have this quality of having Buddha nature, of having the quality that can attain liberation and enlightenment, that we have this essential nature like all sentient beings, like all living beings, and that we can attain results if we do the work and that no matter, even if we’re only at a very, you could say undeveloped stage now. If we just begin to work and keep our work at the level we’re capable of at a steady pace and maintain a regular practice, we can definitely make progress in our Dharma and we will eventually achieve the highest results. And so we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be discouraged. And if we do find that discouragement is our problem and that we get depressed and think that we’re not going to get anywhere and feel like giving it up, then we need to contemplate on topics that can inspire us, like contemplating on the preciousness of the human rebirth and maybe on the the qualities of refuge and so on, whatever we see as being inspiring to us. So does anybody have any questions to ask about that?
Buddhist artwork. Yes. I think that’s very inspiring. It is. That’s why we have Buddhist artwork.
And if you find that it inspires you, then not only to have it in your house and look at it from time to time, but perhaps sometimes when you feel that you’re in need of a bit of extra inspiration, then you can go and look at the pictures and that’s wonderful. Yes. I think we all find that it’s very inspiring to particularly be able to come into this Gompa here and look at the beautiful pictures and statues that are around when we come here and perhaps sometimes to look at a book of art or some of the other art forms such as movies sometimes like going to the cinema and seeing a film like Kundun or The Milarepa film or life stories or reading books or seeing sort of dramatizations. These are really inspiring for us. Women in the cave.
Yes. Reading yes. All these kinds of things can help us. Yes. Reading life stories is a very recognized form of inspiration.
And it’s good to read stories of people like Milarepa who had lots of obscurations and then overcame them to achieve high results because it makes you feel that, you know, no matter how bad the person is, no matter what bad things they’ve done, it can be overcome. And then it makes you feel that you may not be so wonderful yourself, but you can still overcome your obscurations because Milarepa overcame his obscurations. So excuse me. Oh, he had the calluses on it. Yes.
That was he. Yes. If if you’re wondering what Hill is talking about, do you want to tell them the story, Hill? Yes. His yes.
When he he said he was sending him I think it was, one of his close disciples. Anyway, he was sending him off to to meditate for some long retreat. And his disciple kept on asking him before he left for some secret teaching. He was sure that he must have some last great secret teaching that he hadn’t given him. And kept on saying, oh, look.
Yes. I’ve given you all my teachings. You don’t have to think that I’m keeping anything back from you. And he kept on insisting. So finally, said, alright.
Yes. I have got one very last, very special secret teaching that I’ll give you before you go. So the disciple sort of made prostrations and all that, and then Milarepa just turned around and lifted up his cloth garment to show his backside, which was all covered with scars from all the with calluses from all the time he’d spent sitting in meditation and he said, my last instruction to you is work. So non conscientiousness number seventeen is a mental factor that arises from any of the three root afflictions and is associated with not abstaining from bad actions, but continuing on with them. And it allows the mind to be taken over by the root and secondary afflictions, and it increases non virtue and previously accumulated virtue is lost.
So we don’t want that. Conscientiousness also was one of the virtuous mental factors that we looked at. Forgetfulness, number eighteen, is a mental factor that lacks memory of virtue. For example, a mind accompanied by afflictions that forgets virtuous objects with which one has previously been acquainted. So it’s not just