Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this nearly 100-minute teaching, Ven Thubten Dondrub covers two interconnected topics from the Path to Enlightenment series: bodhicitta (the altruistic wish to achieve enlightenment to benefit all beings) and practical methods for cultivating it. He begins by establishing why bodhicitta matters: recognising our Buddha nature and that all beings were once our mother and are now suffering in saṃsāra. He then presents Śāntideva’s method—a system that involves developing equanimity, recognising the devastating effects of self-cherishing, understanding the immense benefits of cherishing others instead, and training through Tonglen meditation (imagining taking on others’ suffering and giving away our happiness). Throughout, Dondrub uses concrete examples—a mosquito being killed, people robbing banks, arguments over a hairdryer—to show how self-cherishing distorts our actions and obscures our true compassionate nature. He emphasises that abandoning self-cherishing is the defining practice that distinguishes Buddhas from ordinary beings. The session closes with Q&A on vegetarianism, moral judgment, and the nature of compassion. Suited to practitioners seeking practical understanding of foundational Mahāyāna motivation and mind-training methods.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 09 17 DB Presenting the Path week 6 170913.mp3
UUID: 1dbe986f-8be6-4e7d-b557-f39084e0115e
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Presenting the Path (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-09-17
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 98.3 minutes
Words: ~11,347
Everyone to our sixth class on presenting the path. So we have a lot to cover tonight. Hope I’ll do I can do it. It’ll have to be very condensed on some very important things, but remember this is just a brief presentation outline of the whole path. So some of the topics like what we’re covering tonight, bodhicitta and emptiness.
There are two complete separate modules on for about six or seven weeks each on what I’m going to cover tonight in one and a half hours. Anyway, if you’d like to join in the traditional prayers, if you remember, these are on page nine. So if one starts to develop some belief in the truth, the validity of the Buddhist teachings, especially what the Mahāyāna teachings emphasize is that we all have Buddha nature. We all have this Buddha quality within us always. It’s indestructible.
It is our true nature. And we can aspire to realize our Buddha nature not only for our own sake to fulfill our own wishes to be free of all suffering to experience for once peerless everlasting happiness but particularly we can develop the wish to realize our full potential understanding that it’s only when we do that that we can be a vast, that we stop harming others and instead we can begin to be of perfect lasting benefit to all sentient beings. And there is a reason to be of perfect lasting benefit to all sentient beings when we start to be aware more and more how we are connected to all beings. They’ve all been immensely kind in every way, but especially every sentient being has been our mother at least one time but in fact many many times and has given us unconditional love over and over again. And sadly all these mother sentient beings are trapped in cyclic existence.
And so if we think about their suffering and how they lack the means at the moment to understand why they’re suffering. How to modify their suffering, transform it and eliminate it, then we can develop that wish to realize our Buddha potential so that we can help every sentient being without exception realize that they are trapped in saṃsāra. That they don’t have to be trapped in saṃsāra. That they have Buddha nature and they can experience Buddha’s peerless everlasting happiness. And so one can help them see all that and not only just see it, understand it, but help them achieve it.
And that’s the way to repay the kindness of mother sentient beings. So we say this, please try and generate that kind of thought as much as you can because it is the best thought possible. It’s the most kind, compassionate, loving, brave, optimistic, wonderful, all encompassing thought possible. There is no more wonderful thought than bodhicitta. So it brings, if we do something with that motivation, it will bring the very best results.
Yeah. The best results. Because that’s how karma works. Depending on the cause, you get the effect. So if you create the best cause we will get the best effect.
So to make the prayer as meaningful as possible especially if you have some feeling of connection. One what we try and visualize the Buddha in front of us thinking of the Buddha as the embodiment of the triple gem of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, the embodiment of all perfect qualities, Thinking the Buddha is there to remind us of our Buddha potential and to encourage us to realize it and to motivate us more and more to do so. We try and have a sense of all these kind suffering sentient beings surrounding us. Starting with at least the people we’re most strongly connected to in this life. So we think of our mother on our left, father on our right, family, friends and helpers behind us, harmers in front.
So at least thinking of those beings, but then as much as we can opening our hearts and minds to an awareness and concern for all the other beings of cyclic existence. Thinking that no matter what, yes, matter what, I must use this precious human rebirth now that I’ve found it and all future lives to free my mind of all confusion, awaken all positive qualities in order to achieve enlightenment. So to do that I need to follow the path and to follow the path to enlightenment successfully I have to understand the path. So that’s why I will study this presentation of the path to enlightenment. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma, the supreme assembly.
By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So think now that the Buddha happily comes to the crown of one’s head, turning to face the same direction as our self. And then as we recite the Buddha’s mantra three times, imagine that blissful white light pours down from the Buddha into us purifying our mind of all confusion, suffering and its causes, all obstacles to being able to understand the Buddha’s teachings and put them into practice properly. So then think the Buddha dissolves into blissful golden light and that light pours down into you blessing your mind in such a way that it awakens those all those positive potentials within your mind. And then just briefly we can do the nine round breathing exercise just to further enhance that positive state of mind.
Making our mind a little bit more calmer, clearer, more concentrated. So we can use that mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. Okay, thank you. So if Buddha’s teachings are true, the Buddha’s insights are valid and correct, then right now our mind is, although we have Buddha potential, our mind is obscured and so we’re experiencing cyclic existence. And at the moment we have this human rebirth which was quite a pleasant part of cyclic existence.
A pleasant aspect of cyclic existence. But many aspects of cyclic existence rebirth in the lower realms can be truly horrible. And even the pleasures of the god realms aspect of cyclic existence, that incredible bliss, although it lasts a long time, doesn’t last forever. It comes to an end and so more obvious suffering has to occur. So if we start to see that this is true or we start to have some inclination belief that this is the nature of our mind, the potential of our mind, and if we want to be free of suffering, we need to renounce this life, renounce our obsession with this life in order to ensure a good rebirth.
Then, only then, can we are we in a position to really understand the full nature of cyclic existence and develop the determination to get out of cyclic existence completely, to renounce any attachment to it. And only then are we in the position to develop the motivation of bodhicitta to achieve, not just freedom from suffering for ourselves, but to achieve enlightenment so we can free help free everyone from suffering and more than that help them achieve peerless everlasting happiness. So to achieve enlightenment we have to develop the wish for it. Not just an ordinary wish, but this incredibly profound authentic total determination to achieve enlightenment. And that wish to achieve enlightenment is called bodhicitta.
And that itself has causes and there are two major systems of directly on the basis of having developed, having renounced this life, having renounced saṃsāra, There are two direct causes methods of developing bodhicitta. One I talked about last week comes from the great bodhisattva. Asaṇga called the six causes and one effect technique of generating bodhicitta. And then the other method which I’d like to talk about briefly tonight comes from the great bodhisattva Śāntideva who lived in the eighth century. He wrote a text which in Sanskrit is called the Bodhicaryāvatāra which has been translated in English as something like the guide to the bodhisattva way of life or the entry to the bodhisattva way of life or just the bodhisattva way of life.
There are about ten translations in English now of this most wonderful book. His Holiness Dalai Lama says that Śāntideva’s method of generating bodhicitta is more powerful than Asaṇga’s and is more suited to the modern mind because it doesn’t require so much faith in certain aspects of the Buddha’s teachings. But to generate bodhicitta you do have to have I’m sorry to say. You do have No, I’m not sorry to say. You do have to have faith in the Buddha’s teachings because to achieve enlightenment you have to depend on the Buddha’s teachings.
Enlightenment is a Buddhist concept. If you don’t believe in the Buddha, if you don’t believe that Buddha’s exist and you have the potential to become a Buddha, how would you want to become a Buddha if you don’t believe in Buddhas? And that the Buddha it’s only the Buddhas who tell us that we have Buddha potential. So anyway, but we won’t go into that too much. Now I got lost.
So Śāntideva’s method, and as I was mentioning last week, both methods, Asaṇga’s and Śāntideva’s method, both require first developing equanimity where we because normally as ordinary beings controlled by self-cherishing, we tend to see everyone as either a friend, an enemy, or a stranger. And why we do that? From a worldly point of view there’s many reasons to think like that. But by thinking like that this perpetuates our major delusions of attachment to friends, aversion to enemies, and our indifference to strangers also is a big problem because it blocks our ability to develop selfless great love and compassion which are the keys to everything wonderful. So I tried to talk about those things briefly.
So the very specific features of Śāntideva’s method of generating bodhicitta are developing this mind of equalizing self with others, then reflecting on the great disadvantages of following or having and following self-cherishing. Then reflecting on the great benefits of cherishing others more than self. And this leads to being able to exchange oneself with others. And once one develops the wish to exchange oneself with others this leads to the thought: To do this perfectly I have to achieve enlightenment. So these are the four main causes of developing bodhicitta according to equalizing self with others, understanding the great harm of self-cherishing, understanding the immense enormous benefits of cherishing others, developing the mind, wanting to exchange oneself with others and so that leads to generating the thought of bodhicitta.
So very briefly so if if we so very briefly, I’ll go into those details. Before I do that, I just like to make a point that if if you if you check out what I’m gonna talk about each night, because I did give you an outline. I’m just changing the outline for tonight a little bit because according to the original outline I was going to talk about Śāntideva’s method tonight plus about what are called the six perfections, the bodhisattva vows, and mind training. So I’m I’m gonna do that next week. And last and I was scheduled to talk about wisdom next week, but I’ll try and do that tonight.
So talk about Śāntideva’s method of bodhicitta and wisdom tonight. So so if we’re able to develop equanimity more and more where we no longer label so strongly and grasp people as friends, enemies, and strangers, even though they may you know, of course, from their side, some people are friendly, some people are neutral to oneself, and some people are unfriendly, even antagonistic to oneself. But when we develop equanimity, we’re able to, of course, distinguish that, but still we have this equal we try to have no. Well, when you’ve got equanimity, when one has actually developed the actual realization, no matter how people behave to us, from our side, our mind remains stable and actually friendly to others wishing friend, enemy, and stranger to have happiness. Right?
One can see, oh, this person likes me. This person dislikes me. This person doesn’t care one way or another. But from one’s own side, one develops this equal goodwill to others. Right?
But still, even if one is able to develop that amazing state of mind, still because we have self-cherishing, is because we have ignorance, we all have this wrong view of self which is the very source of all suffering. Because we have this ignorance which involves a wrong view of our self, a wrong view of everything, because of that we all have self-cherishing which I’ll try to explain a little bit more what it really means because it’s not a good state of mind to have. But because of our self-cherishing even if we’re able to reduce it and develop equanimity we still tend to have the feeling that yes, everyone out there is okay, I like them, but I like myself much better. I am much more important than everyone else. My happiness is much more important than other people’s happiness.
My suffering is much more important than everyone else’s. And of course most of us would think, well that’s just natural. It’s common. It’s extremely common. It’s something we’ve followed since beginningless time but it’s actually not natural.
It’s unnatural. What is natural is our Buddha nature. That’s our nature to be a Buddha. Anyway, right? So we call it natural to behave like this because we’ve done it all the time, but actually it’s a very inauthentic unnatural way to behave.
And it’s very harmful. That’s what the Buddha discovered. So the first step in is developing this mind which Lama Zopa Rinpoche, I don’t know the Tibetan term, but Rinpoche translates it as equilibrium to distinguish it from equanimity. On the basis of equanimity, we have to develop this mind that sees that because it’s true. This is the point.
It’s true. That we are no different than anyone else in essence. We are all the same. Of course, there are billions of differences between any individual sentient being and other sentient beings. Alright?
Between one human being and another human being, there are many, many differences. But from a Buddha’s point of view, those those differences are superficial. And by emphasizing those differences, we create this gap between our self and others. We alienate ourselves. And that, of course, that’s why we have the people the few that we sit feel close to, you know, still they’re different from me, but I they’re close they’re they’re similar enough to be nice and likable, my friends.
You know, these are too different, so they’re my enemies. And these are, you know, so they’re strangers. Not too weird, you know, not so they’re strangers or whatever. So this situation is actually, you know, harmful to us. So what we need to and it brings about all our delusions again reinforces our self-cherishing.
What we need to focus on more and more is not the differences which alienate us and cause problems. Pride, jealousy, aversion, fears, worries, all that stuff. What we need to focus on and see what is much more important are the similarities. And there’s a whole lot of arguments. There’s a handout where I’ve listed quite a few of the similarities but there’s no time to go into all that in detail.
We’ll do that in the course on bodhicitta. But the basic, the essential argument, the essential simple simple point which His Holiness makes many many times in his teachings. He made it when he was in Adelaide and gave the public talk. It’s one of the first things I heard Lama Zopa Rinpoche say which I never thought anyway, is that if I just anyway. Sorry.
When I have lots to do, get speedy and then it gets all confusing. Buddha’s supposed to be calm and relaxed, aren’t they? If if we, like, you know, from our self-cherishing point of view, we look at others and we can see so many differences between myself and others. We see so many differences between between individuals, the people out there who are not me, and we see so many differences between between me and these others. And you know people do all sorts of things, you know, good things, stupid things, moral things, bad things, wise things, dangerous things, you know, all sorts of things.
So many and so many things different than what I would do. They think differently, dress differently, they speak differently, they look different, they eat different things, they vote differently, they have different football teams than me and all these strange, weird, creepy differences. Then what and so we make all these divisions and separations because of it. But then if you investigate, why? Why are they doing that?
Why do they say that? Why do they dress like that? Why do they vote like that? Why do they barrack for that team? Why do they, you know, say this and blah blah blah?
And the answer is, guess what? Which you’d have to check up if it’s true. It’s because they want to be happy. They just want to be happy just like me, exactly like me, because that’s all I want to do, want to be, is to be happy. And everything everyone else is doing, what they do from from the moment they get up to the moment they go to bed, is they are just trying to be happy.
Even if they’re not conscious of it, are just trying to be happy. Check up. And then another way of looking at it is again all these differences, but why? Why are they why people do such different things, think in such different ways, and so on. Such extremely different ways.
You know, some people do incredibly stupid things, some people do really intelligent things, some people do incredibly selfish things, some people do some very selfless things, Some people do very virtuous things. Some people do very, you know, non virtuous things. Why? Why do they do that? And actually the Buddha discovered and you can check up yourself, which you should.
Why do they do it? They just they want they don’t want suffering. They are trying to avoid suffering. Just like me. Just like me.
No different. Check up. You know, some people are vegetarian. Some people eat tons of meat. Why?
Just to be happy. Both want to be happy. Some people give their money away. Some people rob from other people. Why?
Just to be happy. Same. Just same. You’re not allowed to. Same.
The motivation is the same. Whether it’s wise or moral is different, but the wish, there is just that one wish which is exactly the same. The person is just either trying to be happy, trying to avoid suffering, just exactly like me. You check any other human being. But even more interesting, if you look at animals, why do animals do the things they do?
They’re just trying to be happy. They’re just trying to avoid suffering just like me. No different whatsoever. Why is the cockroach in my cupboard eating my food? Because he just wants to be happy just like me.
Because he’s eating my food. I bought my food because I’m that’s I think that will make me happy. And he’s eating it or she’s eating it too because happy wants to be happy, doesn’t want to be hungry, doesn’t want to suffer just like me. And if we could go to the if we could see the beings in the preta realms, in the hell realms, we would see they don’t want to be suffering just like me. No difference.
And that’s the main thing. That’s the main thing. We are all the same like that. Many other similar such things were same, you know, because we all have Buddha nature. You know?
We all have mind. All human beings have a mind. Our minds are the same. Not it’s not the one mind, but all our minds are the same in nature. And animals have mind, same in nature.
We all have all human beings have delusions. No. I have delusions. You have delusions. Our delusions are the same in nature.
We all have anger. You know, we can’t say, oh, my I have a higher class anger than yours, so I’m okay. My anger is good. It’s a really high quality anger. Because anger is anger.
Anger is horrible. You know? That’s it. Basta. Finish.
No debate. Now jealousy, pride, you can’t say, my jealousy is a very nice kind of jealousy. Yours is a bad kind of jealousy. It’s just jealousy. It’s ugly, nasty.
Right? Same. We’re all the same. So that’s what we have to focus on. Yeah.
And and because when we do that, we will feel close to other people. We won’t feel alienated. We will feel close. Then we were able to have affection, love, and compassion. When you see that this person I mean, that’s why with family, we we we see these people as the same.
These are my same, you know, blood. Therefore, I love them just because they’re my family. We we have know, there are variations, but in general. But one of the reasons, you know, why we love our family is is just because they’re supposed to be the same as me. They’re my, you know, same genetic you know, same mother, father, same stuff somehow.
Actually, we can be completely different as personalities, but we think of ourselves as the same. As soon as we see differences it is harder to like and have affection and tolerance and acceptance. But as soon as we see something the same then we can accept. And once we accept, then all good all our good qualities can manifest towards that person. And when that happens, we are happy.
Because when our good qualities are operating, we are happy. That’s the whole Buddhist argument. I’m sorry. No. I’m not sorry.
That’s the point, isn’t it? Yeah. Happiness comes from when our true nature manifests to any extent. And our true mate nature is made up of love and compassion and kindness and generosity and affection and tolerance, etcetera, etcetera. So when those things manifest a little bit, you know, we are more peaceful, more content, more happy, more joyful, more relaxed, at ease, well.
So then, the more we see the similarity between self and others and and therefore start to feel affection and compassion and whatever, then we start to become aware what is preventing me being, you know, more love, compassion, whatever, to these beings who are fundamentally wanting happiness like me, not wanting suffering like me? And we start to see it’s our self-cherishing. Because of this wrong view of self, we we we think that we will be happy by putting me first. We have this natural wish to be happy, but our self-cherishing distorts that into wanting to have I think I’ve tried to say this before earlier in the course. I anyway, first noble truth is ordinary existence, samsaric existence, which is what we are experiencing now, is in its nature suffering, uncomfortable.
Right? As soon as we start to feel that, that discomfort which can arise in many ways during the day, From little things to big things, like to major depressions to minor things. Rather than dealing with the causes of that problem. Because remember last week I said there is a huge difference between not wanting to suffer. There’s no person who wants to suffer.
That’s we’re all the same. All sentient beings do not want to suffer. But most of us aren’t willing to do the hard work to get rid of the causes of that suffering. That’s what the Buddha’s spiritual path is about. Realizing I have to stop creating the causes of suffering.
I have to start creating the actual causes of happiness. So instead of you know, when we become aware of our inner discomfort, instead of dealing with the causes of it in some way realistically, our self-cherishing locks in, takes over, and the solution of the self-cherishing thought is to distract the mind. And anything that can distract the mind is good and that is happiness. And if we can distract our mind quickly and easily, that’s even better. So self-cherishing is really about but you think yeah.
It is about quick easy distraction. The easy happy now mentality. That is the self which doesn’t think about the consequences of achieving this quick easy distraction. Because if you check with self-cherishing in order to distract ourselves quickly from suffering that involves usually following afflicted desire, craving, attachment or getting very angry. Or not necessarily very angry, but getting angry.
Because that’s also another quick easy way to deal with problems. You get angry. We explode. That that’ll, you know, blow it away. Someone disagrees with you, you we get angry with them to make them just stop disagreeing and make them go away.
That’s the self-cherishing solution. So the nature of self-cherishing is it can’t stand difficulties and problems and suffering. And the more we listen to that mind, the more we follow the opposite, which is whatever distracts us as quickly and easily as possible, which is always something negative, usually. That was a contradiction. Always usually.
Anyway, you know what I mean. So self-cherishing pains this illusion that this is good for me and will always good for me and it’ll make me happy and it doesn’t allow us to see of the what we’re doing is following our negative tendencies. And it doesn’t allow us to see the harmful consequences to ourself and others in the future. There’s all sorts of extreme kinds of there’s little self cherishings and heavy kinds of self-cherishing such as when people experience suffering in their life, the solution is to take drugs, really heavy drugs because they make you feel fantastic straight away. So that’s good.
The self-cherishing says, Oh, taking drugs is good. And of course the self-cherishing thought says, I won’t get addicted because I’m special. Other people will, but not me. Why? Why won’t I?
Because I’m I. That’s all. There’s no logic to it. It just tells me that I am special. That’s the self-cherishing thought.
I am special. I am different. Nothing bad will happen to me. You see this with, you know, the self-cherishing thought on the road all the time with people driving and they just sort of change lanes in a second. No.
You know, self-cherishing thought. I want to be there. You know? And, of course, everyone will know that I want to be there and will want me to be there. So I don’t have to indicate or anything like that because I just want to be there now.
So I’ll do it. No thought, oh, some you know, anything else. It’s just totally me and what I want right now. Yeah. And it has to happen.
And if it doesn’t, one gets very, very upset. And anyone stopping that is very, very evil and should be wiped out. Sorry. Just making it very extreme. So that’s a little bit the self-cherishing thought.
And if you check, especially for those people who have studied a little bit more in detail the law of cause and effect, karma, the Buddha pointed out there’s infinite numbers of negative actions, but there are ten major ones to avoid of killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, harsh speech, divisive speech, meaningless gossip, covetous, ill will, and wrong views. If you because all of these, if we act, follow those act, engage in those actions strongly, they create the karmic imprints that can only ripen well, they cannot those karmic imprints cannot ripen to bring a good rebirth. They can only ripen to bring suffering rebirth because the cause determines the effect. A negative action can’t create the cause to have a human rebirth because a human rebirth, even though there’s suffering in it, that suffering is nothing compared to what one can experience in the lower realms. So it’s it’s a good rebirth, an upper rebirth.
So the causes have to be positive. So when we engage in these very negative actions, they bring the results of suffering in the lower realms. And if you check what is the motivating force behind all of those ten non virtues? In order to kill another being, you have to be dominated by self-cherishing. The me, my happiness, my pathetic little happiness of wanting this, you know, I want this so I will kill someone who is threatening this.
This is mine and you can’t have it. And if you’re trying to take it from me or even thinking about it, I will kill you and I do. So that is really strong self-cherishing. As I always say with a little insect, a little mosquito also, you kill a mosquito. Cause we don’t go around, most of us don’t go around killing other human beings.
Of course ordinary people, we tend to think that murders happen by monsters but murders are done mostly by ordinary people killing other ordinary people in very worrying, ordinary situations. I recently read about this happened in Australia last year, I think it was. No. No. A couple of years ago.
About two sisters who were fighting about their, what do call them? Hair hair blower. And so one of them killed the other sister because they were having an argument about using the hair blower. That’s self-cherishing thought. Because it just got out of hand, you know.
But, you know, when we have arguments, you know, you don’t expect we plan arguments to get out of hand. But that’s the nature of anger. When you follow it, it increases. Am I? I’ve got in illustrating things I forget what I’m illustrating.
Oh yes, so with an insect yeah. So it’s causing this tiny little little itch. You kill it. Because that’s the quick easy. You could flick it away, yeah, which brings the same solution.
No itch anymore. You just, you know, make it go. You just even brush, you know, a bit of wind and blow it away. But no, you Because what, you know, my need for that little teeny itch to stop instantly is far more important than life of that sentient being. That is the self-cherishing thought.
And that leads to murdering human beings, stealing sexual misconduct, lying, everything. So self-cherishing looks like it benefits us, but actually it is the most harmful thing to ourselves. And of course, following it we harm others. We harm others a lot, but it also always harms ourselves, our self-cherishing thought. You know, and in a in a more subtle way as you take this bowl of nice fruit.
Yeah. And so the self-cherishing thought only thinks of me, not other people who might like this fruit or might need this fruit more than me, but all the I pick the best piece of fruit. Yeah. So I have it. And as a result of following that self-cherishing, the worldly result is I get to eat a nice piece of fruit.
And as my teacher tells the story, I have to keep it short. Anyway, the taste of eating lasts from here to here. Right? Which is not very long. Yeah.
So as a result of following the self-cherishing and taking the best piece of fruit for oneself, the the all you get is pleasure that lasts from here to here. And what one is at the very least done by following the self-cherishing thought, one has imprinted the self-cherishing thought in the mind again to be more self-cherishing in the future and therefore more suffering. So there wasn’t any benefit at all in following the self-cherishing thought. Although self-cherishing sounds good actually it involves a misunderstanding of the self that we actually are and the cherishing involves following attachment, anger, pride, jealousy, etc. Etc.
All the delusions that actually harm us that don’t in fact benefit us at all. So our self-cherishing has cheated us since beginningless time. Everyone who became a Buddha did it by giving up self-cherishing. What is the difference between us and Buddhas? They gave up self-cherishing.
We are still following it. So what’s the point of following it? I’ll just very quickly, there are two kinds of self-cherishing. There is gross self-cherishing, which is what I’ve been talking about, which is a completely negative state of mind that doesn’t even allow us to get a good rebirth, doesn’t ultimately even bring happiness in this life. It may look like it in a super in a superficial way.
You if you follow self-cherishing and rob a bank, you might be successful like those guys who charged into the Westpac Bank in Melbourne yesterday or the day before. I don’t know how much they got away with, but anyway, they got away with some money. So following the self-cherishing, it looks like you get some success. But really, who wants to be a robber being chased by the police? And and my mom said money doesn’t make you happy anyway.
She was right. So, anyway yeah. And what was I trying to say there? Oh, so that’s the gross self-cherishing. So it really even doesn’t if one understands the dharma, it doesn’t even bring ordinary happiness in this life and actually creates the causes for great suffering in the future.
Then there is another more spot what I call subtle self-cherishing which is actually a virtuous state of mind but from the Mahāyāna point of view is something to let go of because the subtle self-cherishing is the mind that is wants to practice Dharma to get a good rebirth, to get, liberation for oneself. So that is a virtuous mind. It’s good. It doesn’t cause harm to others but following that subtle self-cherishing of just wanting to get out of cyclic existence, achieve nirvana for oneself doesn’t enable if we follow that mind, that path, we won’t be able to generate bodhicitta, we won’t be able to achieve enlightenment, we won’t be able to develop the qualities that enable us to benefit all sentient beings. That is why in the Tibetan Mahāyāna tradition at the beginning of teachings and when we do meditations or any kind of practice we are encouraged to always start with the bodhicitta motivation trying to do it with the thought: May this ultimately be of benefit to all sentient beings.
May it be part of the process of myself achieving enlightenment so I can be of benefit to all sentient beings. So even though we still have self-cherishing, are doing things with a self-cherishing motivation, We are trying to modify that step by step. Because, of course, one can’t get rid of self-cherishing just overnight. You know, we have to do it step by step. But, and what helps us do it, of course, is understanding more and more how harmful our own self-cherishing is to ourself.
Of course it’s obviously harmful to others, but it’s extremely harmful to ourself. My teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who’s depicted here next to his holiness in that picture over there, once said, one of the best things we could do is keep a diary of all the effects of our self-cherishing thought. He said that’s the best meditation you can do. Keep a diary of all the effects of following one’s own self-cherishing thought. And the best argument is really that the Buddhas gave it up and look where they are.
We haven’t and look where we are. If we compare the difference, where would we want to be? Where we are or where the Buddhas are? So then this leads to So the more we reflect on all the harm of our self-cherishing that will encourage us to try and reduce our self-cherishing. To be able to first, we have to recognize it and of course it’s tricky because our self-cherishing doesn’t come, you know, it comes like the best friend.
It comes as this nice advice saying, do this. This is good. This is quick. This is easy. This will make you comfortable and cozy.
Yeah? Don’t push yourself. Don’t do anything difficult. Don’t get out of your comfort zone. Just be comf cozy.
Cozy. If you look at if I you know, I I left I’ve been away from Australia for many years and oh, now I’ve been back over ten. But, yeah, when you come back well, I mean, this has happened all over the world, but Australia was a much simpler place. I mean, in many ways, Australia’s improved, but in some ways, it’s really lost some qualities. And people have so much more stuff now.
Just so much more stuff. And each bit of stuff is more complicated than what it used to be somehow, which is all about the self-cherishing. We need more stuff. And each bit of stuff has to be so much more fancy. Yeah?
Check up. You know, television sets used to be black and white and that was fantastic. It was so exciting having television. No one would watch a black and white television set now. Now it has to be kind of three-dimensional and vaster space and, you know, make your coffee as well.
Otherwise, it’s not worth bothering about. I’m not I’m not there’s nothing wrong with improve I may sound like, you know, just a grumpy old man, which I am, but but there’s nothing wrong with improvements, of course. But and that’s not all self-cherishing but really some if you look at certain things in our society there’s just so much this kind of need for so much or like food. It’s so much more complicated now. I mean, Australian food was extremely boring.
That’s true. But now it’s gone the other way that you it it’s so so fancy. You know? I won’t make jokes anymore about that. Again, it’s you know?
Yeah. Anyway, I hope I’m not giving the wrong impression. Probably I am, but I’m just trying to illustrate some ways. Anyway, then so we need to think about the opposite. If self-cherishing is bad, surely it follows that the very opposite mind actually must be terrific.
And that’s what the Buddha says. And the opposite mind, instead of cherishing self, of self-cherishing, there is the mind of cherishing others and cherishing others more than self. So when we hear that, that this is what we should do, this is what Buddha encourages us to do, If we listen to that, if we hear that with the self-cherishing thought, we will say that’s disgusting. That’s absurd. Cherishing others more than cherishing others or more than self.
That’s just how you know, you know, I’ll be miserable. Everyone will take advantage of me. I’ll be a disaster. My life will be a tragedy. But the Buddha was saying this is the key to all happiness.
That the every being who became a Buddha gave up or and became a bodhisattva, but even before became a bodhisattva, gave up the self-cherishing thought and cherished others and cherished others more than self. But as as I was trying to say, although the self-cherishing thought when we are controlled by it sounds like it’s what we should do and it creates it creates these illusions of what we should do. It makes those things, those negative things look good, but in fact they’re harmful because they activate our disturbing thoughts. When we cherish others and cherish others more than self, although the focus is not on self but on others. So you think, well if I don’t focus on myself, I’ll miss out.
I will end up suffering. But what happens is by stopping the focusing on self and focusing on others and cherishing them, the only way to cherish others properly here we’re not talking about attachment to family and friends and whatever. We’re talking about actually cherishing others, all sentient beings. The only way to cherish others is with genuine love, with compassion, with patience, by being generous, kind, tolerant, persevering, wise, intelligent and so on. In other words the only way to cherish others and to cherish others more than self is to activate all one’s virtuous qualities, one’s Buddha nature.
And as I said earlier in the talk, when our virtuous qualities are activated that is when we are happy. They are the actual source of genuine happiness, well-being, contentment, satisfaction. So although we focus on the with self-cherishing others, the focus is on others, the only way to do it is activating one’s own good mental states. And if we activate those, we will be happy and we will create the causes of more happiness. Because also if you look at those ten non virtues, what motivates them is the self-cherishing thought.
Avoiding, consciously avoiding the ten non or any of the ten non virtues is a virtuous act. So killing is motivated by self-cherishing and it’s negative. It brings a lot of suffering to oneself. To avoid killing when we could do so is a virtuous act. And why would we avoid killing when we could do so?
Because in the moment we do it, we are cherishing other. You know, the cockroach could walk across the kitchen table as we’re making lunch, So we could kill the cockroach. Very easy. But we think, oh, this is a negative action. This is a sentient being.
It wants happiness, doesn’t want suffering just like me. Just like me. We we could forget about the fact that this was my mother. It’d be be better to remember it. But even if you don’t remember that and don’t believe it, one can still generate, you know, have that understanding.
This being wants happiness, doesn’t want suffering, just like me. And so for because of that, for a moment, one cherishes this little being because it wants to be happy just like me. It doesn’t want to suffer just like me, so I won’t make it suffer. I won’t kill it. So while you’re cherishing it, even a little bit, we won’t harm it.
We won’t kill it. We will do a virtuous action. We may put it in a box and give it lunch. We may bake it a pizza and give it a pizza, which is a super you know, nourish its life, which is even better than just not killing it. A super virtuous action.
And that’s done again, of course, by cherishing it. So in fact, there are only benefits in cherishing others more than self. No no harm. Only benefits. So this is what we have to think about.
The more we think about those things, this will lead us to to being able to exchange put ourself in the place of others, to exchange ourself with others, to feel out that this person is no different than me. Their their wish to be happy is no different than mine. Their wish to be free of suffering is no different than mine. So why do I just focus on making myself happy and avoid you know, reducing my suffering? I have to help them be happy.
I have to help them to become free of suffering because it’s it’s exactly the same as me. And and a particularly powerful way to train in exchanging self with others and at the same time reduce the self-cherishing thought and at the same time awaken one’s potential for love and at the same time awaken one’s potential for compassion is this wonderful meditation which in Tibetan is called Tonglen which translated into English means giving and taking. What it means is it’s a very simple meditation in one sense. The technique is very simple where we imagine taking the suffering of others onto our self so that they don’t have to experience the suffering and we imagine giving our happiness to others so that they become happy. So in reality, one can’t take suffering from another person because of karma.
Only, you know, only the being who created the cause can experience the fact. So we can’t take suffering from others. We can’t give our happiness to others. But it’s it’s a completely valid psychological method to training the mind to sincerely deeply wish to be able to do so and to imagine doing so. The more we can imagine doing that, this is completely counter to the self-cherishing thought.
Because our own self-cherishing thought doesn’t want to recognize, admit our own suffering. Most people don’t follow the spiritual path, any spiritual path, let alone especially the Buddhist path, because most people don’t want to admit their suffering. Alright. But to be able to follow the spiritual Buddhist spiritual path, one has to recognize I’m suffering. I am suffering.
Wow. I am really suffering. Even if even if my life is a success, I’m still suffering. So self so the self-cherishing doesn’t wanna admit it, feel our own suffering. That’s why we have self-cherishing, to hide from it.
So let alone we don’t wanna know about the suffering of others. So that’s why in this practice one imagines doing the thing that is totally contrary to the self-cherishing thought, which is we imagine not only just feeling the suffering of others, but imagining experiencing it, taking it from them and all its causes. And we imagine breathing it in in the form of black smoke, something really thick and disgusting so that we imagine it completely suffocates our own self-cherishing, destroys it. And that liberates our pure mind and our love and compassion. And then we imagine giving our happiness, not sharing it or giving a little bit, but actually giving all our happiness, all the causes of our happiness to this person in the form of white light when we breathe out.
So the taking of suffering is contrary to the self-cherishing thought and it helps in the development of compassion. And the giving of our happiness is contrary to the self-cherishing thought and also helps develop loving kindness. And by imagining the person becoming happy as we give them their happiness, that gives us the courage to take more of their suffering and reduce our self-cherishing, freeing our mind, enabling us to give more of our happiness. We see how that makes them happy, therefore we can take more of their suffering. So in a practical way the best way to start this meditation which is part of your homework is with oneself.
Because in the ultimate meditation on Tonglen you imagine taking all the suffering of all sentient beings and giving all one’s happiness to all sentient beings. But that is if we start at that level, it’s meaningless because we can’t imagine all sentient beings and we can’t imagine feeling all their suffering. So it becomes kind of like meaningless because it it doesn’t touch us. It’s just too much. So we have to start with at least one first with one other sentient being.
But before we do that, we should work on ourself. So we imagine ourself in the future of this life, not in a future life, but say, depending on how old you are. So the younger ones here, the younger you are, the more you can think of your, you know, an older future self. The the oldies among us here, we can just think a few years ahead because we may not have that many left. But you think and you don’t try and visualize what you’re going to look like and what you’re going to be wearing or what color hair you’ve got or will you have any hair or anything like that.
You just think know, just get this vague general idea of your future self, but not a future self in this life five, ten, twenty, thirty years in the future who’s been this wonderful spiritual dharma practitioner. No. You think about the future me who hasn’t given up their self-cherishing thought, who has been under the control of the self-cherishing thought that we have now for so many more years. And all the problems and suffering that will bring you. So you develop compassion for your future self-cherishing self.
And you take on all that future suffering and put it, squash your self-cherishing thought now. Because if we can reduce our self-cherishing now, we won’t have all that future suffering. Or we will have less. And you imagine giving your happiness and wisdom and compassion and courage to that future self. Actually I did plan to finish at eight thirty five, but it still doesn’t give me ten minutes to talk about the most complicated subject in the whole Buddhadharma, which is about emptiness.
So I don’t think I can do it this week. Do it next week. Yeah. Questions? Oh, anyway.
No. Just a little bit more on. So if we can try to do this with our self, and this is a very very practical meditation to do. And you can make it even more practical by rather than just thinking in general about self-cherishing, one can honestly identify a particular negative behavior you have, we have, and think, Why do I do this? It’s because of my self-cherishing.
So then you think of being under the control of this negative behavior for another five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five, thirty, thirty five, forty, fifty years. Really think about it. Yeah. And you take pity. You feel compassion for your deluded self-cherishing self.
Oh, an essential thing I have to say about this meditation is because it can sound like we’re trying to punish ourself because I’m self-cherishing therefore I’m bad and therefore I should breathe in all this suffering is not like that. It should be done out of a genuine love and compassion for oneself and it should be done on the basis of developing some genuine understanding that my self-cherishing IS my worst enemy. Or my second worst enemy. My worst enemy is ignorance. But that’s really difficult to recognize.
Whereas self-cherishing is more easy. Not always because as I said, it it doesn’t it appears as one’s good advisor not one’s bad friend. But with by understanding the Buddha’s teachings we can help recognize it. So by understanding how harmful it is, we can develop the wish to be free of it, and we need to understand that although we have self-cherishing, that is not our true nature. It’s there, but it’s not who we really are.
So we’re not trying to punish who we really are. We are trying to benefit who we really are by getting rid of this really harmful thing. Just like if we have a disease and we have to take a terrible tasting medicine to get rid of that disease, we’re not taking this terrible tasting medicine to punish ourselves. We’re taking the terrible tasting medicine to punish the disease, to destroy the disease because we like ourselves, we want ourselves to be happy, not to be sick. Right?
Same. We recognize that self-cherishing is really harmful. It’s obscuring who I really am. Therefore, I wanna get rid of it. So the only way to get rid of it is to do the very thing it doesn’t want, which is to feel suffering.
It doesn’t even want to feel, recognise, admit my own suffering. So here, cop it. I will force myself to recognise my own negative suffering behaviour. And the more we can do that, we can then start with someone else. We start with someone who is close to us.
Not someone we have, you know, like how do you oh, anyway. We should take when taking in meditations, when taking people close to us, shouldn’t take people who we are sexually attracted to because that in meditation, that starts to get all strange or can. More stuff happens. So you take someone who you are fond of, someone who’s been very kind to you, like your mother, a friend. So you take someone who’s you’re very close to, you have a lot of affection for, and then you think of their suffering, now, the future, and you take that, you try and really identify with that suffering so it becomes unbearable and you think: I will experience this suffering so they don’t have to.
I will take away the causes of their suffering so they don’t have to experience this suffering. In reality, we can’t do it, but in our imagination we can. And that is a way to really significantly harm the self-cherishing thought to reduce it. This is the method the Buddha has taught. And then you can take you know, one can expand the meditation over time, over years to other people, you know, other close people, then to neutral people, then even to to people we dislike, taking on their suffering.
And the more we do that and seeing the all the benefits of it, thinking, you know, how wonderful if I could actually take the suffering of others, then this leads to and and seeing, oh, I’m only doing this in my mind, in my imagination. How wonderful if I could really stop even though I can’t take the suffering from others, if I was to become a Buddha, I could help everyone stop creating the causes of suffering. I, as a Buddha, I would have all the skills to help everyone create the causes for peerless everlasting happiness. Therefore, I’ll become a Buddha. And that’s bodhicitta.
The determination to become a Buddha. So this is Śāntideva’s method, in a nutshell, of generating bodhicitta. On the basis of equanimity, developing this equilibrium equalizing self with others, seeing that the greatest harm to that is self-cherishing how destructive self-cherishing is how beneficial cherishing others more than self is. This leads to being able to want to exchange self with others. And one way to train in that is Tonglen.
And the more we do this and develop the wish to exchange our self with others, this will lead us to think the ultimate way to do this, to achieve what I’m trying to achieve with exchanging self with others, is to become a Buddha. Because only Buddhas have all the skills to be of perfect benefit to others. So I I must become a Buddha. And at a practical level, on a day to day level, what becoming a Buddha means is not following oneself cherishing and cherishing others. As much as we can.
Some questions, debate, disagreements. So if you feel like that, don’t eat meat. Think about it more. Well, it’s certainly best not to eat meat for sure. And certainly in the teachings it says if you want to develop compassion it is an obstacle.
But Buddhism is a very hopefully non dogmatic or leaves peace choices to people. And, yeah, there’s a whole debate about this. No. I I don’t think you can say that actually. No.
No. Because well this gets to be a very long discussion. I am vegetarian. I’m all in favor of it. But one has to admit there are some very holy beings who eat meat and there are some very unholy meat beings who are vegetarian.
It doesn’t follow that because you’re vegetarian you’re a nice person. It doesn’t follow that because you eat meat that you’re a bad person, you know, a negative or un you know, uncompassionate. And there’s very highly realized beings who eat tons of meat. Yeah. No, I Well, yes.
But it’s not quite as obvious as it might seem because when you not I’m not trying to get out of this because I am veg, and I I would encourage people to pee. But when a when a person is eating a piece of meat, they haven’t created the cause for that animal to die. Right? They haven’t. Because yeah.
Even though the animal was killed because of a market for meat, the animal that was killed from a Buddhist point of view had to have created the cause to be killed. The the main cause was created by the animal who was killed. That animal must have killed some being in a past life to be killed as an animal that became the meat on your plate. It does I’m not saying it justifies it. I’m not saying it justifies it.
It’s just that’s the situation. But by eating some meat, it’s true that you are becoming a condition for a meat market to be created. That’s true. So then that generates some A little bit. Yeah.
Yes, yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Sure.
Yeah. It’s yeah. But the the but Buddhadharma is all about even though this may seem contrary, just have to have to say this, that what I’ve been talking about is becoming you know, each individual being encouraged to become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. But the Buddha’s teachings should be when you when we listen to a teaching, we shouldn’t listen to it from the point of view of, oh, Fred should practice that. Oh, that’s a good thing, you and Mary should do that and whatever.
It’s all we should listen to it as it’s directed just to me. Right? So if we think something, know, if we think the Buddhist teachings are true and we see that this is there’s this logical reason for doing this, we should come to the conclusion I should do it. Not everyone else should do it, but I should do it. And if we if we come to the conclusions something shouldn’t be done, we should we decide I shouldn’t do it.
Not now every you know, I’m gonna check if other people and make them stop doing it. Our responsibility is just me. Me. I should do these things. I should not do those things.
Doesn’t matter what other people do in a sense. Of course, it does matter, but not my job to go around moralizing and forcing people. Only when I’m well, I can yeah. I can do it by good influence. That’s the only way.
Yeah? Or if people ask, you know, then you can say blah blah blah blah blah. And then they hit you. Yes. Oh, well, the Buddha I well, the Buddha does lots he’s got lots of techniques, brilliance of them.
Because there’s all story lots of stories in the Buddhist tradition, especially in the tantric tradition of people doing outrageous things, totally you know, Buddhist practitioners doing things totally contrary to Buddhist tradition, including eating meat and killing animals. But they do it for all sorts of interesting reasons that we beyond us to understand. I mean, one of the great tantric yogi called Tilopa, he used to kill fish and eat them or eat them alive or something. But he was, you know, he was a truly great being. But when we’re not truly great beings, we should, you know, we shouldn’t do these things.
But the point is to apply the teachings to ourselves. That’s the main and not as as Cheryl says, not to judge other people. That’s that’s for sure. But my mom ate meat all her life. She was nice.
I liked my mom. She was a good mom. Hitler was a vegetarian. Yeah. A cup of tea time anyway.
Discussion group time. Does everyone remember what group they’re in? Because it’s been such a long time. There’s one on the board I should remind people. Are you okay with what?
Okay. So who’s in Group one? Are some questions from last week. Five questions. It was supposed to be what is equanimity not why is equanimity.
One final question. Any questions? No. No. The whole idea is that self-cherishing is completely negative.
There’s no good self-cherishing. Like aspiring to do something positive, virtuous, is not self-cherishing. Wanting to be happy is not self-cherishing. And doing things that will bring happiness are not self-cherishing. No.
It depends what kind of happiness you want and what you do to achieve it. But practicing the Dharma to be happy is not self-cherishing. Wanting to be a Buddha isn’t self-cherishing. Like I said it has this quality of distracting, you know, chasing. It’s chasing after self-cherishing tells us this is happiness, but all it is is a distraction from suffering.
And one achieves it by following craving or anger and other disturbing thoughts. It never has a positive mental factor as one of its motivating forces. That’s what distinguishes it is a negative mind. Right? No.
No, not necessarily but that’s still not self-cherishing because wanting to have a good rebirth is just you know where you can have it you can want it in order to achieve enlightenment or you can just want it merely to have a good rebirth for oneself. But that’s not self-cherishing because in order to have a good rebirth you have to engage in virtue to achieve it and avoid negatives. Whereas when you’re following the self-cherishing thought acts as a what goes with that is the willingness whether it’s conscious or unconscious knowing or unknowing to engage in negativities to achieve your purpose which is to have instant entertainment. self-cherishing is either about getting instant distraction, instant entertainment which we think is happiness or an instant stopping of our suffering. But always it leads to an unskillful negative way of doing it.
So that’s self-cherishing. Yeah, mean it is a bit tricky that we have to think about it more and more in order to then start to recognize our self-cherishing. This is what I’ve tried to talk about in other talks a little bit is that so many people in dharma discussions and things, sort of have this eye people get super moralizing or something and think that anything where you wish to be happy yourself is bad and it’s not. It depends what kind of happiness it is and how what is involved in achieving it. Yeah.
Yeah. Is that a bit clearer? I think what makes love compassion great is the object is all sentient beings whereas when you just have love or compassion it tends to be directed to a specific being without necessarily including everyone. Whereas great love is wanting all sentient beings happiness. Great compassion is feeling the suffering of all sentient beings not wanting that.
That’s one aspect. And the other aspect of great love and compassion is that it’s not just wanting this but it’s being determined to do oneself to do something about it. It’s, you know, there’s like there’s an the analogy of of of compassion is if if you see a person drowning and you don’t want them to drown, that is compassion. And but you just stand there on the bank wanting them not to drown. You don’t do anything about stopping them drowning, but you genuinely don’t want them to drown.
So that is compassion. You know, an analogy for compassion. Great compassion is, where you jump in. The great resolve is just just as great compassion is jumping in. So you you got a whole lot of people jump drowning.
Right? So great compassion is where you jump in determined to stop all of them from not just one of them from drowning, but you’re going to stop all you know, you’re gonna rescue all of them from drowning. The great result is that at this in the analogy is, for example, as you jump in to rescue all these people who are drowning, a whole lot of other people jump in to save them as well. But you still swim out, so that’s great compassion. Right?
But with the great resolve is that you, even though there’s all these other swimming people swimming out to save the drowning people, you’re going to be the only one do it. You’re determined. I don’t care about I don’t I’m I’m I’m not concerned that other people are going to rescue them as well. I will rescue all of them because I’m not sure that all these other people will be able to swim out and save them, but I will. I will make sure I do it.
I will do it alone because it’s my job. Because they were all kind to me, only I can repay their kindness, so I have to save them all from drowning, which is very difficult. So the only way to do that is to become a Buddha, best swimmer in the world. Because again, it’s a it’s a state of mind because, of course, Buddhas are saving sentient beings all the time. So it’s never just one person’s job.
But one has the attitude. It’s an attitude that is so much more courageous and determined and and compassionate that I alone will do it because I have to repay the kindness I’ve received from every single sentient being. Okay. That’s it for tonight. Thank you very much.
So in the homework, the last in the meditation for the homework, the last two meditations for Monday and Tuesday were on emptiness. So I haven’t covered that amazing topic. So unless you know all about it, you can do the meditations. Otherwise, just repeat two of the other ones from from the week.
Okay. And just to remind you again that, next Saturday will be next Saturday will be the retreat. Oh, not not next Saturday. Saturday week. Yeah.
The Saturday of the of the next week’s yeah. Yeah. Saturday week is the retreat from nine o’clock, not afterwards at nine o’clock till three thirty. So I really encourage everyone to come because we can do some of these meditations in more detail. Well, we haven’t done any of them, but I yeah.
We can look into these meditations in some detail. They’re all wonderful, very important, very useful. And it’s also just a nice way for people to come together, get to know each other a bit more and share some vegetarian food. Is that it? I think that’s it.
Yes, so we can oh yes, one of the topics from last week was it last week or the week before that was the twelve links which is very very very complicated. It is really one of the very technical academic aspect of the teachings I find. But there is this book by His Holiness the Dalai Lama which the first about the first two thirds of this book is about the twelve links of dependent origination. So if you’re interested you may like to read this book. We have I think several copies.
This is in our library. I think we have several copies actually. Think we would two. Two. Yes, so if you’re a member of Buddha House, which I would highly recommend you become for only Oh good.
Yeah. Then you can borrow this book and all the other books. We have a fantastic Dharma library actually. Oh it was. It is.
Right. Okay, so you may be interested in that. Okay, thank you very much. We can finish with, if you’ve still got the energy, dedication. Page nine.
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. So if, for those people who find it