Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 105-minute session, Ven Thubten Dondrub continues his exploration of the four immeasurable thoughts by deepening the teaching on compassion—the third of the four states. Rather than treating compassion as a sentimental response to visible suffering, he guides practitioners toward a much larger vision: recognizing that every sentient being, whether appearing happy or miserable, is suffering under the control of delusion and karma. Drawing on the Lam Rim framework, he walks through the eight kinds of human suffering (birth, sickness, aging, death, meeting what we don’t want, separation from what we do want, not obtaining what we want, and the suffering of the five aggregates themselves), then expands into six universal sufferings including uncertainty, dissatisfaction, and loneliness. He emphasizes that meditating on these truths—not just thinking about them—gradually opens the heart to all beings, even enemies and the wealthy, and kindles the determination to become enlightened oneself in order to actually free others from the causes of their suffering. This is pitched at serious Buddhist practitioners already familiar with Lam Rim teachings and the path to enlightenment.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2014 09 11 Four Immeasurable Thoughts Week 5 11-09-2014.mp3
UUID: 4ee30059-dd6b-4bed-912c-496e22c50a18
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Four Immeasurable Thoughts (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2014-09-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 104.9 minutes
Words: ~9,775
So welcome everyone to our fifth class on the four thoughts. So to make this time as beneficial as possible it depends on our motivation and preparing our minds. We do some of the traditional prayers a bit more elaborately or we do more of them than normal on our Thursday night. So we start with the lion-faced Dakini prayer. Must bring a picture of the lion-faced Dakini one night or we can project it when our new improved IT system is up and running.
So I think I have explained before but as one recites the mantra of the lion faced dakini, normally when you recite mantras you pull the mantras towards you. But with the lion faced dakini mantra if you use a mala to count the mantras because you are supposed to say twenty one, then you push them away that way because you are imagining that you are dispelling the hindrances because you try and imagine infinite numbers of the lion-faced Dakini, millions of them going out scaring away all the interferers. Comfy. I prostrate to the gathering of dakinis and the three places who abide in the holy yoga of using space by your powers of clairvoyance and magical emanation. Look after practitioners like a mother, her child.
By the teachings of the three supreme jewels possessing the power of truth, may inner and outer hindrances be transformed. May they be dispelled. May they be pacified. May they be completely pacified. May all negative forces opposed to dharma be completely pacified, may the host of eighty thousand obstacles be pacified, may we be separated from problems and harmful conditions to dharma, may all enjoyments be in accord with the Dharma, and may there be auspiciousness and perfect happiness here right now.
So then we offer the mandala of the universe as this is a traditional ritual way of requesting the teachings and by making that offering sincerely then wishing to offer everything in order to be able to hear the teachings then this helps to free our mind, reduce our delusions, afflictions which are obstacles to being able to understand and practice but also by making these offerings as genuinely as possible then it accumulates great merit and that merit acts as a basis for us to be able to understand and put into practice the teachings and be able to actually eventually gain the realization. Visualizing Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as our source of refuge, inspiration and guidance, thinking of the Buddha as the embodiment of the Three Jewels of refuge, the very embodiment of all our precious teachers, perfect teachers of the past, present, and future. Then at the same time, we also try and think of all sentient beings surrounding us, particularly trying to have that sense of how immensely kind they are to us, how I’m deeply connected to all of them, totally dependent on every sentient being directly or indirectly, life after life. I am especially indebted to their kindness that they have given to me as a mother and father many times in beginningless Samsāra.
And so also having trying to bring very strongly to the forefront of one’s awareness that all these beings who are so immensely kind, no different to the kindness of the mother and father of this life, are suffering in Samsāra helplessly. Most of them experiencing the incredible sufferings of the lower realms. Even those in the god realms right now, those experiences, wonderful as they may be, are not going to last. All of these beings are going to fall into obvious suffering again sooner or later, helplessly. And all these beings trying to be happy, trying to be free of suffering in their confusion, in their ignorance and self-cherishing are over and over again in reality just creating the causes of more suffering perpetuating their own cyclic existence.
So trying to feel this, think about this deeply, strongly, we can generate the thought that no matter what, now that I have the precious human rebirth, I have to use it and all future lives to free my mind of all all obscurations, cultivate all my positive potentials completely so that I can achieve the enlightened state which enables me to perfectly repay the kindness of all these beings, helping them by helping them to become free of all causes of suffering, helping them to follow the path that leads to peerless everlasting happiness. So to achieve enlightenment that depends on following the path which depends on understanding the path. That depends on studying the teachings explain the nature of the path. And as an integral part of the path to enlightenment is cultivating the four immeasurable thoughts of equanimity, love, compassion, and sympathetic joy. So for this reason, I will study this subject, this practice.
I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through teaching 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 to benefit sentient beings and imagine that the Buddha shows this by coming towards the crown of our head, and then when directly above our crown, dissolving into blissful golden light so that that light can then pour down into us, blessing our mind. So then briefly doing the nine round breathing exercise as a way to enhance that positive state of mind, allowing our mind to become just that much more calmer, clearer, more concentrated so that we can use that level of mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. Last week we got up to the third of the four immeasurable thoughts, the thought of compassion.
So I want to continue a bit with that subject tonight. But just before that I would just like to very briefly sort of revise what I have said so far about the others. So each of the four immeasurable thoughts, the way it is set out in this prayer starts off with saying how wonderful it would be. So we think how wonderful it would be if beings could experience equanimity, love, compassion, and joy. So to wish others to abide in these states of equanimity, love, compassion and so on.
To want others to abide in them, of course, firstly, ideally, we have to have that experience of our self of how wonderful it is to experience equanimity, love, compassion and joy. So the more we actually have experience of those things and see how wonderful they are, the more we would want to extend this to others. So even if we don’t have these actual experiences fully developed yet or even anywhere near fully developed, at least we need to have some experience of them or at least, at the very least, some genuine wish to be able to experience equanimity, love, compassion and joy. So if we don’t have those, it all becomes very empty words. We have to make the reason prayers exist and the reason to recite prayers which come from the minds of great beings is that by just merely by reciting the words with some sincerity, it is creating some kind of pathway in our mind, directing our mind towards that goal of experiencing equanimity, love, compassion and joy.
Because if we recite just the words how wonderful it would be if sentient beings could abide in equanimity, if we recite that with some kind of focused mind, with some degree of concentration, thinking about what that means, it is making a positive imprint and it should also help us to want to experience that state ourselves and to think about how to experience that state. So to have that wish to develop these states firstly for ourselves and then later for others, that in turn arises from knowing how beneficial experiencing equanimity, love, compassion and joy are. And also by knowing what the causes are. So what are benefits of equanimity? Mhmm.
Mhmm. Possibly. Yeah. Yes, yes. So it does open up one’s heart basically, doesn’t it?
To all those good things of not being angry, being patient, not jealous, and being able to be more loving and compassionate. Right. Having some equanimity means we don’t activate our disturbing emotions so much. Sorry, what? Yes.
Sure. Well maybe we need to understand people a bit better in order to have equanimity. But I suppose if one has equanimity then also one’s understanding, one has the space to then also, because one is more open to people then one would start to understand them better. So many benefits. Right.
So then the benefit of love. Having love. Anyone? Yeah, yeah, what are the benefits? Yes, of being a loving ear, being able to love others.
What are the benefits? Right, good answer. That is what the Buddha says, it makes us happy. And what is the cause of it? Yes, that’s the base.
But what is the actual cause to develop love? I spent a whole class sorry? Well, if you compassion that will cause you to will act as a basis to be more loving. Yes? Sorry?
Yes, that’s what love is. But what causes you to desire others? Yeah, yeah, no, that’s what it is, but what causes you, what makes you want them to have all these good things? Well, yes, we talked about that. Firstly, we need to want this ourselves and the more we want it for ourselves the more we will want others to experience it.
Well that is compassion isn’t it? That is really what is compassion. I mean if you have love you will have compassion. I think I need to repeat all of these. No, What causes you?
See, it was a very simple thing. It’s very interesting. We all talk about how wonderful love is. Love is all you need. Yes, but what is the cause?
What causes one to develop love for oneself? But that’s compassion. Technically that is compassion. Yeah, that helps. Sorry?
Oh, maybe yeah. I obviously didn’t emphasise it enough when I talked about it but I did make this point, try to make it over and over again. I thought it’s a very simple thing in one way. Do you remember I said there’s no point wanting Gina Reinhart to have ten dollars Does that help? Yes.
Well, maybe if you’d listened to it in the first play. Okay. Is love is genuine self-love rather than self-cherishing is wanting oneself to have genuine happiness. Happiness. What causes that to arise, that wish, is realizing that I do not have real happiness.
I am not really happy. And then see with other people that they don’t. They may be nice looking and healthy and popular and rich or have all the nice things. They might have a nice husband, wife, children, blah blah blah blah blah. Nice clothes, nice house, nice car, nice job, nice friends, nice plants, nice trees, nice dogs, nice bowl of goldfish, everything, but none of this is real happiness.
In one way, looks very simple but it’s really, when you think about it, it’s quite profound and you realize because this is what we don’t get because we’re still being, generally speaking, worldly people. We associate all the things I mentioned with being happy. But if we really get for ourselves that worldly success, etcetera, etcetera, is not happiness, then you develop this wish for oneself. Remember Lama Yeshe and the magician? What we really want is perfect lasting happiness and we don’t have it.
Sentient beings don’t have it. When we realize that, one develops this thought wanting them to have it. So firstly, one thinks, you know, how wonderful it would be. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone could have this? And then you develop the wish for them to actually have it because one sees they don’t.
So this is the same with compassion. Compassion is not wanting self and others to suffer. So to develop that, to develop compassion, it depends on realizing more and more deeply that oneself and others, starting with friends, strangers, enemies, all sentient beings are actually suffering. So in order to develop compassion one has to know what suffering is. Because when we look at another person in general we can’t really tell what’s going on in another person’s mind at all.
We can just see this physical body and, you can’t tell that much from it. Some people look unhappy but they are happy. Other people look happy and they are miserable. A person can say, I’m in a lot of pain’ but we can’t feel that pain. Right?
It’s just you look and you can’t know it. Yes, sure. That is a very good point that the more we have experienced certain kinds of suffering, the more we can identify with the suffering of others. That’s why they say one of the benefits of experiencing suffering oneself is that it helps one to be compassionate. So in the Lojong teachings this is one of the benefits one can focus on when one is having a problem or suffering to think, oh, now I know what it’s like for other people, all the millions of people in the past, present, future who have this problem or suffering.
Right. Yes, I think so. Yes, yes. Yeah, well, everyone suffered but some people, it’s true, in any one life don’t have much and certainly aren’t aware of it. Yeah, but not be very conscious of it.
But some people do because of good karma, in particular their life is quite okay. So you’re trying to contradict now. Yeah. But this is Yeah. Yeah.
Yes. Yes. Of course. Yeah. There are people who come into this world who are very loving and compassionate and that because of past imprints.
And there are people who come into this world as human beings who have very little ability to feel love and compassion because of past imprints. And the mind is being very obscured. There are all sorts of psychological states also partly due to actual situations in the brain where people are not able to recognize in any way suffering in other people or how the things that they do cause suffering. They just simply are not able to recognize that. Anyway So for us as ordinary people, when we see someone, especially people we are close to, but even a stranger who is experiencing obvious suffering, showing all the signs of suffering, we can respond with some compassion to that.
And I think we tend to think that that is what real compassion is, is when one can really personally connect with another person who is suffering and somehow try to reduce that suffering that they are experiencing or if not reduce it, what’s the word, just be with them so that they feel some support. Of course, this is a fantastic thing to do. But in developing our potential for compassion, we have to go beyond that because I don’t know how to explain this probably. What we are trying to cultivate when we are talking about compassion is not this ability to individually go around relating compassionately to particular individuals. Of course we need to do that.
What we need to do is develop this very strong compassion not wanting others to suffer, even though we don’t have any personal connection or contact with those people. Because any one individual, have contact with very few people. Of course, we should be compassionate with those people. But what the Buddhadharma is saying is that we have the ability to experience compassion for infinite numbers of beings. And that compassion starts off firstly by thinking how wonderful it would be if sentient beings were free of suffering.
Then more one feels comes to the realization of how wonderful that would be, then one develops the wish, thought, wanting sentient beings to be free of suffering. And the more one cultivates that thought, more strongly, not just to people around you, not just to people who you know who are suffering, not just the people one can identify that this person is suffering because of this, or wouldn’t it be wonderful if they didn’t? But cultivating this awareness that actually everyone is suffering. And how wonderful would, you know, not wanting them to suffer. And the reason to do that is to develop this thought eventually, which is great compassion, that I am going to help stop that suffering.
And that doesn’t involve direct at first, directly engaging with people, but it’s about coming to the conclusion that in order to really stop the suffering of others, not just ameliorate the conditions of suffering which is physical and mental pain and whatever, just come, but really wanting to I’m going to stop their suffering by helping them stop the causes. And in order to do that, that means I have to it’s not a go around being nice to other people as such, it does involve that, but it’s about making this huge decision that I’m going to make some drastic rearrangement of my mind. To help others stop creating the causes of suffering, I have to become an exceptional being, which means I have to purify my mind. And I have to awaken all these potentials of my mind. The potential for great wisdom and patience and perseverance and to be single pointedly focused and to be very courageous and very optimistic, etcetera, etcetera, So that I can help beings know the causes of suffering, help them avoid those causes.
So that’s the big project. Of course, helping individuals in any way we can to modify their suffering is a wonderful thing, but there’s a much bigger project behind that. No, that is why we have to become much more skillful. That is why we have to become a Buddha or at least a Bodhisattva at first or at least someone like His Holiness the Dalai Lama or Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and that takes quite a few lifetimes to get to like them. Yes.
Yeah. It would be. I think what I’m trying to say is that there is one form of compassion where you go out among obviously suffering people and try to help them. So this is wonderful and we should do this as much as possible. But in the long term, the main project from a Dharma point of view is in order to develop this really powerful compassion which is going to motivate us to become an exceptional being that can really change the lives of other people.
It’s about meditating on compassion. Meditating on it. That can be as beneficial and perhaps from a really long term is much more effective than sort of going out physically doing stuff for people. Right? But if we can do both at the same time, that’s great.
So anyway, in developing compassion, one develops compassion by being with people and dealing with their suffering for sure. That’s one way. But also there is that other method which is even though we are not necessarily directly dealing with obviously suffering people, is opening our hearts by meditating on the fact, trying to see the truth that everyone is in fact suffering. Everyone is suffering in some way or another. Everyone is and therefore everyone is an object of compassion.
That’s the point. That’s what we really need to work on. So that’s why we need to think about all the different ways that sentient beings suffer. So last week I was emphasising particularly that when we think about compassion we usually relate it to obvious suffering. But if we just think of compassion in relation to people who are obviously suffering, that is something very very limited.
Because even people who are, from an ordinary point of view, experiencing happiness are suffering. Because what we think of as happiness is just the suffering of change. So as I said last week, I think this is one of the most important topics in the Buddhadharma to really reflect on and meditate to get that the happiness that we are so attached to ourselves that we spend so much of our precious human rebirth chasing after and wasting our time on isn’t the happiness that we really want. It isn’t this perfect lasting happiness. It’s just the illusion of it.
It’s just the suffering of change. And then the more we see that, we can see it’s true for others, that even their happiness is a subtle kind of suffering. So even everyone who’s incredibly successful and so on is an object of compassion, needs my help. Anyway, what also we need to be aware of more and more, we may all intellectually know this, but the purpose of meditating on these things over and over again is to help ourselves cut through these appearances that we tend to focus on. Even behind appearances of happiness, there can be a lot of very obvious suffering that people are undergoing.
So in talking about the immeasurable thought of compassion, we have to think about suffering. As I mentioned before, in one of the Kopan courses I taught, it was towards the end of the course where I was teaching on the topic of bodhicitta, which as most of you people know, in the Lam Rim comes towards the end. There was this very famous, very rich lady who showed showed up to just the last part of the course. And, during one of the lunch breaks, she she stood outside my window walking around in circles screaming at the top of her voice because I had just been talking about suffering. I am sick to death of hearing about suffering.
So I don’t know why she came to listen to subject of bodhicitta if she didn’t want to hear about suffering. But it’s true that many people, you know, like to think about love and compassion in this very fluffy way. But it’s, you know, the love comes from realizing it’s kind of a sad realization, that the people I care for, even the people I care for, aren’t really happy. And the way to develop compassion is is firstly to know that people are suffering, and then by knowing that, opening one’s heart to be able to feel that. To be able to feel that, to share the fact that this person may who may be putting up this very big front, consciously or unconsciously, is actually suffering.
As you probably know, the more ways we can reflect on suffering, the more it helps us develop compassion. The teachings in the Lam Rim, it talks about the eight kinds of sufferings which all human beings are subject to, rich or poor, famous, not famous, insignificant, very significant, intelligent, not intelligent, healthy, unhealthy. So the eight sufferings are: Firstly, every human being has to experience the suffering of being born. Think some people like to argue that being born is a fun event. But I don’t think so.
For some people, maybe it is very nice and even for some women when they give birth they say it was a wonderful, wonderful maybe they say afterwards, but some people say even during it it was just ecstatic. But it doesn’t look like it from what I’ve seen of it. It was pretty gruesome and gruesome. But anyway, generally there is the suffering of being born. Then every human being is subject to getting sick.
This also applies to many other kinds of sentient beings. It is also true for animals, but let’s focus on human beings for the start. Every human being is subject to getting sick. No matter how rich you are, no matter how intelligent, no matter how virtuous one is, no matter how virtuous one leads one’s life, one still is subject to getting sick because we can’t purify all our negative karma, we can purify a lot. There are always these little ones that escape.
We can purify this negative karma but this one escapes and ripens and then sickness comes. All of us are subject to sickness. We’re not immune to it. And no matter how wonderful medicine is, it creates medicines that cure this or that, but suddenly those medicines don’t work anymore and diseases that come back. Then gruesome things like Ebola come along.
And now there’s even one person in Australia who may have it. Yes, he is in hospital in Queensland at the moment. They think he probably doesn’t but might because he has just come back from where it is. Yes, and that untested medicine that seems to actually work. Yes.
Compassionate people. Yes, everyone is subject to sickness. Whoever we look at, even if they are very rich, successful, this, that and the other, one can feel compassion for them by remembering this person is subject to getting sick. This person is also subject to the suffering of growing old and all the suffering that goes with that. No one is immune to that.
If we don’t die young, we get old. If we don’t die when we’re old, we get older and older. And the older we get, then there is all the sufferings of losing our family. We outlive our family and friends. Our body becomes weaker.
We become more dependent on strangers. So many things, so many sufferings become very lonely, helpless. Whatever little good looks we may have started off with, we lose. Old age, impermanence eats away our good looks, our health, our strength, our senses, can’t see things properly, hear things, things don’t even taste very nice anymore, we can’t eat stuff as well. All of that will happen if we live long enough.
So even if someone isn’t experiencing that now, one can think this person isn’t immune from that suffering, that future suffering in this life, so they deserve my compassion. No matter who they are, rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy the healthiest person is still subject to becoming sick sooner or later. And of course, someone who has experienced a lot of good health possibly finds dealing with sickness even harder than someone who has a lot of sickness. And then of course everyone has to die. Is going to die.
So that itself, by remembering, having awareness of that, that everyone we see is going to die and have to can have to experience death dying. Because I think some people like to think death isn’t something you experience. It’s it’s where experience stops. But death is something we experience. So everyone has to experience it.
And there can be pleasant deaths, but there can be very unpleasant deaths and everything in between. But everyone is going to experience it. The most powerful people in the world who have caused death to so many others are going to experience it. And also, so that by thinking about that, that is way to develop compassion for others. Especially if one thinks that so many people live in denial of death and with a great deal of fear of it.
Think one of the great benefit I mean there are infinite numbers of benefits of meeting the Buddhadharma and developing faith in it. One of them is coming to understand how everything is impermanent and we are impermanent, we are going to die. So that teaching is incredibly helpful to understand that impermanence is something completely natural, that to die is something completely natural. Because although everyone knows intellectually that people die, When it happens, everyone is shocked and everyone not everyone, but in so many cases, somehow what goes with that being shocked is some thought that it shouldn’t have happened. No matter how old the person is, how sick they are, when they come to die, it’s like, oh, they shouldn’t have.
It’s not right. But if one understands impermanence, then one can accept that. Is very relaxing talk this, isn’t it? But many people don’t have, and I’m not claiming I have that, maybe a teeny bit, teeny, teeny bit. But for many people, they just never think about death.
And the fact that it is just the natural result of impermanence. And so death is something very fearful and something not to think about and something to live in denial of. And that itself is suffering, an incredible suffering, really. So having some awareness that that is the case for many people. Many, many people.
There is a fear of death, a denial of death, not wanting to think about it in any way. I know actually my sister-in-law told me after my brother died, who died very suddenly, that she often tried to talk to him about arrangements they should make if one of them should die. And my brother apparently was always incredibly upset and absolutely refused to talk. He would walk out the room, just didn’t want to think about it, which is really sad. Just couldn’t bear the thought of it to even contemplate.
So that is very suffering, difficult. So many people have that experience to some degree. So that’s a reason to feel compassion for others. Just the fact that they are going to die, especially for people who have, you know, have like, our culture now is such a culture of being young and looking incredibly young. Having to look, you know, the the being young is the meaning of life.
And if you can’t be young, you have to look as young as possible, and dress as young as possible. There are some very gruesome examples of thAt this stage, I think. Some really gruesome examples. I don’t mean here. Really, really gruesome examples.
Yeah. That that and and like like so many people don’t want to admit their age. So somehow being over a certain age is like shameful. Something to be embarrassed about, that this like, being fifty or sixty or seventy is like you can’t tell anyone that. It’s obscene.
You know? Which is really I mean, what’s wrong with being seventy or sixty or fifty or ninety? So there are those four sufferings that human being is subject to. Then there is the suffering that all human beings are subject to because of our karma, that we experience the suffering of meeting with things that we don’t want to meet with. Everyone experiences that.
No matter how rich you are, we meet with things we don’t want to meet with. There’s no no matter how much money we have, it can’t stop you know, we can stop certain things to some extent, but it can’t stop everything that we don’t want to meet with. People can build very tall walls around their houses so they don’t have to see poor people and have tinted glasses in their windows in their cars so they don’t see poor people. But sooner or later, you see them no matter how rich you are or something that you don’t want to see, you don’t want to meet with. One can try very our whole society is trying to invent things and do things so that we can avoid this and avoid that.
Not possible completely, I don’t think. We have police to avoid just, you know, to try and stop criminals. No matter how many police you have, it’s never gonna stop criminals. We have laws, but it can’t stop people doing negative harmful things. That’s saṃsāra.
So we all experience the suffering of meeting with what we don’t want with. As a human being, because of our negative karma, we’re all subject, sooner or later, to experiencing being separated from what we don’t want to be separated from. We get separated from family and friends, from possessions, from all sorts of things, from our good health, good looks, whatever. We get separated from our life, from our body eventually. So no matter how much we try, these things happen.
Some you know, we can stop some of them, but not all of the things all of the time. We’re all subject to that. So if we can think about that, this topic is taught in the context of the middle scope practitioner who’s developing to help develop renunciation of cyclic existence. But having thought about those things, this is the beauty of the Lam Rim. It then becomes the basis for developing compassion for oneself.
Realising I am subject to all of these kinds of sufferings therefore if I want to avoid it I have got to get out of saṃsāra. Meaning I have to destroy ignorance. But having reflected on these things, this is the basis for also then extending it to all others and developing compassion for all sentient beings. That it is not just me who is subject to birth, sickness, aging, and death, but everyone. It’s not just me who’s subject to being separated from what I don’t want to be separated from.
It’s not just me whose experiences meeting with what I don’t want to. Everyone, every human being. So if we train our mind to think about these things when we meet with people, especially those we don’t feel compassion for. By reminding ourselves of these things, we can develop compassion. And what’s the last one?
There’s meeting with what you don’t want to meet with, separating from what you don’t want to separate from, and also there is the suffering of not meeting what you want to meet with. Again, if we haven’t created the karmic causes by engaging in certain virtuous actions, then we just don’t get what we want. No matter how much we want it, no matter how much we try, there are people who hardly do anything and they get everything they want. And then there are other people who work so hard, try so hard to accomplish something no matter what they do. It just doesn’t work.
So if we haven’t created the cause, yeah, then we just don’t get the result. We’ve all had that experience probably in this life, trying to accomplish something, be something, do something, go somewhere, but just can’t do it. It just doesn’t happen. So we are upset, we suffer. So the same for everyone.
What was Mick Jagger said? You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. But sometimes you don’t even get what you need. Any questions, comments? Hopefully, we can now get a cup of tea or coffee.
I’ll have a coffee. Thanks. Here he comes. Oh, no. It’s the dance music.
Oh, but I mean, it was him. Alright. Okay. I have mentioned seven of the eight kinds of sufferings. The last one is said to be the suffering of the five aggregates.
In other words, just having this body and mind controlled by delusion and karma that unfortunately itself is suffering. So this is again something we can remember that every being, every human being, every sentient being, every animal sentient being, every preta sentient being, every hell sentient being, every god sentient being. We all have five aggregates, a body and mind that are produced and controlled by delusion and karma and so are subject to suffering. So therefore everyone is an object of compassion. Everyone is experiencing suffering, obviously right now, or because of having a body and mind controlled by delusion and karma, everyone is subject to suffering.
Everyone has the potential for it. This is the first noble truth. cyclic existence is suffering. That’s its nature. Its nature isn’t blissful.
Its nature isn’t neutral. The nature of cyclic existence is suffering, unsatisfying. So this is something we can reflect on in order to awaken, open our hearts to all beings, to friends, strangers, even enemies. This is what we have to remember. This is what we have to meditate on, this is what we have to reflect on.
And by meditating on it then that helps us to be mindful of these things and then we can apply that mindfulness to each being that we see or think about. And by applying that to each being, one can begin to experience some compassion for them, wanting them to be free of that suffering, but especially wanting them to be free of its causes. Because that’s the much deeper level of suffering, because many ordinary beings can experience the compassion that just wants people not to experience a particular suffering. But they don’t necessarily think of the causes or wanting the person to be free of the causes. Or if they do, it’s just the very superficial causes, not the deep causes.
From a Buddhist perspective, we say, ‘May all sentient beings be free of suffering and its causes, ‘ we are not just talking about the superficial causes of why that bring about suffering in this life. Because from a dharma point of view those things that we as ordinary people think of as the causes are just the conditions. The real causes our own negative actions motivated by disturbing thoughts which depend on self-cherishing and ignorance. So that’s the causes we want sentient beings to be free of. So those are the eight sufferings that we can reflect on as a way to firstly develop compassion for ourselves which leads us to eventually be able to generate the mind renouncing cyclic existence.
But then by then applying that understanding to all beings it can help us generate compassion for all beings. That immeasurable thought of compassion that includes all sentient beings. So just briefly, don’t want to people. I have a feeling all my talks are just deeply depressing. That’s all I talk about is negative stuff.
The purpose is good, my motivation is good, the reason behind it is good. I probably shouldn’t say this but a certain person here who does the DB, she keeps writing in her homework. How about presenting things from a positive point of view for a change? It is always the negative, being motivated by negative stuff. This is the way I have been taught the Dharma and it’s the only way I can do it.
Thank you very much, Kristina. That is exactly right. And if it was good enough for the Buddha, it is good enough for me. When the Buddha first the very first teaching the Buddha gave was life is suffering, the first noble truth. Because it is very interesting, the Buddha didn’t, when he first taught those five disciples, he never said, oh I am enlightened, it’s terrific, I am having a wonderful time, I can fly in the sky, I am clairvoyant, I am omniscient, completely blissful, all this stuff.
He never said any of that. The first thing he said is, life is suffering. First noble truth. Your ordinary existence is miserable. That was the emphasis.
Because the more we get that, that leads us to understand why. What are the causes? And then we we can see the causes. We ask, can they be removed? And then one can understand they can be removed.
Yeah. But firstly, to be really motivated, we have to know how deeply we ourselves are suffering and to motivate ourselves to help others to have really deep compassion, we have to allow ourselves to know how much other beings really are suffering. And other beings don’t even know how much they are suffering or how much potential they have for suffering. This is the point. We could get a new one, a new word, a more upbeat word.
Well, the teaching is trying to tell us it’s far, far worse than what we think. Samsāra is horrendous. And we think, oh, Samsāra, Adelaide Samsāra, Adelaide is quite nice, lovely weather, sunny skies, nice beaches, Samsāra. What’s wrong with Samsāra? It’s got a few sharks.
Government could be better. We’ve now got a nice footy oval. Samsāra is not so bad. Well I do use this word a lot but also that’s very unsatisfactory. Yes, but also even a well off person in Adelaide is suffering or subject to very obvious suffering, all the ones I mentioned.
People in the third world I think have much more physical suffering than us but I don’t know if they have so much mental suffering. Mean one can also glamorize that. Doesn’t mean just, you know, because if you are incredibly poor it also produces some mental suffering too. But I think first world people have a lot more mental torment, suffering, which in many ways is worse than physical suffering. But also the point is whatever suffering a person has, their suffering is the worst for them.
You know? I mean, yes. Well, I don’t think you’re content when you’re starving. Probably. Yes, but this is the point, Jan.
There’s no point saying that to people because it sounds I am talking to people who are basically Buddhists. But also we all started out not being Buddhists and we heard these things and then you start to understand that this is true. Yeah. So this is the point. So and and this is what we have to We yeah.
This is the point. Buddhism is telling us things that we don’t know or we should know that are right in our face but we don’t really recognize. And when you hear the Dharma, then it starts to clink and think oh yes, that’s absolutely true. If we have the karma to open our minds to it, a lot of people don’t want to know this and get very offended. I’ve given talks in places where you talk about life is suffering and blah blah blah.
There will be someone in the audience who gets deeply offended by that. Gets quite upset meaning they are suffering and saying I am not suffering. How dare you say my life is suffering? And then they walk out. Practically anything sometimes gets people’s backs up.
That itself is suffering. Yes, yes, yes craving and aversion one or the other. So more suffering? So if you are not satisfied with the eight sufferings, there are the six sufferings one can have. So what are the six types of suffering?
There is the suffering of uncertainty. So these are general sufferings. The first eight were I think what are normally said to be experienced by humans although these are also experienced by beings in other realms, some of the other realms. So the six types of sufferings are ones that are experienced generally in Samsāra. So there’s the suffering of uncertainty that in Samsāra friends become enemies, enemies become strangers, strangers become enemies, and so on.
Everything changes because everything is impermanent. So everything for us is uncertain. We can never be really sure of things in cyclic existence because things change. And much of the time, because our mind grasps at permanence, we don’t allow for this change. So things get really confusing.
We believe this person is our friend. They become an enemy. So there is suffering. We have some possession which we get attached to thinking I’ll always have it, but we lose it. It it it decays.
It breaks. It gets stolen. We suffer. We get upset. Things which we expect to last for an incredibly long time, you know, Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
So there is the suffering of uncertainty. So everyone is experiencing that in some way or other. Everyone is subject to it. So that’s a reason to feel compassion for all beings, whoever they are. And then all beings and saṃsāra experience dissatisfaction.
That all of us controlled to some extent, to varying degrees, subject to afflicted desire and attachment. All have, by definition, in saṃsāra, have ignorance, therefore we have the full range of all afflictions. So we all have afflicted desire and attachment, and because of that, we have dissatisfaction. Because following desire never brings satisfaction. You get some experience and then it doesn’t last.
You desire it again. You desire it more and so on. One of the very interesting things to reflect on is a bit mind blowing, but if the Buddha’s teachings are true and mind is beginningless, Samsāra is beginningless, then there has been time for us to have had every good experience imaginable. Every pleasure that is possible in Samsāra, we have experienced it. And not just one time, but we have experienced it billions of times because saṃsāra is beginningless.
So we’ve been kings and queens and emperors and empresses billions of times. We’ve had more jewels than the Queen of England billions of times. We’ve been the most famous person in the world billions of times, the most beautiful person in the world billions of times, the richest person in the world billions of times, the most intelligent person in the world billions of times, most powerful person in the world billions of times. Whatever experience you think, you can think of, oh, I wish I could do that or have that or be this or look like that or go there and then I’d be happy. We’ve done it before billions of times.
We’ve owned the most beautiful things in the world billions of times. Billions of times. We’ve been into the highest god realms billions of times. And still, we’re not happy. Personally, we’re not happy.
And this applies to everyone else. Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but you look at someone like Gina Reinhart, is the richest woman in the world. She is the richest woman in the world, I think. No, no, she’s the fourth richest woman in the world. Fourth or fifth, I think.
The richest woman in Australia. Is she happy? No. Once more, twenty billion. If she donated some of that to put a house, that would make her happy.
It would make us happy. But this is also another way to meditate, I think, which I find. There is the suffering of being poor. That’s a very obvious kind of suffering. Everyone can understand the suffering of being poor.
But then there is a very definite suffering of being rich. There is a very definite suffering of being rich. And there’s an obvious suffering of being I don’t know what the delicate way of putting it is. Not so good looking. Crude word is ugly.
There is the suffering of being ugly or conventionally thought of as being ugly. That seems to be obvious suffering. But then there is also the suffering of being beautiful. There is a definite suffering of being beautiful. Because then there’s the fear of losing your beauty.
The more beauty because also with being beautiful or good looking or whatever, you get attached almost inevitably. You’re attached to your beauty, your good looks. And with that goes the fear of losing one’s attachment, what one is attached to. I think I’ve told you before, I have, Being in the FPMT family, you meet many, many people. One of the people I know, she used to be the director of the Chakra Centre in Paris, was for some time she used to be a model.
She never became famous but she was a model. She knew many famous models. She told me this story about how she knew this model. She never told me who it was, who was super one of these very famous fashion models who was on the cover of all these magazines, Vogue and I think that’s the only one I know the name of, Vogue. What’s the other famous?
Anyway, and then she retired when she got really old, like thirty or something. It was too old to be a model. She said when she went to visit her she would be sitting on the sofa and behind the sofa were in frames, all her pictures of her when she was at the height of her fame and beauty, all these framed pictures of her Vogue covers and other fashion magazines behind her. And in front was this huge mirror so she would look at herself past and present at the same time, spend hours doing that depressed. But the suffering of being beautiful.
Also the suffering of being liked just because of what you look like, not who you are. So I always make the joke, this pathetic joke, but if someone if you’re if you’re poor and ugly and someone likes you, you can be con you can know they like you. They really like you. But if you’re beautiful and rich and someone says, I love you, you’re my best friend, you can never be sure why they like you. And that is suffering, I think.
I mean, I’m exaggerating to some extent. Of course, you can have genuine friends if you’re rich and beautiful. But there is definite suffering of being rich, of being beautiful. There is the suffering of being not so bright and maybe there is the suffering of being very intelligent. Because again that you can have pride, you know, attachment to all these things.
There’s the suffer suffering of being the victim and the suffering of being the victimizer. Yeah. Definitely. So it’s really helpful to meditate on the on those dualities. There’s there’s the the very obvious ones, but the very opposite to that, that person who is the very opposite also has a particular kind of suffering.
There’s the suffering of being women, and there’s the suffering of being a man. There’s the suffering of being young, and there’s the suffering of being old. Everyone in cyclic existence fits into those categories. Very quickly. There is the suffering of leaving the body again and again.
Everyone has to undergo that suffering. One takes a body, gets attached to it, and then one has to leave it. One has to experience the suffering of giving up this body which we’re so attached to. Then there’s the suffering of being conceived again and again, taking a new body over and over again. There’s the suffering of rising and falling, that whatever happiness we have is followed by suffering.
Success followed by failure. Meeting is followed by parting. High rebirth is followed by low rebirth. Collections, people collect lots of stuff and they only get dispersed. So everyone experiences those sufferings.
I can’t say there is anyone in in cyclic existence who is immune to that. Yeah. People become incredibly rich but can lose it, become incredibly powerful and lose it, become incredibly popular and suddenly lose their popularity. Like Rolf Harris. Yeah.
Someone like that who was incredibly loved by everyone, thought most wonderful, wonderful person. And now all of that’s sort of well, maybe not completely gone for some people, but just in a flash. And people who are dictators one day, next day, they’re hiding in tunnels in the dark and then being beaten up and shot and hum. Well, maybe those are extreme examples. But anyway, everyone is subject to this rising and falling.
People may not be aware of it, that’s just another dimension of that suffering that people, not understanding impermanence, have no idea that these things can happen to them, will happen to them. So this makes every cent in being an object of compassion. And then there’s the suffering of being alone. So there’s many ways of understanding that. We all have this ignorance that creates a false sense of self, and because of that we have pride and egotistic self views and so on.
Although, particularly as human beings, we crave friendship in various ways, and we want to be close to others, and we want to be understood, etc, that very fact that we have this ignorance and ego means there is always a separation, a duality between self and other. Other never really becomes the same. So we are born alone. We die alone. And as it says, in between, we are just alone.
We try not to be, but that is the reality. So everyone is in that situation to some extent. I mean, it’s more extreme for some people than others, but everyone is in that situation to some extent and therefore an object of compassion. And another interpretation of that suffering is that, which is a more deeper interpretation, is that the greatest form of that suffering is when a person doesn’t meet the dharma. To be alone in saṃsāra without the dharma, you are really alone.
You have no protection, no real friend. Because the dharma is our best friend. And many sentient beings live their whole life without that protection, are completely alone. You know, life doesn’t mean anything. They only believe in this life.
They don’t believe in the mind. They don’t believe in any religion. They don’t believe in they don’t believe in god. They don’t believe in Buddha. They don’t believe in the soul.
They don’t believe in the mind. They don’t believe in anything. But especially from a Dharma point of view, to not have access to the unmistaken teachings of the Buddha is one that is really lost. Maybe this is a pathetic example, but If you think about life in the ocean, of all those fish in the ocean, and there’s all sorts of tiny little fish and whatever, They’re completely helpless. Then you think there are these horrendous giant sharks going around and whales that eat great volumes of fish just in one gulp.
They are absolutely complete what it must be like to be completely helpless like that. So when we don’t have the dharma, we’re we’re we’re absolutely like that. We’re just this helpless little thing floundering around in this giant ocean with with absolutely nothing to protect us. So so many sentient beings are like that. So I’ll stop being miserable, but not really.
If we think about these things, this is the way to open our heart to see that everyone is suffering. How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were free of suffering. May they be free of it. I will cause them to be free of This is the point to get to that I because I can. Yeah?
I have met the Buddha Dharma. I have Buddha potential. And so then and also to make the request to the Guru Buddha to bless one’s mind to be able to do this. Because to do this is the most wonderful thing, the very best thing. Even to try to do it, even to aspire to do it, the very best thing that we can possibly do in this or any life.
It gives the greatest meaning to every moment of our life. So there is a great need for compassion in the world because the world is getting more berserk by the day it seems with so much violence and hatred. So how wonderful it would be. So those people who express that violence and hatred are really suffering. They’re acting as a condition to bring suffering to many others.
But they themselves must have very disturbed minds and definitely are creating the cause for themselves in future lives to have tremendous suffering. So it’s a total disaster. They’re making right now, they’re making the lives of so many people in the world so miserable. They’re doing it thinking they’re going to bring some kind of wonderful life to the world. And yet the result is for them just what what it will be is great suffering.
It’s a total mess. Samsāra is a total mess. How wonderful it would be if it wasn’t, if we could get rid of it. So we do our best at Buddha House. So we can dedicate at the merit of this time.
Through the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of the Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious body mind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. The object of refuge of myself and of all transmigratory beings in all our lifetimes is the embodiment of the Three Jewels, the all encompassing three refuges in one, the Guru, the wish granting jewel, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. The master Padmasambhava, the Dharma king Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Detsen, the abbot Shāntarakshita and the numberless holy beings who preserved and spread the Buddhadharma in Tibet and the Tibetan people who practiced and served Buddhism so faithfully for a thousand years, as well as those who along with many others died sacrificing their lives for Tibet and His Holiness.
May all their positive wishes be fulfilled immediately. Due to their limitless kindness, the sun of Tibetan Buddhism has now risen in the West, which is a dark land. But now that I’ve met with the Dharma, I’ve received the perfect human body, enabling me to lead a meaningful life. Our refuge and savior, the supreme one, his holiness, the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan people have been so kind to us. Remembering this, we make the following dedication prayers.
May all his holiness, the Dalai Lama’s wishes be successful immediately. May the snow land of Tibet achieve pure freedom and develop the Buddhadharma even more than before in Tibet. And may all mother transmigratory beings achieve enlightenment quickly. Savior of the snow land teachings and transmigratory beings who makes extremely clear the path that is unification of emptiness and compassion To the lotus holder, Tenzin Gyatso, I beseech, may all your holy wishes be spontaneously fulfilled. You who uphold the subdueers’ moral way, who serve as the bountiful bearer of all, sustaining, preserving, spreading Mañjuśrī’s victorious doctrine, who masterfully accomplished magnificent prayers honoring the Three Jewels, savoring myself and others, your disciples, please, please live long.
Lord of Dharma, who in accordance with the various dispositions of those to be subdued, makes clear in the light of your well spoken advice the sacred Ganden tradition, essence of Buddha’s teachings, and holy Lama to you who are supreme, holy Lama, please, please live long. Okay, thank you very much. So next week will be our last class on this, on the four immeasurable thoughts. But I think there was some misunderstanding last time because next week is also a Sojong