Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Thubten Dondrub opens this 106-minute Mind Training class by establishing the foundational bodhicitta (enlightened motivation) through a series of essential preliminaries. He walks his Thursday evening class through the law of cause and effect, the cornerstone of Buddhist ethics and understanding. After the traditional opening prayers and mandala offering—practices whose symbolic power he briefly defends against assumptions that ritual is merely decorative—Dondrub guides listeners through contemplation of the precious human rebirth, impermanence and mortality, and the refusal of unexamined samsaric happiness. The bulk of the session focuses on the law of karma: its certainty (negative causes yield suffering, virtuous actions yield happiness), its multiplying power (small seeds produce large harvests), and its non-transferability (only actions we ourselves commit bear fruit in our own stream of being). He illustrates with accessible examples—tomato seeds, bird shadows, medicine losing potency—and addresses common misconceptions about free will, showing how genuine freedom actually increases through virtuous discipline. The talk is pitched at practitioners on the bodhisattva path, some returning, some new to the material; Dondrub explicitly invites repeated reflection rather than one-off understanding, as these teachings demand internalization through meditation, not mere intellectual assent.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 05 02 Mind Training.mp3
UUID: 1a039956-c5ce-4e69-92e9-5b15fa53afe0
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Mind Training (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-05-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 106.4 minutes
Words: ~12,218
So I’d like to welcome everyone to our Thursday night class, which is we’re going through a text called the mind training like the rays of the sun. This was written by a direct disciple of Lama Tsongkhapa, the founder of our tradition. And this text itself is a commentary on a much older text called the Seven Point Mind Training. So the subject of both these texts is really how to generate, practice, maintain and increase bodhicitta the wish to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. And as part of that how to be able to use everything good and bad in the path to enlightenment so nothing becomes obstacle for us.
So this is a very wonderful text. So we are slowly going through it, casually going through this text. And we’re doing this in a traditional way. So that’s why we do some traditional prayers at the beginning. So if you’d like to join in, you’re most welcome.
So we start. I hope everyone has a copy of this this version, which has Buddha because it says Buddha House on the top. If it doesn’t say Buddha House, it’s the wrong one. It should say Buddha House. There’s what you know, we don’t and please, we we don’t wanna get these versions mixed up.
Can we yeah. Oh, and there’s more than twenty of us. I mean, it’s virtually the same. There’s just some spelling errors and things, but this is the perfect one. That’s all.
That’s just but we we do wanna you know, we’ll get this system going one day. Samsāra So we start on page if you’d like to join in. I’m sorry I can’t explain all these things but all of some people find Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism too much because it’s full of lots of ritual. But this ritual has has a lot of meaning actually. There’s a reason for doing it.
But unfortunately, it takes time to explain all these things. Anyway, we start with the prayer to the lion face Dakini if you’d like to join in. This is for the purpose of dispelling hindrances within our mind and without so that we can so the teachings, you know, really make more sense. We’re able to understand them and put them into practice properly. I prostrate to the gathering of dakinis and the three chakras who abide in the holy yoga of using space.
By your powers of clairvoyance and magic illumination, look after practitioners like a mother her child. Akasha Maraja Sadhara Samara. 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 conditions to Dharma. May all enjoyments be in accord with the Dharma and may there be auspiciousness and perfect happiness here right now.
Obeisance to my Guru and protector Mañjuśrī who holds to his heart a scriptural text symbolic of his seeing all things as they are, whose understanding shines forth as the sun unclouded by defilements or traces of ignorance, who teaches in sixty ways with the patient love of a father for his only child, all creatures caught in the prison of Samsāra, confused in the darkness of their ignorance, overwhelmed by their suffering. You whose dragon thunder proclamation of the dharma arouses us from the stupor of our delusions and frees us from the iron chains of our karma, whose powerful sword of wisdom hews down suffering wherever its sprouts appear, clearing away the darkness of all ignorance. I entreat you, O Mañjuśrī, whose princely body is adorned with one hundred and twelve marks of a Buddha, who has completed the ten stages achieving the highest perfection of a bodhisattva, who has been pure from the beginning. O Mañjuśrī, O loving one, with the brilliance of your wisdom, illuminate the darkness enclosing my mind, enlighten my intelligence and wisdom so that I may gain insight into Buddha’s words and the text that explain them. So then the tradition is to offer the mandala.
This is a way of requesting the teachings. So we request the teachings from the Buddha. So we try and visualize or think of the Buddha present directly in front of us, seated on a magnificent lion throne. Above that, a lotus sun and moon symbolic of renunciation, wisdom, and bodhicitta. And imagine the Buddha with a hollow body of golden light seated directly above the moon disc.
The very embodiment of all perfect qualities. And we also think of the Buddha as the embodiment of all our perfect teachers of the past, present, and future. So then we offer the mandala of the whole universe, especially the most beautiful things in it, especially those that we ourselves are most attached to. So we offer this as a way to symbolically request the teachings as a way to accumulate the merit that enables us to understand them, and as a way to reduce our attachment which was which itself and all the other delusions which flow from it creates so many obstacles to understanding and practicing the teachings. So now it’s really important to try and generate the best motivation for being here and listening to the teachings and wanting to put them into practice.
And the best motivation we can possibly cultivate is the bodhicitta mind seeking enlightenment in order to be in a position to perfectly repay the kindness of all sentient beings by freeing them of all suffering and its causes and helping them to achieve peerless everlasting happiness. So in order to generate at least what my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, calls the effortful bodhicitta, that comes basically from having confidence in our own Buddha nature, recognizing that we have the precious human rebirth, the optimum chance to begin to realize our Buddha nature, and then being motivated to realize it by trying to be aware right now how one’s existence right today, this week, this this life, every life, our existence is inextricably intertwined with every other sentient being, not just on this earth but throughout the universe. We are directly, indirectly dependent on all of them. Just to survive but to for all our good experiences, ordinary, spiritual, for all the good qualities and skills we develop, ordinary and spiritual. We can only do it depending on the existence directly and indirectly of all other living beings.
So they’re immensely kind to us and especially we depend on the kindness of a mother and we have received this mother’s kindness, the mother’s love from every sentient being, not just one time but many, many times in beginningless, cyclic existence. Because in beginningless cyclic existence, there’s been time to have a lot of rebirths. And there’s been time for every sentient being to be our mother, not just once, but many times. So that’s an awful lot of kindness that we’ve received. And yet the sad fact is all these beings are suffering in Samsāra like myself, but right at this very moment, most sentient beings are experiencing far greater suffering than ourselves with far less ability to make sense of their suffering, to modify it, transform it or eliminate it.
And what is worse, in their confusion, trying to avoid suffering, trying to be happy, the reality is that sentient beings much of the time are simply creating the causes for more Samsāra, for more suffering. So by thinking about these things and not just thinking about them but really feeling what is going on, we can generate compassion, great compassion for all sentient beings. And this can lead to the thought that I can’t bear this suffering. I can’t let it go on. I have to do something about it.
And the only thing to do is actually to achieve enlightenment. So no matter what I will use this all my future lives to achieve enlightenment for the sake of others. So to achieve enlightenment I have to generate bodhicitta, the determination to actually do so, to achieve enlightenment. I have to develop that determination. This text is about that and how to cultivate and enhance mind of bodhicitta.
So for this reason I’ll study this text tonight. SANGA CHADANZOGECH sorry sorry. As usual leave out the vital thing. So to make that thought as meaningful and as strong as possible, we try and think of all sentient beings surrounding us right now, trying to have a sense of their living presence. So at least trying to think of the people that we’re connected to in this life.
So our mother of this life on our left, father on our right, family, friends, and helpers behind us, harm us in front, and then as much as possible, trying to have a a mind open to awareness, concern for all other sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create by teaching the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So then if you find it helpful, the Buddha in front of you is very pleased with your motivation and shows this by now coming to the crown of your head, seated just on the lotus sun and moon. And then when directly above your crown, imagine that the Buddha then dissolves into blissful golden light and that light pours into you, blessing your mind to be able to understand the teachings, put them into practice, and eventually gain the authentic, undeclining, transformative realizations.
And then we can enhance that positive state of mind just by just briefly doing the nine round breathing exercise. If you don’t know how to do that, just do some other breathing meditation just for a very short time to help establish a calmer, clearer, more concentrated mind so that we can use that mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. Okay. Thank you. Oh, yes.
That yeah. Thanks. So where are we? Does anyone know where we are? Right.
I think we’re on page we should be on page thirty three. We’ve finished. Yeah. Just to go back because there are a couple of people here who haven’t been here before or haven’t been for a while. So as I said, this text is a commentary on the seven point mind training, which is really how to practice bodhicitta in daily life and transfer transform everything.
Use everything good and bad into the path to enlightenment so that we can achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. So bodhicitta is this mind that is absolutely determined to achieve enlightenment for the sake of others. So it’s a very special profound difficult mind to generate because it involves basically what it involves is giving up our self self-cherishing thought which we’ve been following since beginningless time thinking it’s something really good but in fact is actually really very destructive for ourselves and others. And on the other hand what we have to do as well as giving up the self-cherishing thought is to cultivate more and more the mind that cherishes others and reaching the point where we can cherish them more than ourselves. So that may all sound very counterintuitive that we should cherish ourselves and not cherish others more than ourselves.
But actually the way it works, the more we cherish what self-cherishing means is the self that we’re cherishing not the self that actually validly exists. It is this wrong view, this wrong self, the false the appearance now hold it. How do you put this exactly accurately? It is the the false appearance of a particular kind of person that we grasp at as being real, but which is actually an illusion. And we try to cherish that, but not in the right way.
We cherish it through following attachment. And because of attachment, we have anger, pride and jealousy, doubts, fears and worries. And because of that, we have a disturbed mind, disturbed by the disturbing thoughts, and then we engage in negative actions. And this only brings suffering now and in the future. self-cherishing is a recipe for total confusion and suffering for our self and others, but we blindly follow it life after life.
Whereas when we cherish others more than self, although we’re not actually thinking of me, we’re thinking of others. Because if we do that properly, the only way to cherish others is with love and compassion, with patience, perseverance, tolerance, generosity, etcetera, etcetera. In other words, it requires the manifestation, the activity of all our positive states of mind. So when they are operating, we are happy. When we focus on self, we activate our negative thoughts and we suffer.
When we think of others properly, we activate our virtuous thoughts and we become happy. Because when the mind is happy, when virtuous thoughts’ mental factors are active, then the mind is at peace. There is contentment, well-being and the I that validly exists which is something dependent on the mind and not something separate from the mind then the I that validly exists is happy. Whereas when we follow self-cherishing and activate all our negative thoughts, the mind is in a state of confusion and is suffering. And so the I that arises dependent on the mind and is not something separate from it is suffering.
Alright. I didn’t mean to get into all of that, but I did. So, anyway, so yeah. So this text is about developing, bodhicitta. So this is a big project, but the best project because it’s the most beneficial thing to do for ourselves and others now and in the future.
Right? And but at the beginning of the text says so although in the in the the Mahāyāna tradition of which Tibetan Buddhism follows and the Gelugpa tradition that we follow is part of that system so that the Mahāyāna tradition encourages us to follow the Mahāyāna path to generate bodhicitta. But this is something that comes after maybe many many lifetimes of hard work to actually be able to generate bodhicitta. First we have to you know, prepare our mind properly. We can always have this long term goal of generating bodhicitta, but we have to prepare our minds.
So this is why the text at the beginning says, remember, first train in the preliminaries. And that is turning the mind away from obsession with this life because the more we’re obsessed with this life, the more that activates our disturbing thoughts. And we engage in negative actions and the more we do that we are blocking the chances of getting even a good rebirth, you just our immediate next rebirth. So if our immediate next rebirth isn’t a good one, it can only be a bad one. And if it’s a bad one, then that’s bad.
That is not good. But it’s bad for many reasons. There is the suffering of the next life. But while we’re suffering in that next life, then it’s very difficult to create the causes to have a good life in the one after that. And then benefiting ourselves benefiting others, let alone benefit how should I put it?
Benefiting ourselves, let alone benefiting others becomes extremely difficult once we lose this incredible opportunity of having a human rebirth where we meet the Dharma, have faith in it and the chance, the freedom to practice it. So we have to use this life to train in the preliminaries, to renounce our obsession with the things of this life, the ordinary things of this life. It’s good to get obsessed with the Dharma. Not too obsessed but we could all do with being a little bit more obsessed with the dharma than we are probably. We’re just speaking for myself.
I can’t speak for anyone else. Sorry. So then the next preliminary is to to to turn the mind away from obsession with thinking that somehow I can be happy in in cyclic existence. What is cyclic existence? It’s having a mind mind controlled by delusion and karma.
But the Buddha is trying to tell us that there is no way to have real happiness, even a moment of genuine happiness while the mind is controlled by delusion and karma. That all we experience, what we think of as happiness in in the cyclic existence is just the illusion of happiness. It might be convincing for a while, but it really is just an illusion. And it doesn’t last. So this first part we’re going through is going through these preliminaries in a simple way.
If you study the Lam Rim teachings, the teachings on the graduated path, it it talks about many, many things that we have to think about and meditate in order to renounce this life, renounce cyclic existence. But this text just talks about four major things that we need to think about. So in this busy world, if you find it’s too busy to go through the whole graduated path to enlightenment, at least think about these. So the first one which we’ve covered already is to try to recognize more and more deeply that we have a precious human rebirth, which means that it is more than just having a human rebirth. There are seven billion people on this world now.
Is it seven? I think. We’re on to seven billion people. I think we hit seven billion recently or is it only six? Any seven.
Yeah. Right. So but of these seven billion very very few have a precious human rebirth because not many people have met the Buddha’s teachings. Even if they’ve met them, people even those who would meet them don’t develop faith in them. And those who have faith, still there are many obstacles to practice.
So if you find that you’ve met the Buddha’s teachings, you have some faith in them and you have basically a healthy body and mind. And you’ve, you know, you’ve you’ve got you know about the existence of Dharma centers, you have Dharma friends, a few things like that. There are, you know, you have some Dharma teachers of some court, so what? Then you’ve got a precious human rebirth. This is immensely rare in time and space.
It is the optimum chance to practice the Dharma, which means the optimum chance to work with one’s mind, the optimum chance because the mind is the source of happiness and suffering. If we don’t work with it, we’re just going to have suffering. Guaranteed. Sorry. The unattended mind sooner or later goes berserk.
Partly because we are born into a samsaric world with as many factors encouraging that. And we are in a world where those factors unfortunately are increasing. And the the the encouraging factors are decreasing. But they’re still there, so we don’t lose hope. We have this optimum amazing chance.
So the more we realize that, that we will tend to waste less time on things which are meaningless, and we will tend to adopt a life that is more and more meaningful and virtuous. And then, especially if we think about the second preliminary practice, which we’ve just finished covering which is to think about our own mortality that we’re going to die that is definite. All of us here are going to die. Everyone on this planet is going to die. Right?
Everyone who’s whoever will be born on this planet will definitely die. And what is more, we could die at literally at any time. You know, the ceiling might fall down, and we all die together tonight. We it seems impossible, improbable, but it’s not impossible because these things do happen. Right?
All the time, all over the world. So we could have we could die at any time. So and more than that, so we need to recognize that when we die, the only thing that is really going to help us die, which is not a a final thing because after death, death is when the mind leaves this body, and and the mind when it leaves this body doesn’t cease. It continues moment by moment. And there is another life.
So when the mind leaves this body, the only thing that is going to help the mind leave this body peacefully so we have a peaceful, good rebirth is the Dharma. Nothing else. No matter how much knowledge we have of worldly things, even very sophisticated, you know, things, no matter what physical skills we have, no matter how rich we are, how powerful we are, no matter how good looking we are, or how healthy we are, no matter how many friends we’ve got, none of these things are gonna help when we die, when we leave this world. Because we’re going to leave all those things. And our attachment to all those things will be a great obstacle.
So we have to think about these things so we let go of our attachments as much as possible. We start to see what is really meaningful. Because the reason to think about death is to come the conclusion that since I’m going to die, I need to practice the Dhamma. And since I could die at any moment, I need to practice it now. Stop postponing it.
Did any of you during the last week stop postponing? Anyway, if you didn’t, you need we need to meditate on this topic more. And then when we start to realize that only the Dharma will help us at the time of death, in other words, to leave this life peacefully, we need to have trained our mind, to subdue have subdued our mind, to reduce the the negative agitation in the mind. So we can’t do that when we’re dying. It’s something that we have to train our mind.
So we have to practice the Dharma, we have to do it now and we have to do it purely. When we realize that only the Dharma is going to help at the time of death we realize we have to practice sincerely because some impure, phony Dharma practice isn’t going to bring real benefit to our mind. Pretending to be a nice person, kind and compassionate isn’t going to help at the time of death. Any questions? Okay.
So the third preliminary practice preliminary that we have to train in is understanding the most essential teaching of the Buddha, the core teaching of the Buddha around which all the other teachings evolve, revolve which is the law of cause and effect which here is keep going. Oh, just went the wrong way I think. Oh, no. You’re going. We’re doing this again.
That needs to go up, think. Sorry. Yeah. Okay. You know, that’s the very, very beginning of the whole thing.
Now we’re way past there. That’s the beginning of the tape we have to oh look let’s leave that everyone waste I’ll yeah keep going past that. Yes. Keep going. Yes.
Oh, we’ve jumped. Yes. Oh, you don’t have any more? But, Bill said he’d put more on. Okay.
Rapidly moving. Anyway. Yeah. So just to make the point, I’ll I’ll probably drive you crazy while I’m here because I’ll just repeat these points over and over again. But these these teachings are something that we the teachings on them we have to listen to many times.
Yeah. A lot of this, I mean, is very simple stuff. Doesn’t require a great deal of intelligence to understand. So one can hear it and think, oh, I understand that, got that, don’t need to hear this anymore, don’t need to meditate on it. But we do.
We need to hear these things many, many times for them to really sink in and more than that we really need to meditate on them. Because there’s one thing of getting some kind of superficial intellectual understanding of something. This is vastly different from gaining the realization of the truth of something. And one’s supposed to meditate until one gets the realization. And even once one’s gained the realization, one still has to continue to meditate to keep the realization alive because even realizations until at a very high level of spiritual development are impermanent.
They fade away. Right? So anyway, so we’re on to the topic of the law of cause and effect. This is really the single most important teaching of the Buddha because if we don’t get this one, we won’t understand everything else. This is the key one.
Apart from the the the most basic one is understanding the mind. The Buddhist teachings are all about the mind. So the more one really tries to get some understanding of what is meant by mind in a Buddhist context, one will start to really understand what the Buddhist teachings are about. And all the all the other teachings will make much more sense once one really understands what the what is meant by mind in Buddhism, but I’m not going to talk about that. I’ll resist the temptation to go into that anymore.
So anyway, the law of cause and effect or actions and its consequences is really explaining how the mind works to produce effects, the experiences of life. So the text says: After death we do not cease to exist but have to take rebirth. So there’s no choice about that. We have to take rebirth. The mind goes on.
We can’t stop that. Just like when we go to sleep tonight, we have to wake up at some point whether we want to or not. Even if we want to sleep for a long time at some point we just wake up. And at some point you know whether we want to or not we fall asleep again And and rebirth is like that a little bit that whether we want to or not at some point we die. Whether we want to or not it happens.
And but then whether we want it or not, once we die, we wake up again. We are reborn again. The mind generates another experience. There’s the there’s the experiences of this life, then the mind generates the experience of death, and then the mind generates the experience of the Bardo state, and then the mind generates the experience of the next life. Bong.
Bong. Bong. And there’s nothing we can do to stop that. What we can do is and and when we have the precious human rebirth, we’ve got the optimum chance to do it. We can begin to, what, control what kind of experiences the mind gives rise to.
We can’t stop the mind giving rise to experience, but we can start to train the mind to give rise to less and fewer and fewer, lesser and lesser painful experiences, and we can train the mind to experience more and more positive, virtuous, enjoyable, meaningful experiences. This is what we can do until we reach a point where there’s no suffering experiences, only good. But the mind can’t be stopped. This is really why I’m tempted to talk about the mind. I would but if one understands the mind is like space, it’s not something physical, then how can you stop space?
How can you bring space to an end? It’s just there. So the mind is like that. You can’t stop it. It’s not physical.
So and what the mind does, it gives rise to experience over you know, one experience after another. Again, moment by moment, there’s a new experience arising. And there’s only three kinds of experiences we have. There are pleasant ones, unpleasant ones, and neutral ones. So the neutral experience we don’t have to worry about because they’re neutral.
It’s the pleasant ones and especially the unpleasant ones that we need to be concerned about. And the law of cause and and effect explains why, you know, why this or how this happens. So the text says our place of birth will be either happy or miserable according to our actions rather than our free will. Therefore, it is reasonable to try to cultivate good actions properly and avoid bad ones. This contemplation has four parts.
So the law of cause and effect of course of course says basically that every every effect for something to come into existence to occur, for any experience to happen, there has to be a cause for it. Things don’t happen for no reason. There is always a cause. And the the cause so the experience is something that arises within our mind. Mind.
Everything that we experience is coming from our mind. Right? Everything. You know, If we run into a brick wall, which I wouldn’t advise, this is, you know, what seems to be a totally physical experience. But in fact, it all depends on our mind.
It all depends on our mind. No mind. There’s no sense of no experience of a wall, no experience of a body, no experience of running, no sense of I am in pain. None of that would occur. It all depends on one’s mind.
So if this is the case, that everything is coming from within our mind in a sense, then why do we have certain experiences? Why why is the the the why does this pleasant experience occur? Why is the mind giving rise to this pleasant experience? Why does the mind then give rise to a suffering experience? Since we ourselves don’t want suffering, why does suffering occur?
Why does the mind give rise to it? And the Buddha discovered that there is a cause for the mind to give rise to these different kinds of experiences. And the cause lies within the mind, not external to the mind. Because what the Buddha discovered, just like in a general way in the external world here I go again. If you take a tomato, a tomato plant arises which is an effect, an experience, a result, a fruit.
The cause of that tomato plant’s is a tomato seed. And the plant the tomato plant evolves out of that tomato seed. If you, as I do this example, if you had a plot of land here, this was a plot of land, and you plant a tomato seed here, the tomato plant will grow there. It won’t grow here. It evolves from directly from that seed.
In the same way, the what causes experiences of the mind can only occur in the mind. The effect in the mind evolves from a seed in the mind. And that seed is some kind of energy or potency existing in the mind that then evolves into this experience good or bad. So a positive potency in the mind evolves into a mental experience that is a positive one. A negative potency evolves into an experience that the mind generates which is a suffering unpleasant one.
This is what the Buddha discovered. And by experience that can be a very complicated thing like having a body in a particular place where something occurs. You need all of those things to have an experience. So according to the Buddhist understanding, the body we have, that is something depending on our mind and the type of body we have and the experiences it gives rise to, that has a cause and the cause comes from our mind. It doesn’t come from anywhere else.
There are conditions in the external world but they are only conditions. The cause lies within our mind. As I’ve some of you have already heard me do this before. I’ll just do it again. If you if you if you say this was a plot of land that has been developed by, for example, the CSIRO, and this soil is has been developed to be the perfect soil to grow tomatoes and it’s also it’s in a laboratory where there is the perfect amount of moisture, the perfect amount of nutrients, the perfect amount of sunlight.
So it’s the perfect place to grow tomatoes. Right? But if there are no tomato seeds in that ground, you’re not going to get any tomatoes. And on the other hand, if you’ve got a packet of tomato seeds over there, they’re never going to grow. You need both the conditions and the seeds.
Right? But you could then say, is the more important? The tomato seed or the soil, etcetera, etcetera? And some could argue you need both. They’re equally important.
But the Buddha argues that it’s the seed that’s the most important. Because if you take the example of this this whole area is perfect for growing tomatoes, but you put the tomato seed there, the only place a tomato will grow is there, which shows that the most important thing is the seed. So there are many conditions in the external world for happiness and suffering. But if if there isn’t the inner cause, you don’t get the result. You don’t get the experience.
Everywhere here is a perfect cause for tomatoes, but if you don’t have the seed, you don’t get the result. That’s the basic teaching of the Buddha. That’s how our mind works. You know, we can do so many things in this life, but but they are just become the conditions for something. If there isn’t the inner cause, you don’t get the result.
As I’ve mentioned again many times, you know, there are many people who work very hard to become or famous or just even, you know, get some money, but they don’t. It doesn’t succeed. There are other people who don’t do very much at all, and they’re very successful. You just take the example of movie like movie stars. So certain women are said to be the most beautiful the most beautiful woman in the world.
You know, they vote, you know, the most beautiful woman in the world, the sexiest woman in the world, the most handsome man in the world, the the sexiest man. You know, they’re all very famous people. But and they all are pretty good looking. But, actually, there’s plenty of other people who are not famous, who are as good looking, sexy, if not more than these famous people. But these people in the street will never become famous for their looks and whatever.
They just don’t have the cause. And there are people who are famous singers, and there are people on the street who can sing better, but they just don’t have the cause to become famous and recognized. Yeah. And no matter what you do, it doesn’t work. And someone else just doesn’t do anything, and it it all happens.
Because somehow in the past, they created the cause, and then the result comes. Anyway, this is the Buddha teaching of the Buddha, the fundamental one to pay attention to. So so things happen, as it says here, according to our actions rather than our free will. This is a question that often comes up, especially when one talks about the law of cause and effect. What about free will?
Don’t does that mean we don’t have free will? Meaning, you know, the idea of free will is a very good thing and we should have it. But what what is free free will? What does that mean? Free will.
It seems to imply that we things can just happen if we want them to Or if we want them to enough, they’ll happen, which implies it doesn’t depend on causes and conditions. But this is what the Buddha taught everything depends on many, many factors. Free will doesn’t make sense at all. Free will implies I can do anything. I am free to do anything.
Meaning, there is there are no causes and conditions that restrain me, that I I don’t depend on causes and conditions, therefore, I am free to do anything. But this is rubbish. We are totally dependent on causes and conditions. As I try to say as the motivation for every talk, who we are today is totally dependent on all sentient beings directly and indirectly. We are not free agents.
There’s no such thing as free will. Everything arises depending on cause and conditions. But when we have a precious human rebirth, that’s when we have the greatest freedom. The more we engage in negative actions, the more we reduce our freedom. That’s that’s the answer, isn’t it?
Yes. Right. I I thought the building was being sawn apart or something. Yeah. I I don’t remember the exact how the exact quote goes, but one great psychologist, Eric Fromm, made the point something along the lines that, you know, at at one point, we have a lot of freedom to do good and bad.
But then if we make the decision to do something negative, then it becomes easier to do that make the say a negative decision again. And then again and again and again, it becomes easier and easier. We get into a habit of making those negative decisions, choices. And then at some point, we’ve lost our freedom. We have to do the negative thing.
It’s like, you know, for drug addicts, the at first, you know, you can be offered to take some heroin or snort some coke or whatever you do, and there’s total freedom to say yes or no. And you can say, oh, I’ll just try it just once. And you do. And then you’re offered it again, and you still have lots of freedom. You think, oh, well, it was okay the first time.
I’ll try it again. No problem. And the third and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth. And at some point, suddenly, you can’t resist it. There’s no freedom left.
On the other hand, the more we make positive decisions, the right decisions, we reach a point where it becomes impossible not to make the right choice. So there is free a certain freedom, but it depends. It depends on causes and conditions. If we create the right causes and conditions, we create the situation where there is more freedom to make the right choices. Right.
Therefore, it’s reasonable to try to cultivate good actions properly and avoid bad ones. So this contemplation has four parts. So the first of which is the certainty of actions and their results. To come to this conclusion that that’s true, that, yeah, that the results of our actions depend on causes. There’s a definite relationship between the cause and the result.
As the Buddha said, a bitter fruit sorry, a bitter seed always produces a bitter fruit, and a sweet seed always produces a sweet fruit. This is something definite. It it doesn’t change in any way. So it says: All instances of happiness or suffering, whether coarse or subtle, are the result of specific wholesome or unwholesome actions. The Precious Garland, which is a famous text written by the great Nāgārjuna, says: All sufferings are the result of unwholesome actions.
So likewise are all bad rebirths. The pleasure enjoyed throughout our lives and all happy rebirths are the result of virtue. So this is something definite. Alright. It’s it’s not possible for a negative cause to produce an positive result.
It’s not possible for a positive action to produce a suffering result. So of course this brings up the question what is positive and negative? And people could argue there’s all sorts of philosophies and whatever about what is positive and negative and how this is all culturally determined and how it changes with time even within a culture and certainly within our cultures what was thought was bad at one point is considered good at another or vice versa. So that is true up to a point but in the Buddhist context what is said to be positive or negative, virtuous or non virtuous is really what the Buddha perceived as how the mind works. What the Buddha discovered is that the the the the true nature of our mind is is perfect and blissful.
Our our mind has the potential of every good quality. These are the very nature of mind. Loving kindness, compassion and so on. These are intrinsic qualities of the mind. Every mind has them.
Even the most terrible person in the world has the potential of loving kindness and compassion and so on. It’s just in the really nasty people, those potentials are really obscured, but they do exist because they’re inseparable aspects of the mind. So from a Buddhist point of view, anything that enables those positive aspects of the mind to manifest even briefly is something positive. Right? Whereas anything that obscures that positive blissful nature of the mind will naturally lead to something suffering, negative, and that is non virtuous.
It’s an it’s it’s it is something negative. And and this is something universal. It never changes. All minds have the same nature. So when those positive aspects of the mind manifest, it brings good results.
And that’s recognized in all cultures at all times throughout the universe. Whereas when the mind is obscured through these negative states of mind, negative mental factors, there is always suffering. It’s not something one has to believe or it doesn’t depend on belief or training. This is how the mind works. If we obscure the mind, there is suffering.
If we reduce those obscurations and the the what’s what’s what? What’s another word? You know? The stuff covering the mind, the gunk covering our mind metaphorically, even if we reduce that a little bit, then there’s less suffering, less confusion, which is positive, something good that every being will want, yeah, in every time, every culture. So there is from a Buddhist point of view, there is a universal basis for talking about what is virtuous and non virtuous, good or bad, positive and negative, and it’s how the mind is affected.
And so there are things which are naturally negative. Whether we believe our culture tells us the opposite or we want to believe the opposite, there are things which are naturally negative because they are harming, obscuring the mind. And the obscured mind always suffers. And and this is something that, you know, we can believe, but also it’s something even at our level of practice we can experience because if if you do some practice, meditation practice, especially by doing maybe it’s more noticeable by doing some meditation retreat for even a short time. The the effect is there is every time we do positive things, it it purifies our mind at least a little bit.
And there is an experience of of some sort of greater lightness and clarity in the mind as a result. Somehow there is even if if it’s only temporary, a little less obscuration in the mind. And when that’s and and when we’re in that state, there is more interest in doing good things and it becomes easier to do them. Whereas the more the mind gets obscured, the the mind loses its interest in what is virtuous and meaningful. Check up yourself.
Your your own your own personal experience. But also, of course, it’s always easy to see to see this in others, but it’s much better to look at oneself as the example. So the first thing to be convinced about is that there is a definite relationship between cause and effect. Because if we start to realize the truth of that, then this itself will help us to avoid negative actions. And it will encourage us it gives us some encouragement to do virtuous ones because it’s definite that there will be a specific kind of result.
Our good actions will definitely bring good results sooner or later. Our negative actions will definitely bring suffering results sooner or later. We it’s inescapable. This is how the mind works. You know?
We all accept that our bodies you know, we’ve all got a body, and all our bodies here in this room are different. Right? They look different. Different, you know, but, basically, the nature of all our bodies is the same. They all work the same way.
Right? We all accept that, and we all accept there are people who know about bodies and how bodies work and can fix them up to some extent. Right? Well, the Buddha knows about the mind. He’s the one who got it all correct.
There are some very good doctors, but there are no perfect ones. The Buddha is the perfect doctor of the mind. You know, whether we know what is going on in our body, you know, things are going on in our body. Right? And whether we believe it or not, you know, the doctor can say, Oh, you’ve got cancer.
You’re dying of cancer. And you can say, I don’t believe it. But just because we don’t believe it doesn’t mean it’s true. That it’s not true. I mean.
If something’s going on in our body, it’s going on in our body. Whether we know it or not, believe it or not, it’s happening. Same, our mind is existing. It works in a particular way whether we know it or not, whether we believe it or not. But there is a being who discovered the mind and how it works completely, and that’s the Buddha.
And the Buddha explains, gives some idea because this is something immensely complicated just like the body itself is something immensely complicated. And no no you know, after several thousand years, people don’t know how the body completely works. And we’re only just starting to work out how the brain works. And some pretty amazing discoveries, but still so much to know. And of course, the brain is not the mind.
So the second thing to come to some understanding of is that the multiplying nature of actions. So the Buddha discovered that a small wholesome or unwholesome cause can give rise to a much greater happy or miserable result. One text says performing even the smallest misdeed will lead to great fear and trouble in future lives like poison that has entered the body. Creating even a small meritorious act will bring forth great joy in future lives and fulfill the great purpose like grain ripening into a bumper crop. So in the in our ordinary world we can see that very small things, good and bad, can lead to huge results and also long lasting results.
So why not in the realm of our mind? Because that’s what the Buddha is saying that just doing a very small positive action can lead to, you know, huge positive results that can last an incredibly long time. But similarly, doing even a small negative action can have very long term horrible consequences. So if this is true, if this is what the Buddha saw, then it’s important for us as much as possible to use this life so we avoid negative actions as much as possible and and to engage in virtuous actions as much as possible. And especially to on the basis of this point to have the courage to continue to practice the Dharma because we can get discouraged by thinking that I’m trying to do all these various practices and whatever, but I don’t seem to be getting much result in this life.
But this is mainly because we there is so many so much karma that we have to experience in this life. We have so many obstacles in this life to go through. But every time we engage in virtuous actions, we’re generating positive imprints in the mind. And it’s these positive imprints which when they ripen will produce a huge result, a long term big result. This is what we should have faith in and remember and use as some kind of inspiration in our life.
Not to expect big results in this life, but we’re laying the groundwork for good results in our future lives. And on the other hand, when we engage in negative actions in this life, there may not be much obvious negative result in this life. So we can think, oh, karma doesn’t work, or I got away with that one. But we don’t get away with it because the law of cause and effect is not talking so much about the effects of what we do in this life. But everything we do in this life, consciously motivated by positive and negative emotions, generate karmic imprints, karmic potencies.
So it’s these potencies that bring the long term results. And those potencies which are generated in this life normally don’t ripen in this life. They ripen in our future lives. Alright? Just like here I go again.
You plant a tomato seed in the ground and it produces a tomato bush and that’s the result of that seed. But in each tomato tomato fruit on that bush there are many seeds but those seeds don’t produce tomatoes while they’re inside the tomato. They have to wait for the tomato to die and rot into the soil and all that then those seeds can start sprouting. So in the same way we’re like a tomato. Right?
We’re a tomato that is a result of a seed from a past life and in this life we are putting we are creating all these seeds inside us, positive and negative. But they’re not going to ripen while this tomato is still operating. When the this tomato ceases, then those seeds begin to ripen. And so the negative ones will definitely bring a negative result. Positive ones definitely a good result.
And on that point will take a ten minute tea break. The bell did go, didn’t it? Yes. Yes. Details about these topics because it’s it’s really just, the text is the main emphasis is about bodhicitta, the main bulk of the text.
So this is just reminding one of the preliminaries, so just making some basic points. So the the lam rim to the graduated path teachings go into much more detail about these topics, but it’s really important to reflect on them as much as possible. So it then gives more quotes where where it says, just as the shadow of the bird accompanies it in the sky, so beings follow after wholesome and unwholesome actions. Actually, I I can’t remember exactly how it goes, but in another text, it gives the example that, you know, we can fool ourselves into thinking that we escape the negative consequences of our actions because, like, when a bird like a a bird on the ground has a a shadow on it, you know, behind it from the sun. But when it flies in the air, you don’t see the shadow anymore.
But then and so but but no matter how far the bird flies when it lands, bingo. There’s the shadow. So this is quite a good analogy that one can create an action, and it doesn’t seem for a long time to be any result. But when the conditions come together again, like when the bird lands, then you can see the shadow. So when the conditions come again, then you get the result.
You can’t escape no matter how high the bird flies, how long it flies. At some point, it has to land, and there’s the shadow. So we can appear to escape our negative actions for, you know, many lifetimes. But at some point, the conditions come together, and then the imprint ripens, the seed ripens. Just as the traveler with provisions will suffer on the road, so sentient beings who do not do good will come to a bad end.
Just as the traveler with plentiful provisions will have an enjoyable journey, so sentient beings who have done good will go to a happy rebirth. And it goes on to so I don’t think that needs any commentary, does it? It’s pretty straightforward. And we should not do even the smallest wrong thinking it would do no harm, for the accumulation of drops of water will gradually fill a large vessel. And don’t think the little wrongs I’ve done will make no difference later, for just a single water drops gradually fill a large vessel.
So ordinary beings become filled with wrongs, collected little by little. Don’t think the little virtues I’ve done will make no difference later, for just a single water drops gradually fill a large vessel. So the steadfast are filled with virtue, collected little by little. So this is what we should reflect on in order to be mindful in our daily life so that, you know, we have the energy to do even small actions, understanding that sooner or later, they there will be a significant result from them. And we’ll tend to avoid even small actions because sooner or later, there’ll be a, you know, a long term negative result.
Although it doesn’t mention it here in the text, it’s it’s important just for maybe some of the new people to to know that there there although it says that once a a karmic imprint is generated, it it will bring its result sooner or later. Oh, oh, no. Sorry. We’re just talking about oh, no. That’s the next one.
Forget that. It’s coming up. So that was the that was the second point that that the multiplying nature of actions that even a small action produces a huge result just like, you know, you plant a tiny seed in the ground, you can get a huge tree from it. And so the the next thing to consider is that in regards to the law of cause and effect is that not having to face the consequences of actions you have not done. Which means if if you have not accumulated an action, whether it would give rise to pleasure or pain, you will not experience its consequences.
So in other words, if if we haven’t done a negative action, there is no way we will experience suffering. And if we haven’t engaged in a virtuous action, there’s no way we will experience happiness. So if we are experiencing something, good or bad, it means that at some point in the past, and probably not in this life, but in the past life, we created the cause. So now we’re experiencing the result. So it’s no good just praying to be happy.
I want to be happy because that’s not the actual cause to be happy. Just wanting to be happy isn’t the cause. And if one’s done an action a negative action, one can hope it won’t produce a bad result, but it will. Once the action’s done, the result comes. But if one hasn’t created the actual cause, you won’t get we won’t get the result.
It’s just not possible because everything depends on a cause. Right? So what we should understand from that is that if if we don’t want suffering, we have to stop the causes. And if we want happiness, we have to create the proper causes, the the actual causes. It says: Those who enjoy the fruits of the infinite merits accumulated by the teacher do not have to collect all their causes, but they must at least do their part.
So this is quite an interesting statement because what it seems to be saying is that Teacher, meaning the Buddha, in his past lives over an enormous period of time following the bodhisattva way of life accumulated enormous merit, did so many amazing wonderful things, generated this enormous amount of merit. And the Buddha dedicated that merit to the welfare of all sentient beings. So it’s it’s implying that somehow we get some of that benefit. Because the Buddha did so many amazing things, we’re getting some of that benefit in some way. But, nevertheless, we still have to do stuff.
But it’s much easier because the Buddha’s done a whole lot for us already. But we still have to create the causes for our own happiness. But the Buddha is helping us and has already helped us a lot. Does anyone have any questions, comments? By the way, everyone’s extremely quiet.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Don’t energy thing happening.
Yes. I’m not quite sure how this works, but it seems to work because actually one example of it that is often mentioned, it’s true. This this point isn’t made very much, but one point that is made in the context of the Sangha is that the Buddha made a vow that any person who lives, you know, the the pure life properly, they they will they will never go hungry for a start. At at at the very least, they will all no matter no. Even if there’s major famines in the rest of the world or all around them, a person who is living, keeping their ordination well will never go hungry.
The Buddha made this vow no matter what. So that’s kind of an example of that that somehow because of the power of the Buddha’s merit, if one is yeah. Yeah. You get some benefit from it. Depending on you have to do something, but you get some benefit benefit somehow.
For example Right. Yeah. No. That’s yeah. This gets yes.
Yeah. To some extent, yes. His Holiness has made some comment along these lines because he when His Holiness teaches on karma, he says this is a extremely it is actually said to be one of the most complicated subjects of all. But but but he said his holiness is said from his understanding is that oh, how can you say? I’m I’m probably misquoting, but just very roughly speaking, this is a very complicated topic.
But this world is the karmic result of all sentient beings. This is the Buddhist view. It hasn’t been created by an individual being or anything like that. It is the karmic result of all sentient beings. And so but within that so, for example, part of the karma of being in this world is that there are trees, which are nice things, generally speaking.
And but but they do have their own evolution, you know, that they’ve they’ve somehow there was some karmic connection with us that we have these things, but they have also evolved physically, you know, because of because of various conditions, you know, various trees have developed in various ways, and they reproduce in their, you know, their own cycle. So that’s not not got anything directly to do with our karma. But for example and like like eucalyptus trees drop their their limbs, don’t they? I I’m not sure if all types do, but a lot of gum trees, you know, drop their their limbs. Branches.
Branches. That’s the point. Branches. So that just happens. But but if you just happen to be standing under the tree when the branch drops and then that’s your karma.
Well, again, that’s a rough expression. That’s the result of your karma. You’ve you you know, for for a tree branch to fall on your head, you have to have created the cause for it. Yeah. But you didn’t create the cause for that branch to fall down.
It would have just fallen down. But for you to be there when it falls down, one has created the cause somehow for that experience. Yeah. So so things can only ripen when the conditions come together. And if they don’t come together at one time, then that seed doesn’t ripen then.
It’ll ripen at another time. You know, for example, I mean, just to try and you know, if if if one’s created the cause to be to experience the the suffering of of being in a you know, the horrible suffering of being in a war and having to fight in a war, but there’s no war at the time you’re born or, you know, during your life, that karma doesn’t ripen. But then if there just happens to be a war going on and you get born at that time or just that you know? Then that karma can ripen. Yeah.
Yeah. But it is a very complicated thing because but it it it that’s and his holiness always makes the point that to really understand karma, the law of cause and effect, one really needs to be able to understand emptiness. Or the more one understands emptiness, Śūnyatā, dependent arising, the more one under will understand the law of cause and effect. Because if, you know, we live our our our our life, you know, believing there is this external reality. There’s this stuff out there that’s really there the way it appears and it’s, you know, all operating under its own systems.
But that is not the actual truth. The things aren’t out there separately from us. This is what the Buddha discovered. That things arise dependently on causes and conditions, on parts, and they arise depending on our mind. Things can only exist and appear in a particular way depending on many, many things, especially our mind.
So if the more we have some understanding of what that really means, that the external world isn’t something separate from us, then the law of cause makes more of starts to make much more sense that why am I in a particular place when a tree branch falls on my head? Yeah. Or you have a car accident, or you just miss having a car accident. It’s very interesting. Well, from a Buddhist point of view, no.
Not possible. No. According to the Buddhist understanding, stuff and mind knowing stuff arise at the same time. But I don’t think I really understand that. But, anyway, well, at a personal level, it makes some sense that that yeah.
The flower you’re experiencing, the flower and the experience of the flower for any individual is arising at the same time. You can’t talk about a flower that is existing independently, a flower that you know but has got nothing to do with your mind. It’s just not there somehow. I didn’t actually let’s leave that, I think. Okay, the final point is that once committed, actions do not fade away.
So a particular text called the especially exalted praise says, the Brahman say that virtues and misdeeds can be given away and transferred, But you teach that actions done do not fade away, and actions not done have no consequences. So here the Brahmins are referring, of course, to them, the non-Buddhist believers. So they think that, you know, virtue and negativities, you can you can transfer those to other people. But the Buddha you but you teach, meaning you, the Buddha, teach that actions done do not fade away, and actions not done have no consequences. So if you if you haven’t done an action, there won’t be any effect.
You know, if you haven’t created the cause, there is no effect. But if you created the cause, the effect doesn’t fade disappear. It doesn’t fade away. Sooner or later, the effect comes. And I’m sorry.
Some of you have heard all this before, but I’ll just repeat it for the umpteenth time. But it’s the when talking about the law of cause and effect, there is if we do anything in this life, of course, there is some effect in this life, whether it’s noticeable or not. But this is not the main aspect of the teaching of the law of cause and effect because anyone can understand that and see it, that if you do something in this life, there is a result in this life. Right? It doesn’t need the Buddha to come to teach that.
But what the law of cause and effect is particularly saying is that when we when we act with our mind, motivate consciously motivated by either virtuous mental factors of love and compassion and so on or negative mental factors such as anger and craving and pride and jealousy, then apart from the action and its effect in this life, what happens is that a karmic imprint or potency is generated. Right? And that potency definitely ripens to bring a result. Usually not in this life, but in later life in future lives. So those imprints, once they’re generated, they don’t disappear.
They stay with the mind, and it can be for millions and billions of lifetimes until the conditions come together, and then it ripens. They don’t fade away. They don’t lose their potency just by themselves. Like anything we manufacture, you know, some medicine, some pills, if you if you leave them long enough, you know, they’ve lost all their potency. But it’s not like these karmic imprints don’t fade away.
And in fact, the potency increases because the result is much greater than the cause. Before we get too depressed by this point, we have to understand, fortunately, that our negative imprints can be purified. But if we don’t purify them, they they will ripen. They don’t fade away. The the bad news is that our positive imprints, unfortunately, before they ripen, can be destroyed, especially by our anger.
Every time we get angry, we wipe out some of our positive imprints. That’s why we’re still here in Samsāra. Still ordinary ordinary beings. Because we’ve in past lives, we’ve done all sorts of amazing things according to the our teachers. But we’ve, you know, unfortunately, at other times, we’ve done negative things, got really angry, whatever, and all the many of those positive imprints gone, burned up metaphorically.
Go on. Go on. No. No. It’s a little complicated.
If we do a positive action, it generates a positive imprint, which brings a positive result. This is this is the first point. The karma is definite. If you do a negative action, it generates a negative imprint, which will ripen his suffering. So, like, today I do this good action and tomorrow I do this bad action of equal power, I’d say.
But they they they don’t don’t wipe, you know, wipe each other out, neutralize each other because they are two imprints in the mind. And right now, our mind has many positive imprints and many negative imprints. They don’t they don’t neutralize out generally in general. But there is the practice of purification where one consciously wipes out the negative imprints by doing virtuous actions combined with other things, then they get neutralized. But that’s different.
If you just do a negative action today and this negative imprint is, you know, generated in the mind. Tomorrow, you do a positive. You just happen to do a really good action. And so that puts a positive imprint in the mind, but it doesn’t neutralize that negative one. But if you consciously you know, I I went to this terrible thing yesterday, then you consciously do something to purify it.
It can be neutralized. And that’s by applying, you know, what are called the four opponent powers of developing regret, regenerating refuge in bodhicitta, consciously doing a very powerful virtuous action to purify and developing the determination to avoid the negative action in the future. But the point is also, once negative you know, it the the in the teachings, says any negative action or or the the imprint of any negative action can be purified, but it’s not easy. You can’t just do one simple good action to purify one simple negative action. You have to do a whole lot of positive stuff to purify, to neutralize just even one negative action.
Sorry, folks. That seems right. Hey. You’re not allowed to say things like that because what why? I’m not I’m not giving you a hard time because a lot of people think like this.
And if we’re trying to be Buddhists because we believe in the Buddha, we have to think the Buddhist way because that’s helpful. That kind of thinking is underlying that, sorry, is implying that somehow either the Buddha’s made stuff up or, you know and what all all the Buddha’s done all the Buddha’s done is the Buddha is a being who purifies his mind of the mind, not his, her, the mind, and sees things. The Buddha is a being who is the only mind Buddha mind is the only mind that sees how the mind works in its entirety. And this is what the Buddha taught. It’s just that’s it’s just like that.
That’s how it is. It’s not weighted. It’s not unfair. It’s just how it is. When you get old, your hair falls out.
It’s not weighted. It’s just how it is. No one made it up if it’s just what happens. And the Buddha sees this and says, this is I didn’t make this up to, you know, scare you or whatever. I just see this and I can see why it happens.
So if you do this, this happens. If you do that, that happens. If you don’t do that, that doesn’t happen. So that’s what I see. So live your life according to that and you’ll be okay.
No. No. It’s just this is what happens. If you do this, this happens. Like I always say with my boring examples, if you lie with all your clothes off in the middle of an Australian summer in the sun, you get sunburnt.
This is not God punishing, not the Buddha. It’s just what happens to skin. Given certain causes and conditions, the skin goes brown, peels off, and you get cancer. Right? Not you’re not being punished, not being weighed, judged, this or that.
It just happens. Right? Just happens. So if you don’t lie in the sun like that for long periods of time, it won’t happen. Basically.
But, basically, yes. Yeah. And the self good old self-cherishing thought that tells us that the quick easy solution is the best. That’s what the self-cherishing thought does. Yes.
So practicing Dharma is difficult. So the self-cherishing thought says, anything difficult is bad. Not good. Don’t do it. Knees will hurt.
So bad. Stop. Relax. Happy. Happy knees.
And we give into that all the time. Oh, not all the time, but we do it a lot, unfortunately. And the great practitioners are the ones who at some point they stop giving in. As I’ve already said here at least one time before, my teacher has Lama Zopa Rinpoche has many gurus, some very famous, high, great, highly realized, super special beings, some from ordinary opinions, very simple beings. One of one of whom was just a very simple monk who who told Lama Zopa when he was young that Dharma practice, real Dharma practice starts when you make the decision.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche thought that was one of the most profound things he had ever heard, so he took that little simple monk as one of his gurus. And it’s true. It it all starts when you make when we make the decision. I’m going to do it or I’m not going to do that. I’m just not.
Sorry, Jen, you had a question. Yes. Well, in the teachings, they say that that’s the reason to dedicate our good actions when we do them because it somehow protects them from those, like, heavy anger and so on. But, again, it’s not that easy because I think that the dedication has to be really genuine. At the end of this teaching, which will be very soon if I stop talking, we will do this dedication, which is words and we can sing the song.
But, you know, our mind can be anywhere and whatever. So that’s not going to that dedication isn’t gonna work. But, I mean, we sing the song to encourage us to actually dedicate. And when we actually, you know, in our mind, in our heart, we really I’ve done this for this purpose, for the benefit of all sentient beings. If we really have that mindset, then that apparently that the teachings say protect that karmic imprint.
That’s what the Buddha promised. He said that that’s it works. So we Anyway, yeah, we’ll stop here. I haven’t quite finished, but we’ll stop at that point. So we now we can dedicate the merit because we have created a good positive imprint tonight.
We’ve had the right motivation. We’ve had the right object, which is the Buddhadharma. Hopefully, we have listened well. And now we’ve finished so we can rejoice that we have actually completed this act. And so we can dedicate so just before we do that actual technical dedication oh, no.
That’s right sorry we will do the dedication page eight if you’d like to join in