Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 78-minute teaching, Venerable Thubten Dondrub begins a seven-week course on the Buddhist path to enlightenment, focusing on the foundational motivations that sustain spiritual practice. He opens by emphasizing the importance of setting bodhicitta as your motivation—a mind determined not just to escape suffering but to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. Dondrub then outlines the three progressive levels of spiritual motivation: renouncing attachment to this life alone in favour of a good rebirth; seeking complete freedom from cyclic existence; and finally, developing the Mahāyāna aspiration to become a Buddha to benefit all. He covers the essential role of finding a qualified spiritual teacher, the profound rarity and preciousness of human rebirth, and introduces the graduated path (lam rim) as a step-by-step approach to transformation. Throughout, he illustrates abstract concepts with concrete examples—how we have been shown infinite kindness by all beings, how most beings experience far greater suffering than we do, and why recognition of this motivates genuine compassion. This is pitched at beginners and serious practitioners new to the Tibetan Buddhist framework.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2016 02 23 DB Presenting the Path Week 2 23022016.mp3
UUID: c3b4cd2e-830d-4133-9a16-7c585d0014b0
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Presenting the Path (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2016-02-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 78.0 minutes
Words: ~8,910
Closest group yet. Very good. Okay, welcome everyone to our second class on presenting the path. So, there’s a lot of material to cover. I can only do it very very briefly.
I’m not sure if I’m going cover what I want to cover tonight. We try. If you would like to join in, there is the traditional prayer that is said at the beginning of Roman numerals? No? No?
Okay. What has really stressed a great deal in the Tibetan tradition is that the results of whatever we do really depends on the mental motivation that we have, whether it’s a conscious motivation or an unconscious motivation, but depending on our actual motivation, that really determines what kind of result, effect we’re going to get from what we do. Especially when we’re listening to the Buddhist teachings, it’s really important to try to make our motivation the best possible that we can, to make it as very strong as we can and as genuine as we can. The very best motivation we can possibly have for studying the teachings, in every sense of the word studying, not just in an intellectual way, but when we talk about studying the Dharma in a Buddhist context, we’re talking about listening to the teachings, reflecting on them, getting an intellectual understanding of them in order to put them into practice, to understand our own mind more and more, the positive aspects of it, the negative aspects of it, to study, how I can overcome the negative aspects of my mind, how I can enhance the positive aspects of my mind so on.
Putting that all into practice, that’s what’s meant by studying the Buddhist context. When we study the Buddhist teachings, the very best motivation we can possibly have is the bodhicitta motivation. This is motivation that comes from recognizing that every sentient being is connected to me. I depend on them either directly or indirectly, always have, always will, especially while I’m in saṃsāra. To get out of cyclic existence, I will depend totally on sentient beings, and to achieve enlightenment, I depend on sentient beings.
I particularly depend on their kindness and I receive it in countless different ways. In fact, any kind of kindness you can think of, every form of kindness you can imagine, we have received from every sentient being, not just once, but sentient countless times, because cyclic existence is beginningless. Infinite time. Is that mathematically correct? Past time.
So there has been time for every sentient being to give us every kind of kindness many, many times. And especially we’ve received the kindness of a mother from every sentient being many, times. We’ve received the kindness of a father, brother, sister, best friend countless times in beginning with saṃsāra. So that’s one thing that awareness helps generate bodhicitta, but also combined with the understanding that all these immensely kind beings are suffering in cyclic existence. I’m suffering in cyclic existence, everyone is suffering in cyclic existence, but the vast majority of other beings have far more suffering than myself.
If you only think of human beings, if you only have an awareness that there are only human beings, sentient beings equals human beings, then even if you compare yourself with the vast majority of other human beings, we are so much better off in so many ways. We’re not better, but we’re better off. We have far less suffering. But if one has some awareness that animals are sentient beings, they have a mind like our own, but there are other kinds of sentient beings, then one can become aware that the vast numbers of beings in cyclic existence have far more suffering than myself. And what worse in one way, or what adds to that, compounds it, is that all these suffering beings are really unaware of their situation, why they are suffering, and they have far less freedom than ourselves right now to do anything really meaningful to overcome, to modify, transform and eliminate their suffering.
And in fact, what most beings do of the time is actually creating the cause for more suffering helplessly, blindly. So the more we really understand that, feel it, then this can lead to our feelings of compassion or thoughts of love and compassion to increase more and more until that mind that is determined to help every being become free of all causes of suffering, help to achieve peerless happiness arises, and one realizes that the only way I can do that, to repay the kindness in a perfect way, is to become a Buddha. I can’t repay the kindness of others as I am as a confused, suffering being myself. It’s only when I free myself from all suffering, awaken all my good qualities completely, become a Buddha, that I’m in the actual position to repay the kindness of all sentient beings. So, that means I’ve got to become a Buddha.
There’s no choice. And it’s the best thing to do. Practicing the Dharma, following the spiritual path is the best thing to do. It’s the most enjoyable, the most meaningful, the most fulfilling, the most satisfying, rewarding. So this is what bodhicitta is.
Not just the wish, it’s the determination to achieve enlightenment in order to enlighten all sentient beings without exception. And of It’s based on refuge, that is, a belief and faith in the existence of the Buddhas and their perfect qualities. It’s impossible to want to become a Buddha if you don’t believe in Buddhas. So one has to realize the basis of bodhicitta is refuge, believing that there are Buddhas, that this embodies the absolute perfect mind, and by believing in the Buddhas, then one has faith that the Buddha’s teachings are perfect, unbetrayable, that contain everything that we need to free ourselves from suffering, to help us achieve, to heal ourselves, lasting happiness and help us to be of benefit to others. And it also means we have refuge or faith and trust in the great practitioners of those teachings.
Not the people who dabble in the teachings, but those who have wholeheartedly committed themselves to following the Buddha’s teachings and have started to gain some of the major realizations on the path, particularly the wisdom realization of the empty nature, the true nature of themselves and phenomena. Those beings are the Ārya Sangha, the triple gem of the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Generating bodhicitta is based on refuge and also recognizing that we ourselves have the potential to be Buddhas, we have Buddha nature. Although our mind is limited and obscured, suffering now has negative qualities. All those obscurations and limitations and negativities are not true aspects of the mind.
The true nature of our mind is pure and perfect. It has this Buddha quality, this Buddha nature. So there’s also not much point in wanting to become a Buddha if one doesn’t have any potential to be one. But the Buddha is saying every mind, every sentient being has the potential to be a Buddha. So we have that potential and there’s the need to become a Buddha because sentient beings are suffering helplessly.
So no matter what, I must achieve enlightenment. And that involves following the path, and to be able to follow the path successfully, I have to understand the path. To understand the path, I have to study it. That’s why I’m going to do this little introductory course on it. So to make the prayer as effective as possible, traditionally what one does, especially those people who have taken refuge, we try and think of the Buddha or visualize the Buddha directly in front of us.
Try to imagine the Buddha seated on a lion throne, meaning a throne held up by white snow lions. These white snow lions symbolize the eight major bodhisattvas that uphold the Mahāyāna teachings of the Buddha, the bodhicitta teachings of the Buddha. Then on that throne is a lotus that symbolizes renunciation, then on the lotus is a sun disk that symbolizes wisdom, then above the sun disk is a moon disk that symbolizes bodhicitta, and then one visualizes the Buddha seated above the center of that moon disk with a hollow body of golden light in the aspect of a pure bhikṣu monk. At the same time we try and think of ourselves surrounded by all sentient beings. So it’s very difficult honestly to visualize all sentient beings, very difficult to even visualize all the people that would fill the Adelaide Oval on a match.
So that’s nothing to all sentient beings, so it’s very difficult. So at least what we should try and think of are those people that we’re most connected to in this life. At least start with those people. We visualize our mother on our left, our father on our right, and we think of the rest of our family, all our friends and helpers behind us, those who harm us in front, not to generate negative thoughts to them, but to try to, by putting those people we dislike and who dislike us in front of us, it sort of forces us to recognize that these, instead of labeling them enemies or terrible people or bad people, they are just sentient beings like everyone else. They are suffering like everyone else.
They want to be happy like everyone else. They have been kind to me in past lives countless times. So they deserve my compassion, not my aversion or indifference. So at least we try and think of those people, but as much as possible we can try and open our hearts and minds to an awareness of all other sentient beings, human beings, all the other beings of cyclic existence. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly.
By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So we can imagine that the Buddha is pleased with our motivation. The Buddha shows this by firstly dissolving the lion throne into light that absorbs up into the lotus sun and moon. Then the Buddha seated on these comes to the crown of our head. That when directly above our crown we imagine the Buddha dissolves into blissful golden light, and that light then pours down into us, blessing our mind.
So then we can enhance that positive state of mind by briefly doing the nine round breathing exercise, which I hope people have been doing during the week. Allow the mind to become a little bit more calm, clear and concentrated, so that we can use that more subtle, focused mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. Okay. Thank you very much. What we’re looking at in this course is when it says presenting the path, it’s talking about the path to enlightenment because actually the Buddha presents two paths that we can follow.
We can follow the path that leads just to becoming free of the cycle of cyclic existence and achieving the blissful state of nirvana, or we can follow the path to enlightenment. So the Mahāyāna tradition is the tradition that emphasizes Mahāyāna teachings of the Buddha, emphasizing that we all have Buddha nature, that sentient beings have been incredibly kind to us, have all been our mothers, they’re suffering so much. So we shouldn’t just follow the path to nirvana, but follow the path to enlightenment. Because when we follow the path to nirvana, it’s a very wonderful path, very virtuous, but ultimately it only benefits ourselves, just one person. Whereas if we follow the Mahāyāna path and achieve enlightenment, we are able to benefit everyone.
And since we have Buddha nature and Buddha potential, we really should follow Mahāyāna path. So that involves getting rid of all negative qualities, firstly subduing them so that we eventually can eliminate them totally from our mind in such a way that it is impossible for them to ever return, revive again, and to awaken all our positive potentials in such a way that they’re continuously active in such a way that they never decline, they’re always one hundred percent active. That is the state of enlightenment. So our mind has that potential, but that potential is obscured. And so because of all the different obscurations in our mind, ignorance, disturbing thoughts, negative karmic imprints, we ourselves right now, as ordinary, deluded, samsaric beings, we only think of this life.
Some of us may believe in future lives, other lives, but basically we only think about this life, we’re obsessed with this life, we’re attached to this life, we basically it’s very embarrassing to admit it because we might like to think we’re very warm, loving, kind people, but we basically only think about ourselves. We do think about other people, of course. Some people think more about them and think about more people and more often and more strongly, but basically we are dominated by the thought of ‘me’. Our main concern is ‘me’. When ‘me’ is happy, we’re able to think a bit about other people.
But when ‘me’ isn’t happy, it’s very difficult to be really concerned about other sentient beings. We’re obsessed with this life, we’re obsessed with ourselves, and our mind is dominated by completely wrong views about the way things actually exist. We’re a walking disaster. But we have Buddha Nature. So the Buddha taught the path where we can step by step overcome negativities, all these obscurations, all these limitations.
And it’s important to understand that it can only be done step by step. You can’t jump ahead and miss steps. You have to start at the beginning and follow the path from the beginning to the end. You have to get the basis right and build on the basis. There’s a traditional analogy that is given that if you’re building a house and you don’t get the foundation right, no matter how well you build the house, eventually it will fall down because the foundation is not there.
So you’re wasting your time putting the other bricks up if you haven’t got the foundation. So you have to get the foundation right, then you build the next level, then when you get the next level right, you build the next level, if you want a multi storey house, then you get the next level and when you’ve got that right, you put the next level. You don’t put the top level first. It just won’t work. So this is the graduated path to enlightenment, which in Tibetan is the lam rim.
Lam means path. And path is not talking about something physical, the path is talking about an evolutionary movement in one’s mind, which is not the brain, by the way. And Rim means graduation or step by step, the graduated path to enlightenment. So, in following the path to enlightenment, there are three essential qualities that we have to develop. If we just want to achieve nirvana, there are two essential qualities we have to develop, which is renunciation, which means letting go of our attachment to this life and to cyclic existence, believing it’s all wonderful, that we can find happiness in saṃsāra.
And so we have to really let go of all of that. We don’t need bodhicitta, no, just to get out of cyclic existence, have to develop renunciation and we have to develop wisdom. The wisdom that is the direct antidote to the actual cause of our suffering, of our cyclic existence, which is our ignorance, this mental factor that obscures the mind, causing the mind to experience our self and all things in a false way. The false way is called the appearance of inherent existence or true existence. Or, primitively, not really accurate but it’s kind of helpful, it’s the appearance that things seem to exist independently out there, that there is an independent existing me, and that everything that exists, exists somehow in dependence upon its own side, not relying on anything else.
So it is that ignorance ignorance that is the very source of all our suffering, and wisdom is the antidote. Wisdom doesn’t mean knowing lots of stuff, having a mind like an encyclopedia. Wisdom is that mental factor that is able to directly, unmistakenly, vividly perceive, not conceive, but perceive the way things are existing without any projections, fantasies, hallucinations, elaborations, conceptions, just direct knowing. So we need to develop those qualities of renunciation and wisdom. But to achieve enlightenment we need another quality and that is bodhicitta.
Which is based on great love and great compassion, but it’s more than great love and great compassion. But because of developing great love and great compassion, one then develops that wish, that determination, that I have to achieve enlightenment to help end the suffering of all beings and to help them achieve my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, calls peerless everlasting happiness, which is another term for enlightenment. When you’re enlightened you experience Peerless, meaning there’s nothing superior to it. Is Peerless Everlasting Happiness. So these are called the three principal aspects: renunciation, wisdom, bodhicitta.
And that’s what on the throne that the Buddha sits on, lotus, sun and moon represent. Because the Buddha arises, that image of the Buddha seated on the lotus sun and moon is again showing that enlightenment arises depending on renunciation, wisdom and bodhicitta. And one has to develop things step by step. The way it is traditionally presented in the Tibetan tradition, especially in the Gelugpa tradition that we follow here, that originates with the great Tibetan master, Lama Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelugpa tradition. The path to enlightenment involves, firstly, there are main stages in following the path to enlightenment.
The first stage, the initial stage, which is the stage or the path of a person of fundamental or basic or initial spiritual capability. The basic spiritual capability, and that is developing the mind, renouncing this life. Which doesn’t mean giving up on this life, you know, I give up. I hate it. I’m not going to do anything.
I’m just going to lie in bed. I’m not going to give up on people. I’m not going to be nice to them, don’t like them, not going to help them. I just totally give up. It doesn’t mean that.
Renunciation is about giving up, renouncing the causes of suffering and renouncing our attachment to this life, to the meaningless and negative things of this life, believing there is only this life. So we have to develop the mind that renounces that attitude, because that attitude keeps our mind fixed on this life and becomes the basis of engaging in all sorts of negative attitudes. Negative attitudes which lead to negative behaviour, which leads to suffering. It’s because of our attachment to this life and the more attachment to this life and the particular things of this life that we engage in negative actions. Because also we don’t think, because that attachment doesn’t recognize the future results of our behaviour.
Under the control of attachment we only think about what appears or what I want to happen now. What I hope hope will happen. Anyway, so we have to renounce that. Why do we have to renounce it? Because we are going to die, that’s definite.
We are also going to be reborn. The mind is going to continue, that is definite from the Buddhist point of view. I can’t prove this, I’m sorry, I can’t prove this. But if one develops some understanding of what mind is according to Buddhism, that the mind is not the brain or a product of the brain, but it is this formless phenomena — I don’t know if phenomena is the right term anyway — this formless phenomena that gives rise to all experience. It is not a thing.
The mind is not a thing. It has no substance, no location, it’s not made up of anything, tangible. It’s not physical at all, but it exists. It’s like space. Space is insubstantial.
You can’t harm space. You can’t damage it, bruise it, chop it up, bash it, slice it, dent it, blow it up, you can’t do anything to space. It’s just there. Space never started, it’s just there. And it never ends.
You can’t end space. And I don’t mean you can’t end because you can just keep going and going, but just the space here, you can’t make that space stop. You can’t get rid of it. The space will always exist, because it’s formless. And the mind is like space.
You can’t get rid of it. It will never stop. But space is really boring, but the mind is really fascinating. The is what is giving rise to experience, it’s giving rise to my mind, I don’t know about your mind, but my mind is giving rise to the experience of this body. You can look at my body, but you can’t experience my body.
Only I can, because only my mind can give rise to that. And my mind is giving rise to a sense of me. Me! Your mind is giving rise to your sense of you or actually me, but your me is different from the me that my mind is giving rise to. So this is getting a bit strange and complicated.
I hope you understand what I’m trying to say. And my mind is giving rise to the experience of this world. And my world is similar to your world, but it’s not the same. I’m in this room, you’re in this room, but the room I’m in depends on my mind and the room you’re in depends on your mind. So not really the same room.
We’re not in the same room. Looks like it, but we’re not really in exactly the same room. We’re not even in the city. We’re all in Adelaide, but we’re all in our own Adelaide. We’re in a different universe.
We’re our own little bubble. But we all assume it’s the same. Anyway, I’m getting carried away here. Where am I? What am I talking about?
First stage. Yes, but more specifically I was talking about the mind. Yes, but I was talking about the mind and why was I talking about the You’ve been looking at the mind. No, I’ve lost it. You haven’t been following properly.
See, depend on you you to follow, you see, but No, come on. I know. Mind is like space. Yes, mine is but yes, but before that. That was illustrating a point.
Yes, know I’m in the lower scope. Renouncing this life, not giving up on suffering. I think it was I’ll just start again. Yes, that’s big. Anyway, so we have to develop first the mind renouncing this life.
Oh gosh, yeah. I was talking about, yes, because we’re definitely gonna die, this is what I was saying, and the mind goes on. That’s what I was saying. The mind goes on. Yeah.
So, in other words yeah. And then I started talking about the mind. Why does the mind go on? Because it’s like space. Yeah?
Okay. You weren’t following, you weren’t listening. Happen. We don’t have to do anything for rebirth to occur other than die. We don’t have any control over that.
But, what kind of rebirth we have, we can, at the moment, have no control over. Whether we have a good rebirth, a bad human rebirth, a human rebirth, a non human rebirth. Right now most of us have no control over, but we can. And that’s what the Buddha wants us to do. Basically what we have to do is avoid negative actions of body, speech and mind and engage in virtuous actions, because negative actions can never become the cause of a human rebirth.
No negative action is going to become the cause of a human rebirth. They all add up to becoming a cause of bad rebirths. Only virtuous, really good actions act as the cause of a human rebirth. More about that later, this is just introduction. That’s why we have to renounce this life in order to give up negative actions more and more, engage in virtuous actions more and more, so that when we die we will have a good rebirth.
But even if we have a good rebirth, we’re still in cyclic existence. Even if we’re born as a human being or in the God realms, one has some happiness, suffering, but still, even as a human being, even in the God realms, there is suffering. Or the God realms come to an end, like all rebirths come to an end, one takes another rebirth somewhere else, and suffering goes on and on and on. The more we understand that, we can develop that wish to not only just get a good rebirth, but to get out of cyclic existence, to become free of suffering to renounce saṃsāra. So that’s the next practice stage, stage in the spiritual path, developing the mind of a practitioner of middle spiritual capability, the mind seeking complete freedom from suffering, and maybe wanting to achieve nirvana, the bliss of nirvana, But it’s only once one’s developed that wish to be completely free of saṃsāra that one can then develop and enter the final stage of the spiritual path, the path of someone of higher spiritual capability, and that person is a bodhisattva, the person who has developed bodhicitta, the wish to achieve enlightenment for others’ sake.
At the beginning of the spiritual path, we’re wanting a good rebirth for ourselves, then we want to get out of saṃsāra for ourselves, but eventually on the basis of developing that level of mind, we can then realize more and more that actually everyone is suffering. Most people are suffering more than myself, and I’m dependent on all of them. So how can I get a good rebirth just for myself? How can I just become free of suffering myself and leave everyone behind to suffer? All these people who have been immensely kind to me.
If I could not help them, maybe we could justify it to leave them to suffer, if it was impossible to help them. But the Buddha is saying that we have Buddha nature, we have the potential within us to be a vast benefit to all beings. By thinking about this over and over again, meditating on it, we can develop the mind of bodhicitta and enter the Mahāyāna path to enlightenment. That’s what this course is about. So the first part, the first stage So there are these three levels of motivation that we need to work on: firstly, seeking a good rebirth, then seeking freedom from saṃsāra, then seeking enlightenment.
But there are people who practice whose motivation is only to get a good rebirth. There are people who practice the Dharma whose motivation is to get out of saṃsāra just to experience the bliss of nirvana, the everlasting bliss of nirvana. And then there are those want to get a good rebirth and get out of saṃsāra in order to achieve enlightenment. Because to achieve enlightenment, first you have to get a succession of good rebirths, then you get out of saṃsāra, and only then can you achieve enlightenment. This is a pretty silly example, but you could have the motivation, especially if I keep talking, just to get out of this room.
Or then you could develop motivation that actually being stuck in Buddha house is really terrible, and then you decide, I’ve got to get not only out of this room, but out of Buddha house. But then you can think that just wandering around the Masonic property is not so great either. And then you can get the determination to get right out and cross the road and into wonderful Adelaide, the bliss of Adelaide. So some people could just have the motivation to get out of this room. Some could have the motivation to get out of the building.
Some could have the motivation, but then there are those who want to experience something really vast. But to experience that something really vast, first you have to get out of this room, then you have to get out of the building, and only then can you experience everything. So the path to enlightenment is set up where we are encouraged beginning, not just to get out of the room, not just to get out of the building, but to get out of everything limited and experience something beyond limitation, not just for ourselves, but for the benefit of all beings. So from the very beginning, that’s the emphasis in the Mahāyāna tradition. But in order to achieve enlightenment, first to achieve enlightenment you have to generate bodhicitta.
But to generate bodhicitta, first you have to develop the mind wanting a good rebirth. Realising how important it is. I’m going to die, I’m going to be reborn, but I have to make sure that when I’m reborn, I’m going to have a good rebirth. Not just to have fun, but so I can continue to practice spiritual path. So that’s the first stage in the spiritual path.
One of the definitions of a Dharma practitioner is someone seeking a good rebirth. If you are not doing that, you are not actually a Dharma practitioner. If you are just messing around, mumbling a few mantras, doing a bit of meditation, doing this or that, but there is no real wish to practice, to make sure I get a rebirth, then it’s not Dharma practice. It’s what is called spiritual materialism. It might look nice, but it’s just another form of just another form of entertainment.
Anyway, they’ve got a very long introduction. So how do we renounce this life? How do we renounce this life? How do we follow the spiritual path? What is emphasized in the tradition is firstly we need to realize how important it is to rely on a qualified spiritual master.
Many people, especially since Buddhism has come to the West, many people, maybe I don’t so much now, but earlier on, but there are still people who think like this, believe that all you need to do to follow a spiritual path such as Buddhism is you just read the books and just do what’s in the books. But this won’t work. No matter how intelligent one may be, how educated one may be, it is extremely easy to misunderstand what is meant in the Dharma. Just by reading the books. Especially for us because we come with a whole baggage of other religious beliefs.
Were all probably brought up, born into I don’t know, these days maybe less so. But probably born into some non-Buddhist tradition. Maybe we got rid of that or let go of that at some stage. But we’ve also been influenced by so many philosophies and this is materialism and blah blah blah, scientific materialism, all sorts of things. And so we listen to the Buddha, we read something through so many filters.
And then we think we’ve understood it and know how to practice it So it really doesn’t work And also, the way our little self-cherishing works, we filter out the things we don’t want to know, don’t want to understand, don’t agree with. So you need a qualified teacher to explain the Dharma correctly according to the tradition, not making up their own unique, wonderful explanation, but giving the teachings according to the tradition. The traditional word, the Sanskrit word is guru, and this term guru is translated in Tibetan as lama, and then the only word we’ve got for this in English is teacher or spiritual guide or spiritual master. Spiritual guide sounds a bit weird. And a spiritual master or guide sounds like some kind of ghost or spirit coming and talking to you.
But here it’s referring to a human being. And the term master means that not cracking a whip over you. It means they are a master of their mind. They have gained mastery of their mind. And because they have mastery of their mind, they can help us gain mastery over our mind.
So we need such a person. We can’t do that depending on a book. We need to be in contact, human contact, not there are people who believe you can talk to ascended masters and things. This, I’m sorry, is not what Buddhism says. This is very misleading.
You need to relate to a human being. A living human being, who is highly qualified, who has a great deal of knowledge, but also a great deal of knowledge combined with a great deal of authentic experience. And you need to meet someone not only who has that knowledge and experience, there may be many of those people, but you need to meet at least one of them with whom you connect. It’s not enough to meet someone who you think, oh, this guy or this woman is very knowledgeable, is very experienced, but you don’t actually feel a connection with them. You’re not really moved by them.
You’re not really you don’t have this kind of heart connection with them. You need to make that heart connection with someone. And you don’t want to make the heart connection with someone who isn’t experienced and not very knowledgeable. We need to make that heart connection with someone who has genuine knowledge and genuine experience. And the more knowledge and experience, the better.
Because our mind can fool us, we can cheat ourselves into thinking we’re practicing properly, or thinking, I’ve got this kind of realization, whereas in fact we are maybe millions of miles or kilometers from it. There are many states of mind that could be mistaken as spiritual accomplishments, are actually really disturbed states of mind. There are people who are incapable of relating to the world and other people, and they may think they are detached, but they’re actually seriously disturbed. They haven’t achieved non attachment at all. They’ve achieved a state of serious alienation from life.
Being non attached isn’t being alienated from the world. It’s quite the opposite. By being non attached you can really connect properly what’s the word appropriately with people and things. If you meet great teachers who aren’t attached, they’re not cold alienated people. They are quite the opposite.
Anyway, so we need someone to guide us, to point out our faults, to encourage us, to keep pushing us, to push our buttons, to motivate us, to inspire us, to be an example, to be a mentor. So many things. So we need a spiritual guide, a teacher, a master. Or many. Maybe one’s not enough.
A few. It is said that there are many qualities that a true spiritual master should have. One of them is, least least quality is that the correct way to put it anyway, is at least one’s teacher should know more than you. Know more than you about the spiritual path. Least that person can help you in the beginning.
So, in the presentation of the path to enlightenment, relying on a qualified spiritual master is placed first to emphasize how important it is to connect with a qualified teacher, because once one makes that connection, then the whole spiritual path becomes so much more easier and possible. The actual path becomes a genuine possibility once one makes that connection. On the basis of having met a spiritual master, what really helps us to then engage ourselves in the spiritual path and work towards renouncing this life is is recognizing that not only put it this way that we have a very particular kind human rebirth. There are, what is it, on the planet now, almost seven billion human beings, something like that now? Seven billion human beings.
But of those seven billion human beings, very, very, very few are able to follow the spiritual path. Either because they have too much suffering, of some form or other, external suffering imposed on them by being born in a poverty stricken country, a country of political repression, where there’s all sorts of wars going on, and so on, all sorts of internal difficulties, physical difficulties. Some people have too much pleasure in their life, they don’t see any need for changing their mind. Some people have no belief in spiritual values whatsoever, no belief in future lives, there’s just this life, there are many super intelligent people who have that attitude. Unfortunately, in our world at the moment, spiritual materialism is becoming the dominant belief.
Replacing all forms of religion, especially in our society. Scientific materialism is taking over. And you have people like Richard Dawkins? Richard Dawkins.
Dawkins, yeah, who’s like the People like that, really hardcore spiritual materialists who enjoy ripping apart people, any belief that there could be any kind of spiritual qualities of situations occurring whatsoever. It is interesting though, he hasn’t given Buddhism very much of a bad rap. Because mostly they don’t know about it, I don’t think. And also maybe it’s more difficult to make fun fun of. A colleague of his, Sam Harris, is actually.
We don’t have as much, I think. Okay. One very important meditation is meditation in order to turn our mind away from the obsession with this life is recognizing that we have what is called a precious or a perfect human rebirth, which is something extremely rare on this planet and in time. So a precious human rebirth is qualified by someone who has what are called the eight freedoms and the ten endowments or ten encouraging factors. Eight freedoms are, so all human beings have four of these freedoms, which is not being born in the lower realms.
So for those people who are new to Buddhism, when we talk about saṃsāra, which is our mind controlled by delusion and karma, in saṃsāra, one can take rebirth as a human being, but also can be reborn in what is said to be the lower realms of suffering as an animal, as a hungry ghost or in Sanskrit the term is a preta, or one can be born in states of hell, where one has intense suffering for an incredibly long time. So there are those three lower realms and there are also the god realms, where one experiences much when one is born in various god realms, one experiences much more pleasure than a human being, far less suffering, and the life span is far longer, but it is a rebirth so it comes to an end. So anyway, to have a precious human birth, one aspect of it is the freedom of not being born in the non human realms, because in the three lower realms there is too much suffering to be able to practice the Dharma. There is a great need to be free of suffering, but you have too much suffering, it’s just impossible to practice.
And in the God realms, there’s too much pleasure. One doesn’t see any need to practice. Because the pleasure is so, the bliss is so wonderful, it goes on for a very long time. The people born in that state think that is going to go on forever, just like we now feel like our life is going to go on forever. We’re getting older and older day by day, but we still think that we’re going to go on forever.
Beings in the God realms have even more reason to believe so, because they have no suffering, no obvious suffering, and they have this bliss. They have these incredibly beautiful bodies of light. No suffering, no disease, no pills to take, don’t have to eat anything. But it all comes to an end. But while it’s happening, who needs to practice Dharma?
Everything. They think they’re in heaven, they think they’re enlightened, they think they’re in nirvana. Whereas the beauty of being born a human being is that we have some suffering and that motivates us to want to be free of suffering, find out what are the causes of it and get rid of it. And we have some happiness, some freedom, so we’re not overwhelmed by suffering, we have some space in our mind to do things. And we have some pleasure that motivates us to want more.
We can see that there’s something more. It is possible. Our mind is not so obscured, so we have our intelligence, that intelligent aspect of our mind, because all sentient beings have every quality. So all animals have the potential to be geniuses, but their mind is obscured. That intelligent aspect of our mind is obscured, but not as obscured as an animal.
So we can think, reason, we can read, we can create languages, writing, retain knowledge, have so much more self awareness than animals, so we can understand the teachings, put them into practice. So fortunate. Are free of all the limitations of other sentient beings. Among human beings themselves, we are free of there are so many human beings who are born in really terrible environments, there’s incredible violence, lawlessness, political repression, repression, where religion has either died out, been suppressed, impossible to practice for all sorts of reasons, where people don’t value these things. There are whole countries like that, or within countries there are pockets of places where people are like that.
So if you’re born in that situation, one thing, like as an adult, you go to such a place, it’s one thing, but imagine if you were born into that environment. How difficult it would be to be able to develop some understanding of your mind and work with your mind. To develop loving kindness when you’re surrounded by drug addicts violence and brutality and bigotry and hatred and all sorts of stuff going on. And then you could be born a human being where everything is really nice and you’re very intelligent and educated, but you have no belief in any kind of religious system. There’s only this life.
One’s totally convinced. So one’s suffering, but there’s no way you’re going to become free of it because you only think of this life. My god. I’ve only just started the beginning. It’s impossible to talk about the path to enlightenment in seven weeks.
Especially me, I just can’t do it. I don’t know how the other people do it, simplify it. I haven’t done a third of tonight’s talk and it’s finished. Very quickly, what can I say? Then there are people born physically handicapped in very serious ways, with incredible mental problems, very difficult to practice Dharma.
And what else? One could be born at a time where the Dharma doesn’t exist in the world. So one has maybe, see, why are you here? Why are we here? We have some connection with the Buddhist point of view because of past lives.
Many people read Buddhist books and just chuck them away and think, oh, this is rubbish or this is the work of the devil. Well, you obviously didn’t do that. Or maybe you did to come to undermine it, you know. But the fact that you didn’t do that, and even I didn’t do it, is because from a Buddhist point of view we have made some connection. Some, I don’t know how strong, but some connection with Buddhism in the past.
So we have some mind that is open to the possibility that there is future lives in some way. Maybe we don’t believe it very strongly, maybe we don’t believe it, but maybe we’re, you know, oh, maybe it’s possible. Whereas other people, it’s impossible to believe, just impossible in this life, virtually. Their mind is so closed in some way. So it makes it very difficult to really look at the actual causes of one’s suffering.
So we are free of all of that. And on top of that, just very quickly, we have all these encouraging factors. We are human beings. We’ve got a human body and we can do this with this human body. Even gorillas and monkeys find it difficult to turn the page properly.
Not only that, can read what is on the page. And not only that, because a monkey can’t, even a chimpanzee, a gorilla can’t. Gorilla, yes, can’t do that. And not only that, not only can we read this, we can understand it. Amazing.
Amazing. Which we all take for granted. Of course, a lot of what we read is complete rubbish, not very helpful, but there is Buddhadharma and we can read it and understand it and that can change our mind completely. So we’re unbelievably fortunate. And we have a basically healthy body and mind to be able to practice.
And what else? There are many people who can come in contact with it. Many people never come in contact with Buddhism ever. Like, millions of people, millions and millions of people on this earth will never hear the word Buddha. Never.
Never even hear the word Buddha. Have no idea what it means. So not only have we heard the word Buddha, but we’ve come in contact with Buddhism. Many people come in contact with it, they reject it, not interested in it, horrified by it, untouched by it. Some of us here have actually connected with it.
Maybe all of you, I don’t know, are connecting with it. So, because of that, we are able to discover all the methods that can tame our mind, awaken our mind. They’re all there for us to use. And we have the chance to meet. They’re on this earth.
The Dharma exists, it’s flourishing, there are great teachers of it which we can come in contact with. There are Dharma friends, people who have similar interests who can help us. So actually, if we check, we are free of all the greatest obstacles to working with our mind, and have the essential encouraging factors. We have a precious human rebirth, the optimum chance to realize our Buddha nature. Some people here have heard this analogy fifteen times already, but in the Buddha’s teachings it mentions, gives the example that there can be a beggar, incredibly miserable, hungry, totally poor, who discovers a giant diamond worth billions of dollars, but they have no idea what this diamond is and how valuable it is.
But they keep it for their whole life with no idea what it is. And so there’s no benefit. They remain a miserable, hungry, starving beggar. So to have a precious human rebirth and not recognize its value is an even greater tragedy. So what we have to do is, in order to stop wasting this life on meaningless and negative things, and turn our mind to what is really meaningful, we have to recognize that we have a precious human rebirth.
The optimum chance to become a Buddha, the optimum chance to get a good rebirth, the optimum chance to get out of saṃsāra, the optimum chance to become a Buddha, the optimum chance to stop harming others, the optimum chance to be of vast, everlasting, perfect benefit to mother sentient beings. I’ll stop now. I was going talk about impermanence and death and what else? Something else. Oh no, just that.
No time for impermanence and death. So you’re just going have to meditate on the precious human rebirth during the week. There’s a handout on it, so you can divide it up. Or you can just meditate, I’ll try and explain it at the end of tonight. So tea break, coffee break.
Discussion? Yeah, discussion. I’m going to talk more about the precious human rebirth and also more about Guru devotion and talk about impermanence and death. I didn’t get around to impermanence and death. You have a handout on it for your homework, so if you want to read that and try and do the meditation on it, that’s good.
Otherwise, maybe just for the homework, you can do some meditation on the importance of having a teacher, especially on precious human rebirth. I haven’t gone through all the points about that, but in the handouts you’ve got there it lists the main points to think about in recognising that one has a precious human rebirth, its incredible meaning, that we can give so much meaning to the precious human birth. Also, it’s very helpful to recognize how incredibly rare it is to have it, because the more we recognize how meaningful it is, but how incredibly rare it is to have such a re birth, and that it’s very, very difficult to create the cause to have one in the future, then that will encourage us not to waste this life. Means that will encourage us hopefully more and more. Of course, all of the teachings I’m mumbling about trying to explain is predicated on some understanding belief that we have a mind.
And it’s really our mind that is the source of everything, all our experience. Whatever happiness we have, it is our mind. That happiness is a state of our mind. Our suffering, physical and mental, all a state of mind. So if we want less suffering, more happiness, we have to work with our mind.
And not just in this life, because our mind is never going to stop. While it’s existing, every moment it’s giving rise to experience, good and bad, and it’s having effects on others, good and bad. So we really, really need to work on our mind. And most people, most sentient beings, most of the time don’t have the chance. They don’t have the freedom, they don’t have the understanding, they don’t have the tools, but with a precious human rebirth one reaches a point where one’s got the freedom, the understanding and the tools, which is the Dharma, to do it.
So we really need to recognize it so we don’t waste it. So it’s really very helpful to meditate and think about having a precious human rebirth. My teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche says: It’s good to do that, but think it every day. So please, before you go, drop in the homework you’ve done. There’s the homework for this week, and there’s the three handouts that are there: one on Guru Devotion, Precious human Rebirth, and also about impermanence and death.
But I’ll talk a little bit about impermanence and death next week and all the other stages of the path. So we can dedicate the merit, if you’d like to join in. This is on page eight, nine, something like that, eleven. Maybe in the one minute, I think I’ve got one minute left before we actually finish. I’d just like to point out maybe some people get confused at the very beginning of the teaching, but the prayer we say of refuge in bodhicitta it does explain it here if you’ve had time to check but you may have heard that I say different words in the third line than what you say but that’s because I’m supposed to be the teacher.
Instead of saying ‘Chen yen’, which you say, which means listening to the Dharma, I’m supposed to say ‘Chen se’, which means teaching the Dharma. But the dedication we do is the same. So we’ve all hopefully created a bit of merit, a lot of merit tonight, so we can dedicate this, especially so that it becomes when it ripens, it doesn’t ripen just in some very ordinary way, but by dedicating it to enlightenment, when those positive imprints ripen, they ripen to help us in the path to enlightenment. 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 Bodhimind, not yet born, arise and grow.
May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. The way I’m going, I don’t think I will finish this course in seven weeks. So I’ve already mentioned to Judy, even before the course starts, that maybe we could make the course a little bit longer, there wouldn’t be any extra charge or any extra just to let you know that if you can plan ahead and whether you want to come, maybe you want to cut the course short. But maybe, because I won’t be teaching any more Discovering Buddhism courses after this because I’m going into retreat for quite some time. So there will be some time to maybe add one or two classes to this rather than trying to squash it in, if that is okay with everyone.
Will the retreat still stay on the same day? Oh no, we’d have to do that at the end. It wouldn’t make sense to have the retreat before we finish the course. But I will try to do it in seven weeks, but maybe one or two weeks more would make it much easier. Okay, thank you very much.
For those people who have taken refuge or would feel comfortable to do so, we finish with three prostrations.