Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 105-minute session, Venerable Thubten Dondrub guides practitioners through week seven of his teaching on generating bodhicitta—the enlightened intention to achieve Buddhahood for the benefit of all beings. Building on Śāntideva’s classical method, he focuses on tonglen (giving and taking), a meditation practice that directly counteracts self-cherishing by imagining one takes on others’ suffering and gives them happiness. Dondrub walks practitioners through the step-by-step application: first working with one’s own future suffering to understand bodhicitta’s foundation, then extending the practice to loved ones, neutral people, difficult people, and finally all sentient beings. He explains how tonglen works psychologically—by actively doing what self-cherishing fears most (feeling others’ pain)—and addresses practical concerns: why this is imagination but powerful imagination, how it differs from self-punishment, and how it can make unbearable suffering meaningful and therefore bearable. Throughout, he emphasizes the crucial distinction between self-cherishing (a destructive mental habit rooted in ignorance) and self-care (which enables sustained practice), and stresses that genuine bodhicitta develops only through repeated meditation and reflection over time, not from hearing teachings alone. The session includes discussion of students’ questions on application and closes with a guided tonglen meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2014 05 13 DB Bodhicitta Week 7 13052014.mp3
UUID: 7889a67f-40c7-4d55-8e9e-ad9f27389cb7
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Bodhicitta (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2014-05-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 105.5 minutes
Words: ~11,005
So welcome everyone to our seventh class on how to generate bodhicitta. Chris, does it matter which way this goes? The way you got it is the best way. Right. Okay.
Right. Okay. So I think everyone knows the routine. So If you would like to join in, we do the prayer of refuge and bodhicitta which I think is on page eleven. Is that right?
Page eleven. So as we say this prayer to make it as meaningful as possible, we think of Śākyamūni Buddha directly in front of us as the embodiment of the Three Jewels of refuge and all their wonderful qualities and at the same time trying to have a sense of all sentient beings surrounding us. But of course since it is very difficult to conceive of all sentient beings at least we should try and think of those that we are connected to in this life. So our mother on our left, father on our right, family, friends and helpers behind us, harmers in front, people we find unpleasant in some way. And then if we can, to include open our hearts to an awareness and concern for all other human beings, all the beings in the animal animal realm, in the preta realms, the lower realms, the hell realms, the different kinds of beings in the god realms, and even the the beings trapped right now in the Bardo state.
And try to have a sense of how we are connected to all of them intimately connected with every one of these beings. Although some seem very distant to us now, in reality we have been as close to each sentient being as we are to our parents or other family members and friends of this life. We’ve totally depended on them, We will depend on them in the future and yet all these beings are suffering. Some are not experiencing obvious suffering right now but since they have they’re in saṃsāra controlled by delusion and karma, there’s that potential to experience every kind of suffering sooner or later and over and over again. So thinking along those lines and trying to recognize our own Buddha nature and that we have right now the precious human rebirth which is the optimum chance to work with, to realize, to awaken our Buddha potential, we can generate that thought that no matter what, must use this life now that I’ve found this precious freedom to give up the self-cherishing thought which has dominated my mind during beginningless time and actually only brought me suffering.
To do what all the beings who achieved enlightenment did, which was to train the mind to cherish others more than self. This is the best thing I can possibly do in this life, all my future lives, the most meaningful thing for myself and others. And it will lead me to be able to achieve the enlightened state that puts me in a position to be able to perfectly, completely, totally, continuously repay the kindness of all sentient beings without exception. So to achieve that enlightened state I have to be able to generate that the authentic wish to it or determination to achieve it. And so for this reason I’ll study this topic of how to generate bodhicitta.
I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the 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 we think the Buddha is very pleased with our motivation and the Buddha shows this by now approaching us and when directly above our crown, we imagine that the Buddha then turns to face the same direction as our self, dissolves into blissful golden light, and that light then pours down into us, blessing our mind. And then we enhance that positive state of mind just by briefly doing the nine round breathing exercise. We can make that exercise as strong as possible by imagining that with each in breath of the cycle we breathe in this very soothing white light from the Buddha’s that brings great clarity and calmness to the mind enabling all our positive qualities to manifest.
And with each out breath in the cycle we manifest breathing out whatever agitation is existing in our mind now, all disturbing thoughts, all negative imprints resulting from those thoughts. We breathe all of that out in the form of black smoke. Okay. Thank you. Okay.
We are actually now on the last section of Śāntideva’s method of generating bodhicitta. It has some of the aspects of Śāntideva’s method as well but the four unique aspects of features of Śāntideva’s method is firstly on the basis of developing equanimity towards friend, enemy, stranger. One then develops this mind of seeing the equality between oneself and every sentient being. The more we develop that and therefore feel this connection with all sentient beings which helps to open our hearts towards them, then we see that the greatest obstacle to that is our own self-cherishing. So the second cause of Śāntideva’s method is reflecting more and more deeply on seeing what self-cherishing is and how it is our greatest enemy that it brings us all suffering and is the greatest obstacle to developing bodhicitta.
Remember there’s the two kinds of self-cherishing. The first kind is the gross self-cherishing and something about what what what’s the problem with that? Yeah. Well, sorry. My question isn’t very clear.
I’m not quite sure how to put it. Does it, we’ll put it this way, what does it if we follow that cherishing, gross self-cherishing, what does it particularly prevent us achieving or doing? Yeah, yes. The self-cherishing thought won’t enable us to even get a good rebirth, Right? And even if we practice the Dharma it becomes very impure and we certainly can’t get liberation.
So we need to definitely give that one up even if we want, even without generating bodhicitta, to follow the Dharma in general to get a good rebirth or liberation. We need to give that up. But especially we have to give up the very subtle the subtle self-cherishing because that is a virtuous mind but from a Mahāyāna point of view it is a problem because why? Particularly what level do you get to? Yeah, right.
So the person who has the subtle self-cherishing is seeking just their own liberation. Of course to achieve that one has to be very nice to others, to be kind and compassionate, etc, etc. To be very kind, very compassionate, but one doesn’t fully dedicate one’s life and energies and series of lives to the benefit of others but to getting out of saṃsāra oneself. So that actually becomes the biggest obstacle to achieving enlightenment, that subtle self-cherishing. Even though it is virtuous mind, it is a mind that is practicing the Dharma very well, avoiding immoralities and living an ethical life, etc, etc, practicing meditation.
But it’s all done essentially for one’s own sake. So it’s a subtle obstacle but a very powerful obstacle to being able to generate bodhicitta. So we need to see the main fault of it is that it prevents us awakening, developing our full potential as a Buddha. And so it prevents us being of vast benefit, perfect benefit to all sentient beings, prevents us from repaying the kindness of mother sentient beings. So seeing those faults we can develop the mind that wants to cherish others more and more, which is the next cause of Śāntideva’s method.
Seeing that cherishing others more than self is actually that state of mind is the most beneficial to our self and to others. So by seeing the great benefits of cherishing others more than self, we will want to engage in cherishing others more than self. Because that’s naturally how our mind works even at a very ordinary level if we go shopping and there are two things, you know, two things the same, two things the same, you know, and this more qualities than this one, less faults than this one, we will buy this one because it’s got more qualities and less faults than that one. Oh, don’t be. They’re the same.
Basically, same. Two kinds of things. Two kinds of kettles. Two kinds of television sets. Two cars.
This one yeah. Yeah. And so you check out, you know. This one has got these qualities and these faults. This has got these qualities.
This has more qualities than this, less faults than this. I’ll buy that one if we’re smart. Right. Okay. So this leads in to the final cause of generating bodhicitta which is the mind wanting to actually exchange oneself with others.
Generating that mind wanting to really exchange, put oneself in the place of others and exchange oneself with others. Basically the argument is or the idea is that because we have this wish to avoid suffering and because it’s my wish to avoid my suffering we put a lot of effort into trying to avoid suffering. And without the dharma we do all sorts of false things to avoid suffering. But once we meet the dharma, hopefully we will apply the correct ways to avoid suffering. But if we could exchange that, that sense of we totally identify with our own suffering of course, obviously, and the wish to be free of it.
But if we could feel that others wish to be free of suffering, their suffering and their wish to be free of that suffering was mine, rather than being others, it was mine, we would put all our effort into ending their suffering. And just like we wish to be happy and create the causes for it, if we could see not just see that others wish to have happiness and create the causes for it was the same as mine. But if we could actually go another step further and see that is my wish, it’s not similar to my wish or even the same, but it’s actually me. No different. It’s me.
So if we could exchange, exchange ourselves with others, then we would put all our effort into bringing happiness to others, seeing others as me. I don’t know if that made any sense. In Śāntideva’s text that is the basis of this argument, The Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, Śāntideva makes this point does he make this point? Yes, Yes. He argues that we can definitely do this because we can definitely achieve this state of mind where we can exchange ourselves with others because he argues, rightly, that this body we have now, we totally identify with it as being me.
Right? This is me. That’s a wrong view but we certainly think of this as my body but often we think this is me. We look in the mirror and we see a reflection of our body and we think oh, I look horrible today or I look wonderful or I look tired or I look this’ but we’re just seeing a reflection of our body. We basically identify our body as me.
But if you analyse this body is well, it it started from two things which are not me, which is the the the ovum and of my mother and the sperm of my father, of which is me. And they came together to produce this body. These two things which aren’t me, we now identify. And then on addition to that, all this food has been put into this in order for this body to grow. None of that food is me, But I’ve now identified it with it as me.
It’s become me. I’ve put it in here and it’s become me. So over a long time of being familiar with all this stuff, which is not me, I now think of it as me. So if we can do that, if we train our mind in meditation, we can identify others who aren’t me as me. And the point is there’s a great benefit in doing so because seeing people as other, you know, we all all our negativities arise or can it create a basis for so many negativities of aversion, fear, worry, pride, jealousy to arise or also attachment, but often those more destructive emotions.
As I tried to say last week, I think that especially the more we grasp at this inherently this view that people are inherently other, we all have this wrong view that things inherently exist but somehow that view of inherent existence can sometimes be thicker than at other times and in a sense thicker towards some objects than others. So the more we focus on that feeling that other is somehow inherently, completely different from me, then that becomes a basis for such a lack of identification that we feel that although this person looks like a human being, they’re not a human being. So we invent terms like subhuman, which is that the Nazis labelled so many human beings as subhuman. I don’t know if this is politically incorrect to say, but I’ll say it anyway because I say many politically incorrect things. From what little I know, which isn’t much, but it seems what has become one of the dominant trend types of Islam in the world and particularly the type that produces all the extreme terrorists, they follow a particular form of Islam that especially emphasizes how anyone who doesn’t follow that particular version is really other.
They are completely other. Yeah. They’re beyond the pale, completely, inherently something totally other. Even other other Muslims are completely other than, you know, we have the truth. We have found the exact truth.
We’ve got the exact total complete thing, and everyone else who doesn’t believe that is really, really other. And therefore, you can kill them very easily because there’s no identification whatsoever. And in fact, you have to kill people like that because there are other according to that logic sorry. Not my logic. No.
I didn’t no. I wasn’t saying that. I wasn’t saying that. I’m saying that’s what they think. No.
Yes. Yes. Good. I hope so. Don’t go off telling your friends that he put his mugs and it’s okay to kill other people.
As long as there are other, it’s okay. No. I did not say that. Okay. Right.
Getting too carried away here. Yes. So basically having seen how the great faults of self-cherishing and the great benefits of cherishing others more than self, the more we actually really see those and feel those ourselves, the more we will want to get rid of our self-cherishing and cultivate the ability to cherish others more than self. And the most powerful way to do that is to practice, to train the mind in a meditation technique which is a practical way or a meditative way to exchange oneself with others and this method is called Tonglen which means giving and taking. What it’s referring to is taking the suffering of others away from them and giving them happiness.
This is what I want to talk about tonight. And the ultimate aim of it, the ultimate purpose of this or object of this of this meditation is to imagine taking all the suffering of all sentient beings from them and giving all of them happiness. Right? But it becomes totally meaningless to start off that practice trying to imagine taking all the suffering of all sentient beings. It’s just really stupid to do it that way.
We have to start, like with everything, as a lamrim, a graduated path, step by step. So for it to become in any way meaningful, we have to start with our self. So anyway, what is Tonglen specifically talking about? It’s talking about imagining one does it at the level of imagination but even though it’s done at the level of imagination, if it’s done properly and strongly, which is His Holiness the Dalai Lama says it should be, we’re trying to really undermine our self-cherishing. We’re trying to go completely against against the self-cherishing thought and encourage the mind cherishing others.
So what does the self-cherishing thought not want? The single main thing the self-cherishing thought cannot bear is suffering. self-cherishing doesn’t even want to know about our own suffering. We just want to escape it as quickly as possible. When we’re under the control of the self-cherishing thought, we certainly don’t want to think about or feel the suffering of others.
So the whole aim of this meditation is to do the very opposite to what the self-cherishing wants in order to kind of train the mind not to follow it but even more than that to really try and freak it out and eliminate it, really overcome it. So what one does is to imagine doing the very thing that the self-cherishing thought cannot abide. So one imagines taking the suffering of others, but we start with ourselves, so I’ll talk about oneself. No, it’s easier to talk about others first but we’ll start when we come to do it, we’ll do it with ourselves. One imagines taking the suffering of others and giving it to oneself.
So in reality one cannot do this. We can’t take the suffering of others away from them and experience it ourselves. If we could, the Buddhas would have done it already for us. But the Buddhas don’t do that and the reason they don’t is because it’s not possible because we all have to experience our own karma. If we’ve created the cause for suffering then suffering will arise as the effect and nothing, anyone, including a Buddha, can do anything about it directly.
That’s why the Buddhas can only guide us, show us this is suffering, this is its cause. Don’t create those causes, create things which will bring happiness. So they can do all sorts of things to teach that and guide us in that direction, but they can’t take our suffering from us. And they can’t take the causes of suffering that we’ve created in our mind away. Only we can do that.
So although in reality one can’t take the suffering of others away from them, it’s very helpful to imagine doing so and believing that one is doing so because it’s a way to totally counteract the self-cherishing thought. Right? And that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to destroy, undermine the self-cherishing thought by doing the very thing that the self-cherishing thought fears the most, which is feeling suffering. Especially the suffering of others because we don’t want to even think about our own suffering, let alone the suffering of others.
So we imagine taking that on. And the idea of this meditation is that you don’t just simply imagine sharing the suffering of others or just feeling the suffering of others. The idea is to try to imagine that you’re actually extracting that suffering but especially the cause of that suffering. So for example, if someone’s got a cancer, you imagine not only taking the suffering of the cancer but the actual cancer from the person. And even the subtle causes of that cancer from the person and breathe it into yourself.
Quite scary and horrible. And it’s meant to be. The more scary and horrible we can make it, the more it works. Yes. Well, this is what I’m saying.
Firstly, you start with yourself, then you extend it to one other person and then more and more. And again you start with yourself, then a friend, someone you feel very close to, then a stranger or extend it to other friends, then you then you do it with strangers because that’s the next easiest. And then finally, you try it with people, the so called enemy or unpleasant person. I know you some of you here or all of you say you don’t none of you have enemies. You’re all totally loving and compassionate.
This is truly wonderful. I don’t know why you’re here. You don’t need to be here if if you’re like that. But if you discover that just occasionally you do get annoyed with people, find them irritating or even get upset and even a teensy weensy bit angry with them, then this meditation is for you. The last bit of taking on the enemy’s harm, an unpleasant person because that’s the real test, of course.
Then one extends it to all beings, all humans, all animals, all predators, hell beings, gods, demigods, Bardo beings, everybody. Alright? But anyway, I’m just trying to explain it a little bit first. Actually, maybe go back even a bit another step before that. Right.
The purpose of this meditation is to benefit us. Right? Not to harm us or to yeah. So to do this meditation properly and for it to have the greatest effect, we have to understand, really understand, that there is a big difference between our self-cherishing and me. We are not trying to punish me by imagining taking on the suffering of It’s not like, maybe this is again politically incorrect, an old Christian thing of like beating oneself.
You know, the old Christian saints used to I don’t know if the present day Christian saints do this, but it was a big it was very popular. Oh they still do it in Spain on holy days where I’m going. You know, you beat yourself and draw blood and wear hair shirts and all sorts of things to make one’s life miserable because one is a sinner And so to cleanse the sins, punish yourself and make yourself feel as miserable as possible. So this meditation could look like that, but it is not that. It is not that.
Yeah. One is not imagining taking on the suffering and diseases and etcetera etcetera of other people because one is a bad evil person. One has to suffer and be punished. It’s not like that. We are trying to destroy our self-cherishing thought so that we can experience happiness and joy and freedom and everything good, but we can’t while we have the self-cherishing thought.
So we need to understand that the more we understand how harmful our own self-cherishing thought is, the more we will want to get rid of it because we see it really harms me. Of course it leads me to bring suffering to others. It’s a huge obstacle to generating bodhicitta and so it really, really harms me. Following the self-cherishing thought, I engage in every kind of negative action. So we’re not trying to harm me, we’re trying to benefit me by harming my self-cherishing thought.
My self-cherishing thought is ugly and horrible and negative, but I’m not. So we really need to understand that, that there is difference between me and my self-cherishing thought. And the same, you know, with other, you know, with other sentient beings. If we just identify with other beings self-cherishing, we can think, oh, they’re a terrible person, but actually they’re a Buddha or a potential Buddha obscured by self-cherishing. How sad!
They deserve my compassion. All the negative behavior of other people is because of their self-cherishing. They are being tormented by their own self-cherishing. Anyway, so particularly in doing this practice we need to have that sense of there is a real difference between oneself and one’s Buddha nature and the pure nature of one’s mind and what is obscuring it, is, you know, ignorance and this terrible self-cherishing. So we’re trying to get rid of the self-cherishing.
Alright. And the way the skillful way is to try to, you know, to do the the very thing that opposes it, which is to feel suffering. And we try to make it feel as much suffering as possible. And so the way to do this is you imagine that suffering, you reflect on the suffering firstly of oneself, oneself in the future. Yeah?
For example, we all have self-cherishing right now and because of our self-cherishing, we do all sorts of harmful things, selfish, stupid, all sorts of things, trying to be happy but following the self-cherishing thought. And so we have all sorts of negative actions and negative habits we’ve built up through this life. So you can think of even just take one negative habit or tendency that one has. I don’t know what. Maybe one tends to lie about things.
Or steal or engage in sexual misconduct of some kind. What else? Oh, there’s millions of things. Eat too much, drink too much, talk too much. Actually negative and you know is not good for you and you’d like to get rid of it.
And it’s all due to the self-cherishing thought, right? So then you think, you imagine your future self, say, one year, two years, five, ten years, whatever. If you’re very young, we have one or two young people here, they can think like in twenty, thirty years’ time of suffering, you know, the same self. If I don’t do anything about my self-cherishing now, I will be under the control of the self-cherishing thought for another ten, twenty, thirty, forty years, whatever, the rest of my life. And I will be engaging in this negative habit, whatever it is, for another twenty, thirty, forty, seventy, sixty years, and I will experience so much suffering because of that.
Right? So then you take pity, you develop compassion for that future self who is going to have to endure five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years of self-cherishing and engaging in even just this one negative habit but all sorts of negative things. So you try and feel all that future suffering that oneself is definitely going to experience, definitely because of the self-cherishing thought. And then so you imagine taking that suffering onto you now and you put it on the self-cherishing thought and you imagine breathing that suffering and all its causes, all your negative behavior and the actual yeah. Imagine taking it in the form of this black smoke, this really disgusting thick black smoke.
That’s traditionally what is said. But you can also imagine it as something even more horrible if you want to make it more effective. Scorpions, spiders, crocodiles, snakes, something, you breathe that out. All this horrible negativity and suffering, you breathe it out. I suppose smoke is said because it’s you can you can imagine breathing in smoke and it’s unpleasant unless you’re a chain smoker.
Addicted. Anyway, yeah, and you imagine that it’s suffocating your self-cherishing thought. Yeah. Yeah. Which is which you imagine is like is like encrusting your heart, your mind.
This beautiful pure mind is just trapped in this inside no, it’s not inside. Your mind is inside, trapped in this rock hard, cold, ugly, repulsive, disgusting, self-cherishing thought. So you breathe all that negativity, suffering and its causes onto the self-cherishing thought and you imagine it suffocates it, it destroys it, it just collapses, it breaks, it shatters, whatever you, you know, however you think is effective. All of the above or one of them or something, you know. And then you’re free yeah.
Okay? And so then your mind, your pure mind is liberated, is free. It’s not obstructed anymore by self-cherishing. And that mind is really blissful and joyous and kind and compassionate and courageous and wise. And so from that state you imagine breathing out all your good qualities, your understanding, your your merits.
You give it to the future self so that they can experience those things. As you imagine breathing away, taking the suffering, you imagine them becoming, know, having the future me having less suffering. And then you breathe out all your good qualities and wisdom and understanding and everything into that future me and you imagine in the form of white light and you imagine that future me becoming happier and happier and happier. Yeah. Wiser and wiser.
You can see them becoming that future me becoming free of all suffering, completely happy, completely liberated, enlightened. If it’s difficult to go that far, you just at least see them, oneself, totally free of that negativity, that self-cherishing, really joyous, free, light, at ease, relaxed, virtuous, content, jolly. I think you get the picture. Right? So that’s the way to do it.
So in one way it’s really quite simple technique. The difficult thing, of course, is just simply to do it and to do it really effectively. Because as His Holiness says, for it to work, one has to really get into it and and do it. You really think of all this suffering and how horrible it is and its causes and you really imagine you’re taking them. Although in reality, especially when one comes to other people, one can’t actually take their suffering.
The idea is to get into a mindset where you really feel you are. You really feel the suffering, and you’re really taking it and its causes and destroying the self-cherishing. Because if if we do it thinking, oh, it’s just in my imagination, it’s not really going to do anything, then it’s not gonna work, if you know what I mean. The more we really feel we’re actually taking the suffering, which is kind of scary, and and the idea is I’m going to experience it so others don’t. If I can take their suffering, they won’t suffer.
And it works for oneself. If I take my future self suffering now, that future me won’t suffer. If I destroy my self-cherishing now, I won’t have suffering in the future. Or at least realistically, if I can reduce my self-cherishing now when I’m in a position to do so because I have met the dharma, I have the health a basically healthy body and mind to work with, I have dharma friends, dharma center, blah blah blah, all the all the good things. So I can do it now.
So if I do it now, if I work on reducing myself self-cherishing now, I won’t have so much self-cherishing in the future. And therefore I will have fewer problems in the future and more happiness. Because also, remember, all our problems and suffering are a karmic result of our self-cherishing. And when that karmic result comes as suffering and sickness and diseases and fears and worries and problems and enemies and blah blah blah, taxes, etc. When that comes, what makes it worse is how much self-cherishing we have.
How much, you know, we have a suffering and if we’ve got a lot of self-cherishing, that suffering will be unbearable. If we’ve got a little bit of self-cherishing, the suffering is not so bad. So if we can reduce our self-cherishing now, we will be so much better off in the future. Right? One can also make it very practical even in, like, maybe there’s something you have to do tomorrow that you’re really dreading doing.
It’s difficult. You have some fears and worries to do it all tomorrow, next week. So you think of that future me of tomorrow or next week that has to do something unpleasant. And you you feel compassion for that. So you take that future suffering, which is also connected with some self-cherishing maybe.
Yeah? And then you put it on yourself now. Put not on oneself, sorry, on the self-cherishing thought now. You face it now. Yeah?
You imagine it now. Yeah. Reducing the self-cherishing now so that yeah. And you breathe in your wisdom and kindness and courage to that person who has to the future me of tomorrow or next week, who has to deal with that problem or difficulty or whatever it is, then you breathe it into them so that they will have it then. When do we stop?
Quarter past. Alright. Okay. So that yeah. So then so it’s really important to train to do it with oneself so that someone can the more we do it with ourself, it will it will start to work.
And once we’ve got some experience of relating it to ourselves, then we move into the main purpose, which is in relation to others. So we start with someone who is close to us because that’s easiest to do. Someone who has been really kind to us, we have a lot of affection for. And again in the teachings it says, this is not just because you’re not being, what’s the word? I can’t think of the word puritanical or something.
But when you do these meditations related to friend, enemy and stranger, whatever, when we take the friend, the friend should not be someone who is one who’s sexually connected to, related to, has a lot of sexual stuff going on with because when you take that person, then all that stuff can come up. It’s much better to have you take someone who you have a lot of love, affection for, but, you know, it’s it’s something like mom, dad, a sister, or a friend, not someone who is, you know, you’re romantically or sexually involved in. Right? Because that just complicates things or can, not necessarily, but can in this situation. We want to keep it clean clear, my dear, as Lama would say.
So you think of someone you’re very close to, who’s been very kind to you, and then you think of their suffering. You meditate on what suffering you know they may be experiencing right now. And if it appears they don’t have any particular suffering right now, that their life is good, one can still think, well, this person is in saṃsāra. They have delusion and karma. They have self-cherishing.
They’re they they as they grow you know, in the future, they will experience all sorts of suffering because we’re all subject to suffering as a human being. You know, the the suffering of getting older, experiencing sickness, everyone experiences sickness sooner or later. Right? That one this person who is so dear to me is going to experience the suffering of dying. There will always be some kind of suffering dying.
We might like to think that we’re just going to die and it’s just going to be hysterically funny and enjoyable, but possibly not. Just like sickness is painful, even a good death we have to expect some difficulty. So it doesn’t have to be terrible, so we think this person is going to experience all kinds of suffering. You think of that suffering and the causes of it. You don’t have to know the specific causes, but you imagine taking that suffering from that.
I will take that suffering so they don’t have it. So I have to take the causes as well. So we imagine taking the causes in the form of this black smoke which we breathe in, we completely take it from that person, put it on the self-cherishing thought. Because you’re like you’re saying, here, you, my self-cherishing thought, has caused me every kind of suffering during beginningless time. So now I’m gonna make you suffer.
So cop this. Here’s all this suffering from my dear friend. You can have it. So she, he, whoever doesn’t have to experience it. You can have it.
So then you imagine one’s own self-cherishing, freaking out, you collapsing, shattering, being destroyed, suffocated, whatever. And then from that really positive state, you imagine giving, not sharing a little bit or just giving a little bit or sharing your happiness. You give the whole lot to that person to make sure that they’re happy. You give all your happiness, all its causes, all your merits, everything. You try to imagine.
Just trying to imagine is very difficult. I find that more difficult than imagine taking the suffering. I don’t wanna give my happiness, especially my merits. Can I have please have those? You imagine giving the whole lot.
I mean, just imagine giving all your money to someone else. You know, we can give a couple of dollars, ten dollars, fifty dollars, a hundred dollars. Imagine just even giving all your money to someone else. But this is not just your money, this is all your happiness. It’s crazy.
But this is Śāntideva, great bodhisattva’s method. And many great masters have practiced this ever since Śāntideva taught it. Then we extend it to other nice people, then to strangers, and then if we can, to the unpleasant person, the harmer, the enemy. No. Yeah.
Yeah. Then all sentient beings, all the different sentient beings including even dharma practitioners, even bodhisattvas eventually because even bodhisattvas are still suffering so you take even the last remnants of suffering from the bodhisattvas. So it’s a big job. A couple of other ways to practice it. It’s the same method but also with oneself, when we actually do experience some suffering.
I mean it’s good to practice, if in generating bodhicitta one tries to put this into practice regularly and imagine taking on one’s future suffering now destroying the self-cherishing thought. But when we are actually suffering, when we actually have a problem, a difficulty, some sickness, that’s especially when we should practice it. And why are we having a problem, suffering, a sickness, a difficulty? It’s the ripening of negative karma. And most of our negative karma just ripens.
I’m sorry. I have to take a break because I am suffering now. As I was trying to say, Tonglen meditation is meant specifically as a way to overcome the self-cherishing thought and cultivate the mind cherishing others. But one can also use it within that context of in some more practical ways. Or maybe I shouldn’t more practical ways.
Maybe that’s not a correct way of putting it. But anyway, because generating bodhicitta is definitely practical. I was saying whenever we experience any kind of problems suffering sickness and so on it’s the karmic ripening result of our negative actions and they just occur without any control. Sometimes our suffering and problems is due to negative karma ripening but this is because we are purifying our mind because we’ve done some specifically virtuous action that has caused our negative karma to ripen quickly and in a much smaller way than it would have if left to itself to ripen later on. But anyway, most of our negative karma suffering sorry, our suffering and whatever problems is due to just our negative karma just simply ripening because it has to ripen sooner or later.
So specifically in those cases, it can be very helpful in order to deal with that suffering in a meaningful way because the point is that when suffering arises, if we relate to it from the point of self-cherishing, when we have a problem or suffering, the more self-cherishing we have, the more we will want to get rid of it quickly and that usually leads us to doing something unskillful or negative to get rid of our suffering. So in order to avoid that and make the suffering meaningful and therefore bearable, then one practices Tonglen and imagines that whatever problem one has, it may be something chronic or something just suddenly arising of short duration but whatever, one imagines that say you have a headache. Simple example, you’re experiencing a headache so this is probably the ripening of some negative karma but to make it meaningful etc etc one imagines you think that this headache I am experiencing is the result of me taking on the sufferings, the headaches of all other people. And by me having this headache, then may all sentient beings be free of headaches now and in the future. So if I can put up with this headache, the longer I can put up with it happily or, you know, virtuously with a positive mind, then I am freeing more and more sentient beings of their suffering.
So this becomes really meaningful. And then you give one’s own headache or whatever it is, sickness, financial problem, relationship problem, whatever it is, one imagines that by I have taken this away from others. So if I can bear it, then others won’t have to experience it. So then it makes it meaningful. It makes it bearable.
And it’s a way and and it becomes a way to train the mind in giving up the self-cherishing thought, cherishing others more than self. Because also one imagines again, you complete that by imagining giving those people every kind of happiness from oneself. So that’s a great vehicle to practice Tonglen. In a similar way or slightly in another way, whenever we see rather than just sort of taking on the suffering of people in an abstract way, in general in meditation, in our daily life, when we become aware of someone experiencing suffering, we can imagine at that very moment taking it on ourselves, whatever it is. And we can see two people fighting, so we imagine taking all that suffering from both of them, not just from one, either one we like, who we want to win, but we take the suffering of both people fighting on ourselves, all the causes on ourselves, give them all our understanding, compassion, patience, tolerance, wisdom, etc.
So one can use every opportunity to practice Tonglen, to give up the self-cherishing thought and cherish others more than self. And also it’s helpful to understand if one hasn’t already that in the practice of So this meditation is fantastic from many points of view because also it’s reducing the self-cherishing thought, training to cherish others more than self, but also when we imagine taking the suffering on of others, that is training the mind in compassion. It needs some compassion for a start to be able to do it, but it helps to develop our compassion more and more and more. The imagining of giving our our happiness and the and our merits and causes of our happiness to others is the practice of loving kindness. So one alternates the two things.
And this is also important to understand that, you know, we imagine taking on a little bit of the suffering from another person. We imagine it destroys starts to destroy some of our self-cherishing and free some of our pure mind. And from that positive, joyful state of mind, we give happiness to the other person and we see, we imagine that they become happy and therefore that gives us the courage, the enthusiasm to take more suffering. And so it builds up like that. Right?
Making sense? Yeah? Oh yes, right. Okay. So any questions on that?
Anything I can, yes? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well I think the thing is to make every meditation as realistic and meaningful as possible so one can even just think of one aspect of one’s own self-cherishing rather than one’s self-cherishing and the entire bundle, the whole total entity of self-cherishing.
One can just try and deal, reduce one aspect of one’s self-cherishing that one can identify and know this has caused me a lot of problems. I really don’t want to be like this or do this. So, like, you know, whereas if one thinks of one’s, you know, I have self-cherishing, it becomes a little bit but, you know, but self-cherishing has so many aspects, you know, all the worldly concerns and blah blah blah. But, again, one can think it’s my self-cherishing that keeps me in saṃsāra. You know, it’s led me to, you know, so, you know, one’s trying to get rid of what all one’s self-cherishing in general, but to make it realistic, one can think of also specific aspects of it in this life, Which reminds me to tell you that Lama Zopa Rinpoche once said, Lama Zopa Rinpoche is my teacher, greatest being on the planet, a genuine bodhisattva, is Rinpoche once said, The best meditation you can do or one of the best meditations you can do is to keep a diary of all your self-cherishing activities and then meditate on those.
Diary of all the suffering results of following self-cherishing. You possibly could, yeah. That’s why one has to do it with the right understanding and motivation, I think. Because as I was trying to say, I’m not saying I can do it properly at all, but someone who can do it really well, as I said, by taking on the suffering that is very very heavy, right, from one point of view. But you have to always combine it quickly with giving them happiness and seeing what makes them happy.
And then that should energize one and think, oh, therefore I can now take a bit more suffering from them. This is making all sentient beings happy and it’s destroying my self-cherishing which is a good thing. So it’s not a depressing thing if we do it properly with the right understanding. This practice can be done for others specifically if a person has you know, we know someone who has a problem, a sickness, some difficulty, one can imagine taking on or the person themselves can do it with their problems but also other people can do it And there are many stories of this working either to reduce the problem or sickness of a person or actually even eliminate it completely. I lived and taught or pretended to teach for three years in Taiwan and I’ve told this particular story that illustrates Tonglen prac— oh, no.
That was different. Sorry. Forget it. Totally forget that. Drop that.
No. Something else, something different, some other dharma thing, mix them up. But it is possible to either reduce a problem or sickness doing Tonglen, one’s own problems and sicknesses or even those of others by doing Tonglen. Even it’s possible to eliminate the problem or sickness because all problems and difficulties of ourselves and others are the result of negative karma. They are which is also the result of following the self-cherishing thought.
So by doing Tonglen, even trying to do Tonglen, are generating a mindset which is the very opposite to the mind that led to the suffering. So by doing Tonglen as sincerely and as strongly as possible with the bodhicitta motivation as much as possible it can really purify the mind and therefore whatever is going on, the negative thing going on can reduce or even come to an end. Of course not always one shouldn’t think Tonglen will be the magic solution to all my problems and they’ll all go away and all my sicknesses will go away but it can really help. But even if the problem doesn’t go away or reduce, doing Tonglen is worthwhile in relation to them because it does something much more than making problems go away and diseases go away. It makes the problem or situation meaningful and bearable.
And that’s the most important thing so that we don’t generate negative minds to our problems because our negative minds will lead us to do negative things. So the the the the main way to make our problems bearable because when they’re unbearable, then we get angry and, you know, we will react. We, you know, we get depressed. All, you know, all sorts of negative responses. Sorry?
Grumpy. Grumpy. Yes. Irritable. All sorts of stuff.
Yeah. Which also is painful for us and, you know, not not very enjoyable for other people. So the most important thing really is to be able to to make things unpleasant things bearable. What makes them bearable is to make them meaningful. If something is meaningful it can be bearable.
If we have an operation it can be painful afterwards, hopefully not during because we’ve got an anaesthetic but that pain is bearable because we understand why it’s there. It’s due to an operation which has helped us. But if we just have a pain, if we had an equal pain that wasn’t due to an operation but a pain when we slit ourselves, we cut ourselves or someone else cut us, that pain is much more unbearable because there wasn’t much meaning in getting chopped, slicing ourselves or someone else just cutting us out of anger or something. Am I making sense? Yes, sorry, my English examples.
Did that make sense? Love it. For example, if I accidentally smash this and I cut myself, then there’s some pain. So that pain, you know, I can get really annoyed with that pain and whatever because there’s no meaning to it. But if I have the same pain but it’s the result of I’ve had an operation that’s just got rid of some terrible problem, then that pain I can bear because I know there’s a reason for that pain.
It’s the result of something beneficial. This wasn’t beneficial. Something like that. It’s not a very good example but yeah. Meaningful pain is bearable, meaningless pain isn’t.
More generally, before I met the Dharma I had suffering. That suffering was really meaningless and it really got to me at some point. I didn’t have much suffering compared to many people but, you know, life seemed really meaningless and became more and more unbearable. Fortunately, I met the Dharma and I still have suffering. I still have a crazy mind.
Know people get, you know, want want you me to say I’m so highly enlightened because I’ve been a Buddha for a Buddha. A Buddha what am I? A monk for thirty seven years but the mind is still berserk. But I do have some Dharma understanding and belief so that makes my suffering bearable because I understand it. It has some I know why it’s there.
So that it’s more bearable. It’s still painful but it’s bearable sometimes. But meaningless suffering is really unbearable. This is one of the worst things in the entire universe, meaningless suffering. And this is what so many people in our society experience, that life is meaningless.
And, you know, you have young people killing themselves because there’s no meaning in life, and they have a comfortable life. A lot of suicides apparently occur in summer when it’s nice and sunny and shiny and people are having lots of fun. That’s when life becomes most meaningless for some people. Yeah. So that really is I feel I think this is the greatest gift of the Dharma is that even if one can’t practice very well, understand it very well, etcetera, etcetera, Hopefully at the very least as someone who believes in the Buddha’s teachings, has some belief in them, it gives life a meaning, it makes sense of suffering.
And that is a huge protection in this in this world. Know? Which in yeah. Anyway so Tonglen can do that. You can use it in any situation, and makes suffering meaningful and therefore bearable.
And it can, yeah, it can make it incredibly meaningful because it’s a way to overcome the self-cherishing thought, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Oh, when did we finish? Quarter past. Sorry. Final point.
So these are the four main features of Śāntideva’s method. So the idea is that the more one trains in Tonglen and the thought of exchanging self with others so for example you can do Tonglen and at the end of doing it you imagine you’ve taken all the suffering and all the causes of suffering of all mother sentient beings onto oneself and they don’t have any suffering and you give them all your happiness and that makes them enlightened. And then you think, well, actually that was just done at the level of imagination. I haven’t taken even a tiny bit of suffering from one person, let alone all the suffering from all sentient beings. But how wonderful it would be.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could really take the suffering of all sentient beings away from them, and not only that, give them perfect, ever peerless, everlasting happiness? So the more one does Tonglen, that leads to the effect of thinking, therefore, the only way that can happen, the only way is I must become a Buddha. Therefore, I will become a Buddha. And that’s the thought of bodhicitta. Seeing that just doing Tonglen is very nice but it doesn’t actually take the suffering of others.
It’s very helpful in the spiritual path etc etc etc. But the more one, you know, gets into it and, you know, feels that this is possible, then but then you realize that actually to actually do it, the only way is to become a Buddha. And of course in reality even a Buddha can’t actually take the suffering of others but in in one sense a Buddha can because a Buddha can show us out what suffering is, what its causes are. Buddha can guide us away from creating those causes and guide us in so many different ways, especially by appearing as the perfect qualified Guru. Can guide us into the path to enlightenment.
So in a sense it’s like taking our suffering and giving us happiness. Okay, so that’s how one generates bodhicitta. By getting one’s mind deeper and deeper into these four causes of really seeing the equality of self in others, seeing all the faults of one’s self-cherishing, the great benefits of cherishing others more than self, therefore wanting to really exchange oneself with others, feel that their suffering is my suffering and therefore I have to get rid of their suffering because it’s my suffering. The only way I can do that is to become a Buddha. So I’ve got to become a Buddha which means I’ve actually got not just imagine destroying myself cherishing, I have to totally actually eliminate it, which depends on getting rid of ignorance, which means developing wisdom etc etc.
So I’ll do all that. So that’s the way to generate bodhicitta. And it doesn’t come from just thinking about this or hearing a talk, one talk on this or seven well I’ve given seven talks so far. Now you know everything about bodhicitta, not like that. We have to hear these same ideas hundreds, thousands of times from different teachers who can present it in different ways.
But we then have to really meditate on it to make it go deeper and deeper into our mind and act on it, of course. Act on all of this. Okay. Yes. You well, but one just has to imagine, but but it’s that imagination is based on truth that you’ve if you’ve got rid of your self-cherishing, you’ve broken it or you’ve cracked it.
At least you’ve cracked it. There’s a crack in your self-cherishing so out of that crack your pure mind starts emerging, right? Manifesting because you do have a pure mind. You have Buddha nature like everyone else. So that you give to others.
All its aspects you breathe out to others. So you can do that because you do have that. You have Buddha nature. But also, at a more ordinary level, you have met the Dharma, already. You do know some Dharma.
You have practiced some Dharma. So you do have merit. So you can give them that. Well, you have merits, but also you have some Dharma understanding. Many people in this world don’t have any.
They don’t have any dharma understanding. You do, and you shouldn’t denigrate that. Sorry. What? No.
I thought you said you had the problem of giving something. No. I know I’m lost. I don’t know what you’re talking sorry. I don’t know what you’re saying.
What you can give them like give money. No. No. No. It’s not about giving stuff.
It’s about giving your mental qualities, your happiness, not stuff. One can also imagine giving one’s own personal stuff if you’ve got stuff but the main thing is imagining giving one’s good qualities and happiness and insights and merits. We have run out of time to have a meditation and discussion. So since we’ve had a few discussions, we will do a little meditation to conclude. We can do some Tonglen.
Before we do that, are there any other questions? Please, questions. I can’t help myself having to say this but please I hope you don’t take this as insulting your intelligence but in going through for example Śāntideva’s method there are the four stages and those causes lead to the effect of generating bodhicitta which is the thought I must become a Buddha to achieve all these things for sentient beings. So just in an ordinary meditation sitting down and going through those four stages and then at the end thinking, therefore I must become a Buddha for the benefit of all sentient beings, that doesn’t mean you’ve actually generated bodhicitta. Right?
Actual bodhicitta comes when one has meditated for a very long time on those four causes so that one’s mind changes an enormous amount and one has this hugely, incredibly deep thought commitment, I am going to achieve enlightenment. Which means, because it’s very easy to say, I am going to achieve enlightenment. What does that mean? It means I’m going to actually give up all my self-cherishing. I’m never going to follow it.
I’m going to give it up completely, and I’m going to cherish others more than self. Yeah. Even saying that is much more difficult than saying, I’m going to achieve enlightenment. It has so much more power and is much more scary to say, I’m going to give up my self-cherishing, then I’m going to get enlightened. That sounds cute and easy, but I’m going to give up my self-cherishing.
That’s very, you know, in your face. Especially when we know what our self-cherishing is and how much we’ve got of it. Because some people don’t think they’ve got any. I’m not really attached to anything. Along those lines from some things people have said in their homework I think some people have maybe got a misunderstanding of self-cherishing which I think is really important Just simply because you do something for yourself is not self-cherishing.
self-cherishing is a very negative state of mind motivated by negative thoughts. Like, someone said, If I put a band aid on my cut, is this self-cherishing? Of course it’s not self-cherishing. If you do something that is actually for your actual benefit and that doesn’t harm others, this isn’t self-cherishing. self-cherishing is motivated by afflicted desire and attachment and leads to suffering.
Practicing Dharma is benefiting yourself but it’s not self-cherishing. It’s the very opposite. Well some Dharma practice is subtle self-cherishing but here we’re talking about the gross self-cherishing which is the main one we have to face first. We’re not in the position to suddenly fall into nirvana tomorrow. Taking care of yourself in the proper way isn’t self-cherishing.
Right? I mean it’s really important because one can use some with the wrong understanding people can use the dharma to beat themselves up about all sorts of things and also criticize other people. Oh, they’re so self-cherishing. You know? Anyway, what one yeah.
One really has to make there’s a yeah. There’s there’s a real difference between self-cherishing and and doing things that are are benefiting oneself. Just when I’m trying to explain it, I can’t think of any examples now. My mind’s gone blank, but Yes. Sometimes.
Yes. Again, it partly depends to some extent, on the motivation and how if that’s all you do in life and that’s your main wish is so you can just lie in bed or in a warm bath then maybe this is self-cherishing because one could be doing much more. But sometimes one has to do these things like as I said, in practicing perseverance, enthusiasm, is about practicing the Dharma, one also has to relax because otherwise we freak out. Because although the aim is to practice the Dharma all the time, we have self-cherishing and the aim is to get rid of our self-cherishing, but you just can’t get rid of it all at once. One has to do it, undermine it a little bit at a time, step by step.
And this is what, know, we call, what do we call, what do call it? Having a nervous breakdown or being super stressed is all about is be because the self-cherishing thought is can’t cope. There’s too much happening. And that can happen because of outside forces coming and one can’t cope with them or a dharma practitioner can be trying to force, you know, be doing too much stuff and it’s too much. You know, we’re not at that level so the self-cherishing freaks out or the mind controlled by self-cherishing can’t cope so we get incredibly stressed.
That’s not good. That’s why sometimes taking it easy is actually important. It’s taking care of oneself so that one can keep going. Just pushing, pushing, pushing is very dangerous. And some people try that and you can go crazy or you can get very sick as a result or you can just become an extremely nasty person, unpleasant person to be with because one’s, you know, stressed and irritable and easily annoyed.
Don’t bother me, I’m being I’m working for all sentient beings. But we can get into that state. So it’s really important to be able to distinguish what is self-cherishing from just taking care of oneself. And also even oh sorry if I’m going on. I am going on.
But you know we have to accept that we’ve got self-cherishing and you know we should try and get rid of the, you know, and not follow the really gross horrible aspects of it but we have to accept, oh, this is self-cherishing but it’s kind of it’s okay up to a point. Right? Because we can’t get rid of it all. Am I making some sense? Yeah.
It’s not possible to be suddenly perfect and do everything perfectly and selflessly, but we try a little bit to improve, to reduce the self-cherishing element of stuff. Okay, I didn’t give much time but anyway we can do a look. Ideally of course there’s all the preparations we should do. Should sit and check our body and breathe and motivate and everything but we haven’t got time for that. We can sit comfortably in the correct posture as much as possible.
Try and have the bodhicitta motivation and just briefly reflect that what has caused so much harm to myself, kept me a limited suffering being in saṃsāra, is my own self-cherishing thought. So how wonderful it would be if I could become free of it. How wonderful if I can awaken within me that potential to be able to cherish others more than self. So then think that if I don’t do anything about myself cherishing now, I will be under the control of it again and again throughout this life. Having to experience so much suffering and when that suffering comes, the very self-cherishing that created the causes of that suffering will then find that suffering result unbearable and therefore engage in more negative actions.
So imagine that future me, future self, sometime in the future. We don’t have to worry about what we will actually look like or anything, but just have a sense of oneself there. The self that hasn’t been practicing the Dharma but has been controlled by the self-cherishing thought. Think of that suffering person, your future self. Try and feel all that suffering that one will have to undergo due to self-cherishing.
Try and feel it to the extent that it’s really unbearable. And then imagine taking all that future suffering away from that future me. You breathe it in in the form of black smoke right now, imagining and suffocating one’s present self-cherishing thought. Shattering it, freeing the true nature of one’s mind. So then imagine that from that really positive, clean, clear state, that joyous mind, you imagine breathing out all your happiness, wisdom, understanding, merits.
In the form of white light, you breathe that out into that future me, seeing that future me becoming more and more at peace, contented, happy. Spend some time just doing that, alternating, taking suffering and its causes, giving happiness. So then we can bring this meditation to a conclusion by making a strong determination to be more and more mindful in our daily life of the harm of the self-cherishing thought and therefore to try and avoid it, not follow it as much as possible, to be more and more mindful of the vast benefits of cherishing others more than self so that we can practice it more and more. So then we can dedicate the merit of this practice of tonight’s session to being able to definitely equalize and exchange ourselves with others so that we can be able to generate bodhicitta and eventually achieve enlightenment for the sake of all kind suffering mother sentient beings. And particularly tonight, can dedicate our merits for Kathy Davis’ mom who passed away a couple of days ago.
Her name is Margaret Davis, that may she be able to achieve the very best rebirth possible, especially a rebirth in a pure land or to achieve a precious human rebirth where she can meet the Dharma, practice it, and quickly achieve enlightenment. So who’d like to join in the dedication prayer? 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.
Okay, thank you. Just very quickly with the homework which I hope