Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 71-minute session, Ven Thubten Dondrub explores equanimity—the mental foundation required to generate bodhicitta, the wish to achieve enlightenment in order to free all sentient beings from suffering. After reviewing the two aspects of bodhicitta (the aspiration for enlightenment and compassion for others) and the distinction between effortful and spontaneous bodhicitta, he focuses on why equanimity matters: attachment to friends, aversion to enemies, and indifference to strangers all obstruct genuine love and compassion. Through analysis, he shows how these three categories arise from self-cherishing and the false belief that they are permanent—a delusion contradicted by the reality that friends become enemies, enemies become friends, and relationships constantly shift. He then walks through the practical meditation on equanimity: taking a friend, an enemy, and a stranger you know, and systematically investigating why you relate to each differently, recognizing that all three wish for happiness and freedom from suffering just as you do, and training your mind toward an open, stable friendliness toward all. The teaching is grounded in the classical Buddhist path and pitched at practitioners beginning serious study of the Mahāyāna approach to enlightenment.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2014 04 08 DB Bodhicitta Week 2 Pt1 08042014.mp3
UUID: 3d23fe9d-888c-47b3-88fc-619c5965ec63
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Bodhicitta (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2014-04-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 70.7 minutes
Words: ~8,020
So welcome everyone to our second class on how to generate bodhicitta. So to make this time as meaningful as possible it really depends on our side having the right motivation, trying to make our motivation as best as possible for being here. So the best motivation that we can actually have is the bodhicitta motivation that arises from recognizing that we have Buddha nature, that we have a precious human rebirth, the optimum chance to realize our Buddha nature, and by recognizing how we are interconnected with all sentient beings, we especially depend on their kindness which we do receive in so many ways life after life. Also recognizing that these beings who are so immensely kind, who I’m interconnected inextricably interconnected with are suffering in cyclic existence helplessly. So the more we think about these things a way that we feel them deeply, we can generate this wish that no matter what, I must realize the true potential of my mind, achieve enlightenment so that I can repay the kindness of others by helping them to become completely free of all suffering, helping them to experience peerless everlasting happiness.
So to help generate that mind as much as possible, the effortful bodhicitta, we can try and think of Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as someone who has realized their true nature, has generated bodhicitta and followed that path to enlightenment and realized it. So they become our source of refuge, inspiration and guidance. And at the same time as we think of the Buddha in front of us, we try and think of all sentient beings surrounding us. Trying to think of all sentient beings is quite difficult. So at the very least we should try and think of our mother of this life on our left, our father on our right, and then behind us the rest of our family, our friends and helpers, in front of those who we may dislike or who dislike us.
So at least trying to think of those people that we are most strongly connected to in this life. But then if we can, opening our hearts and minds to trying to be aware not only of all human beings of this world but if one knows something about and has belief in the existence of the other realms of cyclic existence as taught by the Buddha, we can try and think of all these other beings as well. Trying to have that awareness that these beings in essence are only kind but only suffering. So without doing that visualization, if you like to join in, say the prayer of refuge in bodhicitta. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme assembly from the merits I create by listening to the teachings.
May I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So then we can think of the Buddha coming to the crown of our head and then directly above our crown we imagine the Buddha then dissolving into blissful golden light, that light pouring down into us, blessing our mind. Then, just briefly, we can enhance that positive state of mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise, just for a short time. As you breathe in through both nostrils, start by focusing on the breath coming in the left nostril, and as we breathe out, we imagine focusing on the breath going out the right nostril for three breaths. Then for the next three breaths, focusing on the in breath coming in through the right nostril, the out breath going out through the left.
And then for the final three breaths of the cycle, focusing on the breath coming in both nostrils, going out both. Okay. Thank you. So is this thing working? Yeah?
Okay. Right. So Just to review a little bit of what I said last week, So bodhicitta is the mind seeking enlightenment, being determined to achieve enlightenment to realize one’s full potential, being determined to do everything that’s necessary in order to achieve that which basically means getting rid of self-cherishing and all the disturbing thoughts and particularly ignorance which is the basis of all the negativities in the mind and because these prevent us benefiting others and actually lead us to harm ourselves and others and it means being determined to awaken and develop all our positive potentials especially love, great compassion, the ability to cherish others more than self and to develop our wisdom that will lead us to complete enlightenment. That is motivated by one aspect of bodhicitta is this seeking enlightenment and the other aspect of it is it wants to because of great love for all sentient beings it wishes all sentient beings, put it the other way, out of great compassion for all sentient beings, it wants all sentient beings without exception to be free of every kind of suffering and all its causes, and out of great love it wants all sentient beings without exception to experience perfect lasting happiness and the causes for it.
So that’s what bodhicitta is, the conventional bodhicitta that we’re dealing with and that has two kinds. There is the wishing bodhicitta then there is the engaging bodhicitta. One can also look at bodhicitta from the point of view of effortful bodhicitta which is something that can arise through the power of effort for a short time and this is what we’re trying to cultivate hopefully in our daily life but by doing this again and again and again and again and becoming more skilled at it, more sincere and genuine in the practice that effortful bodhicitta will be able to arise more strongly and more continuously with less and less effort until eventually one can cultivate spontaneous bodhicitta. Spontaneous bodhicitta is then something that arises effortlessly as the term implies. It’s something spontaneous.
And that’s the actual bodhicitta, the most important kind. There are many benefits of bodhicitta. I hope people looked at them. I didn’t go through all of them. But it’s the most virtuous mind so it helps us create the greatest merit.
It’s because it’s the most virtuous mind, it helps purify all our negativities as well. It’s the most optimistic, the most courageous kind of mind, so it helps us really cut through lot of difficulties because it’s such a strong mind. The most beneficial mind possible. Try and think of something better than bodhicitta. It’s kind of impossible.
So just briefly what I didn’t mention last week but which is in that handout I gave you which was a bit of an outline of some aspects of bodhicitta. There are two main ways that have evolved within the Buddhist tradition for generating bodhicitta and I’m going to talk about both of those during these courses. One originates with the great bodhisattva Asaṇga and his method is called the six causes and one effect technique of generating bodhicitta and the other comes from the great bodhisattva Śāntideva That is called the method of equalizing and exchanging self with others. Then there is another method which for want of a better term I have called the combined some other term, the combined effort which is basically combining the method of Śāntideva and Asaṇga. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama often says that of these two main methods of generating bodhicitta, a Śāntideva is the more powerful and perhaps the one that is more suited to the modern mind partly because one doesn’t need so much faith in order to generate it.
But really to generate bodhicitta you still have to have faith in the Buddha. If you don’t believe in Buddhas and their perfect qualities, why would you want to become one? How can you want to become something you don’t believe exists? So until one actually believes in Buddhas and also believes oneself has Buddha nature, it’s not really possible to generate bodhicitta, actual bodhicitta. And to be quite honest, if one doesn’t believe in the existence of other beings other than humans, it’s also not possible to generate bodhicitta.
Because one’s compassion would only extend to human beings, but if there are more sentient beings than humans and you don’t care, you say, well they don’t exist or they’re not sentient beings, one doesn’t have actual bodhicitta. Because bodhicitta has to include every sentient being. Anyway, slowly, slowly. Right, what else can I say? I think that is it.
So any questions so far from what you are reading, what I said last week, what you thought about the homework, the nine round breathing exercise, anything before I go on? Something I can try and help clarify. So rapidly moving along. As I mentioned last week or tried to mention that there are these specific very direct causes of generating bodhicitta as outlined in Śāntideva and Asaṇga’s methods but these aren’t going to work unless we’ve done all the other preliminary things properly. There is a path to enlightenment so first one has to establish the first step and then you build on that and then you know blah blah step by step until eventually one has laid all the foundations to achieve enlightenment.
And this applies to every step. Every step has its mini steps, its minor stages. So to be able to generate bodhicitta there are the specific direct causes as set out by Śāntideva and Asaṇga but before that one has to prepare the mind by, if you remember, firstly, renouncing this life renouncing attachment to this life. We have to do that. Then the next step is to renounce cyclic existence altogether based on realizing that there’s no real happiness in cyclic existence.
Right now we think there is or we think somehow we can manage it so we’ll get away and be okay. But all the great practitioners at some point realised that saṃsāra is really the pits, it’s just basically really awful. Having a mind controlled by delusion and karma is a disaster. That you can’t know, even if you’ve got, like, whatever her name and what’s her name? What’s the mining lady?
Jeanie? Gina Reinhardt. Even if you’ve got however many billions of dollars, if you’ve got a mind controlled by delusion and karma, you’re not going to enjoy those billions of dollars. There’s not going to be that much benefit. And anyway, they’re not gonna stop one dying, getting sick, or growing old.
No many no many billions of dollars. There isn’t an amount of money you can get that will stop anyone growing sick, growing old or dying. But practicing the Dharma stops all those things eventually. Eventually. Yeah so anyway so if you think about what you know why do we have to renounce saṃsāra to get enlightened to generate bodhicitta?
bodhicitta is about wanting people, everyone, including oneself, but especially focusing on others to be free of all suffering and to have real happiness, not some illusion of it. So the only way we can generate that mind to all sentient beings is firstly having the wish for oneself to be free of all suffering and to have perfect happiness. While we remain attached to saṃsāra, we are saying that saṃsāra is okay. That saṃsāra contains within it happiness, real happiness. And that’s what I want, just the happiness of saṃsāra.
I’m I’m okay with the happiness of saṃsāra, so that’s what I want for other beings. My love for other sentient beings is wanting to them to have samsaric happiness, which the Buddha is telling us is actually suffering. So that’s kind of pretty not very great. It’s not real love at all to want others to have a subtle kind of suffering. Here, here’s a big present for you, a bottle of poison.
Oh, thanks a lot. Not a great expression of love. That’s putting it kind of extreme, but it’s like that. So while we’re attached to saṃsāra, that’s what that’s the whatever we want, that’s the most we can really want other people to have. So if we’re still okay with suffering, that’s what we will want our loved ones to have is suffering.
But if we’re not we’re if we’re not satisfied with suffering and we want to get rid of it, we will want everyone around us to be free of suffering completely. So to really generate bodhicitta, we have to renounce the ridiculous things of this life, thinking they are happiness, we have to renounce saṃsāra, realizing it contains no happiness. And it’s only then that we can really start to generate actual bodhicitta. We can start laying the causes right, start making imprints. Now that’s what we’re trying to do now.
But the actual thing won’t blossom into our mind until we really prepare our mind properly. Am I making sense? Yeah? Yeah? But I’m not going to talk about renouncing this life and renouncing saṃsāra because we have talked about these things in previous courses such as the one about saṃsāra nirvana etc.
About looking at impermanence and death and so on. These all help us renounce this life, renounce cyclic existence if we think about these over and over again. This course is just emphasising the direct causes of generating bodhicitta which we are lucky to have the chance to train our mind in. One thing to understand and have some hope about is that even if we can’t generate bodhicitta in this life, by doing these practices in this life, at least we will become a kinder, more loving, more compassionate person. Careful.
Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. This leads up to tonight’s topic. The immediate before we can Anyway, the immediate foundation for engaging in Śāntideva and Asaṇga’s method of generating bodhicitta is developing equanimity.
So this is what I want to talk about tonight. Equanimity is a very helpful state of mind in following any kind of spiritual path. I think you all know that within Buddhism there are two major strands of Buddhism, of Buddhist teachings. There are the teachings the Buddha gave about the path to liberation, the path of the individual vehicle that ends with achieving freedom from cyclic existence, achieving the state of nirvana, becoming an Arahant. And the other main strand of the Buddhist teachings is the Mahāyāna teachings that lead to not just freedom from cyclic existence but complete enlightenment.
So in both these these traditions and systems of practice equanimity is really important, but it’s particularly important in the Mahāyāna tradition it’s vital to try and to use this life to try to develop equanimity as the basis of awakening great compassion and great love because these are the foundations of generating bodhicitta. So equanimity one could say there are two kinds of equanimity one is equanimity in relation to stuff, ordinary things. Equanimity is a mind of balance where the mind remains stable and calm no matter what’s going on, good or bad or indifferent. The mind just remains in a peaceful, positive, virtuous state. That’s what we really need.
We really need to avoid what Lama Yeshe used to call the yo yo mind, where the mind goes up and down all the time. So there’s no peace and happiness when the mind is going up and down. So there’s an equanimity that we need to develop in relation to ordinary things, external things because, just put it very primitively, when the sun shines the mind goes up. We’re happy. When when it’s, you know, it it it’s cold and gray, the mind tends to get unhappy, and the mind goes down.
And then the sun comes out again, and we’re happy. When things are going well, we’re happy. When things are not going well, we’re unhappy. When we have lots of money, we’re happy. When we don’t have any money, we’re unhappy.
When we get something, we’re happy. When we don’t get things, we’re unhappy. So and and these things are happening in our life all the time. So if things are constantly changing and if we depend, if get involved in things like that so much, our mind will never be at peace. It’s always going up and down.
So we need to develop that equanimity in relation to external stuff. But I’m not going to talk about that because unfortunately there’s no time. But the other kind of equanimity, it’s the same state of mind is in relation to people. Because when we’re with nice people, the mind is happy, when we’re with not nice people, we get upset, and when we’re with people who don’t seem either way, we remain in a kind of bored, neutral state and kind of indifferent to them. So what is the problem with that?
The issue with that is that in order to realize our full potential to achieve enlightenment we have to want to do so. In other words we need to generate bodhicitta. To generate bodhicitta we have to awaken the qualities of great our potentials for great love and great compassion. Awaken those we have to develop basic love and basic compassion. Also we need to understand that one of the fundamental insights of the Buddha is there are about fourteen million fundamental insights of the Buddha.
It’s difficult to say which one or which group is the most important But in this case, one of the most important is this basic insight that it is our virtuous states of mind which are the real source of our happiness. It’s not money and external stuff, it’s our state of mind and it’s the virtuous states of mind of love and compassion and wisdom, etc, bring about real, genuine, lasting peace and happiness. It’s our own negative states of mind of anger and attachment, desire, pride, jealousy that are the actual source of all our suffering and pain and problems and difficulties. So just for our own sake, need to be able to develop, cultivate our potential for love and compassion more and more. But especially when we see our connection with others and want to repay their kindness, then we need to develop our love and compassion more and more.
But, while we and the great obstacle to doing that is our lack of equanimity because when we don’t have equanimity what we tend to do in our life is we if you really check we focus on having a we have a few friends, you know. We don’t have that many friends even if you have a couple of hundred compared to all the human beings in the world, even if you’ve got a thousand very good friends, but most people don’t have a thousand close friends, it’s not many sentient beings compared to the six billion human beings on this planet. So we all have just a few friends. Hopefully, we all have just a few enemies. And here enemy doesn’t mean someone who wants to kill us or that we loathe and hate, but just someone who there is some kind of disagreement, dislike, even if it’s just temporary.
So at any one time most of us hopefully only have a few enemies. And the vast majority of sentient beings we remain indifferent to. And yet the Buddha is telling us that we have the potential to have real affection, real love, compassion, care, concern for all sentient beings. And if love and compassion are the real source of happiness for ourselves, then if we can love one person, we get so much happiness. If we can love two people, we will get more.
If we can love three, we will get that much more happiness. If we can love a million people, we will have that much happiness. And I mean love, not talking about having compassion for them and desire for them. Because of lack of equanimity we have a few friends and we have attachment to those friends, we get attached to them and we have aversion to the enemies and indifference to the so called stranger or neutral people. So attachment to friends is also based on desire.
We desire to be with nice people, people who like us, people who make us feel good, just like we desire nice objects. So desire is one of the disturbing thoughts and the nature of desire is that it exaggerates. Just like ignorance forces our mind to experience things in a false way, on top of that, desire also forces us to experience pleasant people, pleasant things in a false way, in that desire exaggerates how good something is or how nice a person is. And also with that is a sense that this with attachment with all the delusions good and no, anyway, with all the delusions there’s the other dimension that we tend to experience that with that delusion the sense that this object is permanent. So with desire, desire exaggerates how beautiful, desirable, nice, wonderful, interesting this person is and we believe that they are always like that.
This person will be permanently like that and my relationship with them will be permanently wonderful. And so with desire there always goes attachment that we get dependent on these nice people. We don’t want to be separated from them. We fear being separated from them. It’s painful to be separated from them.
Because of that, that tends to reinforce our desire for them, our desire to not be separated from them, to always be close to them, because desire and attachment tell us that being with this person or this group of people will make me happy. This is the source of my happiness, nothing else. And then the nature of the delusion of anger is that it exaggerates how bad a person is, a thing or situation or person is, and again believes that this is permanent. Someone can see, hopefully, that these two states of mind are really great obstacles to developing love and compassion. Because what often passes for love for another person, what we call our love for other people, isn’t love, it is attachment.
And attachment can look like and may even feel like that it’s concerned with the other person, but it’s not. Desire and attachment is about me, Isn’t whereas love, genuine love of any kind, is wanting the other to have happiness, genuine happiness. It is it is the thought directed to the other, whereas desire and attachment, the desire is for the object or the person, something out there, but it’s about me. I desire this thing, I desire this person because it’s going to make me happy. I am attached to this object.
I am attached to you because you make me happy. And the thing about desire and attachment is that I love you because you’re like this and because you’re like that this makes me happy and therefore you always have to stay like this. You always have to look like this because looking like this makes me happy and you have to behave like this because the way you behave now is what makes me happy. So we aren’t even conscious of this of course but this is what we want. You know someone’s laughs at my jokes so I always want them to laugh at my jokes.
You can’t criticize my jokes. I won’t like you anymore. I like you because you like my jokes and you like the way I behave and look and blah blah blah blah blah. So whether we’re conscious or not actually that means I want you to always be like that because I like you when you’re, know, don’t we? I like you when you like me.
Right? But it’s all about me. It’s not about you. I don’t care what you know? You you have to behave like I want, whether you like it or not.
You may want to change. No. You can’t change because I don’t like that. I’m not com because I don’t wanna change. Well, if I wanna change and you wanna change, that’s okay.
But you can’t change if I don’t wanna change. Or if I wanna change and you don’t wanna change, that’s no good. Right? It’s all about me. Whereas love is is about you.
It’s about the other. What what’s good for them. I want you to be happy. You know? Yeah.
I want you to do the things that will make you happy. I yeah. Not the things that I think will make you happy. I want you to do the things that will actually make you happy and happier and happier. Not about me.
It’s about you. It’s quite actually, love and attachment, they can look the same, but they’re actually quite different. They may be difficult to separate in our confused mind but they are actually quite different states of mind. One is a negative one that brings us suffering and one is state of mind that only brings benefit to self and others. Because actually if we check, in any relationship, the problem isn’t the love, it’s the attachment.
If you if you because these two things do get mixed up in any kind of relationship. There’s well, hopefully, there’s some love there, not just attachment. But it’s the the love for a person is not the problem, It doesn’t create the problems. It’s the attachment. You know, that holding and grasping and related to, I want this to be like this, to stay like this.
And I want you to fit in with what I think is right. Anyway yeah. So this is a big obstacle to developing love. And so, obviously, anger is a great obstacle to developing love. It’s difficult to love someone while you hate them or angry with them or upset with them.
But also if you check, even indifference is. Indifference sounds kind of okay to have but if you’re indifferent to another person that also is just the biggest obstacle to developing love for them. Because to develop love and compassion for someone, you have to be involved with them to some extent. I don’t necessarily mean, you know, you have go around to their house and fix their fences for them and stuff. It’s a mental state, right?
But one has to be want to needs in order to develop love and compassion, the basis is you want to you’re interested in that person. You you have some interest in them, whereas in indifference doesn’t allow that. Because it’s it’s again, it it you know, you’ve decided this person is boring, is a neutral person, and that’s permanent. So no more interest. I’m not interested in this person because I don’t like them at all.
I’m I’m not interested in you because you’re boring. I’m only interested in you because you’re nice. Yeah. So it really blocks all our positivities and it also makes us incredibly limited because we tend to like basically the same kind of people. We tell ourselves that these are the only interesting people in the universe.
My friends are the only interesting people in the universe. Which is ridiculous. There must be at least one more. At least one more. Anyway, and of course, so by having attachment, aversion, indifference to people then this just acts as a condition for all our disturbing thoughts of anger, attachment to keep bubbling away.
Yeah. So we need to develop equanimity, but especially in being able to generate bodhicitta because this likewise prepares the ground of our mind so that our love and compassion can really start to blossom and develop. How do we develop? Equanimity? Just very quickly, we’re trying to do in developing equanimity is firstly not to deny that from the side of other people there are people who tend to like us more than others.
There are people who are friendly to us, there are other people who are not friendly to us, are actually antagonistic to us, and and there are people who are completely, strangely enough, totally indifferent to us. Yeah? So from their side. But the point is, from our side, if we want to awaken our qualities and achieve and become a bodhisattva, become a Buddha to repay the kindness of mother sentient beings, We don’t have to relate to them the way they relate to us. We shouldn’t just confine our behavior to being friendly to people who are friendly to us, you know, have aversion to people who have aversion to us and indifferent to people who are indifferent to us.
Basically in developing equanimity we’re trying to have a stable mind that has this equal, open, friendly attitude to everyone, whether they are friendly to us or not friendly to us, or even have aversion to us, even wish to harm us. Also in developing equanimity, especially the harmful people, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t protect ourselves from the harm that other people may direct to us. This also applies with practicing patience. Many people say, practicing patience is just allowing people to hurt you. It doesn’t mean that at all.
Practicing patience and also its preliminary of developing equanimity doesn’t involve denying that people have a certain attitude to one. It’s recognizing that that this person is friendly to me, this one isn’t, this person is actually has a negative attitude to me. But it’s protecting the mind. We can act appropriately but the main thing so we can protect ourselves from the harm of people wanting to harm us or try to but the thing that we need as ordinary sentient beings to try and understand is that in protecting ourselves from harmful people, don’t it is it is not essential to get angry. That’s a revelation because that’s what we think and that’s what we we tend to do because of our self-cherishing that as soon as someone goes against what we like, we get angry.
Or if we see someone is harming us, we get angry in order to protect ourselves. But we we actually don’t have to be angry as we’re protecting ourselves from someone trying to harm us. I mean that is a big story which I don’t have enough time because this is just an introduction to everything, but think about it. Because if this was the you know, like when Devadatta, the Buddha’s cousin tried to kill the Buddha, the Buddha didn’t get angry with Devadatta. He didn’t let Devadatta kill him but he didn’t get angry with him.
There’s no need to get angry. You just avoid the things. And in fact, when you’re not angry, it’s easier to protect yourself because the mind is clear, can work out the best plan of action. When the mind is really angry, it’s very confused, can’t see things clearly. And of course, that’s why people end up in such terrible situations of killing people when they didn’t mean to, saying terrible things to people that they regret for the rest of their life because they didn’t really mean to say that.
But at the time, anger says this is the best approach. This will work. Stab them. Say this horrible thing, that will stop them. Basically to develop the idea is eventually to develop equanimity to all sentient beings in all situations.
Big job, just even developing equanimity is a big job, but we can see hopefully that it’s really worthwhile. But the the way to start in a practical way is in meditation is you take three people. Three people you know. A friend, a stranger, and a so called enemy. So the friend you take at the beginning should not be one of your best friends, super best friends, because they’re the ones we’re most attached to.
So you just take a little friend, someone you like. No big deal, just short friend, then someone you dislike Of course maybe as Buddhists we may find it difficult to admit that we dislike people. Oh I love everyone but actually there are people we dislike Even if it’s for a short time. We maybe dislike just something about them. Again, you don’t take someone that you have an intense aversion to, someone you just have a little dislike of.
Right? And then you take a stranger. So it has to be someone you know, but someone who you don’t think of as a friend or as a so called enemy. Someone who lives down the street, someone you work with but hardly talk to, someone you see a bus to work or something like that. Someone you know but who is a stranger, a neutral person.
So then what we can do is we are so these three people are people. They’re three human beings. So they’re all three they’re basically the same. Yeah. Living on the planet with me in this country.
I know them. But but one of them appears to me as a friend, one as a stranger, and one as an enemy. So why is this? Why? Why do these three human beings appear in such completely different ways to me and lead me to relate to them in such different ways.
That I spend some time with this one, no time whatsoever with this one, in fact, spending any time with the enemy and, you know, again, don’t bother with the stranger. Why? Why is this? So I will give you an answer. You can check up whether it’s true.
And the answer is, basically, whether we like to admit it or not, it’s due to our self-cherishing. That the friend fits with our self-cherishing. They make me feel good. They make me feel okay. They don’t threaten me in any way.
So I like them. Go along. And I’m not saying consciously, but they go along, they fit with my self-cherishing. And with the enemy, it’s the opposite. The enemy, just by definition, is someone who doesn’t go along with my self-cherishing.
They don’t make me feel good, They threaten me in some way. They make me feel uncomfortable, small, insignificant, insecure. Yeah. And they don’t even do it consciously. Maybe just someone walks in who’s so much better looking and you don’t like them because, oh no, I feel so crummy.
I don’t like that person. Right? They’re so good looking, know, something like that. So then that from their side, they haven’t said or done anything, but we we we do this. We take dislike to people just because they look some you know, they remind me of my grandmother or something that I don’t like.
But again, it’s something that doesn’t fit with my self-cherishing. And then the stranger, well, they don’t bother me. They don’t they don’t go with my self-cherishing. They don’t contradict it. So they’re just, like, neutral.
So I they they remain a stranger. I just don’t bother to get involved with them because they don’t harm me, they don’t help me. So this is what we do. Also check up, generally speaking, of course there will be exceptions and everything else, but we make these decisions about people so quickly. Even probably you’ve done this when you first came to this course.
You looked around, I like this person, don’t like this person, I’m not going to talk to this one. Friend, enemy, stranger. Instantly, to some extent, we do this. So we judge people, we put people in these boxes like straight away, instantly, in one moment, and what what Lama Zopa says, Lama Zopa Rinpoche says,, if I like this expression in the nearest moment, however someone reacts to me in the nearest moment, then instantly in that that moment they are the friend, you’re a friend either you’re a friend, you’re an enemy, or you’re a stranger in the nearest moment. Because that’s what self-cherishing is all about, the nearest moment right now.
I have to be happy right now. I can’t have any suffering right now. So anything that makes me happy right now is good, is friend. This is bad, bad enemy. This is blah.
Alright. They are exceptions. Sorry? But they are exceptions. Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah but we don’t worry about the exceptions.
We’re just trying to look. No. Don’t. Don’t. We’re looking at our negative mind.
We have to deal with the negative mind, not the positive mind. The positive mind is okay. We’re trying to get deal with the yeah. And and also what happens is that having made that judgment so quickly, then it becomes permanent. What was decided in a fraction of a second becomes permanent.
Permanent friend, permanent stranger, and permanent enemy. And because of that, because this is my permanent friend, I am friendly to them. So guess what? Generally speaking, they act friendly back to me. Wow, isn’t that amazing?
And they act friendly to me again, so, Oh, it’s so easy to be friendly with them. This person I don’t like, so I’m not nice to them. Guess what? They’re not nice to me, so what? I’m not nice to them either.
And so how amazing it continues like that. Oh, proof. I’m a genius. I always knew he was a creep. I knew I was right that this person is so good.
And then I ignored the stranger. That’s what I’m talking about. We’re getting to that. That’s how we do this. We see what we’re doing.
Yeah. And this person, the permanent stranger, you know, who, you know, who doesn’t bother me one so I don’t I don’t I don’t interact with them. So guess what? I don’t know anything about them, so I don’t interact with them anymore, you know. And because I don’t interact with them, I don’t get to know them, so they remain a stranger.
How amazing. Right? Right. So this is what we have to analyze and realize that it’s all really false. It’s all completely false.
And the main way to really generate so on the basis of that, to see that it’s all coming from our self-cherishing, that it really limits us. Because what we’re trying to do in developing equanimity is in relation to the stranger, we’re trying to replace that indifference with some affection, some interest, some concern, some affection. With this with a friend, we’re not trying to reduce our affection for the friend. We’re not trying to reduce our friendship. We’re trying to reduce our attachment.
By seeing that is all connected with self-cherishing and misjudgment and seeing how yeah. And with the enemy, we’re trying to reduce that anger and replace it with some patience and, hopefully, some possibility of having affection for the enemy because this is also an amazing thing that is possible for the mind to like enemies. But at least to reduce one’s anger and aversion towards them. That’s done by reflecting over and over again how it’s all based on self-cherishing and also grasping, especially how it’s all based on believing these categories are permanent. This is our permanent friend, permanent enemy, permanent stranger.
But actually nothing that has arisen depending on causes and conditions is permanent. We may have friends for a long time, difficult relationships with people for a long time, and so on, but they aren’t actually permanent. Things can change. And this is the thing to reflect on in developing equanimity that we can see in relation to other people that there are people who have had friends who have become enemies or strangers. Countries, we all know, have gone to war with a country and now they are our best friend.
Mr Abbott is just about to sign a trading thing with Japan saying how Japan is one of our great friends. Well, some years ago Japan wasn’t. It was our worst enemy. But now they’re which is good. They’re our friends.
It all changes. When they were enemies, we never thought they would become our friends. Now the Japanese people, which is good, are our friends. We don’t think and hope they won’t become our enemies again. It becomes something very permanent.
So there’s no space. But so so you start with a stranger because that’s the easiest, and you you investigate that person. And then you try and see that this person, it is not permanent. That you ask yourself, is it possible this person from their side could change their their behavior to me, you know, and become friendly to me? Is that impossible?
No, it’s not. So if if that if if that’s the case, would I remain indifferent to them even when they were friendly? No. I would probably become no. This is all rhetorical.
Right? Sorry. So why wait for them to become friendly? Why why not change my attitude to them? And also to check, if I was to be friendly to the stranger, is it guaranteed they would remain the neutral person?
Can’t say. Possibly could become friendly. So why not try? Anyway, from my side, even if a person remains completely indifferent, isn’t it better for my mind to have a friendly attitude toward them wanting them happiness? This doesn’t mean we try and befriend everyone, we talk to them all the time and go around hugging people and sending them letters and giving them presents.
It’s like developing a state of mind towards people which is open to the person and wanting them to be, you know, to be happy, etcetera, etcetera. Right? So then the friend, then you take the friend and again in trying to reduce the attachment one thinks, ‘Just check, Can I say definitely this person will always be my friend no matter what? And unfortunately, we can’t say that because there are other people who’ve had friends who became enemies or strangers. So if this person could become my enemy, why be so attached to them now?
If we were clairvoyant and could see that next week, month, next year, this person, whole attitude to me changed because it could, because I don’t know, because it happens with other people. If I could see that, would I be so attached to them now? No. I wouldn’t. So why be so attached?
Doesn’t mean I don’t have to like them and appreciate them and have affection for them, but why be so attached? Then with the enemy, again, is it definite that this person will always dislike me? Can I say with my limited mind that I know for sure they will always be like this? No. I can’t.
So they could change. So if they change, will I will I always dislike them even if they’re kind to me? That would be pretty ridiculous. And if I was to be more friendly to them, can I say that they would remain angry to me, disliking me? No.
I can’t. Maybe they would become friendly, so why not try? And even if it doesn’t work from my side, it it’s still more beneficial. Even if this person hates me, wants to kill me, from my side, if I have a positive attitude to them, who benefits? And if they kill me, what’s better, to die hating them or loving them?
Of course this is very easy to say. It is difficult to do but our mind has this potential to change by training it, by thinking along these lines. We don’t think like this normally but the Buddha did and has set it out and so we can train our mind to think like this and to see the benefits of it and and that that it’s logical, it makes sense. Because the main thing in any situation if if we really understand, you know, if we start to understand the Buddha’s teachings and that we have a mind, that our mind is what is is the source of all our happiness and suffering, the main thing to do is to take care of our mind. You know, we as worldly people or as a worldly person caught up in worldly attitudes attached to this life, in any situation what we tend to do as ordinary limited people following our self-cherishing and delusions, we always try to protect our body, our reputation, our possessions.
Yeah. But what we should be doing is protecting our mind. And the way to protect our mind in any any situation is to have equanimity, whether things are good or bad, whether people are friendly, indifferent, or negative towards us, is to protect ourselves by having an open, friendly mind to others. Especially if we can put it in a broader context, if we have some basic Buddhist understanding that our mind is beginningless and endless, then the stranger of this life was definitely a friend many times before and will, in future lives, will be a friend again. So why be indifferent to them just now?
And then if we think of this friend, you know, this friend in past lives was definitely an enemy, could become an enemy in future lives. So why be so so attached to them in this life? And the enemy of this life in past lives was definitely my best friend many times, will be in future lives. So why have so much aversion just now? And if, know, what I can also think, you know, you do something I I probably get confused trying to explain this.
But you could you could have a ridiculous situation, but it it happens actually in many times that you have someone who is a friend now, and then you have an enemy. No. I think I’ve got lost already. But the friend who, you know, like you meet someone and they become your friend. So the friend of one minute is your best becomes your best friend.
You’ve never had such a person you like so much before. Your best friend. You’ve only know, you’ve known them for one minute, but this is my best friend, and this person is my enemy. But in fact, this enemy has been your super best friend for, say, ten lifetimes before that. Yeah.
Done all sorts of amazing things for you, sacrificed their life for you over ten lives. But but all that’s forgotten, and there’s this person who’s been your friend for one minute in this life. It’s crazy because everything changes, and yet we try and make everything concrete and permanent and solid. Equanimity involves having a mind that just allows for change, for different possibilities. But also to reflect with these three people almost time to finish, oh it is time to finish, just a little bit over.
I am allowed to go a little bit over. The final point is that each of these three people that each one wants to be happy and doesn’t want suffering. Exactly the same, just like me. And so with a friend, I I I I I can sympathize. I want them to be happy.
I don’t want them to be suffering. So why can’t I do it with a stranger? Because it’s the same wish, and they’re a human being. So and why can’t I actually do it with the enemy? Because the the wish of the enemy to be happy is exactly the same as my friend’s wish to be happy.
And the enemy’s wish not to suffer is exactly the same as my friend’s wish not to suffer. If I can relate to this person, why can’t I do it to that one? Because they’re two human beings. This one’s not from Mars. This is a human being, someone I know.
Yeah? If I can do it with this human being, why can’t I do it with that human being? Okay. Good. Thank you.
That was a little bit on equanimity. Tea break. Oh, after the tea break, coffee break, we’ll have discussion groups.