Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 93-minute session, Venerable Thubten Dondrub teaches the sixth class of a karma course, opening with how to generate proper motivation for learning itself—a karmic action—before diving into the Buddha’s most subtle teaching on cause and effect. He establishes why understanding karma matters by contrasting it with other worldviews, then explores how mind shapes experience differently for different people, leading into the core practical instruction: avoiding the ten non-virtuous actions, and more importantly, cultivating their opposites through ten actively virtuous ones (saving lives instead of killing, sharing instead of stealing, and so on). He walks through the karmic results of each—health from protecting life, abundance from generosity, strong relationships from right speech—and illustrates with a striking story of a wealthy Canadian woman who was cured of terminal cancer through years of animal liberation practice. Throughout, Dondrub emphasizes that motivation is everything; even one grain of sugar offered to an ant with bodhicitta (the intention to achieve enlightenment for all beings) generates vastly more merit than a billion-dollar gift made from pride or fame-seeking. He closes by outlining a daily practice: rejoicing in goodness to counter low self-esteem, Vajrasattva meditation and the Thirty-Five Buddhas prostration practice for purification, and framing all action within the thought of benefiting others. The teaching balances doctrinal depth with practical instruction for serious practitioners already familiar with refuge.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 04 02 Week 6.mp3
UUID: 7b05223e-2ec3-42b9-b4c3-4ab791a770df
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB All about Karma (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-04-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 93.2 minutes
Words: ~11,926
So welcome everyone to our sixth class on all about or something about karma. So we start by trying to generate a good motivation for listening to the teaching because listening to the teaching is a karmic action. So for it to bring the best result, it you know, we we try to ensure that that our motivation, which is the the the the essential aspect of creating karmic, know, engaging in karma and determining the strength of results, we try to ensure that the the motivation is very strong, very clear, and and the and and as as good as we can possibly make it. And Every moment, every moment of our existence, Wherever we are in cyclic existence or we’re trying to get out of cyclic existence or trying to achieve enlightenment, we we totally depend on sentient beings. All of them directly or indirectly.
And particularly we depend on their kindness, which we do receive in countless ways, much of which we don’t recognize because so much of the time we’re caught up in our own self-cherishing thoughts. And and we we just don’t see how people help us and how dependent we are on them. Not just people in the sense of humans, but sentient beings altogether. And and we particularly depend on the kindness of a mother, and we have received this from every sentient being many times in beginningless cyclic existence. So try and have a sense of all these beings surrounding you right now, at least those that one’s most connected to in this life.
So one’s mother on this of this life on your left, your father on your right, and then the rest of your family or your friends and helpers behind you, us in front. And then as much as possible, trying to have awareness and concern for all other living beings, trying to have the awareness that these beings are not only kind, but unfortunately, they’re all suffering in cyclic existence, helplessly, not really understanding their situation, not knowing how to really meaningfully reduce, transform, or eliminate their suffering. And so in their confusion, actually sentient beings much of the time are in reality creating the cause to perpetuate their own cyclic existence, to perpetuate their own suffering, particularly because they don’t understand the law of cause and effect. Effect. So think that no matter what, I I must achieve enlightenment for not only my own sake, but for for the sake of all kind suffering mother sentient beings.
So in order to achieve enlightenment that means following the path to enlightenment and that involves understanding the crucial teaching of the Buddha which which all aspects of the path are connected to, which is the teaching about the law of cause and effect. So also if you find it helpful, one can imagine Buddha in front of you as, of course, the the source of all these perfect teachings, someone who has completely understood and practiced the law of cause and effect, and as a result, has achieved the enlightened state. So one can imagine the Buddha in front, all sentient beings surrounding oneself, and if you feel comfortable to do so, one can join in the traditional prayer of refuge on bodhicitta, which is on page twelve. If not, at least while it’s being said, generate a good motivation as much as possible. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly.
By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings? So think if if you find it helpful that the Buddha in front is pleased with your motivation, shows this by coming to the crown of one’s head. And then when directly above your head, a Buddha in the Buddha dissolves into blissful golden light, and that pours down into you, blessing your mind to be able to understand the teachings correctly, put them into practice properly so that one can eventually gain a complete, profound realization of all aspects of the law of cause and effect. So then briefly, we can do the nine round breathing exercise as a way to enhance that positive state of mind to make our mind a little bit more calm, clearer, more more focused so that we can use that more concentrated mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. Okay.
Thank you very much. Okay. So of of all the teachings of the Buddha, the most profound in one way, of course, are the teachings about the nature of reality, which is referred to in Sanskrit as shunyata or it was translated as emptiness or voidness in in English. So these are the most profound teachings of the Buddha. But they are accessible through the power of logic.
Much less accessible in some ways to just straight logic are the law is the teaching on the law of cause and effect. I think one can apply quite a bit of logic logical investigation to see the truth of the law of cause and effect, but it is said to be a very subtle phenomena that really only the Buddha is able to perceive all the workings of the law of cause and effect. So it definitely does require some faith. But again, it all goes back to when we look at the world and what happens in the world and what happens to us, there’s only one of three explanations. There’s either someone can who’s created everything and controlling everything.
There is just it’s just it’s just a random mess. Or there is the Buddhist explanation that things have causes. And especially, I think it’s important to to to in order to get an understanding of the law of cause and effect is to get an understanding of mind. And if we start to understand that we have a mind, not just a brain, and it is our mind that is experiencing things and that we couldn’t experience anything without our mind, then the question arises, why does my mind experience things in this in particular ways? Or why do I even experience anything?
But, you know, some the same people can be more or less, from an ordinary point of view, going through the same experience, but they actually well, the same event, I should say, the same event. But people experience it quite differently. Why is this? Why do we experience things so differently? What is the reason for that?
And, you know, if if one just takes inanimate objects, why things happen to inanimate objects can be explained by all the natural laws of science. But what but when you add the element of you know, so this body is just a physical thing like a jar or a piece of plastic. But when you add the element of a mind experiencing things, a person experiencing things, then it becomes much more interesting and complicated. Why does a person experience this? Why is a person experiencing something?
Why does a particular person experience this particular kind of body rather than a different another kind of body? Anyway, it it all becomes much more interesting and worth investigating when we add the element of the mind to everything. And especially if we start to develop some understanding due to the Buddhist teachings about the nature of reality, that things out there aren’t what they seem. So then, you know and and that they actually do depend on the mind. Things don’t seem to depend on the mind.
Everything we experience, this is the whole this is what ignorance the I mean, what ignorance does, it creates the illusion, which we believe is not an illusion, but reality that things are separate from us, not dependent on our mind. But the Buddha discovered, and he asks us to just see you know, check and discover for ourselves that things don’t exist separately from the mind. There’s no way they anything can exist separate from mind. Not only that they don’t, they can’t. And when one starts to see that, then the the law of cause and effect becomes much more interesting and believable that why am I experience why does my mind give rise to an experience at all, an event?
Why does my mind give rise to the experience of this body which is in a particular place at a particular time? Anyway So what we’ve covered, like, as an introduction, which this course is, the main aspects of the law of cause and effect, at least the ones that I wanna go into a detail. Just a few other things to talk about tonight. I I I want to try not to talk too much so you can have a discussion group tonight. I will try my best and not get carried away.
But so in in the teaching on the law of cause and effect, what we’re encouraged to particularly do is avoid the ten non virtuous actions because if we engage in any of these with the four factors fully present, then that creates the cause to experience really terrible rebirths. And and the more we engage in negative actions, the it it is undermining whatever positive things we do. You know, many people say, oh, why does Buddhism talk all about the negative things? Why not just talk about the positive things? But just doing positive things is not good enough.
If if if we don’t stop doing negative things, all the positive stuff gets undermined. Alright? So the the the actually, avoiding negativity is positive. It is virtuous. It’s incredibly meaningful.
And that’s the first step of of really avoiding the main negativities. So that’s what’s emphasized. But also it’s important to think about as I’ve just mentioned briefly before, but I’d just like to go into it a little bit more tonight that there there is the there is the avoiding of the ten non virtues and doing that consciously understanding that they are negative and bring suffering. The those are virtuous, but then there are the this more virtuous actions of engaging in the opposite thing. So I just part of the homework is to think about this.
So it doesn’t take much intelligence. I don’t think to work these things out. But, you know, so the opposite of killing there’s killing, which is negative. There is consciously not killing, which is virtuous, And then even more virtuous, you know, really good to do for our own benefit and others is instead of killing or killing or and just avoiding killing is to actually save life, to take care of life, to to nurture life. So this is a super virtuous action which brings terrific actions terrific results.
Alright. The Tibetan tradition or the Mahāyāna tradition, there is a custom of liberating animals. For example, it’s difficult to liberate human beings who are about to be killed because it’s illegal to liberate from jails who are about to be executed. But fantastic practice to do is to save animals that are about to be killed or you know are going to die, you know, killed for for food, for example. In Hayagrīva Centre, we we’ve been doing this regularly for many years now, saving sheep that were going to be slaughtered and putting them on a farm where we look after them until they die naturally.
So this is actually somehow just doing it is a very enjoyable thing to do, but it has incredible benefits because by doing this practice it can be can actually cure all sorts of sickness that oneself or other people have. Because it’s the very opposite to killing which is the cause of a lot of sick sickness and physical ailments. Most serious sickness, especially chronic sicknesses and you know physical, you know, serious physical ailments are the karmic result of physically harming and killing people or killing sentient beings. So by saving the lives of beings, it can actually purify that karma so that even quite serious illnesses can be cured. And so there are many stories in the tradition that this this is so.
And for example, the one one story I know because I met this woman, I always tell this story because it’s what the one that I know about is that this is quite a few years ago now, but anyway, in the eighties, early eighties, there was a Canadian woman who was extremely wealthy lady. She wasn’t Buddhist at all, but somehow anyway, she got cancer and she was she had many operation a number no. A number of operations. And at some point, her doctor said she had, I think, six or three months to live. Somehow she met or knew an American man who was one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s students.
He told her he told her about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, so she went to meet him to see if he could do anything for her cancer. She wasn’t Buddhist or anything but when you’re about to die you will talk to anyone to see if they’ll do anything. So Rinpoche advised her to save the lives of as many animal he told her a certain number of animals to buy and save and look after. So she did it because but not only did that, she enjoyed it so much. And because she was wealthy, she kept doing it.
She just kept doing it and doing it and doing it. She actually even I she may have already owned the land or she bought some land, but she certainly hired a a couple, a retired couple to look after all the animals that she was saving, and she just kept doing it. And she didn’t die. Her her all her cancer completely went away. And apparently, although I I never saw because as a monk, you don’t ask to see these things.
Apparently, scars of the operations on her body went away too. Not sure about that, but but I did meet this lady. I did meet her in Dharmasala because she came to thank Rinpoche. So yeah. And I told I lived in Taiwan for three years starting a dharma center there.
And I was telling the students there the story, and they said, oh, that’s it. Because I was very trying to impress them. And they said, oh, that’s nothing. That happens all the time here in Taiwan when you when you save a lot lives of animals. People get cured.
All sorts of things happen. So yeah. Like that. Anyway, it’s just an extremely nice practice to do. Somehow it’s very somehow makes the mind very light and happy saving the lot and doing the ceremony, saving the lives of animals.
Anyway so then instead of stealing, that I mean, there’s avoiding stealing, but a super virtue is to practice sharing what was have and giving. Actually, the practice of giving. So the karmic result of stealing is you end up poor. You don’t you end up with, you know, a lack of resources that bring even just worldly happiness where the karmic result of giving, the more you give, the more you end up with. And of course, that can even happen in this life.
The karmic result of things like that can definitely happen in this life. You can start to experience. Like, for example, I don’t know if this is actual, you know, any any scientist would say this was not a proof, but just for for example, I was Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s attendant for three years. And like Lama Zopa Rinpoche, when he was given things and people would give him things, all sorts of things, usually not very special things in the old days because most of his students were just poor hippies and everything. But he would give it all away.
And Rinpoche reached that’s a long story. Oh, anyway, his his guru, Lama Yeshe, when I was appointed Rinpoche’s attendant, Lama Yeshe, who was Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s guru, said that I had to keep all the money. I had to take it from Rinpoche straight away. Otherwise, Rinpoche would give it all away. But Rinpoche usually gave it away before I could get it.
And at one point, Rinpoche had no money at all, and we had to borrow money from anyway, we won’t say who, because Rinpoche just literally had no money at all. Nothing. The whole organization, virtually no money. But now Rinpoche, you know, has has many wealthy students who give huge amounts of money to his his projects. If you go to Kopan monastery, it’s I know before it was this funny little poverty stricken place.
The monks lived in appalling conditions. Now it’s this enormous lavish place. Not that I’m in favorable enormous lavish monasteries, but people have paved the robes, the robes of Kopan, Nepal. If you ever go to Nepal and see the robes there, just shocking. But the best road in Nepal is probably the last few kilometers to Kopan monastery.
Quite literally, it’s probably the best road in Nepal. One of the best. And that’s just because these people have become incredibly generous. And I think this is the karmic result of Rinpoche’s generosity for many even just in this life of just giving away without any thought of his own welfare. Yeah.
And so the opposite of sexual misconduct, I’m not quite sure what that is. What is that? I think the the the super virtuous one is developing contentment, really. Some aspect of that, a contented mind. Oh, well, the super opposite.
Yes. That yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Yes. Definitely. But I was just thinking in a in a general lay context. And instead of also avoiding lying, better is to use one’s speech to say really good, meaningful things. And instead of divisive speech, avoiding divisive speech, there is using one’s speech to bring harmony to with people, to create, you know, good relationships between people who don’t have good relationships or to increase the harmony between people who are already, you know, are basically harmonious.
So this is, you know, a really wonderful thing that we can do with our speech. And, of course, instead of insulting harsh words where we put down people, we can use our speech to praise people and make people feel good about themselves, which is a terrific thing to do, To praise people for their good qualities, their skills, and the the things they do. But just generally say things that, yeah, lift people’s spirits up. And not for the sake of, you know, know, out out of the eight worldly concerns of being a nice person and people liking you, but from, you know, wanting them to feel good and and so on. Yes.
And then instead of of just avoiding idle gossip, we can make sure that what we do say is meaningful and and helpful as much as possible. It’s not I mean, for us as ordinary people, it’s not possible to only say deeply meaningful things all the time. But as much as possible, we can be mindful to use our speech in a way that it is it is helpful and it’s meaningful. It’s not really stupid stuff, rubbish. Sometimes you can, you know, talk rubbish with a good motivation.
It can be done. Depends on, you know, on the person, who you’re talking to, what they’re capable of. And so sometimes that’s okay. It it really depends on one’s motivation. Actually, in the teachings, it says if you talk if you talk about the Dharma with the wrong motivation, you know, you use it just to sort of impress people or whatever.
This is actually negative speech. This all this becomes idle gossip to to talk to teach the Dharma to people who aren’t interested, who have no wish to listen, have no connection, and so on. So I hope I’m not engaging in idle gossip here. So then instead of just avoiding covetousness, we can again particularly develop the mind of contentment. Instead of just avoiding ill will, we can develop the mind of loving kindness and compassion.
And instead of just avoiding wrong views, we can cultivate, you know, use train our mind to develop a deeper understanding of of the teachings. Because a lot of wrong views arise because we haven’t just simply because we haven’t understood the the Dharma. I with with all due respect, looking at people’s homework and seeing the comments, unfortunately, many times people have misunderstood the points that I’ve been trying to make or have, like, interpret them in quite a different way. Thought yeah. That’s why it’s so important to do all these courses many times because really people think, oh, I’ve done this course.
Now I know I know karma. But really most people at the end of one of these courses have only got, with all due respect, a smattering of what, you know, of what it is. Even from just an ordinary point of view because people really people people do tend to mash it all up and interpret in all sorts of ways and etcetera etcetera. So all of these things do take time and it really depends on listening over and over again, thinking about the points over and over again. So a lot of wrong views we develop and therefore reject the teachings is because we just simply haven’t understood them.
And partly, haven’t understood them because maybe we’ve misheard. We haven’t heard you you know, it’s amazing how people don’t hear bits of the teaching. Or they hear it, you know, they but they’ve misheard it, misinterpret it, and so on. So that’s why we have to give ourselves time. If we see there’s some you know, there’s something about the Buddhadharma that, you know, there, then we have to give ourselves time to really think about the teachings to hear them more and more to question, you know, teachers and students, our older students to try to, you know, to to overcome our doubts and confusion.
So as well as reflecting on the the ten non virtues, it is also good to think about the ten virtues, the the the ten super virtues. Right? To and and encourage oneself to engage in these actions because and if you think about them, all of them involve all the negative actions done are motivated. The basic motivation is the self-cherishing thought, which is based on a wrong view of self, a completely wrong view of who we are. Whereas all virtuous actions of avoiding the ten non virtues, engaging in the super virtues involves letting go of self-cherishing and in that moment really cherishing others to some extent.
And the more we cherish them, the more we will engage in these virtuous actions. And also the way it works is the more we engage in virtuous actions towards others and see the benefit, the more we will start to cherish others. So another just so that’s just something. And it’s worthwhile to think of all the results. Again, one can use one’s intelligence to work out just like the ten non virtues explain.
There’s this the teaching sets out the the four main results of engaging in the ten non virtues. One can work out one can get a general idea what would be the the the the positive results from engaging in these super virtues rather than for example, rather than, you know, the karmic result of killing is to have a short life or lots of sickness, the karmic result of saving life is to have a long life, a healthy life, you know, to have a very strong body with lots of energy, which is very helpful. In general, if you’ve got an energetic you know, lots of energy, you know, there are people some are super energetic and not like a hyper. But then there are people who just have so much energy to do stuff. So then you think if all of that energy could be directed in Dharma practice, one could go a long way.
So it’s you know, that’s a really helpful thing to have. And the karmic result of not stealing and practicing generosity and sharing is to have lots of resources. And, you know, some people could say, oh, what you know, the Dharma talks about not being attached to ordinary things and ordinary things are ordinary things. We are seeking a liberation enlightenment, which is true. But in order to achieve liberation enlightenment, one does need some resources.
So even in practicing the Dharma, it’s very very useful to have resources of various kinds. And also, the more resources one has, if one has a good heart, one can then use those extra resources in the practice of Dharma, practicing more generosity to others who don’t have the resources. When I was living at Nālānda monastery, we had this amazing wonderful teacher, Geshe Jampa Tegchok, and he made the point that as the Buddhadharma spreads to the West and for the Buddhadharma to really get well well established in the West, which I hope it does. I don’t know if it will, but hopefully it will. He was saying it will be necessary for bodhisattvas to take rebirth in rich families.
And then they will inherit all the money, and then they will be able to sponsor the Dhamma. Because, of course, in most Buddhist countries, there are many wealthy people who, of course, sponsor, you know, the building of monasteries and printing of Dharma texts. Traditional Buddhist countries, Dharma books were never sold. They were always printed and given away for free. This happens just a little bit in the west.
In our organization, we have Wisdom Archives, which especially prints books for free, but we also have Wisdom Publications which sells Dharma books because it Dharma books just wouldn’t exist in the West if they weren’t sold because there aren’t the rich sponsors to to do that at the moment. But if one practices generosity in one in the future so one can do it with the right motivation seeing that I need a certain amount of stuff to practice the Dharma. And but also I can use this to sponsor all sorts of things. Yeah. Like, we need a Buddha house.
We don’t want to rent a Masonic lodge. We would like our own Buddha Buddha house and our own retreat center. So if you happen to become rich and famous and got some leftover money, then you know? And so many things could be done. Yeah?
We could start Buddhist schools, Buddhist universities, Buddhist hospitals, Buddhist hospices, all sorts of things if there was money, if we if there were yeah. If people practice generosity. Anyway okay. So it’s good to think not only about what the ten good super virtues are, but also to think about the benefits to inspire one to practice those things. And, of course, some people say, oh, that’s very unspiritual to think about the benefits of doing good things.
Or we should just do thing good things because they’re good. Yes. Of course, we should. But most of us aren’t oh, I don’t know. People like to make things so complicated.
You know? It’s okay to do things because one knows there’s a good result. That’s the way we work. It’s alright. But by doing those things, we will start to enjoy them merely for their own sake.
But the skillful means of the Buddha is to work with ordinary mind, and you have to dangle a carrot. But the carrot is real. You know, it has real benefits and those benefits are not just they they have a worldly samsaric aspect, but all of those benefits are like, you know, there’s a worldly reason for wanting to have a healthy, good looking body, etcetera, be free of sickness. But you can have a very valid spiritual reason that you want a healthy body so you can practice the Dharma. Even it’s you know, I failed in this, but it’s like Buddhist teachers.
It’s very good for Buddhist teachers to be really good looking because then you attract people because people like good looking people. You could say, oh, spiritual people shouldn’t be concerned about appearances, but we are, generally speaking. And really good looking people attract people. That’s the way things work. Yeah.
Not all good, you know, teachers are good looking. I mean, great lamas what I’m saying trying to say is not all great lamas manifest in attractive bodies, but some do. You know, for example, the present Karmapa is an incredibly handsome not handsome is not the right word. He’s kind of beautiful in a in a spiritually beautiful. He has this, like, perfect appearance, like a a real Buddha.
And, like, his all his holiness, especially when he was young also. Oh, he’s still very wonderful. Whoops. But but some other great Lamas, you know, maybe for the sake of people who are not so attractive, appear in very ordinary ways. But yeah.
So all of these things can be used in in a dharma way. There’s a one can wish to have money purely from a self-cherishing worldly point of view, but money can be you know, money itself is not an evil thing. It can be used in incredibly beneficial ways. So like all those things. Yeah.
So just another point to to talk about briefly is because it’s in our I’m supposed to talk about it is just to emphasize how important motivation is. So I have been talking about that every week. But if if you think in in the the the topic of the four determining factors of what determine the intensity of a karmic imprint and therefore the intensity of the result, the major factor in creating any karmic imprint is the conscious intention. And if we have a conscious intention to harm, that is really creating a very strong negative imprint. If we harm but we didn’t intend to, it wasn’t conscious, it’s there’s isn’t there may be some negativity involved, far, far, far, far, far less.
And we may many people go around doing good things, but they may not necessarily do it very consciously. So it’s creating some good karma. But when we consciously, you know, do virtuous things, it makes a much greater imprint in our mind. So so then there’s the conscious doing of things and then especially in creating good imprints is to try and do it with the very best conscious motivation to to to to do things with a motivation with a conscious motivation to try and make our motivation as conscious as possible and as good as possible. And as I was saying at the beginning, the very best motivation we can have is bodhicitta.
The basic motivation we should try to have again, I don’t really have time to explain this and may people could debate this. But from a Buddhist point of view, what defines a a Dharma action, meaning an action that becomes a cause that leads away from suffering and towards genuine or more genuine happiness? What become what is an actual religious motivation as opposed to a worldly action which only brings ultimately samsaric suffering. What defines a religious action is an action motivated with a thought renouncing this life and seeking the happiness of future lives. So we should try to do things with that motivation.
If one has any belief in what the Buddha taught, that we have a mind that’s going beyond this death and so the mind we don’t have to do anything about making our mind go beyond this life. It will. Just like we don’t have to have to do anything about making sure our mind will be here tomorrow. That when we wake up, it’s not there. We will only wake up if our mind is there.
You know? We don’t have to do anything about it. But how we wake up, what sort of state of mind we’re in, that we can begin to work on now. And especially what sort of life we’re going to have after this one, we can work on in this and we can actually more or less guarantee what kind of life we will have using this life by working on our mind. So consciously doing things in this life to ensure that we have a good rebirth is the basic motivation, spiritual world, and dharma religious motivation.
Then a higher motivation, of course, is doing things with the motivation not just to have a good rebirth, but to get out of a cyclic existence, to become free of suffering altogether. But the greatest motivation we can have is bodhicitta, the thought to so the first one is renouncing attachment to this life. The second one is renouncing attachment to cyclic existence. Then the third one is renouncing attachment or just seeking our own the the bliss that comes with being liberated from cyclic existence. Renouncing that and instead seeking enlightenment because of being concerned about the suffering of others, recognizing how much suffering they have, and rec try recognizing more and more that these suffering beings are intimately connected to me.
Intimately. You know, we as ordinary people just think about our parents, brothers, sisters, maybe aunties and uncles, husbands, wives and children, we think of them and friends as being connected to me. But the Buddha is saying quite literally that everyone, you know, every sentient being has been our mother. And no different okay. And no different from the mother of this life.
Mothers are mothers. I mean, sometimes mothers turn out not so nice and friendly, but one is taking the example of a nice mother. And even if one’s mother of this life wasn’t so kind, she was our mother in previous lives as well and she was very nice then. All sentient beings have been our kind mother, like the mother of this life. And there’s no difference.
There’s no real difference. And like, you know, our brothers of this life, everyone has been our brother. There’s no difference. Just time. Every our sister if we’ve got sisters, that that everyone has been our sister.
No difference. The only difference is time. Our best friends of this life, everyone has been our best friend. The only difference is time. And and we just simply as I’ve mentioned at the beginning of every talk, if you think about it, just just in this life, our existence does depend on countless beings directly and indirectly.
And not just human beings, but for our food, we depend on all the insects in the ground, bees, birds, or, you know, everything. Right? Just to exist. And then, you know, all the good things we have and all the, you know, just for someone to crack a joke, you know, so we can smile a little bit. But all our education, everything, just all all our you know, the clothing we wear, entertainment, it all comes from others.
And then all all our you know, we have the potential within us of every good quality, but to the extent we’ve developed those potentials, it depends on others helping us, encouraging us. And, again, all the sorts of skills we have due to the kindness of others going back and back and back because they have skills due to people before them going back, back, back, back, back. And then, you know, that that applies to ordinary worldly things, but also our spiritual qualities, spiritual skills. It all comes depends on others. So we’re all just one family, actually.
Just one family. Everyone has been our mother, is our mother. Because once a mother, always a mother. I I don’t know how to express this, but, you know, and and it’s maybe not a good thing to say in some ways, but when our mother dies, she doesn’t stop being your mother. Right?
Your mother is dead, but she’s that being is your mother. You don’t say I never had a mother. Your mother, as she gets old, you know, and she dies, but that that being is your mother. In your mind, even if people who don’t believe in, you know, the continuity of existence, but in the mind, that person who is dead is my mother. And from a Buddhist point of view, that person is now in another body somewhere.
But that mind is the mind of our mother. I mean, the continuity of the mind of our mother. So anyway, bodhicitta is the most wonderful state of mind that we can possibly develop because it encompasses all beings. It doesn’t exclude anyone, including what are temporarily horrible people. bodhicitta includes all sentient beings and wants them all to have total freedom from suffering and all its causes, and it wants all sentient beings to have peerless everlasting happiness.
Not samsaric happiness or not even the happiness of liberation, but peerless everlasting happiness which means enlightenment. There is no greater mind than that. So even if we can there is what is called there is actual bodhicitta, and there is what is called engaging bodhicitta, then there is wishing bodhicitta, and then there’s something called effortful bodhicitta, which is one can sort of create effortfully for a short time. So even that is a fantastic state of mind, and we are capable of generating that by thinking about the causes of the suffering of sentient beings, how immensely kind they are, how one has Buddha nature. I have the I have the conditions to realize my Buddha potential.
Thinking along those lines, one can at least give rise to this effortful bodhicitta, and that is the most virtuous mind possible. And it purifies a whole lot of negativity, but it creates enormous merit the moment you generate it. But then doing anything under the control of that mind makes that action the most virtuous action possible generates the greatest positive imprint which will therefore bring the greatest possible result. I know this may sound a lot of magic. Hocus pocus.
Maybe I hope not. But, really, just check up, investigate some more, think about it. But, like, for example, if you give one, what is it, one grain of sugar to an ant with a bodhicitta motivation, skies of merit, much more than someone who gives billions of dollars with hardly any motivation or gives it with a thought, I’m gonna become very famous and people will think I’m wonderful for giving away a billion dollars. So that’s nothing compared to offering one grain of salt with the bodhicitta motivation to one ant thinking, may this become the cause for me to actually achieve enlightenment so that I can not only offer a grain of sugar to an ant, but I can enlighten that being. Not just that one ant.
I’ll be able to help enlighten countless beings. And the very you know, bodhicitta, the wish to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, one way of thinking about it is kind of really scary and frightening. It’s just too big. It’s too enormous, especially when you try to get an idea of all sentient beings. Imagine just trying to enlighten all of the people in Adelaide or even just in your suburb or just even in the street you live in.
Kind of scary thought. How long it would take? How difficult? But anyway, there’s another way of looking at what bodhicitta is, which is the essence of bodhicitta is that it is the mind determined to give up self-cherishing. Every form of self-cherishing, and it is the mind determined only to cherish others, to cherish them.
Not just like them, be kind to them, have compassion for them, love them, but cherish them, absolutely cherish them, seeing them as unbelievably precious. Looking at bodhicitta that way is quite realistic. Even though that we’re not able to cherish totally, you one gets an idea that I, in relation to any person, any sentient being, at least for a short time, I can give up myself cherishing and cherish that being. I can think about them, what they need, what is good for them rather than me all the time. Because, actually, when we when we really cherish another person, the only way you can cherish anyone is with love, compassion, kindness, patience, perseverance, sensitivity, mindfulness, and a whole lot of intelligence and wisdom.
In other words, in a cherishing even an ant, it involves awakening, activating all one’s good qualities to some extent for some time, and that is definitely going to benefit you, us. How much we’re able to benefit another person even how much no matter how much we want to benefit them, how much we can at any point is hard to say. But having that thought is of immense benefit to us. And it’s an immense benefit to us in a sense that it it it reduces our negative qualities that bring us suffering. It enhances our positive qualities that bring bring us happiness, but also enable us to reach a point where we can be of actual significant benefit to others, not just me.
Am I making some sense? So bodhicitta, try try to do things. Yeah. Everything we do with the bodhicitta motivation. Yeah.
Trying to approximate that is so important. The best thing we can do. Especially first thing in the morning to wake up with that thought that I’m gonna get out of bed and everything I do. I’m gonna have breakfast, go to work, all of it for the sake of sentient beings. There are two kinds of motivation.
There’s I can’t remember the technical terms about all this stuff, but there is the motive like a general motivation for doing something, and then there is the motivation at the actual time of doing it. So both are important. So what is really good is to try at the beginning of the day to when as soon as we wake up and the mind is functioning a bit, is to try and put that bodhicitta motivation in in the mind straight away. So that will tend to affect everything one does that day, especially if we train to do this regularly and get into the habit. And we become more and more mindful of that motivation throughout our day.
And then when we do specific things, we try and do it consciously with that bodhicitta motivation as well. But by setting out that that motivation at the beginning, it’s helping us to be mindful, to be consciously doing things with the bodhicitta motivation, you know, moment by moment or, you know, when certain things certain situations come about, then we can particularly, you know, try and be really super super kind, etcetera, etcetera, in those situations, super patient, super understanding, super forgiving, etcetera, etcetera. And just finally, another it has been mentioned before, but on the basis of having some general understanding and belief in the law of cause and effect, One thing to apart from motivation, which is really important to cultivate, to make to make our motivation more and more conscious and more and more powerful, virtuous, is to practice rejoicing, to rejoice in the good things we do, to rejoice in our good qualities, which extremely important. So many people, probably all of us, are subject to some extent to to have a little bit of low self esteem. It seems to be a chronic I don’t know not chronic, a a a pervasive problem these days that many people experience in all sorts of ways.
There is no word for this in the Tibetan language. His Holiness manifested having no idea what Westerners were talking about when few quite a few years ago, a lot of Western teachers had a meeting with His Holiness to discuss teaching the Dharma in the West. And they brought up this problem that so many people have a problem with low self esteem. And many of the teachings seem to when when a Westerner listens to them, they use it to reinforce their low self esteem rather than be happy about the Dharma. And his holiness was just, you know, manifesting, having no idea what people were talking about.
This low self esteem, what’s that? Because it just doesn’t exist in Tibetan minds. There’s not a no word to cover that idea. People just don’t have that low self esteem. They like it.
They like themselves, basically. So what am I talking about? Oh, yes. So rejoicing is really important to recognize that we have good qualities and to rejoice in them and to rejoice in the good things we do because the teaching says that increases the merit. And I think this makes some psychological sense that if you do something good and you’re happy about it, the mind that is happy about good things is itself a good mind, isn’t it?
A hap a mind that is unhappy about doing good things is a bad mind. Oh, I just did a good thing. That’s disgusting. It’s not a very helpful mind to have. Or you hate other people who do good things.
This is not a good mind. But to have a mind that is happy that other people have good qualities or do good things is a great state of mind. Of course, it is the antidote to jealousy, which is a really destructive state of mind to rejoice in the good qualities and activities of other people. But yeah. Particularly yeah.
So, Lamas, my teacher, explains a simple way to do this practice of rejoicing is just to think of one’s own good qualities and the merits that one has accumulated in the past, has done so in the present, will in the future because we have accumulated merit. We have done good things because we have good qualities. We’ve done them in the past. We are doing them. We will do them.
So think how fantastic. So Rinpoche says you just meditate. You try and lift up your heart, lift up your mind, make it happy, light by just thinking how wonderful. Oh, I’m quite a nice person. I have all these good qualities.
I did that good thing. Oh, how wonderful. That’s wonderful. And you think other ordinary people, there are completely ordinary people all over the world who also have accumulated merit in the past, present, and the future. Do good things.
How wonderful. How wonderful. You can use your mala if you’re into if you’re so Buddhistic that you have a mala, you can just say, oh, how wonderful. How wonderful. How wonderful.
How wonderful. How wonderful. Wonderful. How wonderful. And make your mind happy.
And then the practice is to lead your mind and then think that beyond completely ordinary people like myself, there are people who have practiced the Dharma in, you know, more purely, more strongly, for longer periods of time than me. How wonderful. How wonderful. And some of them have gained some realizations. How wonderful.
Some have actually renounced this life. How wonderful. Some are renouncing cyclic existence altogether. How wonderful. Some have actually done it.
Some live a life of absolute pure morality. Some have developed Samādhi. Some have developed the wisdom realizing emptiness. How wonderful. How fantastic.
And even more wonderful are those who generated bodhicitta, who have actually given up or are in the process of definitely giving up the self-cherishing thought and cherishing others. Their whole life is dedicated to that, totally dedicated to the pure practice of Dharma in order to become a Buddha, in order to benefit beings. How amazing. And there are the different levels of Buddha of Bodhisattvas. So you think how wonderful.
How wonderful. You make yourself happy. Because we can make ourselves very unhappy these days just thinking how bad the world is because there’s so many terrible things happening in our world and so many terrible people doing terrible things. It gets very, very depressing. But what we have to think is because that’s the news is full of those people, but at the same time, there are all these ordinary people doing good things.
And then there are people who are a little bit more than ordinary. And then there are all sorts of incredible levels of truly extraordinary beings doing amazing things. How wonderful. And there are Buddhas. There’s not only just the Buddhas, you know, in a cosmic way.
There are Buddhas here in this world in what appears to be an ordinary form. There are Buddhas. So how amazing. And then particularly, the Buddhas appear as teachers in what looks like an ordinary person, but they appear like lamas over a Rim Rinpoche, like His Holiness. They look like ordinary human beings at one level, but they are possibly Buddhas.
But that’s what Buddhas do. They can do that. They can take the form of a human being. So and to teach the Dharma for those who are ready for it. So think how wonderful.
How wonderful. Rejoice. And particularly, if you do suffer from jealousy in general, because everyone has their own unique delusion to work with. But just very oh, I’m going over time. Just very briefly, but if you have that particular problem or, you know, it may be just jealousy with one person or one thing, just think.
This is my own little meditation. I made this up, so it may not be very good. But if you think like, if you’re jealous of other period people’s appearance, for example, that, you know, that person that is so much better looking, they’ve got a better body than me and whatever, and you’re jealous. So then you think actually because the mind that’s jealous wants oneself to be the best. Right?
You can’t stand that someone looks better, is more intelligent, more money, more successful. So but then you think, actually, if I was the best looking person in the world, that would mean that everyone was much uglier, and that would be really depressing. It would be really depressing. So how wonderful that there are people better looking than me, and I can look at them, and they’re nice looking. How wonderful.
And then if you think and if you’re jealous that there are people who are more intelligent than you, then you think, well, that’s implying that I have to be the most intelligent person. If I’m the most intelligent person in the world, wow. Just imagine what other people are actually like would be like. And you would I would have to deal with all these people far less intelligent. It would be really depressing.
Depressing. How wonderful that there are people more intelligent than me. How wonderful for me. So you can think like all that. You know?
All the different things one’s jealous of. That there are, you know, people more spiritually advanced than oneself, people who can meditate better than me. They can sit longer. They can concentrate better. They’re kinder, more patient.
But then think if I was the kindest, most patient, best Dharma practitioner in the world, my god, My Buddha. What a horrible world it would be. What a total disaster if I was at the top of it as I am now. I’m at the top. You know, there’s no one better in Dharma practice.
So how wonderful that there are people more advanced than me in their spiritual practice. How wonderful. Hallelujah. How wonderful. Oh, you should have rung the bell several times.
It’s your fault. Any questions before we finish? Okay. We’ll take a ten minute break. Just quickly in conclusion to our course.
We’ve got one more week where I’ll talk about patience and overcoming anger. But just in conclusion, in in studying the law of cause and effect, if we develop some faith in the law of cause and effect, some understanding of it, then what we need to do in terms of practice to apply this to our daily life is of course avoid negative actions as much as possible. That’s the first thing, particularly the ten non virtuous actions. Putting effort into that, that’s incredibly important. And as much as possible, engage because that’s that’s by that, we don’t harm others.
Two reasons to do it is we’re not harming others, and we’re not harming ourselves. Right? And then what we’re encouraged to do is engage in the virtuous actions as much as possible because that benefits others. And, of course, it will benefit us now, but especially in the future, it lays the groundwork for every good thing. So when we consciously engage in virtuous actions and dedicate the imprints, that imprint is those imprints, those positive karmic imprints are called merit.
And merit is vital because it is merit. Merit ripens the ordinary way it ripens is to bring some worldly happiness. So we all want that. You know? Even though the old the long term even for an advanced practitioner whose aim is to get out of saṃsāra and to either to achieve liberation or enlightenment, So the main aim isn’t getting worldly happiness, but one needs some basic happiness to, you know, well-being and contentment to be able to practice.
Right? So all all levels of happiness come from the result of doing virtuous actions, engaging in virtuous actions. So we need if we want any kind of happiness, we have to engage in virtuous actions. It’s that simple as what the Buddha is saying. But even more than that, we need virtue as the basis of gaining realizations.
Not just realization is referring to not just having some understanding of something like compassion or impermanence, but a realization that is a stable mind that actually authentically experiences that thing, not just intellectually knows it, but it it pervades the whole mind. It completely affects the way we experience ourselves in the world when we have a realization of something. You know, we we we intellectually know we’re going to die, but probably most of us here, if not all of us, have not realized we’re going to die. We don’t have the realization, so we waste our life. But if we have the if we had the realization that we were that we are definitely going to die and that we could definitely die literally at any moment, this would completely change our way of living.
Not necessarily in a in a external way, but the way we lived our life, what we realized was important to do and avoid would be very much different if we realized that. And if we could realize impermanence in general, it’s very easy to say or to know that this is impermanent. You know, any intelligent person can work out that that’s impermanent, that everything in this world is impermanent. We can intellectually know that fairly easily, but to real but we live our life believing everything is permanent. That’s why we get attached to things because we think they’re permanent.
We grasp that they’re permanent. If we could realize, which means if we could experience everything as changing all the time, We could enjoy things, but we wouldn’t get attached to them. We could appreciate things. We could see that something is dangerous, but we wouldn’t get angry because we see it’s all changing, dissolving. Anyway, so we need to get realizations and the basis is having enough merit.
We have to purify the mind of getting rid of the obstacles, but we have to empower the mind, that virtuous mind with merit. And then when when one studies these topics, suffering, impermanence, emptiness, all of these things, then one is what’s one has got the basis to gain the realization. The more merit, the more quickly the realizations come. This is what the teachings say. So to gain to get out of cyclic existence we need a lot of merit.
To get to achieve enlightenment we need even more. We need this. It’s not like some, you know, side thing, like some side dressing mustard on the on the on the top. It’s vital. It’s a vital ingredient to the spiritual life.
It’s not about being a goody goody and, you know, scoring points. It’s about empowering the mind in a virtuous way. It’s vital. Yeah. So we need to avoid negative actions, accumulate merit, and purify the mind.
So two of the most so the main method of purifying is the four opponent powers, which I talked about last week a bit. And we what one of the opponent central opponent powers, the power of remedy, and there are six super virtuous actions to do. But two of the most important, especially for us at our level, is the practice of Vajrasattva. So everyone has a copy. I hope you’ve been trying to do it.
Maybe you have some questions about it. And the other one is the prostrations to the Thirty-Five Buddhas. So this practice is explained in this free book that you got. There’s even the beautiful picture of the thirty five Buddhas. There’s an explanation of the practice in there and also the the actual practice set out, the the text of what to do and a commentary of what to do by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
And also at the beginning of the book, there’s a little bit about how to practice bodhicitta in daily life, how to use that as the motivation for everything one does. So I hope people have a look at the book. So I won’t go into the thirty five Buddha’s practice now. I probably should normally have. But I think I should at least show you, because some people are new here, how to do prostrations if you ever want to of any kind.
There are three kinds. The basic one is this one, the Anjali Mudra, which is a prost there are three kinds of prostration. There is prostration of body, prostration of speech, and prostration of mind. So we’re talking about physical prostration. So this is the basic one, which is a custom in all Buddhist countries when greeting people, especially monks and nuns and teachers.
One does this as a sign of respect. So in the Tibetan tradition well, I’ll I’ll explain it from the Buddhist Tibetan tradition. The left side of our body is the represents the female energy of wisdom, and the right side of the body symbol represents the male energy of, believe it or not, compassion. And so the putting of the two hands together, it brings together the two essential things of wisdom and compassion or wisdom and bodhicitta. Right?
And one puts them at the heart as because that’s the seed of the mind to show that one is sincere in paying respect, and one makes, like, a a space. So that space symbolizes emptiness, is the, you know, the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice, which is to realize, not just understand, but realize emptiness. Emptiness is not space, but it’s it’s symbol you know, you have something to symbolize it. So space is some kind of symbol because you can’t see emptiness. It’s not a thing you see.
And then one puts one’s two thumbs inside as as symbolic of an offering because also in the tradition you never offer nothing to the Buddhas or whatever. That’s why one should never put empty water bowls. One should always if they’re empty, you put them upside down on the altar. You don’t have them upside down. If you have them up, you need to fill them and fill them right up.
You never make half empty offerings. There’s the oh, no. No. Have to leave that. Okay.
Keep it simple. Right. So this is the basic Mudra. And then there are two main ways of doing physical prostrations in in the Buddhist in the Tibetan tradition. Don’t know how we’re gonna manage this.
So there is the short prostration and a long prostration. So I’ll show you both. So the main in the different countries and traditions of Buddhism everyone prostrates slightly differently so I’m just going to do the Tibetan version because we follow Tibetan Buddhism here or try to. So the short prostration is you place your hands on the crown which is to remember the Ushnisha which is gold top knot of the Buddha which is oh, no. Let’s let’s just keep that simple.
We’ll leave that. To fully explain, it takes a long time. Then you put the your hands at the the forehead to think of of of wishing to purify the body of all all negativities created with the body and to achieve the pure body of the Buddha and also paying respect to the pure body of the Buddha. Then at your throat to purify or have the wish to purify one’s speech and achieve the pure speech of the Buddha and pay respect to the pure speech of the Buddha. Then you put your hands at your heart wishing to purify the mind to achieve the pure mind of the Buddha and paying respect to the pure mind of the Buddha.
And then you prostrate by putting your two hands or your your hands, then your knees, and then your forehead touching the ground. And then you get up and do that three times. Yeah. And in the Tibetan tradition, you keep your fingers close together. It’s considered to be very respectful to do it like that.
And you bow down and you then you get up. You try when once you put your forehead on the ground, the idea is to try and start at least stand up a little quickly with the thought that you’re quickly getting out of saṃsāra. And also when you prostrate, especially when you’re doing the practice of the thirty five Buddhas, you imagine that by prostrating, you’re causing your mom, dad, family, friends, helpers, harmers, all sentient beings to prostrate with you and therefore purify their minds and accumulate merit. And it’s also a way to energize oneself to prostrate because you think if I stop prostrating, all sentient beings are gonna stop prostrating, I have to keep keep going. So that’s the short prostration.
Then the long one, which is actually from the Tantric tradition, and this is the the prostration that one is encouraged to do when doing the practice of prostrating to the Thirty-Five Buddhas. If I was a good monk, I should do this as a monk, but then you can’t see so well. So I just I was never destined to be a rock star. Anyway, and with this thing. Gosh.
Anyway, so same thing. And then you put your hands on the ground, then your knees. Oh, sorry. This is in the way. And then so then you stretch your hand your arms out.
This is it is an optional extra you can do. And you spread your arms like that. So these are the two kinds of prostrations one can do. And in the Buddhist tradition, when one comes into a a a like a shrine room where the Buddha image is, the tradition is to make three prostrations to the Buddha. That’s the custom.
Oh, we finished. Well yeah. So before we completely finish, do you have any questions? You must have some questions, Especially your deepest doubts. Please air them now.
Okay. Right. No. No. Actually, think some of you know I this sounds very embarrassing, but I went to Kuala Lumpur for a weekend last week to see my teacher.
And some of you may know that Lama Zopa Rinpoche had a very bad stroke while he was in Australia two years ago. So he’s still recovering. He’ll never Rinpoche will never get back the use of his right leg. But Rinpoche was doing the full length because it’s the custom. Rinpoche does three full length prostration before he teaches.
So Rinpoche did that, and it was really it was so touching to see because, you know, Rinpoche took a long time, and it was done with great difficulty and very awkward, but it was very inspiring because because, you know, I was with Rinpoche when he was young, and no one can prostrate faster than Rinpoche. He just goes nonstop. You know? And then to see Rinpoche barely being able to, you know, it’s incredible. But he does it, of course.
Rinpoche would never stop doing. But, of course, if one has some physical difficulties prostrating, like even you can still do, for example, the thirty five Buddha practice where you just sit with your hands there and you do the visualization you say the words etc etc. I know but I’m just saying even even yeah apart from that even if you can’t physically physically prostrate you can still do this prostration and still do all the practice and and visualize your prostrating the same same benefit. Of course, if one can prostrate, one should. If one, you know, gets reaches a point where one’s too old or has some physical difficulty, it’s okay.
But I would encourage people to try and do that, especially that practice and especially Vajrasattva. And also Vajrasattva practice can be done with prostrations. Normally it’s done sitting down but you can do it prostrating. Can recite the mantra while you’re prostrating. Yes.
The tradition is that the teacher comes in, prostrates, sits on the teaching throne, and then the students prostrate. Yeah. And the tradition is at the end of the teaching, before the teacher gets up, the students prostrate. But I I since I don’t claim to be a proper teacher, I jump down and prostrate with everyone. But the tradition is the teacher sits on the throne and students make prostrations.
So you can prostrate so if you think of the teacher as your guru, you’re prostrating to the teacher. But here we don’t do that. You prostrate to the Buddha. The Vajrasattva practice is incredibly if if one wants to follow the Tibetan tradition, this is a a very important practice to do and to actually to do it every day. At you know, at the end of the day, before you go to bed, apply the four opponent well, first rejoice.
Rejoice in all the good stuff or vice versa. Regret all the negativities, apply the four opponent powers, do Vajrasattva practice, and rejoice in all the good stuff you did. Then you can go to sleep happily, and if you die, it’s fine. And if you wake up, then you can think, fantastic, I didn’t die, but I probably will die today because death come at any moment. So since this could be my last day, what am I going to do?
Practice bodhicitta. No. Anyone. Anyone. It’s encouraged anyone to do.
Yes. Sure. But certainly if you if one has taken refuge formally as committed to follow the Buddhist practice, then there is a commitment to do three prostrations in the morning and evening. And certainly as a Buddhist at teachings one should prostrate at the beginning and at the end. If one’s not, you know, hasn’t committed, there’s no responsibility to do it.
But if one, you know, actually has taken refuge, one should do that. I think some people think you’re you’re prostrating. You’re not prostrating to me. Well, you know, don’t think it’s prostrating to the Buddha. It is a very beneficial practice really to do.
Very powerful. Anyway, those are the things to do. Avoiding them for yourself and others, avoid negative actions, purify the ones already done, and accumulate merit. And, of course, on the basis of that, study the teachings and meditate on them. And to wrap it all up, one needs a qualified teacher to help you do all of that.
You do need the teacher. A qualified one. If if one wants to get really somewhere, you know, just just making one’s life a bit better and so on, developing some good qualities, you don’t need a qualified guru to do that. For sure, you can do that by yourself. But if one really wants to especially get out of cyclic existence and especially if one is, you know, really starting to see the need to do that or even at least trying to generate the thought of wanting to get enlightened, one has to have a qualified teacher.
A truly, genuinely realized being who can actually explain the teachings properly and show inspire inspire us to practice properly. Yes. Yes. I was hoping to do it now, but we ran out of time. Yeah.
Yeah. That’s the whole point of the retreat, especially for these courses that I do because somehow other people who do DB lead them, they manage to have discussion groups, lead meditation and teach. I don’t know how they do it. Because I I I never feel I’ve explained enough anyway. There just isn’t time.
Get in so that’s especially why if you do a DB with me, you need to come to the retreat so we can do some meditation together. Yeah. Seven weeks, this one. But that was the last one. Oh, yeah.
Oh, it just works. The other the next one after that may even be different again. I can’t remember. Yeah. So, yes, this next week, next Tuesday, please come along if you can because it’s an important topic of how to develop patience, you know, to overcome anger because anger is the most destructive of you know, disturbing thought that that creates lots of negative karma and wipes out lots of good karma.
So we need to learn how to pacify our anger. And, of course, it brings great harm to others. Yeah. So that’s it for tonight. So and so there is the last next Tuesday and then the retreat.
So I’d encourage people to come if they can at all to come for the retreat, book for the retreat, and if you can, bring a vegetarian plate. That means a plate of made not with the bodies of any kind of sentient being. Thank you very much. So we can dedicate. We’ve created some positive imprints in our mind.
So now we can dedicate these imprints to protect them and to make sure that they bring the best possible result, not just any kind of result, but the best possible result. So we try to really in our mind think, may this whatever positive energy I’ve generated now, may it become a cause for me to achieve complete enlightenment. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious bodhicitta not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore.