Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute session, Ven Margaret McAndrew teaches stanza eleven of the Wheel of Sharp Weapons, moving from the previous week’s focus on physical suffering to mental anguish and depression. Through a Tibetan Buddhist thought-transformation practice, she explains how practitioners can transform obstacles into fuel for spiritual growth—illustrated by the bodhisattva like a peacock that ingests poison and becomes radiant, whereas ordinary beings must simply endure. She explores the karmic roots of mental suffering: how past actions of disturbing spiritual teachers, parents, and dharma friends ripen as present depression. The teaching weaves together practical considerations (should you take medicine when ill?), the Mahāyāna practice of tonglen (taking on others’ suffering), guru-student relationships, and purification methods. For established practitioners.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 SW 1999 02 25.mp3
UUID: d3b0b9f1-55d7-4f7d-91c0-e8eebf6d7a61
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: The Wheel of Sharp Weapons (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1999-02-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~5,507
So, we’re doing this thought transformation practice at the present, the Wheel of Sharp Weapons. Most of you have been coming along for a few weeks previously, so you know what we’re on about. One or two of you might need a bit of filling in. So this thought training practice gives us the capability to bring our sufferings and difficult circumstances into the path. So We have a long way to go.
We have a difficult job to accomplish in attaining enlightenment. Even making a little bit of progress on the path to enlightenment isn’t easy. And we’re going to encounter a lot lot of obstacles. Some of these obstacles are external such as difficult circumstances, poverty, sickness, people who create difficulties for us. We also meet all sorts of internal circumstances Perhaps actually sickness could be counted as an internal circumstance.
We also have We find within ourselves when we try to do virtuous actions that we have all sorts of obstacles within ourselves. Try to meditate, but our mind is scattered. Try to to keep our minds in a state of loving compassion, but we find that we have anger or irritation and other adverse states coming up all the time and so we have many different kinds of obstacles These have to be overcome So these thought training practices give us some very skillful means for dealing with these, what seem to be obstructive circumstances. These can actually become something that turns into a benefit for ourselves. We can actually see a way to turn it into an energy that helps us in the path.
For those of you who weren’t here in the early stages, and for those who were, they need a reminder: analogy that comes at the beginning of the text is comparing a Bodhisattva to a peacock who can use these circumstances in the path in the same way that a peacock can eat poisonous plants and become more beautiful. Whereas ordinary beings such as crows have to avoid poisonous plants or they might die. A Bodhisattva, because the Bodhisattva has developed great love and compassion and cultivated wisdom, have this capacity to encounter these circumstances which might lead to an ordinary person’s mind being distracted from Dharma practice, being diverted from Dharma practice to a bodhisattva that only makes their Dharma practice stronger. Whereas if you don’t have that capacity then you have to be careful. So what we’re doing at the moment is training ourselves to be bodhisattvas.
We have to understand that perhaps moment we have to protect ourselves from dangerous circumstances, we can’t just throw ourselves into it, but at the same time by practicing these thought transformation practices we can develop capacity to able to encounter these circumstances head on and actually use them. So we don’t go looking for these things, but they’re going to come our way anyway, whether we go looking for them or not. When they do, we can make use of them. Sometimes a question comes up, for instance, if you’re sick should you take medicine? I had a party of school children here the other day and I was trying to explain karma to them and the teacher actually came up with this question: If you’re sick, is it a good idea, according to the Buddhist teachings, are you supposed to avoid taking medicine or treatment or whatever so that you can experience the karma?
Or is there some thing about karma that says whether you take medicine or not you’re still going to be sick, so what’s the use of taking it? I said, well, you might of course have the conditions to perhaps get better when you take the medicine and if you don’t make use of that condition, if you don’t encounter the condition, then you won’t get better. But if you do take the medicine then you will, so it’s definitely a good idea to take the medicine and and try to make yourself better. But if that doesn’t work, sometimes we try treatments and we still find ourselves being sick, so then we have the thought training practice that can help us to turn that sickness to good account. Does anybody have any questions up to this point?
Actually last week we were on stanza stanza eleven. Yes, so last week we did stanza ten. That was talking about physical problems. So anyway, the point is that sometimes we meet difficult circumstances and we can do something about them. There’s something practical we do on the practical everyday level.
And sometimes we encounter circumstances where there doesn’t really seem to be anything we can do, no matter how much we think, no matter what we try, there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do except put up with this particular circumstance. But we don’t have to just put up with it, we can actually make it useful. We don’t need to be discouraged, but instead we can manage to keep happy, or at least keep positive attitude in our minds through all these difficult circumstances. If we train ourselves thoroughly, then no matter what difficult circumstance we encounter, can manage to keep a positive mind and keep a happy mind through all that. Of course we have to expect that when we start off we’ll only find ourselves capable of transforming little difficulties and the big difficulties are still going to overwhelm us and get us down, but that’s just a sign that our thought training isn’t good enough and we can use that as a teaching to send us back to the thought training and make it stronger.
So even then we can get something positive out of it. So actually, even if we just train our minds to be happy or at least to keep them in a positive state through difficulties, even just this is a great benefit to our practice and it removes all sorts of obstacles such as too much worrying and anxiety, too much getting discouraged, getting depressed. All of these things are really adverse to our practice and if we can keep happy then it will keep us from having to be slowed down by these particular obstacles. And if we can manage to keep happy in our minds and keep positive, then we won’t feel frustration. What happens sometimes when we encounter obstacles, particularly if we’re very enthusiastic about our Dharma practice and want to make progress, we want to see ourselves making a lot of progress, then we encounter all these obstacles.
This can very easily happen to us Westerners because we sort of encounter the Dharma and it’s a well known fact that converts are always very enthusiastic. So we want to get enlightened tomorrow, you know, and we want to achieve the ten stages of the path yesterday. So anyway, we have these great expectations of getting somewhere and then if we meet adverse circumstances then what happens? We want our money back. We might want our money back.
You can be sure that we’ll experience some frustration because we’re expecting to become bodhisattvas right away and we suddenly find that instead of that we have some sort of a setback. So we have to realize that we’re going to meet these sort of setbacks and we have to realize these setbacks aren’t really setbacks. But in fact, if we know what to do with them, can actually be very helpful to us. Yes? Could have been.
I always thought the other way I made all these mistakes at the start and then sort of reversed course. It is very practical to remember that. One person who I was friendly with in the early days of my practice in America wrote me a letter back from the United States talking about practicing Dharma in the West and saying it was the bodhisattva shuffle, three steps forward and two steps backward. In fact it is like that. You’re lucky if it’s only two backwards.
Anyway, point is that sometimes it looks as if you’re not getting anywhere very fast, but really in fact thought training is taking root. I always think that a good analogy is to see that your Dharma practice is really like gardening or farming. It’s not like building a house. At the start you tend to think that it’s like building a house, that you just sort of lay a foundation and then you put one brick on top of another. Even though it might seem a bit slow, it’s a straightforward progress and you can see where you’re going ahead.
But in actual fact it’s not like that. It’s more like you sort of plough the ground and fertilize the ground and plant a lot of seeds and then you just wait for them to start growing. They’ll start growing at their own pace as nature permits and you can’t make the process happen any faster and all you can do is give them the conducive circumstances and start growing in their own time. And then there’ll be some weeds. I think Jesus said something about that.
I can’t remember now. Yes, that’s right, yes. I can remember the minister telling us about the tares and explaining that tares were just weeds. Always sounded like something terribly exotic. Yes, found there are plenty of weeds and plenty of work to do.
The thing is that if you do all the right things then it does start working. Cultivating patience actually is one of the very important things. It’s not just because we have to be patient because it’s going to take a long time, we’re going to need a lot of patience and tolerance, but actually cultivating patience is one of the things that is important on the path. It’s one of the important sort of qualities that gets things working in the right direction. So this is something that really is extremely beneficial.
And so Anyway, another thing is that keep happy then we’re not going to get angry. If we can keep calm and patient and have a happy state of mind, then we’re not going to get angry when these difficulties come along and we’re not going to take out our anger on other people or even on ourselves. We’re not going to create all the sorts of negative karmas that we tend to create very much so when we get angry. This is going to remove one of our great causes of obstacles on the path. Keeping this sort of equanimity is very very helpful for us and this is something that of course is going to come with more difficulty to some people than others Some of us find that when we encounter difficulties and frustrations, it’s very difficult to keep equanimity and other people seem to have a more naturally cheerful and optimistic frame of mind.
So we can actually take a lesson from this that this is due to our previous karma, that the people who find it easier to remain cheerful and optimistic under difficult circumstances have practiced positive karma, creating positive karma in their previous lifetimes, particularly patience, tolerance and so on. People who find that they get very irritable and frustrated very easily just have to understand that this is due to their previous karma, that they haven’t practiced this sort of thing enough yet and that they’ve let themselves follow anger and follow the negative mind too much That’s why they have to experience this particular kind of mental difficulty, so if we start practicing now, we’ll experience the result as time goes on, And it will get easier and easier particularly in our future lives, can expect to find it a lot easier than in this lifetime. So that’s something that we can look forward to And in particular if we start doing the work now, then we won’t have to experience the sort of lower rebirth states where we could be experiencing the results of bad karma Excuse me, would really lead to far worse sufferings than what we’re experiencing in this lifetime.
So by looking at this way, by seeing that these difficulties by being experienced in this lifetime are clearing the way for us not to have to experience lower rebirth states, then if we can think this way it can really give us a good impetus to do our Dharma practice and not to be upset by these kinds of difficulties. When we’re doing this practice, it’s a thought training practice, we have to think this way and First of all, we remember our karma. We remember how we’re experiencing the results of our previous negative karmas in the present and this gives us the thought that we’ll avoid doing this kind of action in the future. So by remembering this, we just think very strongly that no matter what happens, I’m not going to give way to negative karma, to actions done under the influence of anger and hatred, under the influence of greed, under the influence of ignorance, negative actions, but still just keeping the sort of the difference between virtuous and non virtuous actions in mind just following right actions and then we complete this thought by thinking about other beings. So as well as thinking that we’re not going to experience these negative karmas ourselves, we think of others who have to endure the sort of sufferings that we’re experiencing now.
And as we studied last week, this is the practice of giving and taking Tonglen, that we think of actually taking on this suffering that is being endured by others and we think that by enduring this suffering ourselves and enduring it patiently and calmly and with a happy mind then we’re actually We just do this mental practice that we’re relieving others of this suffering, that we’re bearing it for them. Of course, this is just an imaginary practice. At this stage of our development we can’t do this at all. And even for Buddhas, the circumstances in which they can take on other sentient beings which they can take on sentient beings suffering is very limited, but it is a very very powerful imaginary practice and in a sense we are thinking of taking on suffering for others because we’re thinking of becoming bodhisattvas and bodhisattvas, rather than going for liberation where they can avoid all these difficulties. They think of coming back life after life, happily enduring all sorts of difficulties during that process where they work for their full enlightenment and they do this for the sake of others.
Any questions about this? We can do this in the meditation session, but also anytime that we see others suffer or anytime that we hear about others suffering, think about it. Particularly for example if you’re watching the news on television or some such situation like that, you get many many different opportunities to take on these kinds of sufferings. Also when we’re enduring a suffering ourselves, whatever kind of suffering it is, we can have this thought of taking on the suffering and we can add in the breathing visualization, if you like, it on with the breath. So so anyway, Last week we finished stanza ten and that was dealing with particularly with physical difficulties and suffering.
So each of these verses are teaching us to take on particular specific sufferings that we’re experiencing ourselves. As we studied last week we actually find the Tonglen teaching, giving and taking teaching in the graduated path and there it’s explained in a general way, where we can take on all the sufferings of all the sentient beings by this meditation practice. Here we’re looking at just taking on the specific suffering, in other words converting our difficulty of pain or physical suffering by taking on that specific suffering from sentient beings. So it could be something like a broken arm or a stomachache, anything like that. We can think that there are many many sentient beings who are experiencing broken bones or many many sentient beings who are experiencing pain in their stomach and we think that we’re taking on that specific suffering and relieving We imagine that we’re relieving the sentient beings of that specific suffering by taking it on and doing it for their sake and in that way we can feel happy and we are creating a lot of merit just by having that thought.
There’s a verse in the Bodhicaryāvatāra, that says just the thought of enduring a headache, of relieving the headaches for sentient beings is extremely powerful. So how much the thought of relieving all their sufferings? So in a sense we’re thinking of relieving their headaches or some specific suffering, but we’re also doing it with the bodhicitta thought. So we also have this long term view of becoming enlightened becoming capable of leading them on path to being free of all sufferings. First of all, we accept this suffering as our own karmic result and from that we resolve not to do such things again We make this firm resolution not to do this action again and up to this point is just from the general teachings of the Graduated Path, any practitioner at any level of practice might have this thought and then we accept and then we do this practice of giving and taking which is the Mahāyāna practice and which is actually a very special Mahāyāna practice and take on and in that way think that we’re taking it from others So this verse was specifically dealing with physical sufferings and then we go on to verse stanza eleven: And this stanza particularly has to do with mental suffering and depression.
So Would anybody like to read this out? Okay, David. I think he got his head up first. I think this is an important verse because we often do have to deal with depression. Or a lot of people do have problems with depression.
It’s quite a common problem and it can be a very bad problem for some people. In a way it can be harder to overcome than physical suffering because you can see that even if you’re suffering physically, there’s some prospect of keeping your mind happy. Whereas when your mind feels down, it’s very hard to see a way out of that. It’s very hard to see the solution and It can be very hard to actually practice the remedy which is doing this thought training practice. So sometimes our depression or sadness or unhappiness or mental anguish of whatever sort There are many different kinds of mental suffering and sometimes it can have a present cause or you could say a condition because we know that the cause is always really karma when we’re talking about cause and condition.
The underlying cause is always our own karma, but there can be present cause in terms of conditions. For instance, the person having lost a loved one through that person having died, or some other similar circumstance which causes a lot of unhappiness. Sometimes our physical suffering can be the cause of our mental suffering. For instance, it goes on for a long time and we can’t see any chance of getting better, then we can get depressed because we feel that we’re not going to get better. Sometimes we feel depressed or unhappy and there’s no apparent cause.
Whether we can see an external condition or whether we can’t, in both of these cases the real cause, the underlying cause is karma and it probably comes from our past lives. Course, we look at these things psychologically and see that these things might trace back perhaps to things we experienced in our childhood. Perhaps I’m not saying that there’s no benefit to be gained from doing some sort of psychological therapy. There can be benefit to be gained from doing these kinds of things, particularly if we have very severe depression that’s paralyzing all our efforts to improve ourselves. Yes, somebody?
Yes, exactly, right. So all these things come about as a karmic cause. But still, of course, the things that we experience when we’re young have a big impact on us, and there are some therapies that have been developed that can be very helpful with these kinds of things, but even this doesn’t really go deep enough because we have to understand how the actual karmic cause comes from way back and we’re actually experiencing the cause of our previous actions. And as this verse tells us, our mental anguish is the result of disturbing the minds of others and especially our Guru, if we’ve had Gurus in previous lifetimes and if we’ve upset their minds, we’ve been bad disciples and disobeyed their orders deliberately and done things that were very much against what they taught us, this would have caused distress to our Gurus. And this is the worst kind of negative karma.
Our Guru is the strongest object. If we’ve created this relationship, and of course even though we may not have created this relationship with a Guru in this lifetime, it’s quite possible that we’ve had this relationship with a Guru in past life times. The worst karma that we can create with the Guru is to completely turn against the Guru and to give rise to a negative attitude towards our Guru, to criticize that Guru and to, in various ways, turn away from them. And This is the worst karma because it stops us from having From being able to put things right and to connect again with that teacher. Whereas some people are not very good disciples Sometimes they find they’re unable to really do what the Guru wants, but they still in their hearts want to do that.
So that’s a lesser degree of severity. And with that person there’s always the possibility that they’ll be able to sort things out with their teacher. At least they’ve still got faith in their teacher so they can be born perhaps in a future life still be born around that teacher and make a better go of it. So the thing we have to guard against most especially is turning against our teacher, also turning against the Dharma. That’s a very very heavy karma is to criticize and have a negative attitude towards any aspect of the Buddhadharma because this prevents us from being born again in future lives having that connection.
So we want to avoid that result at all costs. Sometimes the situation arises where a person very hastily and thoughtlessly makes contact with a person who isn’t really a suitable guru This often happens. We have to be very very careful who we choose. We’re absolutely under no compulsion to choose somebody as a Guru until we’ve been very very very careful about checking their qualities and we should do this very very carefully, sure that from a number of different angles, sure they’re suitable, sure that they have the right knowledge, the right personal qualities, that they have sufficient compassion, patience and the various different qualities that are needed. We should make sure that they put what they teach into practice.
This is very very important. Sometimes when people do find that they have perhaps connected with a teacher who is they might that teacher isn’t quite the thing. They should at least try to not feel anger and resentment towards that teacher, but rather if they go on to other teachers who are more suited who are actually true teachers, then they should still try to see that other teacher as being an emanation of the Buddha, who in that way appeared in that form to them to teach them a particular lesson. Perhaps not to be so hasty! But they should try to still keep a positive attitude towards that teacher, to not break their devotion.
So this is a very tricky situation to be in, so it’s better not to get into that situation if you can avoid it. The result of having created the karma of disturbing your Guru’s mind in past lives is actually experience mental illness so this is a very severe result and It’s one that we don’t want to have again in our future lifetimes and also another very strong object for our karma is our parents, so disturbing the mind of our parents and After our Guru our parents are the strongest object. So I don’t know For myself, I don’t know whether or not I’ve disturbed my Guru’s mind very much. Sometimes I think I might have, but I know jolly well that I disturbed the mind of my parents many times. And so this is something that will bring about a current result of mental anguish in the future.
Of course, we have many opportunities for disturbing our minds of our parents because we have to live with them for so many years. So it’s something that we have to really think about purifying and maybe some people have been better children than I was. Well, I’ll tell you I was not a good child. But anyway, it’s all something that we can work on. Anyway, after this we also have other sentient beings that our Dharma friends also, if we disturb the minds of our Dharma friends after our parents, then our Dharma friends are quite a heavy object.
Our companions in Dharma practice. So this is one thought to keep in mind perhaps when we’re engaging in various different activities with health Buddha House students is to remember that our Buddha House students are our Dharma friends and we have to try to keep on good terms with them as much as possible because if we get into too much friction and can’t work together then we’re creating this kind of karma which is quite heavy karma and after that then just sentient beings in general. Disturbing the minds of any sentient beings is creating this sort of karmic cause to experience mental suffering. So any questions or comments or stories to tell, or whatever? No, thank you.
Maybe somebody else would like to window close. Are feeling cold? I’m feeling just right, but It’s fine. Would be nice to be done with this. Yes.
That’s right, yes! And then of course if you’re followers of the same Guru, then you become vajra brothers, which is a very strong relationship and sisters. And particularly if you’ve taken initiation from the same teacher. That’s right, so you have very strong shared karma. Yes.
Oh, well we just remember that when we’re doing purification with the four opponent forces. And you’ve learned about that, haven’t you? A very good practice to do is the thirty five Buddhas. Have you done that practice? No.
I should actually I might check with Khensur Rinpoche whether it would be good to do a session with that. I have done it with some of the other groups, with the Wednesday morning group, as a practical thing, like how to make prostrations and then we but and then I haven’t actually gone through the thirty five Buddhas with people, but it’s pretty straightforward really. We have got copies of it here. I think you’re right, yes. So if anybody yes.
You have to yes. Yes. That’s the Mahāyāna purification practices or something like that. Sūtra of the three heaps or something like that. Oh yes.
Alright, yes. That’s the name of it, the Sūtra of the Three Heaps actually, that’s what they call the thirty five Buddhas. So anyway, yes, so this is a very good practice to do It’s the most general practice when you’ve had initiation then you also have to do Vajrasattva and various other things. I think that’s a very good idea actually. Would you like to lead it?
Because I might dip out after the thing that we can look at. I think for the people who want to come and take precepts, I’m sure they want to stay and do something afterwards. It only takes about half an hour. So I think, yes. Yes, definitely have a teeth first.
And then you might perhaps do the, Actually we won’t have Khensur Rinpoche here, so it’ll be just a question of the students taking the precepts among themselves. But if you’ve received the lineage before then there’s no problem. I think even for those who haven’t received the lineage from Khensur Rinpoche it would still be beneficial to come in and join us. But of course you wouldn’t receive the lineage because we haven’t got Khensur Rinpoche here to pass on the transmission. But it can still be a very beneficial practice I think.
Of course then, as we’ve been discussing, we’ll probably do something to follow-up that ceremony until maybe about seven o’clock in the morning or whatever. The precepts are about five thirty. So, yes. So anyway, one way to do it, one way that’s very good is to actually put it onto a tape. I mean the ideal way is to learn it.
You need to learn it so you can recite it. There’s no way you can do it without at least learning the Buddha’s names and reciting their names, even if you have to read the prayer. Ideally you should learn the whole thing and do prostrations all the way through. Or a modern alternative is to put it on tape. At least until you do get the names.
Well yes, can do the whole visualization, you know, put it all on moving projectors, sort of on a movie with the rays of light coming from the thirty five Buddhas, each of them in turn and all that sort of thing. We’ll wait for you to do that, but in the meantime we just have to put the movie inside our own head. So there are teachings and I’m sure we have teachings from Lama Zopa somewhere, that kind of thing, that would tell us what visualization to do. Actually I have got some notes on the thirty five and I’d like to check with Khensur Rinpoche whether it would be good to do it with this group. Not just the prostrations, but the actual practice.
Okay, so I must remember that. Somebody remind me afterwards? That’s right, yes. We’re fortunate nowadays that they do come through from time to time and sometimes you just have the experience of meeting somebody and feeling very connected. But yes, Well, there’s a reason why we’re all here in Adelaide anyway, so maybe you have this connection with Khensur Rinpoche, or whatever.
But yes, I mean we do certainly would have connections with various teachers, which are perhaps not quite ready to ripen yet, but in due time they will ripen and we’re also creating these kinds of connections all the time, every time we actually encounter a Lama. So definitely, even if we don’t encounter a Guru in this lifetime, we’ll be creating the cause. So it’s not something to worry about. Yes, yes, well somehow Yes, it’s better to be Yes, it’s better to be careful, but also when the time comes and you can make that connection If you’re going to make a mistake, it’s probably better to be too careful. Dharma, as long as you are making connections with the teachings, as long as your skepticism isn’t keeping you from going that far Then yes, it will work.
What happens probably I think is that when you do make that connection it tends to be very emotional, so it’s better to be intellectual and careful Well, yes, I think that’s It can be like that, yes. It’s definitely some sort of very strong heartfelt thing. So it’s better to be careful while you’ve still got time, because once you’ve made that connection from the heart then you know it’s a bit too late to start being too rational at that stage. So, this is a very important topic in our teachings and Khensur Rinpoche has been going through these sort of things in the on the Tuesday night teachings. Understanding our a way of making devotion to the Guru.
So in a sense it’s the central practice, but it’s not something that you have to rush into. It’s something that you go steady on. And of course, if you think of taking initiation, you have to realize that when you take initiation then you are committing yourself to that Guru relationship. It doesn’t mean that necessarily that has to be your what they call the root Guru, you know. You have one teacher that you feel very strong connection with, that you relate to as your root Guru.
And you can have other Gurus who you also have strong respect and regard for, but it might not be such an intense sort of thing.