Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 118-minute teaching on the eight worldly concerns, Ven Thubten Dondrub guides practitioners through why recognizing and abandoning attachment to gain, loss, praise, blame, pleasure, and pain is essential to meaningful spiritual practice. He opens with the rarity of meeting the Buddha’s teachings and the preciousness of the human rebirth, then moves into how the eight worldly concerns waste this opportunity and keep us trapped in saṃsāra. Core topics include the law of cause and effect and how following worldly concerns generates negative karma; the three kinds of suffering, especially the subtle suffering of change—mistaking impermanent pleasures for happiness; practical antidotes such as remembering impermanence and death, reflecting on the faults of delusions, and checking one’s motivation in daily actions like eating and working; and how to transform ordinary activities into dharma practice through pure motivation and dedication. Dondrub illustrates throughout with quotes from Śāntideva and Nāgārjuna and guidance from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, emphasizing that samsaric pursuits are endless and exhausting while dharma practice yields lasting results. Pitched at practitioners seeking to deepen their understanding of fundamental Buddhist obstacles to genuine happiness.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Eight Worldly Concerns Week 6 2015 02 12.mp3
UUID: c3486bad-a54e-483b-b6b7-2cd06306e0ac
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Eight Worldly Concerns (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2015-02-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 118.6 minutes
Words: ~12,752
So welcome everyone to our, I think, fifth class on the eight worldly concerns, and I’d like to welcome who is a native son of Adelaide. Yes. Just who’s studying at Sera Monastery. So probably knows ten times more about the dharma than me, but is here to get a visa? Renew his visa to go back to study at Sera Je.
So that’s fantastic. Wonderful. So we start on page six if you’d like to join in with the traditional prayers. I prostrate to the gathering of dakinis and the three khatvangas who abide in the holy expanse of limitless space by your powers of clairvoyance and magical emanation. Look after practitioners like a mother her only child.
By the teachings of the three supreme jewels possessing the power of truth, may inner and outer hindrances be transformed. May they be dispelled. May they be pacified. May they be completely pacified. May all negative forces opposed to dharma be completely pacified.
May the host of eighty thousand obstacles be pacified. May we be separated from problems and harmful conditions to dharma. May all enjoyments be in accord with the Dharma, and may there be auspiciousness and perfect happiness here right now. So then page eight, offering the the mandala of the whole universe as a way to request the teachings from the Buddha. So we visualize Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as our source of refuge, inspiration, and guidance, trying to have a strong sense of the Buddha as the the embodiment of the Three Jewels of refuge embodiment of all our perfect teachers of the past, present, and future.
Think the Buddha appears in front of us to remind us of our Buddha potential and to inspire us to to realize it. So we offer the mandala to request the teachings to help accumulate the merit that is the basis for being able to understand and practice the teachings and realize them and also as a way to purify our mind of the obstacles that prevent us understanding, understanding, practicing, and realizing. So as we think of the Buddha in front of us, we then particularly focus on thinking of all sentient beings surrounding us, trying to generate that strong awareness right now of how we are intimately connected with every living being. We totally depend on them in every possible way. And what is amazing is that we receive this help over and over again in beginningless Samsāra.
And, especially, we depend on the kindness of a mother and father, and we’ve received that from every sentient being an inconceivable number of times in in beginningless Samsāra. And so we try and focus on that, generating that mind of affectionate love towards all beings and wishing to repay that kindness. And how what is the best way to repay the kindness that we’ve received is by freeing all these beings from suffering, all the causes of suffering. So try and have that awareness that all these beings are trapped in cyclic existence, experiencing more suffering than myself right now with far less ability than myself right now to understand their suffering, to reduce it, transform it, eliminate it. So generate that thought that no matter what, I must achieve enlightenment in order to repay perfectly repay the kindness of mother sentient beings.
So in order to achieve enlightenment, I have to follow the path to enlightenment. And in order to fully engage in that path, fully commit myself to it, then I need to realize that I have the precious human rebirth, the optimum chance to do so, but also realize that what actually is the great obstacle to to following the path and and taking the essence of the precious human rebirth is amazing rare, but very brief opportunity of being able to follow the path to enlightenment. What gets in the way over and over again is the eight worldly concerns. So I need to understand them in order to overcome them. So for this reason, I’ll study this this topic for the sake of all mother sentient beings.
I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through teaching the Dharma, may I become become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So then we can imagine that the Buddha is pleased with our motivation and showing this by now coming towards the crown of our head. And when directly above our crown, we imagine that the Buddha then dissolves into blissful golden light so that that light can then pour down into us, blessing our mind. So then we can just briefly reinforce that positive state of mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise or any other breathing meditation you may know just to let the mind become a bit calmer, more clear, more focused so that we can use that level of mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight.
Okay. Thank you very much. So we throughout our lives, we come we come in contact with all sorts of different things, new things all the time, and we don’t sort of take much notice of it. And at some point in this life, we came in contact with the Buddha’s teachings and probably may not have thought so much of it or maybe we thought it was quite wonderful, but just another thing that we came in contact with. And at some point, we developed some faith in these teachings, but we tend to take it as, just generally speaking, just another thing that’s happened.
But in fact, to meet ordinary things doesn’t is not such a big deal. But to be able to meet to come in just even come in contact with the Buddha’s teachings requires an enormous amount of merit. It’s something very rare in time and space to be able to do, to actually just contact the Buddhist teachings. And and then in on top of that, to actually connect with the teachings, to develop faith in them is something even rarer, something that requires requires an enormous amount of merit that somehow we did create in past lives. So this is something that we we need to reflect on more and more.
So this is why the the meditation on the the precious human rebirth is presented as the one of the first topics in in the lam rim. So we always have Buddha nature. That is the the true nature of our mind. That will never go away. It is always there, always will be there, always has been there, but it’s always been obscured.
And it’s only when we meet the precious human rebirth that we have the the optimum chance to free our mind of all confusion and therefore all suffering, and more than that, be in a position to begin to help every sentient being to be free of confusion and suffering. So we need to be aware of this more and more by reflecting on it to be able to really appreciate what just seems like an ordinary life. We’re not you know, we don’t feel as though we’re all that special, but we have a very special kind of rebirth that gives us enormous freedom to work with our mind, freedom from the greatest obstacles. And we have all these encouraging factors to work with our mind, such as having actually met the Dharma, having some faith in it, having teachers and Dharma friends, and have a basically healthy body and mind, and Dharma centers and and and so on. So we have all these things.
So it’s not just enough to have them, but we really have to recognize that we’ve got them, and we need to recognize the meaning or the meaning we can give to having having all these eight freedoms and ten endowments. Because then when we really get that, when we actually realize the that we’ve got a precious human rebirth and what we can do with it, that will motivate us to use this precious human rebirth the way it can be used, the way all the great practitioners have used it. And this will will give us the the energy to want to overcome our eight worldly concerns. And the more we’re motivated by recognizing that we have the precious human rebirth, the more we will start to see how we are wasting this this opportunity. This this the rarest opportunity of all, the rarest rarest opportunity of all, the rarest chance, which is to practice the Dharma.
There is nothing rarer, more precious than that. This word precious is used a lot in the Dharma so much that it becomes a very unprecious word. It’s used so many times. But, you know, we really need to try and get the sense that even knowing some Dharma and being able to practice it even a little bit is something priceless. There’s there’s nothing that can literally compare to it at all.
Nothing. Nothing. And, yeah, and yet instead of devoting this and and this life, even the longest human life is very, very short. It’s incredibly short. It’s not sure that, as mister, who was it, said, our treasurer said that we may live to be a hundred and fifty.
Even if we do live to be a hundred and fifty, still it’s very short to practice the Dharma. So we’ve got this tiny opportunity, and yet we waste it on on all these crazy things, things that are are either meaningless, that that that have no real meaning, no real lasting benefit whatsoever, or we what is even worse, we waste this precious human rebirth on engaging in negative things that are gonna bring us more suffering, more problems in the future. So and how so yeah. So we have to be able to recognize our own worldly concerns, how they operate in our own minds, in our own lives, see how harmful they are, and apply the antidotes as as much as possible. So just a a couple of quotes rather than me just rambling in my ungrammatical English as usual.
In Śāntideva’s guide to the bodhisattva way of life, he says, after having found this freedom, which is the freedom of the precious human rebirth, if I do do not train my mind in virtue, there is nothing more deceptive. There is no greater folly than this. So this is the worst mistake that we can possibly make. After we’ve found this precious human rebirth, after so many lives wandering in the lower realms or sometimes blissing out in the god realms and doing nothing meaningful whatsoever. You know, having found this precious human rebirth, we waste it.
So there’s nothing worse than that. For our own sake, it’s we’ve we’ve, you know, we’ve wasted our our own opportunity for happiness, but we’ve thrown away the chance to repay the kindness of mother sentient beings. And then the great Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna in the this friendly letter, this says this text called the Friendly Letter, which was a letter he wrote to one of the kings of one of the kingdoms of India. Even more foolish than someone who uses a golden vessel adorned with gems to collect vomit is someone who having been born human performs negative deeds. So if you’ve got if you’ve got an antique vase covered in jewels that’s worth thousands and thousands of dollars and you actually just use it to collect vomit or something, just use it as bed what do you call them?
Bed bed pan? Bed bed bed chamber. Yeah. Not bed chamber. What?
Anyway, chamber pot. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Then that is pretty dumb and ridiculous.
But to use this precious vessel of of the human rebirth, the precious human rebirth to engage in negative actions, which we tend to do, this is really, really foolish, sad, disaster. So these these quotes from these great masters, we should really try to remember. So when we wake up in the morning to remember that we’ve got a precious human rebirth and as much as possible not to waste it on ordinary things, doing ordinary of course, we have to do some ordinary things. Right? We can’t get away with that, but we tend to waste so much time on these things, and we give them a value that they don’t have.
We project onto these things so much importance that they just simply don’t have if we look from a dharma perspective. Yeah. Because also, Śāntideva. No. There’s another quotation. I probably won’t be able to find it now.
I think it’s from Nāgārjuna’s. It’s something similar, very similar to oh, I won’t be able to find it. But vaguely anyway, Śāntideva says in the Bodhisattva Way of Life, something along the lines that the work of Samsāra is is endless, you know, following which is basically following the eight worldly concerns. There’s always something to do because everything that we do, all objects of the eight worldly concerns are impermanent. So what one does something, it doesn’t last, so we have to do another thing.
We fear and we do something because of craving happiness, but also we then set off that mind that fears suffering. All these things are constantly changing, changing. There’s millions of things to do in Samsāra all the time. There’s there’s always something to do. The work of Samsāra is endless.
The work of trying to be happy just by, you know, chasing after worldly happiness, the the work of trying to be free of suffering without dealing with the actual causes, that that work is endless. And it requires so much energy. It’s exhausting. It just goes on and on and on like my talks. Dharma practice, although it also requires a lot of effort and energy, it works.
It it it brings the result. You know, the work of Samsāra never brings the result. It seems to, but then the illusion shatters. And what we expected just doesn’t last. What we expected to be something perfect and lasting proves to be something very imperfect and short short lived.
Whereas the work of Dharma, that requires also lots of time and energy, but that work that that brings the result, the actual result, a lasting result. And at at at some point, one doesn’t have to work anymore. One one receives the final result of liberation and enlightenment, then there’s no more work to do because received, one has achieved the perfect result. But the work of Samsāra, you know, the end never comes. So if one is wise, what’s what’s smart to do?
You know? Our self-cherishing mind tells us not to practice the Dharma because it’s hard and it takes a long time. I don’t know how many people have told me over the years of the thought of enlightenment is just so, you know, mind boggling. It’s just too far off. Seems just far too difficult.
Yeah. But, actually, the Buddha is telling us it’s something completely possible. We can we can achieve it. Yes. It takes a lot of work, a lot of time, but and even may take three countless great eons.
But the work of Samsāra goes on for much longer than three countless eons. It goes on forever. Just ordinary life chasing after following the eight worldly concerns takes a lot of time and energy. It’s hard work following the eight worldly concerns, but it doesn’t work. So if we were smart and we do have the potential to be smart, we have that within our consciousness, consciousness.
What would we do if we really think about it? If we give ourselves the time to think about it, to put our time and energy into stuff that is never going to really work and end or to put effort into something that really works and has a final end, imperfection, in in enlightenment. So when Rinpoche has talked about the eight worldly concerns says some pretty heavy things, so I’m just going to quote him. Sorry. No.
I shouldn’t be sorry. One one thing Rinpoche says is that in in looking at the eight worldly concerns, we should reflect, we should really meditate on checking up that when we experience happiness, which is just worldly happiness, firstly, we should we should look really look at our moment in at our mind in that moment when that happiness arises. What is the effect on my mind when this when I experience some kind of worldly happiness? How does it affect me? How does my mind react?
Yeah. And, actually, what happens is the mind goes like that. It goes a little berserk. It goes a little bit out of control because it’s got this thing, happiness, which we’re always chasing after. We get very excited, and we get attached to it because we think this experience is it.
This is permanent. Yeah. If you really check I don’t know. I I could go into some personal experiences, but they’re too embarrassing, I think. But it’s really possible.
You know, I’d I’d like to think I’m I’m a reasonably intelligent person. Intelligent person. Maybe I’m not. At least I I think I am, but you probably can explain that I’m not. But, anyway, it is somehow possible to quite almost at the same time, at one level, know, intellectually know that something is impermanent.
But as you’re experiencing it, there the emotion the emotional mind is is really grasping, believing it’s permanent. Even if simple things like an ice cream, everyone knows an ice cream doesn’t last forever, but the attachment to the ice cream tells you it’s going to it’s permanent. Check up. That sounds ridiculous, but, you know, really, as you’re actually experiencing something you’re attached to, your mind either believes or at least wants to believe this is gonna go on for forever. And the more attached you are we are sorry.
I’m I’m not if I say you, that sounds like I’m have some experience I don’t have. The more attached we are to something, the more that belief that it’s permanent is there. And it’s completely irrational because at another level, we know it’s not permanent. Intellectually, know, but, emotionally but that’s probably not the right dharma term. I don’t know if there is a dharma term, but just how our deluded mind works.
There is that grasping. Our mind sinks into that pleasure and, you know, is blinded by it and, you know, holds on to, you know, the the permanency of this. Check up yourself. Maybe I’m wrong, but check up. And so those two things kind of reinforce each other.
The this the belief, the blind belief that this is permanent and then getting attached to it. And because we’re attached, we want to believe it’s permanent. And so these two things feed each other. So then Rinpoche says to reflect. So right now, as I’m as the mind is going berserk like this because of attachment to this worldly happiness, what is more definite for that to happen?
You know, this is this is what Lama Zopa Rinpoche says. What is more definite to happen? Is it more definite to live or to die? And the answer is it’s more definite to die. We would say it’s more definite to live.
Why why would we say that? Because it feels like we’re gonna keep living. Right now, it doesn’t feel like we’re going to die. Alright? It feels like we’re going to live, you know, the next minute, next hour, next few hours, tomorrow.
It doesn’t feel like we’re going to die. But that that doesn’t prove anything. That doesn’t actually mean anything. There’s no protection against actually dying. It is more definite to die than to stay alive.
This is what the meditation on on impermanence and death shows us, that there are so many causes of death, so few that really so many actual causes that can sustain life. Even the the things that we think of that support life themselves can become a cause of death or a condition for death. Our body itself is immensely fragile. Even the strongest body is, you know, is susceptible to so many different things. So it’s actually more definite that we’re going to die.
And then Rinpoche says to ask yourself the next question is, so regarding this worldly happiness that we’re attached to, attached to, what’s more definite, to to be able to keep that happiness, to maintain it, or to lose it? And the simple answer is, once again, it’s more definite that we’re going to lose it. Even if we don’t die, that happiness is going to fade away. It it’s arisen due to causes and conditions so that happiness itself is impermanent. It can’t last.
And then the final important question is, the heavy one is, if I if I die now, what is more definite to have a a good rebirth or a bad rebirth, a higher rebirth or a lower rebirth? And we would like to say we’re gonna get a good rebirth, but generally speaking, it is it is more likely to get a bad rebirth. Why? Yes. It’s true.
Generally speaking, this is it’s more definite to get a bad rebirth simply because it is much easier to create the causes of negative karma than the causes of good karma. So we’ve all created good karma in this and past lives, but in this and past lives, certainly in past lives, there’s been more opportunities to create negative karma than positive karma. You know, even with this precious human rebirth, we have we’ve the greatest freedom to engage in virtue in this life having a precious human rebirth. We have the greatest freedom in this life to avoid engaging in negative actions, and yet we still do. And we and we we don’t engage in virtuous actions all that much or as much as we could even though we’ve got the optimum chance right now.
So in the vast majority of our previous lives, we had nothing like this freedom to practice, freedom to practice, to avoid negative actions, or the freedom to purify the imprints of our negative actions. We just simply didn’t have that freedom, and we had the very opposite. We had all the conditions where it’s easy to not not so much easy, but where the conditions where we can’t avoid engaging in negative actions. Remember the the analogy of the turtle, you know, the blind turtle, which is at the bottom of ocean most of the time in the in the lower realms. That’s what says is our permanent home.
That’s our real home. We’re just here on a little holiday. Yeah. Doesn’t feel like it, but that’s the case. So we have to make use of this holiday, not to lie around in the sun, but but to free the mind.
So having thought so the reason to think along these lines is not to get depressed, but to motivate ourselves and to see then why be if all of this is true, that why be attached to this illusory happiness, this temporary happiness? Why be attached to it? Why project so much onto it? Why waste so much time on it thinking about it, then working to achieve it, then being caught up in the opposite mind, the fear of losing that happiness, the fear of experiencing suffering. Why?
It’s pointless. Can I oh, maybe I should be talking about a jolly top I don’t know if there are any jolly topics in the But the whole point is we what all of this this this sad, depressing stuff is is encouraging us to practice the Dharma, to free our mind of attachment? Why? Because the Buddha is that the mind that is free of attachment, that mind is happy. That mind is free.
That mind isn’t suffering and isn’t creating the cause of suffering. Attachment is the problem in our life. It’s not the solution. It’s it’s the problem. The more attachment we have, the more suffering we have, the more we’re creating the causes of suffering.
Just to quote Rinpoche again. I mentioned this last week because anyway, Rinpoche says people think attachment is the source of happiness, but this is because they have no experience of going beyond attachment. As attachment decreases, there is less fear, less worry, less confusion. Because with with attachment, there is afflicted desire, and that means the mind is discontent. Yeah.
So with that mind is willing to do all sorts of things. Well, that that discontented mind is suffering, and following that suffering mind, we engage in so many other actions that bring more suffering. So that’s the you know, attachment is the real enemy. We think it’s the friend, but it’s the real enemy. So the the the eight worldly concerns actually can be condensed into two, which is there’s we have hope.
We’re always hoping for something. And then because of that hope, we’re fearing the opposite. So our mind, if we have this yo yo mind that bounces between hoping for something, hoping for this good thing, hoping for happiness, hoping to get stuff, hoping to be liked and have a good reputation, hoping to be praised, and then fearing the opposite, fearing pain, fearing not getting stuff, fearing not being liked and not having a good reputation, fearing being criticized. So we bounce between those, hope and fear all the time. The great Tantric yogi, said, when there is no more fear or hope, the goal is one.
When there’s no more hope doesn’t mean you become hopeless. It means there’s nothing to more to hope for because one’s actually achieved the result. Enlightenment. So one can do this meditation for all of the the the eight worldly concerns rather than instead of thinking about when I experience happiness, what is the result? One can think about when I receive good, you know, stuff, when I receive presents, when I receive praise, when I hear when I get a good reputation, how does that affect my mind?
And what is what is definite, to die or not to die? Am I going to lose these things? What is more definite, to lose them or keep them? It’s more definite to lose them all. And what’s more definite, to be born in the lower realms or the higher realms.
So why be attached to all these things? Why be attached to getting stuff, having stuff, being attached to attached to reputation, and so on. And then one can do it for the opposites. You know? How does the mind react when one experiences suffering, suffering, when one loses things, does it doesn’t get things, when one is criticized, etcetera, etcetera.
So that’s one way to really look at a very powerful way actually to to look at the the eight worldly concerns and particularly applying the the most effective opponent antidote to the eight worldly concerns, which is remembering impermanence that we ask which is what I was talking about last week, that we ourselves are going to die, that all the objects of the eight worldly concerns that take up all our time and energy and lead us to engage in negative actions, all of those things are impermanent. Yeah. Whereas if we apply our if if we replace those worldly concerns with concern for the the Buddhadharma, the the results of the of that can last forever. Forever. Yeah.
Certainly, that they the effects can go beyond far beyond this life. But if you think that they if if from a from if if looking from the perspective that the our dharma actions ultimately lead to enlightenment, then one can say even these small dharma actions that we do, their their their effect lasts forever. Whereas all this time and energy we put into the things we’re doing now, the eight the eight worldly concerns, the effect at the most only lasts this life. But in most cases, the effect lasts much long much shorter than that. So it’s just crazy.
Or the apparent good effect, the negative effect can last many lifetimes. Also, another meditation that Rinpoche suggests, which is also quite confronting, is to just reflect that when one is eating, to check one’s motivation, is it any higher or purer than that of any animal of a like a cow or a pig when one is eating? You know? Why am I eating? Is it just for the pleasure?
And many times it is. So if we’re just eating for the pleasure of it, how does that distinguish us from an animal? And in fact, it doesn’t really. You know, as I was saying last week or a couple of weeks that many of the things we do in this life, we we don’t need a precious human rebirth to do them. We don’t even need a human rebirth to do them.
One could do them as an animal. So if we’re just using our life, for example, just to eat for the pleasure of it. It’s it’s it’s really wasting this precious human rebirth. How? And there are some people whose lives seem to do focus around just eating as much.
You know? And, like, on it seem I I I can actually, I’m quite maybe I have managed I don’t have managed I don’t have a television set, so I’ve managed never to watch any of these cooking programs, you know, you know, these competitive cooking programs on TV, which now are one of the major, what do you call, the most popular types of programs on TV about cooking. Yeah. So yeah. And it it it’s it’s so all consumingly important.
Of course, eating a nice meal is is It’s fine. But some people, you know, make that one of the major, you know, goals of their life. Just that. But you don’t need to be a human being to to do that. Pigs are much better at finding truffles than human beings.
So and, of course, you know, as I was saying, on top of that, there’s there’s not just only the eating of it, but there’s all these other projections of, like, that this what I what I’m eating is very special. You know? And and so that makes me a special person because I’m eating this special food in a special way, in a special place, and it has a very special price, a very special price. So that, you know, there’s all those labels that is projected, which is also about the world of concern of reputation. Yeah.
And the reputation and being acceptable and liked within a special group, you know, you fit in by eating these things and blah blah blah and not be seen with people who don’t eat those things. You wouldn’t be seen dead eating with people eating that or whatever. You know? So there’s there’s all these worldly concerns floating or mixed together in some in a a deadly package. And and then also Rinpoche says to check when one goes to sleep, is my motivation any higher or more special than just an animal sleeping?
I mean, it’s important to remember that and this is something that also Lama Zopa Rinpoche emphasizes a lot lately, how important it is to try to transform all one’s worldly actions into a dharma action by changing the motivation, the reason we’re doing things. There are so many things we do that need to be done, but we do them normally with just an extremely ordinary motivation such as eating. We do have to eat, but much of our motivation for it is completely associated just with this life is just a worldly concern, whereas we can use our dharma wisdom to transform, change our motivation to transform us and think, you know, not just say the words, but try and develop the mind that is thinking that I’m I’m going to eat to preserve my body, to give me energy in order to continue to practice the Dharma because one needs energy to practice the Dharma. One needs a healthy body to practice the Dharma so one can eat for that reason, and one can try and have that motivation. That’s why there’s the tradition of blessing food before one eats it, and that can can turn into just an empty ritual of just saying blah blah blah.
But the reason for saying those words is to try and develop the mind or make oneself aware of what one’s doing and to really try and change the mind regarding why one is doing it. But, firstly, we should be honest and really check, you know, what why we are do why we are doing things. What is our motivation? Is it just something very, very ordinary? And, also, Rinpoche says, when working or doing any activity, does this action have any higher motive than the activities of animals?
So check each action you do and discover the difference between outer action and inner motivation. And so one should check, you know, are the actions I’m doing really worthwhile doing? Do I have to do them? Are they worthwhile to do? Do they give meaning to having taken this precious human rebirth?
Does it add to the purpose of having this precious human rebirth or not? So if if we if we are mindful in this way, then that can help us let go of some of the things we’re doing, doing them less often, less strongly, and so on, realizing that they they are really not that meaningful at all or may even be negative. And Rinpoche said you know, advises to ask ourselves, what actions am am I doing that cannot be done by animals? So Lama Tsongkhapa once said, if you knew how hard it is to obtain a meaningful life, living an average life would be impossible. If you saw its great benefits, you would be sorry sorry if it stayed meaningless.
If you thought about death, you would make preparations for your future life. And if you thought about cause and effect, you would stop being being reckless. But under the control of the eight worldly concerns, we are reckless. Those worldly concerns, you know, drive us into engaging in negative actions and and not being concerned about purifying the imprints of those actions. Any questions?
Comments? So another of the antidotes to overcoming the eight worldly concerns is to is to remember the that ordinary happiness, that happiness that we’re chasing, that worldly happiness and all the things we associated with it of getting stuff, getting having a good reputation, being praised, and so on, all of the the happiness that arises from those things is not happiness. It’s just a type of suffering, a more subtle kind of suffering. So we waste this precious human rebirth chasing after things, putting so much time and energy into thinking about, worrying about, acting on things which bring us an experience which we label as happiness, but which in fact is just another kind of suffering, another kind of unsatisfactory experience. I think one of the one of the there’s many, many concepts in concepts or what what are they?
Points of view that are presented in the Buddhadharma. And I think one of the most one of the most the most important of all, of course, is emptiness, the nature of reality. But one one of the very important points of view that I I think is really vital to understand is this the the teaching on the nature of suffering, the three kinds of suffering. That there is there is gross suffering, there is very subtle kind of suffering. And of these three, the most important one for us to understand is this subtle kind of suffering which is called the suffering of change.
So there’s the suffering of suffering which everyone can understand, physical and mental pain. So even animals understand that. But then the suffering of change which is this much more subtle kind of suffering, even most human beings don’t understand and don’t want to understand it because that suffering of change refers to what we, as ordinary people, think of as happiness. How we waste our life is chasing after this experience, which the Buddhas call or Ārya beings call the suffering of change. In our confusion, we call it, we think of it as happiness.
So this that concept is really one of the most important concepts to understand in order to really follow the Buddhadharma because what we’re trying to what we all want is freedom from every kind of suffering, and what we all want is real happiness, lasting, perfect happiness. That’s what we really want whether we are conscious of it or not. Deep down, there is that instinctive drive for perfect lasting happiness. Not not for the illusion of happiness, not for some fake happiness, but the real thing that goes on forever. But instead, due to our delusions, we end up chasing after something which is really an illusion.
It’s the suffering of change. We create negative karma in order to get the not it wouldn’t make some sense to create negative karma to get some real happiness. Yeah? But in fact, we create negative karma, and the result is actually, it’s more complicated than that, but let’s not go into that for the time being. We create negative karma in order to get what in reality is just the suffering of change.
And but having created that negative karma to experience the suffering of change, that negative karma produces these karmic imprints in our mind that are going to ripen in obvious suffering of suffering. So it’s a total disaster. A total disaster. We’ve been totally cheated by our delusions, by our self-cherishing. So many of you here have already I’ve heard that all the explanation of the suffering of change, but I’m just going to briefly go through it again because we we can all hear it again, think about it again, try and gain some realization of it.
So there are three ways to understand the suffering of change. The the obvious one is that why the the experiences that we label happiness are in fact just examples of the suffering of change is simply because they don’t last. They’re impermanent. They come to an end. So that happiness stops, and that’s frustrating.
That apparent happiness stops. It comes to an end and which we don’t expect because remember, as soon as that happiness arises, what what do we do? We grasp it as being permanent. But it isn’t. It doesn’t last.
And so that itself is unsatisfying. It leaves us a little bit shocked, depressed, disappointed. We may think, oh, what’s what’s wrong with me? You know? My happiness disappeared.
It stopped. But it’s certainly not satisfying to have something that we thought was permanent and wonderful come to an end. That is not satisfying, and that is a type that is a type of suffering to experience something that is unsatisfactory, unfulfilling, incomplete. Right? Yeah.
Right. At another level, why we what we call suffering is really a type of sorry. What we call happiness is is in fact the suffering of change or type of a subtle kind of suffering is that because our mind is so obscured, we have such a limited idea of what happiness is. Yeah. And and and we we associate happiness with just seeing beautiful things, hearing beautiful things, tasting beautiful things, etcetera, etcetera, all the experiences of of the senses in a very limited way.
But probably most of us here, if not all of us here, have not developed, maybe some of you have, I don’t know. I haven’t developed single pointed concentration Samādhi. When one develops Samādhi, you experience the result of that is to or certainly when you Samatha, which is a stage just beyond Samādhi, you experience what is described in the teachings as physical bliss and mental ecstasy or vice versa. Mental yeah. Physical bliss and mental ecstasy, yeah, which can go on for hours and hours and hours and hours, even days, weeks, and months and years.
One can sit in a state of Samādhi if you want to once you’ve achieved it for incredibly long periods of time in a state of physical ecstasy and mental bliss. Yeah. So nothing that that we label happiness as ordinary people compares to that. So what we call happiness is something incredibly limited and relative. And that Samādhi, that bliss of Samādhi is nothing compared to the bliss of achieving liberation or enlightenment.
That itself is just worldly experience. It’s something far greater than anything we’ve ever experienced. So our our limited mind has a very limited idea of what happiness happiness is so that we can actually make the mistake of thinking something that is actually really a type of suffering unsatisfactory is happiness. That’s how deluded, confused, and limited our mind is at the moment. But then there is and so in related to relating to that relative aspect is the the most the more subtle way of understanding how what we call happiness is the suffering of change.
And I’m just gonna go through the the traditional explanation. There there must be many, many other examples which I never used. I’m just gonna use the same old one, which is if if you stand up, if you’re standing for a while, after some time, just simply standing gets quite painful. You could you could go home tonight or tomorrow and experiment with this. Just stand still for as long as you can.
And after some time, it will get incredibly painful. What was just an ordinary okay experience turns into something really painful. And And so you sit down. And and and when you sit down, that sitting sitting down seems like happiness. One let you know, because the suffering of standing has changed.
And you sit down, and there seems to be the happiness of sitting down. Right? I mean, it’s a very ordinary kind of happiness, but but this is just a an an analogy for actually everything we experience. So one sitting down, and there’s the pleasure of sitting down. Please check this.
Also, don’t just take my word for it or the Buddha’s word. As he said, check yourself. So after sitting and you’re you’re feeling comfortable and cozy and feeling pleasant, so there’s happiness of sitting. But if you continue to sit, check what happens. Does the happiness of sitting continue in the same way the longer you sit?
And if you check oh, I hope I’m not putting ideas into your mind, but anyway, you will discover that as one continues to sit, the happiness of sitting doesn’t continue at the same level. It it certainly doesn’t increase. It doesn’t continue at the same level. It declines. And, for example, you have to move around because it becomes a little uncomfortable.
It becomes boring, and, eventually, one has to stand up. I’ll ignore that. I’ve I’ve gotta finish this. I never give myself time. Every time I talk about this subject, I never give myself time to do it anyway.
Right? So, and and so you stand up, and then there’s there there seems to be the happiness of standing up. But after you continue to stand for some time, that happiness of standing seems to change into the suffering of standing. So then you sit down, and there’s the happiness of sitting down. And after a while, the happiness of sitting seems to change into the suffering of sitting.
But the point is, if the Buddha is right about karma and everything else, if something is something, it can’t change into the opposite thing. If something is happiness, it can’t change into suffering. And if something is suffering, it can’t change into happiness, especially if you’re creating a particular cause to experience a particular kind of happiness. If you continue to create that same cause, you have to get the same result. That’s the law of cause and effect.
Determines the nature of the effect. So if you are actually creating the core, if you’ve actually got the the true cause of happiness, if you continue to create the true cause of happiness, happiness, you will experience, you have to experience happiness. Right? So if sitting down was a genuine cause of happiness, the longer you sat down, the happiness would continue. But it doesn’t.
It doesn’t continue. It decreases. Even though the same cause is occurring. So this shows that and after some time even though you’re creating the same cause, which is sitting down, you get a different experience of suffering. So how can that happiness change into suffering?
It can’t. This is the point. The happiness of sitting cannot change into the suffering of sitting. What this means is that from the moment one sat down, there was the suffering of sitting from the very first moment. It never changed into suffering.
It always was suffering. And how this how one can see this is that remember, we started standing up and we were in pain standing up, and it was quite painful. So we sat down. So what happens is that compared to, relative to the obvious suffering of standing, the suffering of sitting which occurs immediately you sit down, that suffering of sitting is very subtle. So compared to the obvious suffering of sitting, standing, the subtle suffering of sitting appears to be happiness.
But after some time, the obvious suffering of standing is forgotten, and one becomes aware more and more of the suffering suffering of sitting, the subtle suffering of standing appears to be happiness. But after some time, the obvious suffering of sitting is forgotten, and the subtle suffering of standing becomes more and more obvious. And that’s our life. Everything is like that. All our pleasures and happinesses are just subtle kinds of suffering.
And compared to suffer something else that happened before, it just looks like happiness as I often do. You know, if you hit your head with a hard object, it it hurts. If you hit your head a second time with a hard object, it hurts. And if you continue to do so, it continues to hurt because this is an actual cause of suffering. It doesn’t change.
If I keep hitting my head, it will not turn into happiness. But all the the things we do in this life are just causes of suffering, following the eight worldly concerns. Why do we do them? That is incredibly important to think about. You can deny it, but check it out.
This is the Buddha’s teachings. Hearing it from me, you can think, oh, this is just dud stuff. This is ridiculous, but it is actually coming from the Buddha. I I could never have thought this up. Check yourself.
One’s experiences. When you’re hungry, you eat something. Compared to being hungry, eating something is jolly. It’s pleasant. If you continue eating, it becomes disgusting after a while.
Listening to a nice bit your favorite piece of music is happiness. If you hear it forever, it will drive you crazy. You’ll never want to hear it again. But if hearing your favorite piece of music was happiness, the longer that you heard it, you would continue to be happy. Try it.
Play your favorite music forever. People spend twenty million dollars to buy a painting. I like paintings. I’d I’d quite like a Van Gogh having in my room, but, you know, it can only bring you so much. Yeah.
It can’t make you happy. It’s just you know? Freeing the mind will make us happy. Only that, the Buddha said. Nothing else.
Free the mind. And we can do it. That’s the point. We can do it. Thank you.
Tea break. Also, in relation to this topic of remembering the nature of suffering, especially that ordinary happiness is is actually a type of of suffering. Also, Lama Zopa Rinpoche points out that that we ourselves have very rigid concepts about what what we believe is gonna make me happy, what I need to be happy. So we set up all all these concepts that I need this and that and so on and this and all those things. And if I have those things, I will be happy.
So when those conditions are missing, then we’re unhappy. But, of course, if we didn’t have all those concepts about what makes me happy, we’d be okay. So it’s not the actually, the the lack of those things that brings us happy brings us suffering, but just the very fact that we have such rigid ideas of or or we we tend to have rigid ideas of what is necessary for my happiness. You know, I need so much money. I need a house this big.
I need this, that, that. You know, I have to be here, I have to have this and that. We all have these, what, lists and things. Limit ourselves by those things because we tell ourselves, I can’t I couldn’t possibly be okay without that full list. And the point is maybe we could be, that we could be okay without all those things, that we didn’t have to be concerned with having, you know, having this and avoiding that.
You know? That maybe we would be okay, but we never challenge ourselves, and we stick to those rigid concepts and which is also involves a very rigid concept of who we are and what we’re capable of. Lama Zopa Rinpoche often makes this point quite humorously. I can’t do it about how one of our biggest problems is that we’re always trying to be ourselves. But the concept that we have ourselves is such a miserable concept, and we’re always trying to be the self with such as which is such an ordinary, low, limited concept of who we are and what we’re capable of.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Because we have such limited ideas.
This is why, as I mentioned before, Lama Yeshe, when he came to the West, even though he was criticized a lot by many Tibetans, he made Tantra much more accessible to people, taught it very much more openly than it normally was. And this is because tantra, especially highest yoga tantra, emphasizes developing divine pride, which is which is a wonderful antidote to this Western problem of of self pity and, you know, the low self esteem that so so many people suffer from probably everyone does to some extent at some point in their lives. Some people are really are really what? What? Anyway, yeah, people give themselves a hard time.
Whereas Lama was saying, you know, you’re a Buddha. Be happy. You’re a Buddha or a potential Buddha. That’s what one should identify with one’s Buddha nature, not what with one’s deluded nature. But we try to be ourselves, identify with a very deluded, limited idea of who we are and this me that I’m you know, this permanent me that is like this.
This permanent me needs this. And if this permanent me doesn’t have that, permanent me will be permanently miserable. And I permanently this permanent me needs this. You know? And if permanent me has that, I will be happy.
Permanent me will be permanently happy. So this is a very kind of rigid concrete, dreary way of doing things, which we all tend to do. So we should all lighten up. So another of the eight antidotes to the eight worldly concerns is to remember the faults of the delusions. So by following the eight worldly concerns, we are following out, you know, that that is the condition for the delusions to manifest, you know, attachment, desire, aversion, and all all the other com you know, combinations, permutations.
That’s the word. Permutations of the delusions to to manifest. And so we really need to remember what the the the faults of the delusions are that that they that they are creating they what do they do? What do the delusions do? They project onto things something which is not there.
They exaggerate what is there in the case case of the the the delusions that are of the nature of attachment, they exaggerate how pleasant something is. That all those delusions that are of the related to anger, such as anger and hatred and jealousy and irritation and annoyance and and so on, those delusions exaggerate the unpleasant nature of something. They project onto it something much worse than the that is there. Alright? And the all the delusions are manifest they’re what can you say?
They’re like manifestations of or byproducts of ignorance, and so they are disturbing our mind. Their their their function is the moment a of the delusions arises, it is disturbing the mind. That’s why Lama Kelsang Gyatso translates the the term what’s the Tibetan? Nyön Mong, or klesha, as disturbing thought. It’s a conception that disturbs the mind, which means the mind is suffering.
And the only effect real effect, actual effect of following that of being of being influenced by that disturbing thought is to create negative actions that generate negative imprints that only ripen as more obvious suffering, the suffering of suffering. It’s also very useful to think scary to think that when we engage in virtuous actions, just ordinary virtuous actions, the karmic result is something well, it depends on one’s how it’s dedicated. But in general, when we engage a virtuous action, it creates a virtuous or positive imprint that brings the result of happiness. And what happiness is that? It’s the suffering of change.
That’s all you get from practicing virtue in an ordinary way. What a bummer. What a total bummer. That’s Samsāra. That’s why we have I mean, it’s very scary when you have somebody who studied a lot more than oneself sitting in the room, then you become conscious that probably everything you’re saying is completely wrong.
But, anyway so that is why it’s so important when we engage in virtue that we try and do it with the right motivation with making it the best motivation, the strongest motivation, making a bodhicitta motivation, and dedicating it so that it doesn’t just ripen in an ordinary way that is to bring worldly happiness, but it ripens to bring dharmic result. It becomes acts as a cause or at least a condition to be able to continue to meet the Dharma, have a precious human rebirth, meet great teachers to be able to understand the teachings, put them into practice, etcetera, etcetera. So by having the right motivation and the right dedication, then our virtuous karmic imprints won’t just ripen as bubbles of worldly pleasure, the suffering of change, but actually lead us to more and more genuine happiness. Did that that make sense? That So, anyway, the point is to try as an antidote to being caught up in the eight world concerns us to remember that by following them, we are it it is it is leading us to engage in negative actions that are only gonna bring suffering because it’s activating our delusions.
So associated with that antidotes is to remember the law of cause and effect. So, of course, this underlies the the the previous antidote of remembering the faults of the delusions. So we have have to remember. We have to understand the law of cause and effect, develop faith in it, and then we have to remember it in order to apply it in our daily life. And the the essential thing to remember is that everything we do has an effect, but not just an effect in this life because the law of cause and effect is is not really talking about what happens in this life, but the law of cause and effect is really talking about the fact that every time we engage in an action, we do so because our mind is motivated either by a negative mental factor or a virtuous mental factor.
And so every time we follow these negative or positive mental factors and act on them, we are generating generating karmic imprints. And those karmic imprints will have an effect, and the the the effect they have depends on the nature of the cause. So the the virtuous acts we engage in with our body, speech, and mind are are determined. They are virtuous because they are motivated by our virtuous mental factors of love, compassion, generosity, etcetera. So those generate they have to they can only generate virtuous imprints, and those virtuous imprints can only bring the effect of happiness.
Either some worldly happiness or if, you know, if we if we really have a strong, know, virtuous motivation and dedicate it, then the karmic imprint can have a much more dharmic positive effect than just bringing worldly happiness, but that is definite. And our negative actions will will generate negative imprints, and these will definitely bring negative suffering results in the future, in future lives. Because, of course, everything we do in this life has some result, some effect in this life. That’s for sure. Definitely.
But the law of cause and effect is is talking mainly about the creating of positive and negative karmic imprints. And those imprints, generally speaking, don’t ripen. The the the imprints created in this life, generally speaking, don’t ripen in this life. They ripen in future lives. And the reason for this is because there’s a whole pot rough roughly speaking, I don’t know the proper way of explaining this, but roughly speaking, there’s a whole pile of imprints imprints just waiting to ripen in this life.
They’re, you know, they’re already stacked up waiting. They’re they’re all lined up waiting to to ripen. So the the karmic imprints we generate in this life don’t have a chance to ripen because there’s all this this backlog waiting. That’s the word. Backlog waiting to ripen, positive and negative ones.
So for a karmic imprint created in this life to ripen in this life, it has to be very, very powerful. And, generally speaking, generally speaking, we don’t create lots of powerful imprints. Well, powerful negative ones are much easier to create than powerful virtuous ones for us as ordinary people. But, also, we have to remember, even for powerful imprints to ripen in this created in this life to ripen in this life, only some aspect of the imprint can ripen in this life because this starts to get complicated. In the case of a of an of a of a very powerful negative imprint, most of these only small aspect of those can ripen in this life because the main effect of the very heavy negative imprints is to throw out is to bring a suffering rebirth, a nonhuman suffering rebirth.
So that that can’t ripen in this life. Right? You can’t be reborn as a a rat when you’re while one’s still alive as a human being. Has to die for that karma to ripen. So this is why for us deluded people, we can engage in negative action and and actions in this life.
Nothing seems to very much happen in this life, and we think, oh, either karma doesn’t work or I’ve got away with it. I escaped the result, but we haven’t because the imprint has been generated. And these imprints aren’t something physical. You can’t feel them. You can’t see them, touch them, smell them, or anything like that.
They’re not something physical, but they’re they’re there. They are existing phenomena. Actually, in one way, you could say that we can feel these negative imprints in that the more we engage in non virtue, the more we obscure our mind. Our mind becomes kind of thicker and heavier in a sense figuratively speaking. Figuratively speaking.
And the more obscured the mind is, the more the mind tends towards negativity and finds it easier easier to engage in. Whereas if we purify the mind, the more we purify our mind, then in a sense, figuratively speaking, the mind becomes becomes lighter. There’s a sense of some you know, the the mind something being lifted from the mind. And and also as the mind becomes pure more purified or a little bit more purified, more pure, then that mind tends towards virtue and and finds it easier to engage in. Just like the the more the mind is obscured by negativity, that mind tends towards negativity and finds it easier to engage in, whereas the purified mind tends towards virtue and finds it easier and enjoys it more.
Check up. So it’s really important to remember you know, this this is one of the most fundamental things to do, to remember the law of cause and effect, to study it in order to develop more and more understanding, which brings more faith, more faith that it is true. And then by by reflecting on it, meditating on it more and more, then we can be more and more mindful in our daily life that this is operating all the time whether we like it or not. The law of cause and effect is operating. We’re we’re creating imprints all the time over and over again.
It’s it’s also really important. Maybe this is gets confusing for some people, but it’s important to remember, understand that particularly well, no. To it’s always easier to talk about negative karma actions. When we engage in a negative action, which is karma. Right?
karma’s actually we’re talking about the action. When we engage in a negative action of body, speech, and mind, that negative action is generating a negative karmic imprint. Right? A karmic imprint that is gonna ripen in some in some way that will bring suffering. Right?
But what what has motivated that negative action that generates the negative imprint is a disturbing thought, one of the negative mental factors such as anger or jealousy or attachment or something. So every time we follow our disturbing thoughts, we create an imprint of that that disturbing thought. You know, we get angry, you know, so that anger manifests in our consciousness for some time, but as it’s manifest and then it fades away, that actual active anger goes. But what is left behind is an imprint of that anger in our consciousness. So in a sense, every time the delusions arise, these negative mental factors arise, two kinds of imprints are generated.
The imprint of the delusion and a negative karmic imprint, a double negative whammy. So the the imprint of the delusion, that ripens to bring the same delusion again. The imprint of anger, when that ripens, ripens as more anger, and then the the the the karmic imprint ripens as suffering. And okay. I’ll just say this.
Okay. I think it’s wonderful that you come and listen to my talks. I don’t know why you do so. They’re also very heavy, but they they but they’re given with an attempt at a good motivation because we have to understand this stuff to get rid of it so that happiness comes. I hope you do understand that.
I’m not trying to make you miserable. Just temporarily so that real happiness comes. But no. So this is what’s the point I’m trying to make. Oh, yes.
Why Rinpoche is saying to particularly to the to remember the law of cause and effect as an antidote to the eight worldly concerns is particularly to remember that if we create negative actions due to our worldly concerns and, you know, I I try to say a few times that if our worldly concerns get really, really strong, we we will be motive and, of course, every time we follow a worldly concern, we’re creating the habit to follow it again to make it easier and therefore stronger and to build up our self-cherishing. And so the more we we increase our self-cherishing, then the more actually, the more fragile we become, become, the more the more susceptible to our delusions and for our delusions to become stronger and stronger. And so therefore then we can really snap at point at some point and create really engage in really negative actions. You know, all the people in I can’t say all the people in jail, but many people in jail who have done terrible, terrible things are quite nice people, you know, who really suffer from what they’ve done because they did it in a moment when, you know, they snapped because of conditions.
It’s not because they are inherently unbelievably awful terrible people so different from us. They were just in different conditions. And then the self-cherishing, you know, which we all have just goes berserk in some conditions. And we are lucky that we we we’re not in those conditions. Right?
As the old song goes, there but fortune go you or I. So and where am I? So when we engage in these really heavy negative actions, we create these throwing throwing karmas that ripen at the time of death. And negative throwing karmas bring four results, one of which is to throw the mind after death into one of the lower realms because these negative throwing karmas can’t become the cause of a positive result such as being born a human being. Certainly not a human being with a precious human rebirth, but not even become the cause to be born even a suffering human being.
So these very negative heavy heavy negative throwing karmas ripen to bring suffering in one of the lower realms, being reborn as an animal or in the hungry ghost realms, in the hell realms. Yeah. And once we’re once the what the mind is takes rebirth in one of those states, it’s immensely difficult to get out again because all the conditions are there to create more heavy negative actions again and again. So that’s how Samsāra keeps going on. But, also, once at at some point, even in even if one gets trapped in the lower realms for an incredibly long time, at some point, some good karma that once created maybe as a human being many, many, many lifetimes ago finally ripens because of because of the backlog effect.
Eventually, this little positive karmic log floats to the surface and gets a chance to ripen, and then one gets reborn as a human being again. But then once one is reborn as a human being according to the teachings, then three there are three other results can can occur in the human realm that are the result of that one negative throwing karma. Someone’s looking I’ve explained this many times before. I’ll try again. Say, for example, in one life, you’ve killed, you’ve murdered someone very bad, you know, with lots of hate and everything and no no regret, very happy that you’ve done it.
So that karmic imprint is in your mind in this in this life. And then we die. You know, at the end of this life, we die, and that karma ripens at the time of death, of having murdered someone. So it ripens to bring firstly rebirth in the lower realms, and we get stuck there for a long time. But, eventually, we get reborn again as a human being.
So so now because one’s in the human realm, the conditions are there for three other results of that one action of having murdered someone many lifetimes ago now start to ripen. And these are the results called the results similar to the cause, which is that you get killed or you have a short life or because there’s many ways that can ripen. Either you get murdered, you you have a very short life, you have lots of sickness in this life, or you can have all all of those depending on how heavy that karmic imprint is. You can have you know, you could be murdered, you know, when you’re very young and be even before you die, you could have lots of sickness for your whole lifetime. That’s one result.
The other is being born in a very terrible environment where there’s lots of violence and so on. And the other result is the which says in many ways is the worst result of them all, even worse than being born in the lower realms, is to create the same action again, to have the tendency to kill or to, you know, if yeah. Or something like that even for no reason. For example, there are people who are like serial killers who go around killing people for no obvious reason in this life. You know, they have this incredible compulsion to kill or people have it in compulsion to steal.
They they don’t need what they steal. They just have this incredible compulsion or a compulsion to lie, but for no real reason in this life. You know, sometimes you have reasons for doing these things, but some people that that it’s just this kind of they’re driven to do it for no no even superficial benefit for themselves in this life. They just have to do it. So Rinpoche says, this is the worst karmic result because as a result of that, you engage in the that same negative action again, and then you get the four results again, being thrown into the lower realms when one was reborn a human being again.
You get the the results similar to the cause, born in a terrible environment, and you have the habit to do that same thing again. And and so this is how apart from ignorance, which is the very root of Samsāra, it’s because of this karma, the law of cause and effect, that Samsāra perpetuates itself. One does a negative action, and that puts an imprint, a tendency, a habit, a potency to do that same thing again. And and that and therefore, one is reborn to do it again and then again and again. So this is this also is the result of following the eight worldly eight worldly concerns are how our self-cherishing manifests.
And the more we follow our self-cherishing demanding everything goes my way immediately, quickly, easily. You know, the more we have that mind, the more we we we create the opposite mind uncontrollably is there where we cannot bear anything that goes against me. What I want, what I expect, I can’t bear it. You know? And and and and has to go away away quickly and it has to stop quickly and easily.
And if it doesn’t, I can’t bear it. And that mind that mind is the great disaster, the great danger, because that mind will do any negative thing. And that mind also, the stronger it is, will find an escape into anything, anything, or pretend anything is happiness and good to avoid that terrible thing. So the more we follow the self-cherishing thought, we’re building up that tendency. So our self-cherishing may not be very strong in this life, but we’re putting imprints of the self-cherishing thought in our mind again and again and again and again.
And as it says in one text, that text, which is written by the the, I think, the Nyingma Lama, Dodrupchen Rinpoche, who’s who wrote this wonderful little text, is the basis of Rinpoche’s book called Transforming Problems into the Path. In that book, Dodrupchen Rinpoche says something like what does he say? He says something like you know, anyway, by following the self-cherishing thought, one following the self-cherishing thought, one one creates enemies. Everything and, ultimately, everything becomes an enemy. You can’t bear anything because it’s it’s not perfect.
You know? Because the self-cherishing, you the more you feed it, it demands you know, it has to be exact. Oh, that shouldn’t be there. It should be there. Oh, no.
No. No. Don’t no. No. No.
Oh, it should be there. No. No. You know, everything is a problem. Nothing is right.
Nothing is right, and no one loves me, and no one’s good enough. You know? Nothing is good. Everything’s horrible. Can’t stand it.
That’s the, you know, that that’s the extreme self-cherishing thought. And, also, then you kill yourself because, you know, life’s unbearable. Or you kill someone else to be you know, that will solve the problem. On that happy note on that happy note, let’s give up the eight worldly concerns while we’ve got the chance, while we have the precious human rebirth. Thank you very much.
So we can dedicate our merit so that it doesn’t ripen as just bubbles of suffering of change but becomes a cause or condition to achieve liberation and enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. Just quickly. Yes. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Yeah. That’s okay. Yeah. Well, it’s not the best, but it’s it’s better than nothing. At least it yeah.
Yeah. There’s a gradations, you know, at least if you do it, you know, you’ve done the the very the the rock bottom minimum. Yeah. Yeah. Sitting in Samādhi isn’t the perfect way, but not many people can do that.
But, yes, yes, you can do that. Okay. So we can dedicate. Page nine. Through 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 bodhi mind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. Page thirteen. Savior of the Snowland teachings and transmigratory beings who makes extremely clear the path that is unification of emptiness and compassion to the lotus holder, Tenzin Gyatso, I beseech, may all your holy wishes be spontaneously fulfilled. Sorry, I missed one prayer on page eleven.
If we could do The object of refuge of myself and of all transmigratory beings in all our lifetimes is the embodiment of the Three Jewels, the all encompassing three refuges in one, the Guru, the wish granting jewel, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama Padmasambhava, the Dharma King, Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Detsen the Abbot, Shāntarakshita and the numberless holy beings who preserved and spread the Buddhadharma in Tibet and Tibetan people who practiced and served Buddhism so faithfully for a thousand years, as well as those who, along with many others, died sacrificing their lives for Tibet and His Holiness, may all their positive wishes be fulfilled immediately. Due to their limitless kindness, the sun of Tibetan Buddhism has now arisen in the West, which is a dark land. But now that I have met with the Dharma, I have received the perfect human body, enabling me to lead a meaningful life. Our refuge and savior, the supreme one, his holiness, the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan people have been so kind to us. Remembering this, we make the following dedicating prayers.
May all His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s wishes be successful immediately. May the snow land of Tibet achieve pure freedom and develop the Buddhadharma even more than before in Tibet. And may all mother transmigratory beings achieve enlightenment quickly. Page fourteen. You who uphold the subduer’s moral way, who serve as the bountiful bearer of all, sustaining, preserving, spreading Mañjuśrī’s victorious doctrine, who masterfully accomplished magnificent prayers honoring the Three Jewels, savior of myself and others, your disciples, please, please live long.
Lord of Dharma, who in accordance with the various dispositions of those to be subdued, in light of your well spoken advice, the sacred Ganden tradition, essence of Buddha’s teachings, O foremost and holy Lama, to you who are supreme, O Lama, please, please.