Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 39-minute session, Ven Margaret McAndrew uses vivid workplace examples—backstabbing colleagues, manipulative organizations, the difficulty of maintaining ethics under pressure—to illuminate self-cherishing and karmic cause-and-effect. She teaches Tonglen practice for those struggling with such obstacles, emphasizing that any bad treatment we receive is a karmic result of similar behavior in past lives. She then explores how worldly concerns like reputation and competitiveness contaminate Dharma practice, offering practical antidotes: mindfulness and recognition (which weaken delusions), meditation on impermanence, and the nine-point death meditation. Drawing on commentary of the Wheel of Sharp Weapons, she covers how to work with the delusions that drive self-cherishing. Oriented toward practitioners engaged in serious study of Buddhist ethics and thought-training teachings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 24 SW 1999 04 29.mp3
UUID: cc7530ed-b40b-4ad8-8cfb-f874c726f7c6
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: The Wheel of Sharp Weapons (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1999-04-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 38.9 minutes
Words: ~3,707
And unstable in our practice and have a more consistent sort of practice and instructions and so on. And then we think of the people who are experiencing these kinds of obstacles in their practice and we do the practice of Tonglen. So we’re taking on the suffering, particularly I was finding it difficult to really persist in our teaching, to keep up our enthusiasm and energy for our practice and for spiritual practice in general. So feeling, yes, just lack of confidence in the value of others’ affection. So this is something that we can take on from others.
And we think that we’re just if we’re experiencing this ourselves, we think that we’re also taking it on ourselves. Rather, if this is the kind of experience of problem that we experience about ourselves, the things that we take on throughout. If we don’t have particular problem at the present. We can focus on mentally, taking it off others with the common practices we’ve done before in the form of black smoke and pollution from the other beings who are experiencing this kind of problem at the present and putting it onto our own self-cherishing and giving out the results of our practice of understanding our insights and happiness and so on that comes from them so in practice to others. I would just reflect on that for a short time during that practice.
So if if we happen to have been in the position of a therapist, we’d kind of see from our friends or trusted colleagues. I know somebody I used to share a house with once, he was always experiencing backstabbing from his colleagues at work. Quite awful. It it was sort of poisonous, to say the least, his workplace. So if the experience is sort of thin, then it’s a result of having done similarly to others in our past life.
And so on then. It’s because we’re only considering ourselves and our own ambitions to be of any importance, and we don’t have regard for others. Even regarding friends who trust us is just material for our dishonourable goals. It’s just there to be used by us. So this is a totally arrogant attitude.
You can say that a person who looks at other people in this way is being totally arrogant no matter how they might appear on the surface. And if we receive this treatment from others it’s because in the past we did behave like we ourselves. Does anybody have experience with this? Yes. Yes.
Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey also mentioned that brings us this result of being misused by others. And anyway, if we we’re if we’re experiencing these sorts of problems, doesn’t this seem to be a problem that seems to be affecting people here? Maybe Adelaide people don’t do it as so much as people do in other places. That’s manipulation, isn’t it? They distinguish between manipulation and coercion.
Yes. Yes. Sometimes they do, yes. So they know very well what they’re doing. Although they might not be able to stop themselves.
I think it’s a given that I’m sure some of them have been practicing it a lot too. But yes. I had another friend also who I mean, seems like in some workplaces, this kind of energy gets control of the whole workplace, of the whole organization and the only people who can function in that organization are people who can function that way and if anybody who comes in who’s a bit like a babe in the woods, they just get so much become the target of so much manipulation and so on that they’re generally totally destroyed by it. Have no choice but to just get out of the job. So I had a friend who found herself in that situation, particular workplace, and it obviously wasn’t her projections because she’d never had that sort of problem before in various other jobs.
And she just started herself being so sort of, know, caught up in so much conspiracy and so on, involved in so much conspiracy that was going on around her that she got herself into awful situations and she was able to extricate herself and she was quite plucky enough to be able to do that, but she sort of had to in her case actually it was the unions who were helping her. I guess I think unions are very well how to deal with this sort of thing because as you say they’re practicing it. So if it’s a case of knowing how to work with somebody else and they know how to do all that too, they know all the sort of laws and regulations and so on that should be observed. But it was, yes, was sort of kind of shocked to find herself in that situation after being in a number of different jobs where she’d got on with her colleagues and then sort of accepted as a valuable worker and this kind of thing and suddenly kind of fall from this place where everybody was trying to make her up to be responsible for all the things that went wrong around the place and so And so it’s been yes.
It was. Yes. Yes. It was. So it was it happened to her that she was actually getting out of that situation before she was creating that particular karma.
So, obviously, it’s it’s a yes. Yes. And and from that attitude, from that attitude of ambition and arrogance behaving in these devious ways. Not just ordinary arrogance. I mean, not just any kind of arrogance, but arrogance that obviously, engagement in these kinds of actions.
It would seem to me. It’s bit difficult here because we’ve only got the English translation which is not necessarily exactly literal. But I’m going Oh, yes. So well, the reason they don’t don’t pick up is because they could use it. I mean, yes, women were very hard to say, very well, sometimes manipulating men, but I was within certain bounds.
And there were certain things that they just couldn’t do. I know what you mean about that generation of people in general and particularly the women more so than the men I suppose, that they they could be very nasty. It was very nasty. And it was like that because the women were so powerless and I suppose the men too were pretty powerless in that sense that people of that generation couldn’t really, as you say, come out and speak openly about anything, and they were often very powerless in their lives. Well, yes, I’m thinking of how my parents used to talk.
And, yeah, it really did a small part of me, very much like that. Yeah. But, yes, I think it was a I wouldn’t say the second generation is necessarily spoofing this kind of thing either, but perhaps it isn’t quite as I do think there’s a difference. We probably have more things to do. We’ve got television.
I’ve been in a number of workplaces and some definitely are different to others. You get a few people of one particular type there, if they’re friendly, pleasant types, then they can set the tone. Another place you get a few really nasty sort of ambitious ambitious ones who put everybody else down here. Could be who who’s got the power or it could be who well, it’s not necessarily who’s got the power in the job. It can be ordinary people on the job, but the ones who sort of run the social side of things.
Yes. Yeah. I think you could do it. It can be very hard if I yeah. It can be really hard if I want to get you involved or if they want to victimize you.
And sometimes it can be really hard there. So, anyway, it’s the Wheel of Sharp Weapons. It’s not all that easy either. Used to have a boss who used to criticize everybody and I was trying not to I was working with wealthy people saying she’d run down all these old people who were in the house and I was trying to just sort of not say anything. I didn’t want to come straight out to her and say, look, I don’t like this sort of talk because she was my boss.
So I just, you know, I just let her talk on. I didn’t say anything. I thought that way I’d get out of it nicely, but she got really mad at me one day. She said, don’t be don’t be so goody goody, not saying anything, you know, not saying anything about people. She she was really furious.
Know, you just sometimes you have to sort of take a bit of sometimes yeah, it’s just really difficult. You just have to upset somebody sometimes. Oh, yeah. I think a lot of it’s quite quite instinctive, you know. I don’t know if I’m shouldn’t be this sort of thing.
But oh, there’s very devious. I read a book on chimps and their behavior and they they’re very political animals. Their whole life revolves around politics actually. Yes. But anyway, yes.
What am I going to say? Yes. Anyway, I thought after what I should have said to her was, well, if I’m not going to talk about other people behind their backs to you, then you can be sure that I’m not going to leave this place and talk about you behind your back to other people. But yes, exactly. But anyway, you never think of these two sides until later.
So so anyway, we have to recognize that it all comes from self-cherishing and that our delusions is a real problem. So then we make a determination that we’ll behave properly in the future. And that’s what’s the next one. I’m on forty three. No.
Forty four. What’s that one? Forty three. Yeah, we’re thinking forty three. Okay.
So we do the Tonglen practice, thinking that we won’t behave like this in the future and that we’ll take on the suffering suffering that are being experienced by others in this situation. And really, of course, there’s a lot of people, a lot of worry to be in this sort of situation, so we’ve got quite a bit to take on. But we don’t have to take it on ourselves, we put it on our self-cherishing and blow up our self-cherishing. And then we give out all our good things to others, positive calm and and happiness. So when I’m forty four now.
How about you? So sometimes when we do well meant actions, we expect that they’re going to be appreciated by the person that they’re doing it towards. And so it can be really shocking and upsetting when people place some sort of twisted interpretation on your actions and then they react with hostility and perhaps they abuse you with all sorts of unpleasant words. So this kind of situation can seem so unfair and you really feel that it’s natural to be indignant about it. And so we have to remember that this is actually the Wheel of Sharp Weapons from having behaved like this ourselves before in past lives.
If we could remember what it was that we’d done in order to be getting this result then it wouldn’t be so upsetting. Oh sorry, yes. I thought that was thirty five, yes, sorry. I was hopping on to the wrong one. It didn’t seem to connect.
Sorry, thought of attachment. About that. Dhargyey Rinpoche relates this to the attitude of listening to the teachings or giving the teachings. So he’s talking about having an attitude which is not pure when we’re doing these Dharma activities, which is contaminated with worldly motives. So if we find that when we come to do Dharma practices such as coming along to listen to the teachings or if we’re given teachings ourselves and if we find that we have this thought of doing it out of jealousy, competitiveness with others, saying well you know that other person, all these other people are going along to this particular teaching so it must be something pretty special so I’d better try to get along to that one too, you know, so that they’ll say that I’m one of the in crowd who gets these special teachings or something like that.
Or perhaps, you know, well, I should be giving this teaching because, you know, other people are giving teachings and, you know, it makes them look important so I’d like to feel that I’m important, you know, and people are listening to what I have to say and so on, so I want to be giving teaching. So if we look at it this way, then this is something that’s very impure. And if these we should when we’re doing Dharma practice, it’s very important to have a pure motivation. Otherwise it isn’t Dharma practice. And so if we find that these sorts of thoughts are coming up very strongly and interfering with the purity of our motivation, then we need to be able to combat this sort of attitude.
So we can say that in general all our thoughts tend to be colored by attraction and repulsion. And when we’re engaging in Dharma practice, we recognize these as being mistaken mental states and we have to strive for positive motivation and our thoughts in Dharma practice need to be aimed at attaining liberation and enlightenment, not at attaining worldly benefits, short term benefits such as reputation. We have to free our minds from the Eight Worldly Dharmas. And when we want to do this sometimes we find that they’re not so easy to be eliminated. And they’re such a part of our conditioned reactions.
So it’s easy for us to have worldly attitudes and it’s harder for us to maintain the pure Dharma thought of liberation and enlightenment and not focusing so much on worldly concerns. And if we go on following these worldly dharmas or worldly concerns, and particularly if our Dharma practice is too much mixed with them, it can’t be pure Dharma practice therefore it can’t bring its results. So if we should find that we have a serious problem with this, it’s because of our past lives’ bad habits of thought and we have to be patient and persevering in combating these worldly concerns. So there’s some very good advice given in this sense for dealing with this massive delusion in our hearts, which is the obstacle that causes us to be so caught up in the worldly concerns and finding it so difficult to set our minds on what is really true Dharma practice. Actually people often ask, How can I get rid of delusion?
When we talk about the delusions, the disturbing emotions, people say, Well yes, but how can I get rid of them? Well, it tells us here. It says hereafter let’s try to abandon all hindrances, note their arrival, examine them well. So it’s like germs, you know, that thrive in the darkness. So these disturbing emotions thrive in obscurity and they thrive on being not recognized.
Recognized. When you let the sunlight in it makes it difficult for the germs to flourish and they gradually disappear. So the delusions flourish when we don’t acknowledge them, when we don’t recognize them and when we don’t recognize them, then they can control us. When we recognize them, then they have less power over us. So sometimes it’s compared to having an enemy in your household who is working against you but pretending to be your friend.
And as long as this person pretends to be your friend, then they can control you and manipulate you. And as soon as you recognize that they’re really working against you, that they’re really on the other side acting for your enemies, then you won’t be taken in by them anymore and so they lose their power over you. So in this way, this practice it often sounds not enough to people to just think that by recognizing our delusions that it’s going to weaken them, in actual fact this is very powerful. And the practice of mindfulness, noting our delusions and harmful mental states and being aware of them when they arise seeing their nature, understanding how they harm us, just this has the effect of gradually reducing them and this is the most basic aspect of our Dharma practice. It’s just recognizing these things for what they are and being aware of them.
And in addition to this, we do also have specific antidotes to these particular problems. And we’re taught these in the Graduated Path and in the Thought Training teachings. So does anybody have any idea of some of the most useful general practices? Not only the specific practices, but the specific versions, but some trainings which are helpful for all our delusions. What’s the one that we’re particularly told to practice that’s easier than meditating on emptiness?
Right. Good. Yes. Important. Meditating on emptiness is the most effective antidote to all of these delusions if we can do it effectively.
If we can’t really get a feeling for it, if we find it’s too hard for it, most effective thing is remembering impermanence instead. And that is effective for all our disturbing emotions and all our wrong attitudes. It really stops them all short if we do it properly. It can be difficult actually realise impermanence but it’s not difficult to actually do the practice of remembering it. And then there’s the nine point death meditation, Khen Rinpoche was actually explaining on Tuesday evening, which is important to do in addition to the kind of meditation that’s been mentioned already.
We need to reflect on the so there’s three main points, each of which has three subdivisions and there are three conclusions, one for each of the main points. So the main points are that death is definite which leads us to conclude that we have to practice Dharma. The time of death is indefinite which leads us to the conclusion that we can’t put off our Dharma practice if we have to do it right away. And the third point is that at the time of death nothing will help us except our Dharma practice which leads us to the conclusion that we have to do a pure Dharma practice and not follow the worldly concerns. And it’s important to do these these contemplations and then we get convinced of the then we have a feeling for getting rid of our delusions and doing the practice.
Anyway, to conclude this stanza forty four we make a determination to practice mindfulness, to be aware of our delusions and then we do this practice of the Tonglen meditation, taking on this suffering from others. The suffering of being under the force of attraction and repulsion when we’re trying to act purely. And that we give out all our goodness, all our happiness and good karma to others. Oh, yeah. This is what we’ve been doing with every Yes, I was just talking about remembrance of impermanence in general, as being something that If you meditate on impermanence regularly, then you keep that awareness of impermanence in your daily life and think of it when you encounter these problems.
I perhaps didn’t make that clear. I wasn’t saying actually to do an impermanence meditation at this particular point, but I was just saying that in general when you encounter delusions, an awareness of impermanence is what we’re always advised is the particularly powerful help to us in combating these problems. So but yes, in this particular context of the Wheel of Sharp Weapons, what we’re doing is thinking of the karmic results and how they harm us. So that’s another important aspect. And it relates to impermanence because it relates to that thought that the only thing that can help us is our Dharma practice and if we’re if we’re following Dharma practice then we’re considering our future lives and the kind of karma that we’re creating for our future lives.
So all goes together. But what we’re thinking of is avoiding creating this sort of karma in the future that comes from giving way to our delusions, following our delusions, and then taking on the suffering. So you’re suffering with that. Yeah. Of course, you know, we can’t totally stop doing it all at once but if we if we become aware of it, then it will become much lighter and we’ll be doing it much less.
And we’ll be acquiring positive karma at the same time from making the effort to give up these wrong actions. So it’s important to remember that when we’re making a positive effort at mindfulness and overcoming our wrong actions, this is actually accumulating positive merit, not just avoiding a negative karma. So we’ll finish there. I think we’re going to go further. Thought I was at least going to get to stanza forty-six tonight.
So basically, anyway, we’re getting very close to the end of this first section of the text. And we’ve only got one more stanza on this section which is dealing with the specific karmas. And then we’re going to go on to a section which is dealing with our actions from day to day. So you might think that we’ve sort of gone through enough of our wrong harmful actions that we’ve got lots more to come. Actually the next section is very interesting too.
Yes, so this is been particularly dwelling on the karmic results, on the sufferings that we experience and the karmic causes. And we’ve sort of gone through that pretty thoroughly, now we’ll just be going into a section that deals with how we behave from day to day and all the different negative actions that we can perform in the course of our activities from day to day and how we should avoid these sorts of activities. Right. So, anyway, this concludes today’s session, and we’ll dedicate our merit for enlightenment for the welfare of all these sentient beings.