Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 32-minute teaching from “The Wheel of Sharp Weapons,” Ven Sangye Khadro offers a practical commentary on three verses about karma and its results (stanzas 34–36). She begins with the severity of breaking tantric vows and guru devotion—how conscious abandonment creates an unbreakable barrier with the teacher—while distinguishing this from careless transgressions. She then covers environmental karma: displacement from one’s home, and how collective non-virtue produces droughts, pests, and poor harvests. Throughout, she emphasizes that damaged vows can be repaired through specific purification practices: Vajrasattva, the Thirty-Five Buddhas, and retaking initiation. The teaching concludes with Tonglen meditation on these verses. Pitched at practitioners who have taken or are considering tantric initiation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 19 The wheel of sharp weapons.mp3
UUID: b9bc3664-9a41-4ee0-a9e6-18f319cc3f41
Teacher: Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald
Collection: The Wheel of Sharp Weapons 42 – 154 (Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald)
Date: 1999 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 32.6 minutes
Words: ~3,631
Some others. Trim, would you read the next one? Thirty four, I think it is, isn’t it? Is it thirty no. Thirty three.
Yes. No. That’s what it’s a thirty four. Yes. So we 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 results 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 series of topics and that the first the first topic in the in the graduated path is how to follow the Guru and 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 topic of Guru how to follow the Guru right through to the practice of Tantra and it includes that whole graduated path so we we have to abandon preconceptions that are opposite to what’s taught on the path 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. Well yes. Yes, I think that’s probably a funny translation.
I quite can’t quite see really. I think the prejudice is more the cause than the than the result. Yes. So, anyway, yes, Geshe Nawang Dhargyey was talking mainly in terms of strokes and paralysis and 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 perhaps a little bit unclear so the commentary seem to be referring to preconceptions in the sense of the cause of our mistaken preconceptions as being the 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 of being it seems a bit Yes, I presume it was like being stuck in Stuck in paralyzed that 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 karmic results and the cause but in this one it’s not so obvious why breaking these things should yes.
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 commitment to our teachers that 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 we’re trying to practice Dharma and we have these kinds of physical faults that are physical problems that interfere with our Dharma practice and 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 that there is a 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 a Tantric commitments is a very extreme negativity and so particularly if we were to not just break our commitments through like through carelessness or through being unable to carry out our commitment because it’s too hard for us but 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 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 then it’s not possible for the 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 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. They’re not necessarily everybody but probably all of us here would have some sort of links with 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. Doesn’t seem to be talking in Geshe Nawang Dargyey’s commentary he didn’t seem to be talking about Dharma protectors as the deities but about the term protector is sometimes used for the Guru. I think 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 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’re still expected to Have great respect for any teacher that helps you and 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, but when you were particularly when you’ve taken tantric initiation and tantric teachings and it becomes very severe. So the point is that whether you feel great devotion to that teacher yet or not if you take the 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, 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’re relating to them still you have to be able to practice seeing them as being a reliable guide and as being an emanation of the Buddha and this is something that’s negative if we break it. 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 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 outside 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 opposite.
I’ve tended to have been a bit of a 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, yes.
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 lungs weren’t their own gurus, but still they were holy beings.
And yes. And also the and his henchmen are going to experience this kind of karma in the future and the people who are experiencing it now, they’ve done this kind of thing in the past. You can see that this is the sort of thing that is done on a 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 affecting many peoples 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 them offerings and if we follow their instruction 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 problems for the future but it also applies to other beings although it may not be so strong from the side of the object it’s a similar sort of karma. I often think when I’m sweeping down cobwebs and evicting all the spiders that you know I have to purify, do some purification of this so as to try to avoid having to experience this sort of karma in 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. Is the one that’s only issue always used to get us to do for things like insects, particularly if we were doing actions that would 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.
So 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 morning 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 if it’s in this book. Anyway, we 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 It’s possible to do it without having received initiation, but it’s also particularly effective if you’ve received 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 not doing it with negative mind but if you say your Vajrasattva 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.
That said that if you do a hundred thousand Vajrasattva and mantras, it 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. Years. 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 practice and also by retaking the initiation either from a lama or by doing self initiation after you’ve done the retreat and burning puja, can restore your vows.
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’ve managed to 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 Nawang Dargyey said that if we should happen to break our tantric vows then provided we haven’t broken our Guru devotion provided we haven’t sort of completely given up our teachers but if we if we break our vows without having broken our connection with our teacher then 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 hell beings around and say I’m better than you because because previously you know we went to the hells for just a bad totally self-cherishing reason but this time we go for 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, Okay. Then, hence, you can rate it.
Okay. So that’s I don’t suppose there’s any founders here at present are there or orchardists or keen vegetable gardeners maybe. So if you’ve got a lot of cabbage white butterflies or something you know what the problem is. In Tibet or India the majority of people used to be on land so if somebody was giving a discourse to the general public they could be sure that the majority of people there would be concerned with crops and harvests. Even with the monks they might not have been on the land themselves but probably their families were.
So anyway even if we people who are 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, still farm and they’re dependent 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 has been happening in Queensland this year or by drought or whatever then hailstones, oh 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 hailstones.
But they were really impressive years. Anyway, when these things do damage to the crops, it’s a result of, not keeping pure thoughts and morality and especially your word of honor to your Guru. So Yes. So are Geshe Khenrab Rinpoche was explaining the different factors of karma to us at Easter and there are actually different results from one karma. So for instance if you break the word of samaya with 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 that affects the 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 we can experience environmental results that are unpleasant as a result of that. 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 samaya. But we’ve all done all these bad things in the past but actually in this country we 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 the fact that our people on the land are very much involved in large scale mass slaughter of animals and that has to have some sort of result and Some of these as well as these results come in future lives also There’s a sort of a 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 and the if that’s general through that area then the area is going to experience good conditions good political conditions good weather conditions climatic conditions and harvest and so on whereas where a lot of people are engaging in non virtue then 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 non virtue so for instance if you 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 as having to hear harsh speech yourself you also have rebirth in a desert country.
That’s just an example of the environmental result. 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 necessarily being reborn in a desert country a country where it’s hard to grow crops as being a result of your harsh speech but the 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 we can take on the suffering, think that we’re experiencing from others by taking it from others and even if we can’t, 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 enlighten