Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 127-minute session from a week-long karma retreat, Venerable Thubten Dondrub guides practitioners through an extended afternoon of meditation and teaching on how virtuous and non-virtuous actions produce their specific results. After reviewing the ten virtues and their karmic ripening—long life, good health, and peaceful environments flowing from non-killing; the habit of protecting others in future lives—he shifts to a sustained teaching on patience as the antidote to anger, the mental poison that creates the heaviest negative karma. He explains why anger destroys present happiness instantly, obscures the mind against understanding Dharma, and wastes accumulated merit, then walks practitioners through generating compassion both for oneself (recognizing anger’s self-harm) and for enemies (understanding their own suffering). The session concludes with a detailed guided visualization of Vajrasattva practice for purification, using the four opponent powers of regret, refuge, remedy, and resolution, followed by a joyful reflection on rejoicing in virtue—one’s own and that of all beings from ordinary practitioners to enlightened Buddhas. Aimed at retreat participants with some familiarity with Buddhist visualization practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2015 10 25 DB Karma Retreat Day 25-10-2015 Afternoon.mp3
UUID: da0af9bf-a40d-47d4-8e1c-50eec3c2162a
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB All about Karma (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2015-10-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 126.8 minutes
Words: ~7,215
Okay, so we’ll continue with our solitary meditation. Sorry for the too detailed a lead. So what we’re going to do this time is look at the ten virtues and their results. So it may be best to have the book open at page twenty nine, which is the results of the ten non virtues, but we can use our intelligence to work out that if we engage in the action of not killing, consciously not killing, and especially saving lives and so on, then the ripening result is to take a good rebirth in the upper realms, that instead of having a short life, would have a long life, good health, no troubles and success in our activities. We would have the habit of caring for life, and we would be born in an environment which was very peaceful, where food, drink and medicine were very nourishing and effective and beneficial and so on.
So one can use one’s intelligence to reflect on the karmic results of the ten virtues in this way. But also, as you do this, if you can try and remember without flicking back too much, because otherwise it’ll make it a very noisy meditation with people turning pages all the time, if one can try and remember what would be the four factors that would make a complete positive throwing karma. Right? There’d be the conscious intention, and also instead of being motivated by one of the three non virtuous minds, it would be motivated by love and compassion and so on. Then one would do the action in a virtuous way, and then there’d be the completion of the action.
So is this all manageable? Yeah. No sleeping during the session, right, or pretending to do it. And I’ve probably made this point a million times before, certainly throughout, maybe not so much in this course, but I’ll do it again, which is that one can think if one has any connection with these teachings at all, and you hear them and you think, Oh yes, I understand this, I accept this, I believe this, and now we’ve done the meditation one time, that’s it. We don’t have to do it anymore.
But really, apart from even trying to gain the realisation of these things, we need to hear these teachings over and over again, we need to do the meditations over and over again to put these imprints in our mind over and over and again, so that at the very least, during this life, we will be more mindful of these things in our daily life. This is, apart from gaining the realizations, which brings about a major transformation of our mind, and therefore who we are, then we need to have these imprints to be mindful of all the different aspects of the Dharma in our daily life. Because if we’re not mindful of them, in other words, if we can’t remember them, how are we going to practice them? Right? Right.
Okay. We can begin by sitting comfortably in the correct It’s good to have the prayer book open also. So again, we begin by sitting comfortably in the correct posture as much as possible. Then doing briefly one cycle of the nine round breathing exercise. Then visualising the Buddha on the crown of our head, seated on the lotus sun and moon, thinking of all sentient beings surrounding starting with our parents on either side.
As much as one can, try and generate that bodhicitta motivation wishing to realise the full potential of one’s mind, overcoming all disturbing thoughts, all negative aspects of the mind, awakening all the positive potentials, to achieve the enlightened state, to be in the perfect position to completely repay the kindness of sentient beings by helping them to be totally free of all suffering and as causes, helping them to realise peerless, everlasting happiness. To achieve enlightenment, one needs to base one’s practice on an understanding of the law of cause and effect, avoiding negative actions as much as possible, which create more and more obstacles to realising one’s Buddha nature and engaging in virtuous actions as much as possible, to build up the merit that is the basis for gaining all the realisations that lead to enlightenment. So think for this reason, I’ll meditate on this subject. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By my merit of giving and other perfections may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings.
So make strong determination to practise continuous mindfulness from now on in order to detect the different hindrances to meditation, the hindrances of sinking, where the mind becomes dull or sleepy, or the hindrance of scattering, where the mind becomes distracted by sounds, different sensations in the body, and particularly our own wandering thoughts. As soon as you detect any of these things occurring, seeing them as great hindrances to being able to focus the mind, gain control over the mind, then immediately let go of them, bring the mind back to meditating, reflecting on the topic, and be determined to do this as many times as possible not as possible, as many times as necessary throughout the session, in order to keep your mind engaged for as long as possible, as deeply as possible on the topic, that one’s mind can go deeper into experiencing the meaning of these points. So then at your own pace, one goes through looking at the results of the ten virtuous actions. One can look at the results from two perspectives, these positive results bring happiness to they are the source of happiness for myself. But also one can think from another perspective that all of these positive results one could be motivated to engage in the ten virtues just for the happiness it will bring me, but in addition, one could be motivated to engage in these virtuous actions by thinking that these positive results, such as being born into a good environment, a peaceful environment and so on, These create the conditions for me to be able to practise the dharma more easily, more effectively.
I need all these beneficial results, not just for some pleasure for myself, but in order to be able to practise the dharma, gain the results, the realisations that can make me more and more beneficial for more and more sentient beings. So just consider if one puts effort in this life to avoid killing, and even more than that puts effort in this life to save lives, to nurture lives, not just of human beings but all different kinds of sentient beings, then one is creating the cause to have the habit in future lives to be even more concerned about the well-being of others, in an even deeper way than whatever we have at this point in time in our life. And as a result of saving lives, nurturing life, we will create the cause to have long lives, very healthy, energetic bodies, where it’s even easier to dedicate to saving life, protecting life. So how our whole life in the future will become so much more virtuous, meaningful, and beneficial to ourself and others. So we can bring the meditation to a conclusion by making strong determination to be more and more mindful in daily life, to use this precious human rebirth more and more to engage in the ten virtuous actions, not just for one’s own benefit in this life, but especially to create the conditions to have a good rebirth, to create the causes for a good rebirth, and to have all the conditions to be able to practise the Dharma more and more effectively in future lives for the sake of others.
So then recall the Buddha on the crown of one’s head, imagining the Buddha very pleased with your practice. Because of this, the Buddha now dissolves into blissful golden light that pours down into you, blessing your mind to be able to gain a realisation of the truth of all aspects of the law of cause and effect. Through 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 Bodhimind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore.
So we’ll take a few minutes’ break, just a couple of minutes, and then we’ll do another half hour session, this time on patience, which is the antidote to anger, which is, of course, one of the worst negative karma motivated by anger, under control of anger. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to talk about developing patience in the course, even though it was part of the topic, but we missed three classes. So at least we can do a little meditation on some of the basic points of generating patience. Thank you. Just a couple of minutes’ break.
Just a time to Can I just ask one thing? I know we talked about Vajrasattva, but we didn’t do it before. We did. And I wasn’t sure how talked about it. We haven’t done a Vajrasattva.
Yeah. Are you saying now? No. No. I just mean in terms of The root cause?
Yeah. For opponent powers? Yes. We did. I talked about that last Talked about it last week.
Yeah. But we’re going to do Vajrasattva. Fear not. Yeah. I just wasn’t sure whether we’d marked had done or not.
Yes. It doesn’t matter. This is only if you’re going to submit this to the central office, having done all twelve courses and you’re planning to be a DB teacher, and you’ve done all the retreat practices. Otherwise it’s just for general information. So you can get the certificate, the wonderful, terrific certificate, to say you’ve done this course.
Is there a retreat prostrations in DB? Sorry? There’s a retreat in DB course. Is it ten thousand or one hundred thousand prostrations? You have to do it yourself.
It’s not an organised retreat. Sorry? They go where do they go? Over there. Yeah, thanks.
So just as a way of introduction, Patience is a mental factor that opposes .is a virtuous mental factor that opposes the negative mental factor, undermines the negative mental factor of anger. So patience is not about suppressing anger, because the anger is still there, it’s just sort of hidden. So patience is a state of mind that diffuses the factors that bring about anger. So the nature of genuine patience is really compassion. You could say it’s an expression, it’s an offshoot of compassion.
It’s developing compassion for oneself because one sees that anger is creating suffering for oneself. So there are two ways to develop compassion sorry, patience, or one actually needs to use both. On the one hand, developing compassion for oneself, understanding that anger is harming oneself much more than it’s harming We direct our anger to the so called enemy, but we’re harming ourselves far more than our anger will harm the enemy. And one develops compassion Oh! One develops patience.
Sorry, please be patient with me. We develop patience by developing compassion for the enemy by seeing that the enemy is suffering. Actually, are many, many arguments related to how we train the mind in developing patience. There’s no time to go through most of them. We’re just going to focus on a couple of the very obvious ones in this session.
But one point I’d like to make is that real patience doesn’t arise by just simply telling oneself, oh, anger is bad, I shouldn’t be angry, that’s not developing patience. It’s better than nothing. Patience arises from understanding, having developed this wisdom that really understands how harmful anger is to oneself, to others, and how absolutely pointless it is that it doesn’t achieve any of the things that we hope it will achieve for us. Because we, in a sense, use anger to try and solve problems, but actually it creates problems. One often reads about how people use you know, like, should get angry you know, there are bad things happening in the world, so we should get angry about them in order to stop Yeah.
So the idea is it’s kind of good because it gives you anger to to stop bad things. But from a Buddhist point of view, it doesn’t work like that. We need to stop bad things, but the way to stop bad things is to have a positive mind, to do it with a virtuous mind, with a mind of love and compassion, not anger. The Buddha appeared in the world to stop bad things out of compassion, not out of anger. Okay, so to make this time as effective as possible, again, we prepare ourselves just briefly, sitting comfortably in the correct posture as much as possible.
Then just briefly doing the nine round breathing exercise. Then visualizing the Buddha on the crown of one’s head, and at the same time thinking of all sentient beings surrounding you, generate as much as you can the bodhicitta motivation. And again, that strong determination to practise continuous mindfulness as much as possible in order to detect the different hindrances of sinking and scattering, in order to be able to let go of them immediately, so that one can keep the mind focused as much as possible, as deeply as possible, as long as possible, on thinking about the topic of patience, trying to cultivate that mind. So we can begin by reflecting that one of the four basic fundamental aspects of the law of cause and effect is that karma is definite, that a negative cause can only bring suffering. So any action motivated by anger can only bring suffering, because anger itself, if we check, is a disturbing mind.
It’s a disturbing thought. This is not a matter of religious belief. If we check our own state, our physical and mental state, when we’re under the control of anger, it is a painful experience. So the Buddha discovered that all negative states of mind definitely only bring a suffering result. They can only generate negative karmic imprints which can only ripen the suffering.
So there’s no point to ever get angry for any reason. So even though we may get angry for some so called righteous reason because something unjust is happening to someone or something in the world, Although we get angry because we’re protecting our own reputation because we’ve been something untrue has been said about us or done against us, Our anger is not going to create the cause for beneficial result. It’s only creating the cause for suffering for myself. To no point to be angry. If you check your own experience, the mind can only be in one state in one moment.
It can either be happy or sad. It can’t be both. It can’t be happy and suffering at the same time. One can’t be in virtuous and non virtuous states at the same time. So often we get angry to protect our happiness and the things that we connect with our happiness.
But the moment we get angry, it is our own anger that destroys our happiness because the two things can’t coexist. As soon as you turn the light on in a room, the darkness has finished, ends immediately. You can’t have both at the same time. As soon as one gets angry, whatever happiness one is trying to protect, believing it’s being threatened by something external, is destroyed, eliminated by one’s own anger. And then just check, not only does our anger destroy our present happiness, makes us miserable in the present, but the karmic result is even more suffering, greater suffering, for a longer period of time.
We use our anger to stop a problem by creating a problem that is even greater and of even greater duration. So there’s no point to be angry, no benefit, now or in the future. And also consider that all the enemies in the world, all the poisons in the world, all the terrible conditions in the world that exist, all the diseases in the world that exist, the most that they can do to me is take this life, end this life. None of them individually or all of them altogether can throw my mind into the lower realms. The only thing that can do that is my own anger.
We lay the blame on the enemy and external things, but the greatest enemy is one’s own anger. Engaging in any of the ten non virtues virtues motivated by anger creates some of the worst negative imprints that bring the worst sufferings of the lowest realms. No enemy can do that. No poison can do that. No disease can do that.
No external difficulty can do that. Only one’s own anger. Especially consider that even if we’re about to be killed by someone, there’s no reason to be angry. Especially if we’re about to be killed, we’re about to die, then definitely we shouldn’t die in an angry state of mind. So also consider that there’s no point to ever be angry in any situation, because not only does my anger destroy my present happiness, it puts me in a suffering state while the anger is existing.
It’s creating negative imprints that are only going to bring incredible suffering in the future. But in addition to all of that, my anger is destroying my merit. The positive imprints that have taken so much hard work to generate, the positive imprints which are which can ripen as some worldly happiness while I’m in saṃsāra, but more importantly, can become the basis for gaining the realizations that I need to achieve liberation and enlightenment. But in one moment of anger, so much of these merits, so many of these merits, so much of this merit can be destroyed. Then consider that even worse, perhaps from a Mahāyāna point of view, an even greater disadvantage of getting angry is that every time I get angry, I’m generating negative imprints, karmic imprints, which are obscuring my mind.
Every time I follow my anger, I’m obscuring my mind just that much more. So as my mind becomes just that much more obscured, it becomes that much more difficult to have any faith in the Dharma. It becomes that much more difficult to understand the Dharma. It becomes that much more difficult to practice it, and it becomes just that much more difficult to gain any good results, to gain realisations. So then we can develop patience by reflecting on the causes of our anger, in this case the so called enemy.
We get angry because, if you check, we focus what appears to be happening within us, painful feelings that arise within us, which we blame the enemy for. And by focusing on those painful feelings, we get more angry, and we blame the enemy more and more. But those painful feelings that arise within us are our own anger. But if we could just for some time stop focusing on what we think are these painful feelings caused by the enemy, but which are actually produced by our own anger, And think about the enemy. Not focusing on the enemy with anger, but focusing on the enemy with wisdom.
Just looking objectively at what is happening. And if we look objectively, we can begin to understand that the enemy, the only reason the enemy is trying to cause me harm is because they are suffering. No person who is at peace, is in a good state of mind, will want to harm others. So by focusing on the suffering of the enemy, instead of feeling anger, instead of generating anger, we could begin to generate compassion. We don’t have to accept what the enemy is trying to do with it to us.
We can still try and stop that, prevent it, but we don’t have to do it with anger. So we can bring the meditation to a conclusion by making a strong determination to be more and more mindful in daily life, that the real source of my suffering, which I put on others external conditions and so on, is my own negative mind. So I really need to practice patience to protect myself now and in the future, to protect others now and in the future. So then recall Buddha on the crown of one’s head. Imagine the Buddha very pleased with your practice.
And because of this, the Buddha now dissolves into blissful golden light. This pours down into you, blessing your mind to be able to eventually gain the ability to practice patience in the face of all difficulties. And then we can dedicate the merit. Through 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 Bodhimind, not yet born, arise and grow.
May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. Okay, so we’ll take a break until quarter past three. Quarter past three? Quarter past three. Mhmm.
It’s a quarter past three. Yeah. Five past three, actually. Until five past three, twenty minute break. We can do some Vajrasattva practice.
So if everyone has the copy of the Vajrasattva booklet, then if you Maybe it’s best to turn to the middle of the book where the picture of Vajrasattva is, So you can look at that to get some idea of how to visualise. Oh, no. We need to delete something. Don’t know how that happened. Okay.
Firstly, can begin by sitting comfortably in the correct posture as much as possible. Then just briefly doing the nine round breathing exercise. So then generate the first of the four opponent powers by strong regret, thinking of the negative actions of body, speech and mind that one has done in this life. But also, through logical inference, we can understand that there has been time and the conditions in beginningless saṃsāra for us to have engaged in every possible kind of negative action in the past. So Some of the imprints from those negative actions have already ripened, some have been purified, but still many remain.
It generates strong regret, understanding that these negative imprints can only ripen as suffering. Also, right now, they’re functioning to obscure the mind, creating obstacles, being able to follow the spiritual path. So then, on top of that, build up the second opponent power of refuge in the triple gem of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, recognising that by relying on the Buddha and therefore the Buddha’s methods and the Sangha who have trained in these methods, one can protect the mind from all suffering, create the causes for every kind of happiness. So as much as one can and as much as one believes, one can generate that mind of refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and particularly in the Buddha, Vajrasattva. And combine that with the power of wanting to take refuge until enlightenment is achieved, and wanting to purify the mind, particularly not simply to avoid suffering for oneself, but in order to eliminate the negative imprints that are obscuring the mind, making it difficult to follow the spiritual path and be of great benefit to others.
So then think that in response to generating that the opponent power of regret and then the opponent power of reliance on refuge in bodhicitta, think that all the Buddhas manifest above your crown in the aspect of the Buddha Vajrasattva. Firstly, imagine that there appears just a couple of centimetres above the crown of your head an incredibly beautiful, pure white lotus of transparent radiating light. That light is an emanation of the mind of the Buddha. It’s not ordinary light in any way. And then there appears directly above the lotus, hovering just a little bit above the lotus, slightly smaller in diameter, a pure white moon disc, again of transparent radiating light.
And then there appears seated directly above the moon disc, incredibly magnificent, very beautiful form of the Buddha Vajrasattva, having a hollow body of pure white light, appearing with a very youthful aspect. Imagine that Vajrasattva is seated with his legs crossed in the vajra position. His lower body is adorned with a silk like garment of many different colors, extremely beautiful. His upper body is is bare, although he has, silk like scarves over his shoulders, and his body is also adorned with different jeweled ornaments, symbolic of the six perfections. Vajrasattva holds the vajra, symbolic of bodhicitta, in his right hand at his heart, and in his left hand he holds the bell symbolic of wisdom, and the left hand is resting on his left knee.
So imagine that Vajrasattva’s hair is a very deep blue colour, and some is tied in knots above the crown of his head. Some is hanging loosely over his shoulders. His head is adorned with a five pointed jewelled crown. He’s wearing jeweled earrings and three rows of jeweled necklaces. His arms are adorned with jeweled armlets and bracelets.
He has a jeweled belt and anklets. Then imagine that at the heart chakra, in the centre of Vajrasattva’s chest, there’s a very tiny, pure white moon disc. Standing around the edge of the moon disc, white in colour, standing upright are the hundred syllables of the Vajrasattva mantra, radiating blissful white light and nectar. You can now go back to the first page, which has the mantra written there. Now we make a heartfelt request to Guru Vajrasattva for our mind to be free of all the negative imprints generated in this and past lives when we engage in negative actions of body such as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct.
As we recite the mantra, think that Vajrasattva happily responds, sending this blissful white light and nectar from his heart, and it flows down through his body, and then comes out and enters us through the crown of our head and begins to fill our whole body. And as it does so, at the same time, the negative imprints generated from engaging in negative actions of the body leave the mind in the form of black liquid, and this flows out through the lower part of our body dissipating, becoming nonexistent. And at the end of the recitation, feel that your whole being is completely free of these negative imprints, and your whole being is in the nature of this very blissful white light energy. We’ll recite the long mantra out loud together, and then you can either recite for a short time the long mantra quietly to yourself, or the short mantra, Om Vajrasattva Hum. So then we make a heartfelt request to Guru Vajrasattva for our mind to be free of all the negative imprints generated in this and past lives when we engage in negative actions of speech, such as lying, divisive speech, harsh speech and meaningless idle gossip.
Think that Guru Vajrasattva happily responds, sending this blissful white light in nectar from all the syllables at his heart that flows down through his body, enters our body through the crown of our head, fills our whole body from the bottom upwards, like a cup being filled. At the same time, the negative imprints leave our mind in the form of black liquid, which floats above the white nectar that’s filling our body, and that white nectar then pushes that black liquid out through the crown of our head, and this again dissipates, becomes nonexistent. At the end of the recitation, feel that your whole being is in the nature of blissful white light energy. So finally we make a heartfelt request to Guru Vajrasattva for our mind to be free of all negative imprints generated in this and past lives when we engage in negative actions of the mind itself, such as covetousness, ill will and wrong views. Think that Vajrasattva happily responds by sending these powerful flashes of light from each of the syllables at his heart.
These are like bolts of lightning that instantly eliminate all of these negative imprints from the mind. Just like darkness being dispelled when light is turned on, just instantly illuminated. And so again at the end of the recitation, Think that one’s whole being is in the nature of this blissful white light energy, completely free of all negative imprints. So now, having completed the third opponent power of remedy by doing the Vajrasattva practice, we now apply the fourth opponent power of resolution, so being resolved to avoid negative actions of body, speech and mind, particularly the transgressing in any way of any vows or commitments we’ve taken, such as the refuge commitments or any of the pratimoksha vows, bodhisattva vows, tantric vows we’ve received. Particularly think of any negative actions that one tends to habitually engage in, in this life.
Right now, because of having that strong habit, it’s difficult to stop it completely all at once, so make a realistic assessment of, if I put effort into it, how long can I avoid engaging in these negative actions? If I put real effort into it, and think it’s really necessary to stop these negative actions, because karma is definite, So make that realistic assessment, and then, as sincerely as possible, the commitment to Guru Vajrasattva, the Buddha Vajrasattva, that for this particular period of time I will avoid this particular action, or for this particular time I’ll avoid this other particular action. So do this with the thought that at the end of that period of time that you’ve promised to avoid the action, then one will again make a commitment to avoid the action for another period of time. So that one can step by step train the mind to avoid these actions altogether. So then think that Guru Vajrasattva is extremely pleased with your commitment, and because of this, Vajrasattva now dissolves into blissful white light, and that blissful white light then pours down into you, blessing your body, speech, and mind.
Generate strong faith that because of having done this practice, one has definitely purified the mind. So I think that it’s important for me to protect this freshly purified mind from being polluted again in the future by disturbing thoughts and negative karmic imprints. So I really need to practice continuous mindfulness in order to protect my mind, and I will do this, I will practice mindfulness, not only for my own sake, but for the sake of all sentient beings. So then we can dedicate the merit. Through the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of the Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state.
May the precious bodhimind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. Just in your copy of this, this has been edited from another version, so there’s been a bit of something that should have been deleted that wasn’t. In the middle section, where it says how to purify during mantra recitation, where it says the first method, visualize the white blissful Kundalini energy flows down from Vajrasattva, then it says father slash mother in union. So delete those words.
Delete father slash mother in union, Just delete that. It should read, Visualise the white blissful Kundalini energy flows down from Vajrasattva into your central channel. It spreads throughout your nervous system, like that. We’ll take a couple of minutes’ break, and then we’ll do our last little session, which will be to rejoice. Sorry, a question?
No thirty five Buddha practice? No, sorry, no thirty five Buddha practice. Another time. We’ll have a purification day one day where we can do some Vajrasattvas and thirty five buddhas. Maybe you’ll read it.
What purification in the summer? No gain without pain. Probably the easiest way to create negative karma is to get angry. The easiest way to create virtuous karma is to rejoice. Once upon a time, during the time of the Buddha, India consisted of many small kingdoms, and one of the kings of one of the states of India who was Buddhist, became a follower of the Buddha, went to the Buddha and said that he was very sincere in wanting to practice the Dharma, etc.
But he was a king, and he had many responsibilities, and he couldn’t give up his kingdom. He said, That’s too much to ask for me. He couldn’t become a monk, couldn’t give up his kingdom, couldn’t give up all his wives and children and all his chariots and elephants, but he still wanted to practice Dharma. So what could he do? The Buddha said, don’t worry, my friend.
There are three things you can do, two of which I’ve forgotten at the moment, but they don’t matter. The third one was to rejoice. Rejoice in the merits of those people who can practice more profoundly than you, all the people who have renounced this life, have renounced saṃsāra, etcetera, rejoice. And this way, one can make your mind happy by rejoicing in the virtue of others, and this will accumulate vast merit. So it’s good to remember that.
There’s the other great story to encourage one to rejoice, which is where, as you may even the Buddha, after he achieved enlightenment, used to go begging every day, and with all his monks there were quite a lot of them. They used to wander around, and sometimes various people would invite the Buddha and his followers for a meal. Again, one of the kings of one of these kingdoms invited the Buddha and his monks for a splendid meal. The Buddha had this tradition, this custom, that at the end of such an event, or whenever anyone made an offering to him of any kind, he would predict the karmic result of that offering to the person. So at the end of the meal, the king was getting really excited because the Buddha was about to give the prediction of the merit of offering the meal.
But instead of dedicating merit to the king, he dedicated the merit to a beggar sitting outside the palace and said, This beggar had made a far greater offering to him than the king, because the king had all the money to afford this and the beggar didn’t, but he sincerely rejoiced how wonderful it was that the king was able to make such a wonderful offering to the Buddha. The Buddha said with his clairvoyance that this was a much more profound offering, a more pure offering, because the king had done it with a little bit of pride and reputation involved. So people can do things, you can just sit in your chair and rejoice and accumulate merit. But of course, part of rejoicing is also rejoicing in the good things one does oneself. So by doing something, one creates merit by rejoicing in it, it increases the merit.
Just like creating karma, to make a complete karmic action, you have to complete action which involves feeling happy that you’ve done it. If you’re happy you’ve done a negative action, that completes the negative action and makes it really heavy. If you’re happy you’ve done a virtuous action, that completes the virtuous action and makes it a really strong virtuous action. So the more we rejoice in our own good actions, the more merit we make, the more positive is the imprint. But also by rejoicing in the merit of others, we create merit.
So that’s what we’re going do briefly to complete today’s practice and the whole retreat module. We can begin by sitting comfortably in the correct posture as much as possible, and then briefly focus the mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise. So then we can begin by reflecting on the good things that we’ve done in this life, starting with doing this retreat today, the small retreat today, doing the whole course, think of all the good actions that one has been involved in during this life with one’s body, speech and mind, and rejoice that these actions have generated positive imprints in the mind. Not only have they benefited oneself at the time of doing them, benefited others in this life, but more importantly, these positive imprints have been generated in the mind stream. Just think that these positive imprints that have been generated, when they ripen, they can ripen as at least some kind of worldly happiness while we’re trapped in cyclic existence.
All happiness that we experience as an ordinary being is due to the ripening of our merit, our good karmic imprints. But more importantly, if we dedicate these merits properly, then they become basis to be able to gain all the different realisations that can free us from cyclic existence. They can act as a basis for gaining the realizations that will eventually lead us to achieve complete enlightenment. So these merits, these positive imprints, are the source of every kind of happiness, worldly and spiritual. So just rejoice that one has created good actions, has created merit in the past, is doing so in the present, and will continue to do so in the future.
But also rejoice that other ordinary people like oneself, still controlled by delusion and karma, still controlled by the self-cherishing thought, despite all this, ordinary beings do manage to, we manage to engage in virtuous actions. So think how fantastic that is, how wonderful. Just lift up your heart, make your mind happy by just thinking how good this is, that oneself, other ordinary beings, do engage in all sorts of good actions. So then rejoice in those people who are still ordinary people, but have been practicing the Dharma longer than oneself, more purely, consistently, more powerfully, have been able to reduce their self-cherishing more than oneself has managed to so far, and therefore they’ve been able to engage in more virtuous actions, accumulate more merit. There are those who have managed to or who are renouncing, really renouncing this life.
There are those who have actually managed to completely renounce this life. So think how fantastic that is, how wonderful. So then rejoice that there are those practitioners who are even more advanced, who have seen through the illusory pleasures of this life, of saṃsāra, who have renounced cyclic existence, who have engaged in all the virtuous actions that have led them to be able to completely renounce cyclic existence. There are those who have actually been able to achieve freedom from cyclic existence, have achieved nirvana. So think how amazing, how wonderful that there are all these different levels of practitioners engaging in so many virtuous actions, accumulating so much merit.
So how amazing, how wonderful. Despite all the terrible things happening in the world, people are doing such terrible things to each other, there are all these other beings engaging in such incredible virtue. So then rejoice that even more amazing than those who’ve achieved nirvana are those who have renounced seeking the bliss of nirvana for themselves, have completely given up all self-cherishing, have developed the mind that cherishes others more than self, and have been able to generate actual bodhicitta, have entered the path to enlightenment, and are engaging in so many truly amazing actions for the benefit of others, accumulating so much merit as the basis to achieve enlightenment. So think how incredibly amazing, how wonderful. As a result, there are those who have completed the path, have achieved perfect enlightenment, acting continuously, perfectly, spontaneously, joyfully, for the benefit of all sentient beings without exception.
So think, How amazing, how wonderful! And then finally, rejoice that most wonderful of all is that from that pure, perfect, enlightened state, the Buddhas manifest back in the world in what appears to be ordinary form as our spiritual masters, teaching us the Dharma, guiding us to practice the bodhisattva way of life that will eventually lead to enlightenment, themselves being the perfect embodiment of the bodhisattva ideal. Just think how amazing, how wonderful. Having rejoiced in all this merit, we can dedicate all that merit accumulated by ourselves, our Dharma brothers and sisters who have attended the retreat and this course, all the people who helped make the course possible at Buddha House, and today’s retreat and to the people who prepared the food and so on. We dedicate all of this merit of ourselves and others, so that we and others are able to quickly achieve enlightenment for the sake of all mother sentient beings.
Through 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 Bodhimind, not yet born, arise and grow. May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. Okay, thank you very much. The karma course has finished, but karma doesn’t until liberation.
So be mindful. Now we have the great certificate ceremony. This is the amazing certificate. To those who have done all the homework and attended everything. Murray How do you pronounce it?
Stokoe.. Right. Rounds of applause could be possible, but Incredible intense cheering and everything. Cathy Davis. Valance, Greg, Margaret, Cheryl, Cheryl, and Chris.
Right, thank you. That’s it. Okay, so the next course starts next Tuesday week? The tenth. Tenth.
The tenth. Two weeks. What’s the week after that? Lhabab Duchen. So there’s nothing at all here next Tuesday?
No. The week after that is one of the four holy days of the Buddhist year called Lhabab Duchen, which is sort of like Buddhist Mother’s Day, because it commemorates the day when The Buddha’s mother died about three or four days after he was born. She was reborn in one of the god realms called the realm of the thirty three. During one of the RAINS retreats, when all the monks in India used to have the tradition of they would stay in one place and meditate, do a retreat. During one of those retreats, the Buddha went to this god realm and taught his mother that the Dharma is the way to thank her for being his mom.
Then he came back to the earth. Lhabab Duchen, which means something like the great descent, commemorates the day he came back to continue teaching us. Because, of course, if he’d started teaching his mum, we would have missed out. But he came back and continued to teach us. This is considered one of the four super holy days of the year, when one’s good and bad karma multiplies enormously.
It’s a day to avoid negative karma much as possible and engage in lots of virtuous actions as much as possible. You can read about this on our website and newsletter, e news, all the wonderful things you can come and do here at Buddha House. Flies are out there. Thanks very much for coming.