Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 31-minute teaching on The Wheel of Sharp Weapons, Venerable Margaret McAndrew examines verses on strokes, paralysis, displacement, and environmental damage—explaining how these karmic results arise from breaking Tantric vows and guru commitments. She then turns to practical remedies: the Four Opponent Powers and daily Vajrasattva practice, which prevent negative karma from accumulating even when vows are broken. A core theme emerges: taking Tantric initiation demands commitment to guru devotion, and abandoning this connection creates a breach that extends across lifetimes. McAndrew grounds the teachings with personal anecdotes from Kopan monastery and closes with Tonglen practice on the verses. For practitioners engaged with Tantric study and practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 20 SW 1999 04 15.mp3
UUID: 733e7b8c-979a-4d1a-a0d1-4e57096ceead
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: The Wheel of Sharp Weapons (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1999-04-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 31.1 minutes
Words: ~3,602
Perhaps never think about strokes or paralysis being the result of having broken Tantric vows, but this is the explanation that’s given here: that these things are the result of having broken our particularly our Tantric vows and or commitments, or having followed actions that are contrary to the teachings. So, this, I suppose, wouldn’t necessarily have to be Tantric vows or commitments, but also other, commitments that we’ve made to our teachers. So the The expression guru devotion to Tantra refers to the whole graduated path to enlightenment. So you know that it’s arranged in a series of topics and that the first the first topic in the in the graduated path is how to follow the Guru. It leads all the way to Tantra.
So the whole path to enlightenment If you’re going to include Tantra in the path to enlightenment, then it’s going from the top of the Guru, how to follow the Guru right through to the practice of Tantra and it includes that whole graduated path. So we have to abandon preconceptions that are opposite to what’s taught on the path to enlightenment, which things that would lead us into contrary actions to what’s taught in the path. And so, through having done these kinds of actions in the past life, we would have to experience these kinds of experiences such as strokes and things. Yes. Yes.
I think that’s probably a funny translation. I quite can’t quite see really. I think the predators is more the cause than the than the result. Yes, so anyway, yes, Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey was talking mainly in terms of strokes and paralysis and He talked about pre then when he talked about preconceptions He was talking about actions that we should abandon So I think you have to sometimes be a little bit careful here because the Tibetan can be very hard to translate into English particularly Tibetan birth which tends to you know be a bit unclear. The commentary seemed to be referring to preconceptions in the sense of the cause of our mistaken preconceptions cause of our experiencing these kinds of results.
I don’t know enough about that to say more about it really. Yes. So I guess it has the effect of yeah, it seems a bit Yes, like it is, it was like being stuck in stuck in paralyzed, sort of reflecting a sort of stuck state of mind. I don’t know. Sometimes it’s really easy to see the connection between these current results and the cause, but in this one it’s not so obvious why breaking these things should Yes.
It’s not talking about prejudice in general so much as preconceived wrong views. And these are very harmful. It’s one of the worst karmic causes because it’s harmful to our practicing Dharma and it can perhaps arise and cause us to give up our commitments. So it’s a very It seems a very physical result for something which is not such a physical cause, but when we do the the wrong actions of breaking our our commitment to our teachers is an extremely strong cause. An extremely strong bad action.
And I suppose when we have strokes, when we’re crippled by them, then this is something that really interferes a lot with our Dharma practice. And if we’re trying to practice Dharma, we have these kinds of physical problems that interfere with our Dharma practice can be because of having created some very strong negativity in regard to our Dharma practice previously. So that now when we want to do it, we can’t. So, when we’re thinking about taking initiation, we need to understand the depth of the commitment that’s involved because it is a very total commitment. It’s a very powerful commitment that we have to make.
It’s very negative. The negativity of breaking our tantric commitments is a very extreme negativity. And so particularly if we were to not just break our commitment through carelessness or through being unable to carry out our commitment because it’s too hard for us. If we actually consciously and deliberately just give up any attempt to keep our commitments and think that it’s not important and that we don’t care anymore and so on, then this really creates a breach with the teacher which means that in future lifetimes we won’t be able to connect with the teacher or the teachings. So if we break it from our side like that and completely give up our link with the teacher, it’s not possible for the Guru to help us in our future lives because even though the Guru has perfect compassion from his or her side, they’re willing to help us.
They’re willing to They will want to help any suffering being, but because you’ve made that breach there, then it’s not possible. The barrier has been put up by yourself, which makes it impossible to connect again with this kind of teaching. Well, not everybody has a Guru that they’re going to connect with in this life, but a lot of us have links with holy beings who would be looking out for us, although we may not be aware of it. So not necessarily everybody, but probably all of us here would have some sort of links with some holy being which perhaps aren’t ready to ripen in the form of a full blown Guru-disciple relationship at this stage, but perhaps in the future this will come about. And probably not just with one, but possibly with a number of these things.
I think so, yes. It doesn’t seem to be talking in Geshe Ngawang Dhargye’s comment, he didn’t think he’d be talking about dharma protectors as the deities, but about the term protector is sometimes used for the Guru. So I got the impression that that was how it was being used here, but I can’t be totally sure of that because I haven’t got that much, you know, reliable knowledge. But that seems to be the sense in which it was being meant. Well, I’m particularly saying that yes, you can take initiation into Tantric practices and when you take that initiation, then you are committing yourself to observe certain vows and to take on this correct relationship to the Guru according to the Tantric teachings.
And if you break these particular commitments, then you are creating a very powerful breach of this relationship. Whereas if you don’t take Tantric Initiation, then from your side there’s not such a great compulsion to Although you are still expected to have great respect for any teacher that helps you, particularly if you’ve created a personal link with that teacher, then you are expected to have respect and devotion for them, but it’s still not such a severe breach. When you Particularly when you’ve taken Tantric initiation and Tantric teachings, then it becomes very severe. So the point is that whether you feel great devotion to that teacher yet or not, if you take a Tantric initiation from that teacher you have to practice devotion to them. So you have to feel that at least this is a being towards whom you feel it’s appropriate to practice devotion, that you feel that they’re worthy of it, you feel that they’re a suitable guide, that they’re reliable, that you can trust them, that they’re trustworthy.
So you shouldn’t take initiation at all from somebody unless you feel that you can then go on and build up this sort of a practice. It doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily having to get close to that person in this lifetime, but at least from whatever distance you are relating to them still, have to be able to practice seeing them as being a reliable guide and as being actually an emanation of the Buddha. And this is something that’s negative if we breached If we if we decide that we totally disrespect that person, if we don’t like him or her anymore, that we think they’re no good and we’re going to drop them, then we’ve broken our devotion to that teacher and that’s a severe breach. So it’s necessary to be very very careful first of all not to jump in, because there are plenty of people around that wouldn’t be suitable or perhaps even some that might be good teachers but perhaps because of some bad sort of connection from our side it might be hard for us to relate to them in the right way. So we do have to have to take care with these things.
So, stanza thirty five next. Jennifer, would you like to read this one? You don’t seem to have created that sort of karma rattling in this life anyway. It seems very appropriate at the moment with all the refugee problems that are happening at the moment. So this tells us the kind of karma that creates this sort of situation.
With me it’s been a bit the opposite. I’ve tended to have been a bit of a wake wandering around, but that’s what I liked. I always felt a bit restless if I was forced to stay too long in one place. So it doesn’t really apply. But when people are thrown out of their homes that they love, and where they’ve settled themselves, and where they’ve got no control, yes, lack control.
Not always. Yeah. Sometimes I’ve been kicked out of places where I wanted to stay. So I have had this sort of experience actually because particularly when I wanted to stay in Kopan and His Majesty’s Government didn’t allow us. So Yes.
Yes, well these monks weren’t their own Gurus, but still they were holy beings. And yes, and also the Milosevic and his henchmen are going to experience this kind of karma in the future. The people who are experiencing it now, they’ve done this kind of thing in the past. And you can see that this is the sort of thing that is done on large scale and so it’s being experienced on a large scale by people who are getting the karmic result. It’s like whole populations displacing other whole populations.
So it’s a thing that’s really causing our people in the world today. So the reason why Gurus would be mentioned is because it’s these are particularly strong object, holy beings. These when we create karma with our own Gurus in particular, then it’s very strong karma. And so if we make some offerings and if we follow their instructions then it brings very strong positive result and when we do some sort of wrong towards them then it’s creating problems. It’s very severe problem for the future.
But it also applies to other beings. Although, not be so strong from the side of the object. It’s a similar sort of karma. So I often think when I’m sweeping down cobwebs and affecting all the spiders that, you know, I have to purify there’s some purification of this so as to try to avoid having to experience this sort of karma in the future. In actual fact, we were studying this text about the same time as we did get thrown out of Nepal when we really wanted to stay at Kopan.
And when I learned about this, I thought, oh, that’s how I created the cause. At least I know what sort of cause I created. Well Four opponent powers. Yes. Thirty five Buddhas is very good.
I mean there are practices you can do with the Four Opponent Powers. Thirty five Buddhas is very good. Vajrasattva is the one that Lama Yeshe always used to get us to do for things like insects, particularly if we were doing actions that kill insects, like when they were doing building work at Kopan, then he would have the young monks doing Vajrasattva practice every day in the Gompa at the end of the day. Generally we think of thirty five Buddhas with prostrations as being very good for physical karma, but Lama Yeshe seemed to feel that in this particular instance Vajrasattva was particularly useful. So in actual fact, do both.
Yeah, well no, not quite, because the one they do on the Saturday mornings is a Vajrasattva tsog offering. So it includes Vajrasattva purification, but the normal Vajrasattva practice we do is visualizing Vajrasattva above our heads. I don’t know, is it in this book? Anyway, do have some copies of it. It’s a very widespread practice.
Normally people receive an initiation and it’s particularly important to do this practice when you have received initiation. There is Yes, that’s right. It’s in How to Meditate. That’s right. Very good.
So, it’s possible to do it without having received initiation. It’s also particularly effective if you’ve received the initiation. So that’s a very good practice to do, twenty one mantras every day and if you do twenty one Vajrasattva mantras every day then it stops the increase of your negative karma. So for instance, if you’ve taken Tantric vows or something and you break your Tantric vows, which you do all the time anyway because they’re awfully hard to keep, but at least you’re not doing it with negative mind. But if you say your Vajrasattva practice your Vajrasattva mantra everyday and visualize Vajrasattva above your head and visualize the practice that goes with that, then you can actually stop the negative karma increasing.
If you don’t do something like this at least then the negative karma goes on increasing day by day. And that said that if you do a hundred thousand Vajrasattva mantras, that can purify all your broken vows and things. So the problem with that is that by the time you’ve said a hundred thousand, you’ve broken a few more, so you you have to do another hundred thousand. Yes. So anyway, you don’t want to feel that it’s that you shouldn’t take initiations if you feel a strong inclination for doing this kind of practice.
There are ways of dealing with it, as I mentioned, by just sort of practice and also by retaking the initiation either from a lama or by doing self initiation after you’ve done the retreat and burnt offering puja, you can restore your vows. So, and if you think you’re going to die soon, then it’s important to do that if you can. Otherwise, we do them at regular intervals. If we can otherwise, we do it at irregular intervals. And that way at least we manage to get back to where we started from.
So sometimes we emphasize the negative side of it, but in actual fact there are a lot of benefits to doing to receiving initiation and doing Tantric practice provided that you feel enthusiasm for doing the practice because it’s a very beneficial practice. Geshe Ngawang Dhargye said that if we should happen to break our Tantric vows, then provided we haven’t broken our Guru Devotion, provided we haven’t completely given up our teachers, but if we break our vows without having broken our connection with our teacher, we shouldn’t feel too unhappy because even if we get born in the lower realms, we’ll come back again very quickly and be perfect Tantric practitioners. And he said, and while we’re in the vajra Hells, we can push the other while we’re in the Hells, we can push the other hell beings around and say, I’m better than you. Because because previous, you know, we went to the hells just for bad, totally self-cherishing reasons, but this time we go to the hells for trying at least trying to do something worthwhile. So I think the next one is fairly quick.
So the next one would be thirty six. Who would like to read that? Oh, yes? Okay. Then, Jill, you can read it.
Okay. So that’s I don’t suppose there’s any farmers here at present, are there? Or orchardists? Or keen vegetable gardeners maybe? So if you’ve got a lot of, I don’t know what is it, cabbage white butterflies or something, you know what the problem is.
So anyway, in Tibet or India, the majority of people used to be on the land. So if somebody was giving a discourse to the general public, could be sure that the majority of people there would be concerned with crops and harvest. So even with the monks, they might not have been on the land themselves, but probably their families were. So anyway, even if we people here at present aren’t experiencing these kinds of things ourselves because we’re not taking our living from this kind of way of life, but still there are a lot of people in the country who do still live on the land, who still farm, and they depended on the weather and the environmental factors such as insects and pests and so on. So if the crop is damaged by insects or eaten by insects or if it’s damaged by cyclones or something like it’s been happening in Queensland this year, or by drought or whatever, then hailstones.
Oh, yes. Yeah, really. Yes. Yes. Well, I’ve been at in Queensland when we had hailstones literally bigger than golf balls coming down and, you know, denting people’s cars and that sort of thing.
So they were pretty dramatic and I was so impressed by these hailstones that I put some of them in the freezer to show to people, to show to visitors, you know, for a while until they all sort of got so much frost on them that you couldn’t tell what was hailstone. So but they were really impressive years. And they anyway, when these things do damage to the crops, it’s a result of not keeping pure vows and morality and especially your word of honor to your Guru. Yes. So, there are. Geshe-la was explaining the different factors of karma to us at Easter, and there are actually different results from non-virtue karma.
So for instance, if you break the word of honor to your guru, you might have other results that you would have had to experience as well, such as having been born in the hell states for example. But also there is this environmental result which can be something environment that you live in. And so according to the different non virtuous actions that we can create, then we can experience various environmental results such as you know if we kill animals or something. Can experience environmental results that are unpleasant as a result of that. So, some of these are explained in here.
Yes, so I’m just saying this is an environmental result. They would be experiencing some sort of environmental result, but not necessarily from having broken their samayas. But we’ve all done all these bad things in the past, but actually in this country generally experience reasonable conditions in the fact that not many people are starving. So generally there are drought stricken areas and it might have something to do actually with the fact that our people on the land are very much involved in large scale mass slaughter of animals. And that has have some sort of result.
Some of these As well as these results come in future lives also, there’s a sort of an energy that hangs around the area somehow, so that when a lot of people are engaging in virtuous actions and keeping precepts and so on, the If that’s general through that area, then the area is going to experience good conditions, good political conditions, weather conditions, climatic conditions and harvest and so on. Whereas where a lot of people are engaging in non virtues and you’re going to get bad conditions, chaos, war, epidemics, and you know, droughts and famines and so on as a result of the the the non virtue. So for instance, if you create the non virtue of harsh speech then the first result could be rebirth in the hells and then when you get reborn as a human being as well as having to hear harsh speech yourself, also have rebirth in desert country. That’s just an example of the environmental result. So some results seem very clearly related to the cause such as if you create harsh speech then you get harsh speech back.
And you wouldn’t think necessarily connect being reborn in a desert country A country where it’s hard to grow crops as being a result of your harsh speech, but connection is there. So that’s why some of these environmental results would be coming back from some of these particular kind of actions. So we can stop there. We’ll just do a little Tonglen practice on those two verses actually because I didn’t stop to practice to meditate after the previous verse. So if we’re experiencing strokes and paralysis or if we’re experiencing harsh conditions and difficulty in achieving good harvests, then can on the suffering, think that we are experiencing this suffering from others, by taking it from others.
And even if we even if we’re not actually experiencing this particular kind of suffering at the moment, we can think imaginatively that we take it from the others who are experiencing it. And we send out all our good things and our good qualities and our happiness, our virtues and realizations on the path to others. So we’ll finish there and unless anybody has anything else they want to say? No more questions or comments. We can dedicate our merits for the attainment of enlightenment.