Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 114-minute teaching, Ven Thubten Dondrub guides practitioners through the Seven Point Mind Training, a classic Kadampa text on cultivating bodhicitta. He begins by establishing the foundation: recognizing self-cherishing as the root of all suffering and training the mind to see all sentient beings—including enemies—as infinitely kind. He explores why enemies are spiritual friends, using Śāntideva’s arguments that those who harm us have actually been our mothers countless times and provide the essential conditions to practice patience, the antidote to anger and the basis for all six perfections. Through detailed teachings on Tonglen meditation, he shows how to transform difficult emotions by imagining taking on others’ suffering as black smoke to suffocate self-cherishing, then breathing out all one’s happiness. He emphasizes that this training requires decision, familiarization, and courage, not comfort-seeking. The teaching culminates in the principle that all faults arise from self-cherishing while all good qualities come from benevolence toward others, concluding with concluding prayers and mantra recitation. Suitable for serious practitioners with some background in Dharma study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 08 08 Mind Training.mp3
UUID: 04d953f3-ec0f-4bfb-88c1-4c83ee2fa063
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Mind Training (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-08-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 114.1 minutes
Words: ~12,491
Everyone okay. So, everyone has a copy of the Seven Point Mind Training text. Not that we look at it very much, but and then there’s the teaching prayers. So we start with those, if you would like to join. Firstly, with prayer to the Lion-Faced Dakini, which is to overcome obstacles.
This is page five. I prostrate to the gatherer of Dakinis and the three khatvangas who abide in the holy yoga of using space, body or powers of clairvoyance and magical emanation, look after practitioners like a mother, her child. By the teachings of the three supreme jewels possessing the power of truth, may all the outer heroes be transformed, may they be dispelled, may they be pacified, may they be completely pacified, May all negative forces oppose 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 the joy that’s been accord with the dharma, and may there be auspiciousness and perfect happiness here right now. Homage to Mañjuśrī, who holds to his heart as scriptural texts in blade of 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, while creatures caught in the prison of saṃsāra, confused in the darkness of their ignorance, overwhelmed by their suffering. whose dharma 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 venerate you all in Mañjuśrī whose princely body is adorned with the one hundred and twelve marks of a Buddha who has completed the ten stages of the bodhisattva, who has been pure from the beginning. O Mañjuśrī, illuminate me with the brightness of your wisdom, that I make the darkness enclosing my mind, enlighten my intelligence and wisdom so that I may gain insight into Buddha’s words and the texts that explain them.
Then visualizing Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us, or trying to have a strong sense of the Buddha’s presence as our source of inspiration, guidance and refuge. We offer a mandala of the whole universe as a way to request the teachings, as a way to overcome our attachment to the ordinary things of cyclic existence, which are obstacles to being able to understand and practice the teachings. By making this offering we create the merit that helps us to correctly understand and put into practice the teachings. So again, as we continue to think of the Buddha in front of us, we especially try and develop an awareness of our connection to all sentient beings, trying to have a strong sense of all sentient beings, surrounding us right now, starting with our parents: mother on the left, father on our right behind us the rest of our family, all our friends and helpers in front, those who may have harmed us or disliked us and then as much as possible opening our hearts and minds to an awareness and concern, not only for the human beings of this world, but all the beings trapped in the animal realm, in the different realms of cyclic existence, and trying to have that strong awareness right now of how immensely kind all of these beings have been to me in the past, are in the present, will be in the future while I remain in cyclic existence, and how much I totally depend on them to become free of cyclic existence and achieve enlightenment.
Also recognizing that all these beings who have been my kind mothers suffering in cyclic existence helplessly, without a refuge, and in their confusion try to avoid suffering much of the time sentient beings in their ignorance controlled by self-cherishing are actually creating the cause for more suffering, more cyclic existence. Thinking along these lines, we can try and open our hearts to generate that immense compassion that leads to the bodhicitta thought that no matter what, I must use this all my future lives to realize my Buddha potential and achieve enlightenment because only as an awakened, enlightened being can I be of lasting, perfect benefit to all sentient beings and thus repay their immense kindness? So to achieve enlightenment that depends on following the path and to be able to enter the path to enlightenment I have to generate bodhicitta, this authentic determination to achieve enlightenment. So this text, the mind training like the rays of the sun, is about how to generate bodhicitta, how to sustain it, how to increase it, how to use everything, good and bad, into the path that continuously reinforces one’s bodhicitta until enlightenment is achieved. So for this reason, for the sake of all sentient beings, I will study this text.
I go for refuge until I enlighten to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By the words I create by teaching the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So we can imagine that the Buddha is pleased with our motivation, and it shows this by now coming to the crown of our head, and when directly above our crown, we imagine that the Buddha then dissolves into a mass of blissful golden light so that that light can then pour down into us, blessing our mind. And then we reinforce that positive state of mind by briefly doing some breathing meditation, particularly the nine round breathing exercise, 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.
So just very quickly, the root text that we’re covering, the Seven Point Mind Training composed by the Kadampa master, Geshe Chekawa, has the first two verses verses? Yes, verses? Verses are introductory and then the actual text starts with the statement first train in the preliminaries meaning in order to generate bodhicitta firstly we have to train in the preliminaries which is developing the mind that renounces attachment to this life and then develops the mind renouncing attachment to cyclic existence altogether. Once we’ve done that we’re in a position to be able to really train the mind in bodhicitta. And so in doing that, what we have to do the obstacle to the single greatest obstacle to the bodhicitta mind is the self-cherishing thought that controls our mind right now due to our ignorance.
So we need to try to reduce and eliminate our self-cherishing. So the next line refers to that when it says, banish the one to blame for everything. So the one thing that is responsible for every suffering we have is the self-cherishing thought. It’s the source of our suffering, source of others’ suffering. So this is what we need to really try and get rid of as much as possible.
And then what we need to work on is to meditate on the great kindness of all beings. So we’re in that section now talking about how to meditate on the great kindness of all sentient beings. Last week we finished, we went through that verse briefly which is from Śāntideva’s wonderful text The Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life where it says: Having been provoked by my actions, harm befalls me. If by their involvement sentient beings are thrown into hell, am I not destroying them? So this is a very radical way of thinking because in fact all genuine Dharma thinking and practice is very radical.
It’s the completely opposite to the worldly way of thinking and especially the way of thinking and behaving of actual bodhisattvas, people who have generated bodhicitta, is radically different from the way we think because with worldly mind controlled by self-cherishing, we put all the blame on others, we don’t think about others, we just think about ourselves, not understanding who we are. So think about a self in a false way or not a false way. We think about a false self thinking it’s the real self and we cherish that self in a false way and are so obsessed with ourself and really don’t see the reality of others. So the old mind puts all the blame on the so called enemy and how terrible they are and how poor me is suffering. Where here, Śāntideva is saying, really, the suffering that comes from the enemy actually I created the cause myself.
My mind created the cause by following the self-cherishing thought. To have an enemy, you have to have a cause. The cause of an enemy isn’t the enemy. The cause of an enemy, having an enemy, making an enemy, someone who doesn’t like you, wants to harm you in some way, for that to happen, we, our mind, has to have created the cause because our mind is experiencing the effect. Right?
So the suffering isn’t coming from the enemy but from our mind. And but the only harming me is actually creating that person is creating the cause for themselves by harming me to experience tremendous suffering in future lives. So in a sense, my self-cherishing is the cause of the of the suffering of this person. Yeah? Rather than thinking this person is causing me so much terrible suffering now, the bodhisattva thinks, oh because I’m a deluded person and goes around creating enemies I’m causing them to suffer.
It’s just a way of thinking, yeah, A useful way of thinking to reduce, to change one’s habitual worldly way of thinking that is actually the source of all our suffering. So the text goes on, the commentary goes on to say, Now, especially when we are entering the door of the Great Vehicle, these beings harm us in many ways. So this is a little bit of an unusual statement. These beings could refer to enemies specifically or just sentient beings in general. They harm us in many ways.
It seems to be implying that just merely by entering the Mahāyāna path you create a whole lot of enemies. People don’t want you to enter the Mahāyāna path. And actually according to the teachings this is true to some extent, not so much in terms of this may start to sound a bit outlandish for some people but if we were to try and follow the bodhisattva path and even actually enter the bodhisattva path then it’s not as though we would necessarily create lots of human enemies, but according to the teachings there are beings in other realms who get very upset with people who are very kind and compassionate. As in the history, in the life story of the Buddha himself, that just before he achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, Mara attacked him in all sorts of ways. First he sent all his sons, the really nasty ones, with all the nasty enemies to frighten the Buddha.
And then when that didn’t work, well no, was vice versa, wasn’t it? First he sent his daughters, the daughters, his daughters to try and seduce the the prince under the tree with all their beautiful charms, and that didn’t work. When that didn’t work, he tried to terrify him with the with the sons of Mara. So there are beings who don’t like people doing really beneficial things, so they try to obstruct. And in the teachings it says that if there’s a person who is just about to gain a, because of their practice, some very significant realization, that person is likely to get attacked by Mara to experience all sorts of obstacles.
This is also why I haven’t said this for quite some time but why at the beginning of the teachings the Heart Sūtra is normally recited. And we do the kind of extension of that which is doing the Lion Face Dakini because the Heart Sūtra is the expression of the highest truth, and it is believed that the expression of the truth has great power to eliminate obstacles. So when you are studying the teachings, which are so immensely beneficial, one can experience lots of obstacles in trying to study and practice the Dharma, because it is potentially of immense benefit to oneself and others. As I’ve often said, when someone tries to do something harmful, it’s just very easy to do negative things, harmful, destructive things. Everything comes together for really harmful, destructive things to be done.
But when within ourselves and in the outer environment, it’s very diff it’s very easy for it all to come together. But when you try and do something real, what anyone tries to do something of immense benefit, it’s very very difficult. There’s lots of obstacles. And in in in Tibetan in Tibet people believe that if you know if if you start to do something and you have lots of obstacles at the beginning, this is a good sign because it means what you’re doing is is really helpful and could be really beneficial. And you just you know, the obstacles come at the beginning.
If you can cut through those, then it’s all it’s fine. The problem is we tend to get, you know, put off by all the obstacles and difficulties. So that’s what this line is referring to is that someone who is really working at bodhicitta and especially someone who actually generates it and enters the Mahāyāna path, that person can have lots of people, of sentient beings trying to make life hard for them. Also, on the other hand let’s not get too doom and gloom here on the other hand although trying to do good stuff can attract negative influences also people who do good things attract beings from the so called white side, the, you know, the the beings in the different realms, such as the god realms, come and and try and help. Yeah.
So because these nasty beings thereby create obstacles for themselves, So those beings trying to hinder holy beings, they themselves thereby create obstacles for themselves to enter the great vehicle doctrine, it meaning in the future, they will experience the sufferings of cyclic existence in general and the three bad rebirths in particular, which is referring to being reborn as an animal, a hungry ghost and in the hell realms. So we should feel compassion for their becoming vessels of the manifold sufferings of bad rebirths. So in other words, even people, even beings who try to hinder Buddhism in any way, Buddhist practitioners, Buddhist teachings in general and so on, we shouldn’t get angry and try and harm them. Actually, they also are objects of compassion because by trying to harm the Dharma and Dharma practitioners, they are actually creating the cause for immense suffering for themselves in the future. Often religious people feel justified.
Most religions say you should be a nice person, kind and don’t harm others. But a lot of religions say, but if our religion is attacked, then it’s okay to harm the people attacking our religion. Because our religion is good, it’s beneficial. But the Buddhadharma says even people who are attacking the Buddhadharma, you know, there’s no justification in harming them or even getting angry with them. However, those who are harming us have, in fact, been our mothers countless times before.
So if you had an hour, not last week not last week it was two weeks ago wasn’t it so maybe you’ve forgotten no you haven’t. I’m sorry you wouldn’t have forgotten we made a deep impression on you. The text was talking about how kind, actively kind sentient beings are in many ways. Now the text is making the point that if even when sentient beings are harmful from an ordinary point of view they’re being harmful from a dharma point of view they’re still kind. Right?
So from every perspective sentient beings are kind. They’re kind for the fact that they are actively beneficial to us. They’re kind from what the text mentioned previously when we were doing it two weeks ago, it was particularly emphasizing how sentient beings are kind even in a passive way that to develop all the dharma qualities that benefit ourselves and which we can then use to benefit others such as generosity, patience, perseverance all these qualities. In order to develop those qualities, you need sentient beings. To practice generosity, to increase one’s generosity, which benefits ourselves and accumulates great merit, which is the source of happiness and realizations in the future, one has to have people who need our help.
To develop love, one has to meet people who don’t have happiness. To develop compassion, one needs to meet people who are suffering. So sentient beings are kind in all sorts of active ways. They actually directly and indirectly help us. But even in passive ways, are they are immensely kind.
We need them to develop all our qualities. Yeah? And so we and in addition to that, even when we are unkind, they’re kind. This is really terrific. This is a fantastic argument, really, that enemies are from a dharma point of view enemies are our best friend.
According to the mind training perspective which is what this text is about, it’s a mind training text, training the mind in bodhicitta, then everything is good. So good sentient beings are good, indifferent sentient beings are good for us, and bad sentient beings are terrific. So it says: Moreover, those who are harming us have in fact So one way we can see the enemy, the harmer, as kind as that. In fact, they’ve been our mothers countless times before, because every sentient being has been our mother, our father, brother, sister, not just one time, but an infinite number of times because saṃsāra is without beginning. There’s no way one can put any time limit on saṃsāra and how many times we’ve taken rebirth.
And every time we’ve taken rebirth we’ve had well not every times technically speaking but most times when we take rebirth we have a mum, have a body that is produced by a mother. It’s a good one when we’re born in the upper god realms and in the hell realms you don’t have a mother. But every other rebirth one has a mother. So, and in addition to that, we have eaten their flesh, meaning this flesh of other sentient beings, in particular the enemy whose harm you know, we say this terrible person is harming me, but in the past we have eaten the flesh of this person when they were in another body. We have drunk their blood, gnawed their bones, and worn their skins times beyond number.
If all the milk and curd we have drunk were gathered together, a vessel the size of the three worlds would not contain it. Three worlds just basically means, without going into details, the whole universe. So even if there was a vessel, a milk jug, the size of the universe, it wouldn’t be able to contain all the milk and curd that we’ve drunk from the bodies of sentient beings. The times we have killed, beaten, and robbed them also cannot be counted. We have taken their kindness.
So in other words, we have been incredibly harmful to sentient beings. We have we have harmed every sentient being in all sorts of horrible ways. So how can I then sort of say, oh, you’re so terrible in harming me now? Actually, I’ve chopped this person up many times. I’ve robbed them, done all sorts of things to them in past lives.
And in addition, we have taken their kindness for granted on all those occasions and now should repay our debt to them thinking, remembering your kindness, this is my duty. Seeing without those we apprehend as enemies, we should enhance love and compassion by an art of both giving happiness and taking on suffering. So what this refers to, it doesn’t explain it here, but the author of this text would assume that everybody would know what this was referring to, is a particular meditation practice, a mind training meditation called Tonglen where one imagines taking on the suffering of others. You actually imagine you take the suffering and the causes of suffering from another being, and you imagine that you experience it yourself instead of them. Because there’s this suffering, so who’s going to experience it?
And you try and develop compassion for that person, seeing that they are tormented by this suffering. So instead of them experiencing the suffering, one tries to generate this thought that I will experience it instead, so they don’t have to suffer. Just like, you know, I don’t ever remember being a mother, but one reads about, you know, many mothers would happily take, if they could, take the suffering of their children on themselves. So one imagines doing that. You try and the first part of the meditation you try to put yourself in the position of the other person and feel that suffering as unbearable.
Because of that you try and generate this thought that, you know, they can’t it’s too terrible for them to experience that suffering. I’ll I’ll do it instead. I’ll take it from them, and I’ll experience it so they don’t have to experience it. Of course, in reality, cannot be done because each person has to experience their own karma or the results of their karma. No one can experience the results of what we’ve done.
Only we can experience those results. But still this is a valid practice. It’s a mind training to reverse the self-cherishing thought, because the self-cherishing thought doesn’t want to know about our own suffering, let alone the suffering of others. So we try and do the very opposite by trying to feel the suffering of others so that it’s so unbearable that you want to take it from them and put it on and you imagine so you imagine and the way I would imagine taking that suffering is you you as you breathe in, you imagine breathing in the suffering of the other person and especially the causes of their suffering. You imagine breathing that in the form of black smoke, and you imagine it you breathe it in, and you imagine it suffocating your own self-cherishing.
And just destroying your own self-cherishing. So you’re not trying to punish yourself, you’re trying to eliminate one’s self-cherishing. So to do this practice properly, it’s really important to have developed some understanding that although we have self-cherishing, we are not our self-cherishing. It is not part of our true nature. It is not a true part, an integral part of our mind.
It’s an aberration. It’s like a disease of our mind. Just like we have diseases in the body and those diseases are something physical infecting our body, our self-cherishing is a type of mind infecting our mind, it’s not an integral part of our mind. But it’s diseasing, it’s affecting our mind. So we have to have that sense that there is a difference.
Otherwise it just becomes like just trying to punish oneself and put oneself down, but it’s really not like that at all. It’s quite the opposite in a sense. One needs to have a sense of one’s basic goodness, one’s Buddha nature, and wanting to free that and seeing that the self-cherishing is obscuring it and preventing us doing every good thing and experiencing our own goodness. So with that kind of understanding, we imagine sort of trying to suffocate our self-cherishing with the pain of others in the form of this black smoke. So and then when you breathe so you imagine that doing that as you breathe in.
When you breathe out, one imagine well, you you do that, and then you think that destroys the self-cherishing. It liberates the true nature of your mind, and you try and experience that as this kind of blissful, luminous space. And from that joyful state, one imagines that then as you breathe out, you breathe out this white light which embodies all your happiness, all your goodness, all your wisdom, all your compassion, your joy, your dharma understanding, all your merit. You imagine breathing that into the per that that person that you’ve taken the suffering from so that they experience all your happiness and all its causes. And, again, the key thing is you don’t don’t you don’t imagine sharing your happiness.
You you imagine giving it, like taking all your money out of the bank and giving not just a few dollars from your bank account or just the interest. You imagine, you know, taking the entire bank account out and giving it to the other person. All your happiness, all the causes of your happiness. Because, again, that’s the total opposite to the self-cherishing thought, which it never has enough happiness. I always need more.
Me. Me. Me. I I have I need this. You know, I can’t think about others’ happiness.
I have to be happy. I need this. You know, I need the best apple in the bowl. Right? Always.
And we and we think, you know, that by taking the best apple in the bowl, that then we’ll be really happy. But, actually, we’re just creating the cause to have rotten apples in the future, to get the worst apple in the bowl if not no apple, not even a bowl. Right? So that’s basically in a nutshell the Tonglen practice, which is a very powerful practice for and and helping to reduce the self-cherishing thought to develop compassion because the the taking on of suffering is you need some compassion to do it, and it’s a way to increase one’s compassion. And, also, by imagining giving one’s happiness, this is the practice of loving kindness.
So one needs some to do the practice, but it’s a way of increasing it. And and it also has all sorts of other side benefits of, it can, one can heal, sickness through it, one’s own sickness. Many stories about that. So in the full blown form of this meditation, you imagine taking on all the suffering of all sentient beings and giving all your happiness to all sentient beings. But to to do it in the beginning that way, in my opinion, is completely meaningless because there’s no way we can imagine all the suffering of all sentient beings and putting taking it on ourself.
By doing that, it just becomes spiritual entertainment, I think. It’s just kind of meaningless. So the way to actually like with everything, one has to start in a small way, and by familiarity one builds up the practice. So one starts with oneself. You start before you start taking on the suffering of others, that’s the aim of the meditation, but first one needs to train with oneself.
And the way to do that is, for example, imagining trying to have you just think about your own self-cherishing. You try and honestly examine your own self-cherishing in this life now or up to this point and think of all the suffering one has experienced oneself as a result of one’s own self-cherishing. And then you try to imagine yourself, say, in another twenty years’ time, having not tried to reduce oneself cherishing. In other words, me twenty years older and twenty more years of self-cherishing. This poor little me who has to experience twenty more years of self-cherishing falling on them and the results of self-cherishing.
So you feel you develop compassion for your future deluded self-cherishing self, And you try and feel all that suffering. And you can think about even just one aspect of your personality, one negative habit you have, which is due to self-cherishing. Because all our negative habits is due to self-cherishing. And you just think, if I wanna do something about it now, I’ll be I’ll be trapped with it for another twenty years. Yeah.
And you just develop compassion for your future self that is trapped by twenty years of whatever. Because it’s gonna happen. Because if we don’t reduce our self-cherishing, it will continue, and it will increase, and we will be miserable as a result. So imagine taking all of that suffering now, you know, in order to destroy the self-cherishing thought now. Because if we can then reduce it now, all that stuff won’t happen.
But if we don’t do anything about it now, all that stuff will happen. And if you think about it, our suffering comes from following our self-cherishing thought. When the suffering result of that self-cherishing thought pours down on us, what makes that suffering worse? Guess what? It’s our self-cherishing!
Wouldn’t it be great if we could develop real compassion for ourselves and try and reduce our self-cherishing now because we are in the best position to, because we have a healthy body and mind, we have met the dharma, hopefully we have some faith in it. We’re not dead yet. So we’ve got the optimum chance. Yeah. And and and, again, so you then also you breathe out all your good qualities to that future me making imagining seeing them you know all the good qualities that one has as a result of not following the self-cherishing thought.
You imagine that future me full of all that stuff all that good stuff. Yeah. So by training in relation to oneself for some time, then one can extend it to another person, someone close to you, someone who you you recognize as someone very kind to you, such as your mother or father or yeah. And then you extend it to other nice people, family, friends, strangers, and eventually to the enemy. The people Many people say, I don’t have any enemies, but we don’t have to take the word enemy too concretely.
It just refers in the dharma context to anyone who we may dislike even just for a short time, even in a small way. Who is the enemy? The enemy is anyone who, for any length of time, in any way contradicts our self-cherishing, goes against our self-cherishing. Yeah. They immediately become the enemy.
Yeah. Sure. Well, it should yes. Yes. Yeah.
Because it should make you feel uncomfortable. If it doesn’t, it’s not working. If you think, oh, this is terrific. It’s not working. It’s it’s yeah.
And as I asked the Dalai Lama when he teaches about it, he says it should be done very forcefully. You know, you don’t mess around with it. You try and do it, you know, really freak yourself out a bit. But, you know, you know, you do it wisely. You know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, how to do it.
We’re we’re not trying to give ourselves a bad time. This is a really crucial thing to understand because so many people in our modern times, probably all of us to some extent, have some kind of low self esteem, you know, and and a misunderstanding of Tonglen can feed into that. And it’s not about that at all. It’s really not at all. So it’s important to understand how to do it properly and to have that sense that, yes, I have self-cherishing, but it’s not me.
It’s my enemy. It’s the really it’s this yes. It’s like, you saying I have a disease, but this disease in me isn’t the true nature of my my body or something. It’s a disease. It’s something alien.
Even though it’s been there a long time, It’s actually alien to our true nature. Sailing out those we apprehend as enemies, we should enhance love and compassion by means of both giving happiness and taking on their suffering. We should particularly rely on those who harm us, since they provide the basis for us to practice patience. Someone who has generated bodhicitta, the moral practice of such a person, Bodhisattva, is what is called the six perfections of perfecting the practice of generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration and wisdom. Every Dharma practitioner, if they’re serious, should be can I say should?
Should be trying to engage in these six practices. But it’s only a bodhisattva who can perfect these practices, doing them with the bodhicitta motivation and so on. And so of those six perfection they’re set out in a sort of psychological order so that you are able to the easiest one to practice and to perfect is generosity. That’s the first one that leads to being able to practice and perfect morality and that leads to be able to practice and perfect patience and so on. And of those six perfections it is said that one of the well they’re all important and ultimately wisdom is the main one, but patience is one of the most important for Bodhisattva because patience is the antidote to anger, and anger is the most destructive of our delusions.
And if we’re trying to follow the Bodhisattva life, which is about benefiting others, the very thing we don’t want to do is harm them. As His Holiness says, If we can’t benefit sentient beings yet, at least don’t harm them. So patience is really important for that. So that we don’t harm other sentient beings. But also, in getting angry, we not only harm others now, but we harm ourselves because we generate these negative karmic imprints in our mind that will ripen as great suffering, and while we are suffering in the lower realms, we can’t benefit sentient beings.
But also, what is worse from a Mahāyāna point of view, by engaging in anger and generating negative imprints, these negative imprints, before they ripen as great suffering, they are having this passive function in our mind right now of obscuring our mind. And with an obscured mind, it is difficult to meet the dharma. Even if we meet the dharma with an obscured mind, it’s difficult to understand it. Even if we understand it with an obscured mind, it’s difficult to have faith in it. And even if we have faith in it with an obscured mind, it’s difficult to practice it.
And even if we practice it with an obscured mind, it’s difficult to gain the realizations. So we don’t want to obscure our own mind any more than it already is. So we need patience for our own sake, for the sake of others. So it’s really vital. It is said that there are three kinds of patience.
The first kind is the patience of being able to bear the difficulties of other unpleasant sentient beings, not getting angry with other sentient beings. So to develop that patience, one needs unpleasant sentient beings, which we call enemies. If you don’t have them, one won’t be able to develop it. And we will always have unpleasant sentient beings around because we’ve created the cause for them. That’s why we need patience.
Through developing these are basically by developing patience with unpleasant people, so called enemies, one can then have the patience because patience is patience. Having a trail of being patient with enemies, one then is in a position to have the second kind of patience, which is being able to bear, not get upset and disturbed by one’s own inner suffering and difficulties. So we need that in life in general because ordinary life, being an non-omniscient being, we have a body and mind that constantly presents problems to us. The body gets sick, the mind gets sick, it gets disturbed, agitated, blah blah blah. So we need to be patient.
We get old and ugly. Well some of us do not. Sorry. We get old. As we get old we may not look you know maybe we might have started out looking very good anyway but it gets worse that’s when it gets older so we need to be patient with all those things not get upset So that’s very helpful.
But then for Bodhisattva, or a Dharma practitioner, the most important patience to have is the patience of being actually able to practice the Dharma. Because practicing the Dharma is difficult. There’s all sorts of difficulties. There’s the difficulty of studying the teachings because we have to study the teachings, and some of the teachings are difficult to understand. Very, very, very difficult to understand.
So one has to have the patience to put up with that difficulty. Then one has to meditate on the teachings, and that can be difficult for the body and the mind. And then one has to put that understanding into practice with difficult sentient beings, and that’s difficult. It’s all difficult, but fun fun. So the practice of and and this to advance in the spiritual life, the path, one has to have the courage to take on more, not to get into a nice comfort zone, which is probably what most people want, know, to practice a bit of Dharma so we can end up in a nice, cozy spot, a nice warm, cozy spot.
But a bodhisattva isn’t interested in being cozy. They are wanting to get rid of everything negative in their mind so they can be of vast benefit to others. So to be able to take on all the difficulties of Dharma practice, one needs this patience. Because nobody nobody has ever found the spiritual life easy. Right?
This is a very important thing to understand that Lama Zopa Rinpoche, my teacher, makes a lot of emphasis on. That, yeah, not just Buddhism, but all all all, you know, general spiritual paths are difficult to follow. And but the Buddhadharma is about changing the mind, working with the mind. You if you’ve tried this at all, it’s very easy to find immediately. It is very difficult to work with the mind.
It’s a very unruly animal species, you know. It’s a very tricky, cantankerous thing. It doesn’t like being told what to do. It reacts and does all sorts of tricky, nasty things, cheats you, pretends to be nice, all sorts of things. Yes, it does.
One needs lots of patience and effort and courage. So, you know, no one has found following the spiritual. We can think, oh, well, in the past, you know, hundreds of years ago, in India and Tibet, it was easy for all of those people to do what they did. It wasn’t. It was never easy.
Never, never easy. It’s just people found within themselves great courage and compassion and wisdom, and they just did it. Yeah. But it was never easy. At some point, it gets easy, I think, but not what I know is the difficult bit, and then it gets easy, and then it gets difficult again like So if one’s not willing to experience difficulties, it’s impossible to follow the spiritual life and become free of suffering.
So we need patience, and the training in patience particularly comes with difficult people, the so called enemy. So this is why from a dharma point of view, especially from the Mahāyāna mind training point of view, the enemy is really, literally the best friend because we can develop this immensely beneficial quality of patience. And once we’ve got that, it can be applied to everything, and it’s the greatest protection for our mind. Then nothing once we’ve got that patience, nothing will disturb our mind. And, you know, I mean, imagine what that would be like if nothing really disturbed our mind.
We we we were able to maintain some stability of mind no matter whether things were good or bad, successful, unsuccessful, whether we had sickness or health, praise or blame, fame or, you know, we were totally insignificant, rich or poor, this or that. We could just keep going, hot or cold, hungry or not hungry, friends, no friends, not upset. You know, imagine what that would be like. And it comes from the enemy. The enemy will give us this by forcing us to practice patience.
But as I’ve said before, it’s not like you just walk up to an enemy, you find an enemy and tell them, Screw at me, and then I’ll be able to practice patience. It’s not like doesn’t mean that. Practice patience is something one has to cultivate with the mind in meditation. And having cultivated it, it, then it gets tested by the enemy. Because we can all think we have qualities.
We can all think we are kind, loving, compassionate, generous, patient, and then someone comes along and we can’t stand them and then we discover, oh, I don’t love everyone and I’m not patient. Yeah. So in that sense, the enemy helps us practice patience. Show us that we don’t have it, they force us to go back to meditate on how to develop patience. And it comes from thinking that actually the enemy is showing me that, so I shouldn’t be angry with them.
Yeah? We should particularly rely on those who harm us since they provide the basis for us to practice patience. Ever the six perfections arise from relying on them. This is something my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, says often. He must have read this book.
Rinpoche says, On any sentient being you can practice the six perfections. That’s why sentient beings are precious, why they’re kind, why we can have love for them is because on any sentient being, you can practice generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration, and wisdom. But especially when one practices it on the enemy, this is best. You know, to practice generosity with a nice person is easy, so one makes some merit. But if you can be generous to the enemy, wow.
Incredible merit to be able to be you know, give something to the to an enemy, wanting them to be happy. You know, here, have this really beautiful thing. I want you that you who hate me and want me to be miserable, I want you to have I’m giving you this beautiful, beautiful thing. That’s really hard to do genuinely. If we could do it, then sky is of merit.
But not just merit, the mind, the state of mind, one has transformed the mind. Whereas to give something nice to a nice person, if we can’t do that, we’re in big trouble. Yeah. It’s relatively easy to give a nice thing to a nice person. Right?
That doesn’t take much. You know, you don’t get you know, you don’t win prizes for doing that. So to practice generosity, morality, patience with the enemy, this is the best. Yeah. So we’re so lucky if we have an enemy, if we find someone to practice with, to check up our mind with.
Because we can’t tell with our friends. Our friends will always say we’re nice. Because as soon as they stop saying that, they’re no longer our friend. They will become our enemy, and then they become our real friend. Yeah.
So some of you may be thinking that what I’m saying is completely stupid, but this is the Buddhadharma. And and and and more people tend to dismiss this and or ideas like this because they think, oh, this is incredibly difficult. How could I do that? This is really, really hard. And, of course, it is.
It’s easy to to say it, but to actually practice it, to train to see the enemy as a genuine friend who is actually helping, even though they don’t have the intention to, in reality, existence is incredibly helpful to one’s spiritual practice. So to actually do that is extremely difficult, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Right? So what is so important in all these things is to try and see the validity of it and develop admiration rather than thinking, oh, this is ridiculous or this is difficult. Yes, it’s difficult, but is it valid or not?
Is it valid that one could act one that the enemy actually could be one’s best friend from a spiritual point of view? And if one can see the validity of that, then one can develop admiration for it, for that kind of training, thinking how wonderful if I could train my mind, if I could lead my mind to think like that rather than just to think the easy way or the enemy is bad. Because once we have that genuine admiration, that’s the basis for engaging, trying to engage in the practice. Because if we don’t admire this way of thinking, we don’t admire the way bodhisattvas think, we won’t try to engage in it. So, because these foes are an object of forbearance, we can meditate on patience.
And if we have patience, the two perfections of generosity and ethics will have preceded it, and the other three effort, meditative stability, and discriminating intelligence will be derived from relying on it. So what this is saying is that if we can perfect patient or develop some significant patience through the enemy, This will help us to develop generosity and morality as well because they are the basis of patience also. But by developing patience, we’ve then got the basis for being able to quickly achieve the other perfections of perseverance, concentration and wisdom. So the enemy is super kind. They don’t just help us become patient, they help us achieve all aspects of the bodhisattva way of life.
So when we see someone being obviously kind to us, we don’t get angry with them. We like them. We want them to be happy. We feel connected to them. So if we can train to see the enemy as actually being kind, bringing benefit to me, then we then that’s that’s incredibly kind, then we wouldn’t get angry.
Simple. I don’t know if this is working on you at all, if I’m convinced at all, but many, years ago, when I was Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s attendant, we did this practice which is called a Nyunne, which some people of you may know. It’s a two day Chenrezig practice, which involves some fasting and getting up very early in the morning and doing lots of prostrations and not eating and drinking and everything. On the very last day of the Nyung Nye, which happens, the Nyung Nye takes two days to do and then you do a session early in the morning of the third day. During that session Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave a teaching which started, I don’t know, maybe at six o’clock and went on till about eleven o’clock in the morning about the kindness of the enemy.
And at the end of it, I think I could say for for about one second, I really, really wanted to have an enemy. Rinpoche convinced me. Of course, it only lasted about a second. But, The enemy is the best friend. When we let our thoughts turn over the significance of this, we will realize that objectively it is our foes.
See, if we think about it objectively, not subjectively from the self-cherishing point of view, but if let our wisdom think about things properly, objectively, it is our foes who place enlightenment in the palms of our hands. The great Chekawa, who wrote the Seven Point Mind Training, expressed it like this: Whether they are our enemies or dear ones, all are the objects of disturbing emotions. In other words, we develop anger, the disturbing emotion of anger to the enemy, disturbing emotion of attachment to dear ones. Seeing everyone as a spiritual friend will bring happiness even when you are alone. So that’s what we should do.
Everyone is the spiritual friend. One way of seeing the enemy as the friend is also to try and see them as the guru because the the the role of the spiritual friend, the guru, the spiritual master, is to destroy our disturbing thoughts. First, the Guru has to point out, he has to constantly show us all our negative qualities and force us to modify them and eventually eliminate them. That’s the job of the Guru. As I’ve often said jokingly before, what the Guru not always but often what Gurus do is firstly, they’re really nice to you so that you’re attracted to them and you really like them.
And then when when you’re hooked when you’re hooked, when the Gurus got you and you think they’re wonderful, then they stick the daggers in. Then they then they attack. Then they kind of point keep doing all these things to press your buttons. That can be very painful. But that’s the job of the Guru.
And of course, they do it with great wisdom and great compassion. That’s why it’s so important to check the quality of the Guru, to know, to be convinced, have some real valid reasons for being convinced that the Guru has genuine wisdom and compassion, because otherwise it can be a disaster. Also, once one’s developed that faith that this person really does have wisdom, really has great compassion and love for me, then when the Guru gives the disciple a hard time, the disciple will understand that this is done out of wisdom and compassion, not out of ego and, you know, neurosis and whatever. So after quoting Geshe Chekawa’s statement, Namkha Pel, the author of this text, says, We should practice just as he advised. Try to see everyone oh no, no, I lost my point.
I didn’t finish my point. So the Guru consciously, intentionally with wisdom and compassion shows us our faults and forces us, pushes our buttons. The does the same thing, not with wisdom and compassion, doesn’t do it to benefit us, but the enemy does push our buttons and forces us to see our faults. The enemy is doing the same job as the Guru. Rather than getting one way to stop getting angry with the enemy and practicing patience is to think, Actually, this enemy is the Guru.
They’re a manifest they’re a manifestation of my guru. My guru is appearing, you know, has deliberately appeared in this form to help me. How incredibly kind. Tea break. Before I continue babbling on are there any questions?
Everyone’s very quiet and I don’t give much chance for people but you can interrupt anytime and if you have some questions or comments or Yes, yes. Yes Yeah. I see. Yeah. I’m here.
There’s possible examples of someone, if you’re super arrogant and someone insults you, you know, you’re so arrogant it doesn’t bother you because you think, yeah, this person is such a worm. It doesn’t it doesn’t doesn’t count. So the fact that you don’t get angry is not being patient. Patience is a state of mind whereby you don’t get upset in a situation that would normally upset you. I think you could say, yeah.
But of course once one became really skilled in that then you’d end up in that situation where you know you became you how do you say Your mind becomes so patient that you’ve gone beyond the point where anything would would bother you. Yeah. That that’s a long way away. Yes but also just to clarify know anger arises because of a particular way of thinking about oneself, a person, the relationship, all sorts of wrong perceptions, conceptions and everything. Patience, so we’re habituated to think that way and patience another way arises because of thinking in another way.
So one has to train in that process. Right? It’s not like I was saying, patience doesn’t come from just walking up to an enemy walking up to you and you’re suddenly a patient. Patience doesn’t happen automatically. It comes by training in the process and basically it comes by thinking about all the harm of anger and developing compassion for the enemy rather than aversion.
So one has to train the mind in that process so that one wants so the only way to develop patience is when you’re not angry. Yeah? When the when the enemy isn’t around and one is not angry, one trains in being patient. Am I making some sense? So that when the enemy comes or a difficult situation comes, the old habit of getting angry may start to arise, but because one has trained the mind consciously in all the faults of anger, this other way of thinking starts to lock in and it opposes the habitual way of thinking that generates anger.
So you can only have one be in one state of mind. Either you’ve got to be angry or patient. So if the patience wins you’re patient you’re not angry all right yes well that’s angry yeah yeah of course you can you know so I love you but you’re still full of hate you know yeah and that’s why a lot of you know in worldly life people suppress their anger you know, at work and things, you know, with the boss screams at you and you say nothing but you’re full of, you know, complete, you know, bitter, you know, anger, you know, how dare they say this to me blah blah blah blah blah. So that’s not patience. So it’s not suppressing something.
It’s it’s like I always say, you know, right. This helps if you understand something about emptiness, which I don’t, but anyway I’m not Everything arises dependently so anger is not a separate thing. Anger is what is labeled on a whole process of thinking and the way we conceive or perceive things, think about them etc. And because of that false way of thinking and that, you know, bubbling away in the mind, all of that process, that agitation is labelled anger. Yeah?
And while that is bubbling, anger exists. Anger is not a separate thing. It is what is labeled on that whole process and you can suppress that but while that process so you can hide that, you know, oh hold it. Here’s our anger. Here’s the process which is labeled anger.
So you can suppress that, you can hide it, but while that’s going on the anger is there. That is anger, you know, that is the anger. But if you develop patience, you’ve trained in meditation by you know, you’ve developed this other way of sinking, which is actually very gentle and not agitated. Too big on. Anyway, here I’ve got the agitation going on, and that’s a very nice thing, and it comes along and just right?
So there’s no anger there, so no anger. And that no anger state is patience. You can hate yourself. Right? You can hate ideas.
Yeah you can yeah many things. Yes, yes, right. You’ve got it by George. Yes, yes, it’s a very heavy it’s got a lot of energy because it’s very old. So we should be patient about developing patience because it’s going to take time and effort.
And of course, we won’t always be able to be patient. You know, can be patient sometimes and then we lose it, but we have to, you know, keep going back to it. Yeah. Or maybe we should we have to persevere in being patient, in developing patience. And that’s why the enemy is so good because they help us in our training.
Another enemy comes along and then we can see how patient we can be. So that’s very kind of them. Because there’s no way to know with a nice person whether one is able to be patient or not. Yeah, yes. But I think the thing is to be really patient, you know, you shouldn’t be ready.
Just happens and whether if one could be really patient in this surprise situation then one that’s doing really well. There’s such a saying by one Japanese master which I really like which is something like what is it? It is not patience that is able to bear the bearable. It is to be able patience is to be able to bear the unbearable. Something like that is better put than that, but something like that.
Which actually fits with the question you asked, that if you can pull up with it, if it’s easy, you’re not being patient. If it’s really difficult then that requires patience. Just by the way before I forget, there’s this wonderful little book, one of the free books of Wisdom Archives called the kindness of others. It’s a commentary by Geshe Jampa Tegchog who was one of my teachers. He was the abbot of Nālānda monastery where I lived for ten years.
Then he became the got a small promotion and became the Abbot of the biggest monastery in the entire world, Sera Je Monastery in India. This is just a short commentary by him on the seven point mind training. Just like this is a long commentary on the seven point mind training, this is a modern short commentary. There are copies over there. You’re most welcome to take one.
They’re free if you’d like that but they only think you don’t have to come to class anymore because you’ve got the commentary so but anyway rapidly moving along it goes on so it says for instance a spiritual preceptor is extremely kind because he or she bestows the vows that are the cause for us to obtain liberation and omniscience. I mean this is only one thing a spiritual master does, but the Guru is someone who can give us a vow such as the lay precepts and so on. And these are really vital for us because morality is the basis of all practice. Our Lord too is like that because by relying on Him we can perfect patience, which is a cause of great enlightenment. So in this way the Guru and the enemy are similar.
They’re doing the same thing. This is like the saying, Don’t spit out delicious food once it is in your mouth. I’m not quite sure I understand that great saying, but I suppose it means once you’ve got this nice food in your mouth, don’t spit it out in the same way. Once you’ve found the enemy, don’t, you know, don’t throw them away. Don’t get angry with them because they’re there’s there there’s something very special.
The chance to be patient. Don’t try and run away from them. Just like you don’t spit out the delicious food, you keep it, you know, you keep chewing on it, then it’s important to hold the enemy as precious. The Guide to Bodhisattva Way of Life says: Therefore, like finding treasure in my house without any effort on my part, I should be delighted that my enemy becomes my friend in my efforts for enlightenment. Also in that same text it says: When anyone abuses me or even when others do me harm, when they inflict me in such ways as these, may they all have the fortune to gain enlightenment.
So when someone harms us, we naturally tend to generate a thought wishing even greater or similar or greater harm to them. But Śāntideva, this great bodhisattva’s way of thinking is when someone directs harm to him, he would think, oh, because of this harm this person is is giving me, I want them to be enlightened. Isn’t that amazing? Small way to try and practice that is just when someone harms you is to try to befriend them by giving them things. Yeah.
But in a genuine, sincere way because it won’t work otherwise. But there is a great story in our in the FPMT, which I think I’ve already told one time here. There’s one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s students who lives in Melbourne and he’s quite wealthy I don’t if he still is or was anyway. And he got into a of a bad relationship with his next door neighbor. They really had a, you know, didn’t get along well at all, had these arguments and conflicts and things.
And this man was, you know, knew that as a Buddhist and a student of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, this wasn’t good. So he was trying to work out how he could try and soothe out this relationship. And he he got to know that this neighbor, was a a a golf fanatic. He loved playing golf. So one day, this this this man gave the golfer a box of golf balls and completely changed everything.
True story. Yeah. So it it was just a small thing, but he did it nicely, and it was something the guy liked and appreciated. So then his attitude changed. But of course the point in practicing patience and so on is not necessarily to make the other person like you, it’s to be able to just be patient.
In fact, it’s better if the enemy remains the enemy so you can practice patience more. The great Chekawa has also said: Even when hurt is offered in return for help, respond might by meditating on great compassion. In this world, the superior person will accept such misfortune while leading others to goodness. I think that’s pretty straightforward, doesn’t Right. If we understand how to train our minds in this way, then just as could wander across a plane of swords if we had physical courage or journeying to the mythical jewel islands, we would need to seek no stones to throw at the vicious dogs.
So a period will come when there is no time when we do not train the mind. Okay. That was a did that make sense? Yeah. So if we had physical courage we wouldn’t you know if there was such a thing as a plane of swords where there’s all these dangerous things if we had physical courage you know it wouldn’t bother us to cross this place where all these dangerous things are.
In the Buddhist tradition there’s this story about that there are these islands full of jewels. So there’s many stories about merchants going off to find this island of jewels and become rich and so on. So if you were on this island of jewels which is also covered with lots of vicious dogs, you wouldn’t have to worry about picking up stones to throw at the dogs. There’s all these jewels that you could just pick up and throw at the dogs. It would be very easy.
So in the same way, once we start training our mind in this way and being patient, we would be able to train our mind all the time. Once we get into the habit, through the power of familiarity it becomes easier and easier. It wouldn’t be a problem. It would be like picking up a jewel to throw at a dog, a vicious dog. No problem.
They’re everywhere. So once we train our mind in being patient, we would be able to access this mind anytime. Yeah, that’s the point. Just like if we had courage, we could access our courage whenever danger appeared crossing a desert or a plane of swords. Right?
It’s just a matter of doing it, starting. As I again, if I can quote something Lama Zopa Rinpoche once said: All of Dharma practice starts with making the decision. Just deciding to do it rather than procrastinating and thinking, I can’t do it or it’s too hard or I won’t do it now. I will do it, but not today, not this time. So instead of thinking like that, we just make the decision.
This is what distinguishes us from any great practitioner. They do it. They don’t think about how difficult it is, how hard, how long it will take. They just simply do it. Because they’ve made the decision, it’s the right thing, it’s the best thing, most beneficial.
So this is the single meeting point of all teachings. If you have that, it is like the saying, One doctrine for one man and that one teaching is purposeful. Thus, since it has one purpose, you can call the doctrine the practice of the awakening mind or whatever name you like. So here is a little bit vague what Horton Namkha Pel is referring to is whether he’s referring to the practice of patience just the practice of patience mind training in general. But basically he’s saying it doesn’t matter what you call it, this mind training of which being patient is like an essential part of mind training really.
Because you can’t train the mind if you’re not patient. One of the special features of mind training is being able to transform problems into the path. Is one of the super duper great things about the Lojong Mind Training teachings is being able to use really difficult painful situations rather than being overwhelmed by them actually developing from them rather than being sort of squashed by them, you know developing increasing benefiting from them transforming them into the path. So one can’t do that if one hasn’t developed patience. Right?
So it doesn’t matter what you call mind training, whatever, it’s the essence of the teachings. That’s the thing to do. It’s the heart. It’s the single meeting point of all the teachings is this mind training. It says as the saying goes about Lama.
Palden Lhamo is one of the female tantric deities. She’s a very wrathful looking lady. It says, O hundred named lady with a thousand characteristics, By whatever name we invoke you, that is your name. However we imagine you, those are your qualities. So Langri Tangpa, is another of the Kadampa masters of the mind training tradition, said: Recognize sentient beings as the mothers who give birth to the conquerors of the three times.
Another way of developing loving kindness towards all sentient beings is to think that all sentient beings are like mothers in giving birth to enlightenment, to Buddhahood. The three time conquerors meaning the Buddhas, the three times is the past, present and future. So all the Buddhas of the past, present, those who will become Buddhas, they all became Buddhas by relying on sentient beings in a positive way. So in that way one can say sentient beings give birth to Buddhas. Or if we can relate in a positive way to sentient beings, we will be able to become Buddhas.
So that’s incredible. Means sentient beings are really kind. Our enlightenment depends on them. Langri Tangpa also said: The awakening mind is generated in dependence on sentient beings. But like the saying, Whatever you do when wearing an iron helmet is unpleasant, to entertain such thoughts that wherever you are, you feel vexed when encountering other beings who displease you is like being unhappy with the causes of enlightenment.
So just if you have to wear a heavy iron helmet in battle, it’s really uncomfortable. So if go around being upset by sentient beings, this is really crazy. It it we because, actually, these sentient beings, the good, neutral, and even the enemies are all causes for our enlightenment. So it’s it’s crazy to be upset by them. And although wearing an iron helmet is unpleasant, it’s kind of if you’re in a battle, it’s really handy to have one when a when a axe, you know, gets swung in your direction.
So don’t get upset with the the the helmet even though it’s unpleasant to wear. It’s really beneficial. Don’t get upset with sentient beings, even the unpleasant ones, because, actually, they’re the source of our enlightenment. The exalted Śāntideva has concisely stated the advantages of being concerned about others and the faults of selfishness or self-cherishing. This is one of the best little quotes of all time, when it says: What need is there to say more?
Having spoken, talked for now almost two hours, what need is there to say more? The childish work for their own benefit, The Buddhas work for the welfare of others. Just look at the difference between them. That’s it in a nutshell. Don’t need any other arguments.
Who are the childish? That’s us. We are the childish. We are the ones still controlled by self-cherishing. And you look at the Buddhas, they’re the people who don’t have self-cherishing at all.
They got rid of it completely and they they cherish others. And you just look at the difference between an ordinary human being and a Buddha. Well, of course, we can’t actually directly see Buddhas, but at least we have the example of the great spiritual masses such as His Holiness, the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. There are many people like that. And you look at them, and you look at us, and you look at the difference.
The only way to become a Buddha is to give up self-cherishing. thinking about this deeply, we should see that all faults arise from selfishness or self-cherishing. All faults, not just some. Every single fault arises from it. Whereas all good qualities come from benevolence towards others.
Talking about with our self: all our faults arise from our self-cherishing whereas all good qualities that we will ever have come from benevolence towards others. And of course just as this applies to ourselves, applies to every individual. Whatever faults any individual experiences comes from their self-cherishing, whatever good qualities they have, and all the benefits of those good qualities come from being kind towards others. This means that we should be concerned about sentient beings, should be fond of them and think of them with affection. Therefore, we should keep up our efforts until our thoughts of concern for ourselves and neglect of others have changed places.
This concludes my brief account on how to exchange self with others. So we need to exchange our self-cherishing concern for self with concern for others. Because our self-cherishing sounds good, but it’s actually a disaster to ourselves. Whereas when we cherish others, that is the best way to take care of ourselves. It’s the it’s the valid way.
There’s not just a better way. It’s the only way. There’s no choice between self-cherishing and cherishing others. self-cherishing isn’t a way to benefit oneself at all. Anyone want to argue?
It’s a simple point, but Horton Namkha Pel makes this point that we have to keep up our efforts until our thoughts of concern change. And that means studying the teaching, listening to teachings on the subject, studying them and meditating on them. Keeping that up until our thoughts really do change and they will through the power of familiarity. This is one of the beautiful qualities of even the ordinary mind. If we allow our mind to become familiar with something, it will.
It changes. If allow our mind to be familiar with self-cherishing and negativity, it will become more self-cherishing and more negative. If we familiarize ourselves with cherishing others, with virtue and kindness and compassion, acceptance and patience, those qualities will increase, they will develop, because this is how the mind works. The mind is what knows. If we let it know, it will know and experience that thing more and more.
So we have the choice of knowing what is good or knowing what is bad, what is beneficial or harmful, skillful or unskillful. It’s our choice. Thank you very much. We’re just right on time but everyone has a copy in front of them of this mantra, the Hayagrīva mantra. So Hayagrīva is a deity symbolizing wrathful compassion.
And we have been requested to recite this mantra as many times as possible for the benefit of Lama Zopa Rinpoche to overcome some obstacles. So if we could just recite this mantra together just before we finish twenty one times, Okay. Would be great. If you wouldn’t mind joining in. We’ll say it out loud a few times and then just quietly for the rest of them.
Just just twenty one. So there we can do the concluding prayers, on page eight. 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.
The object of refuge of myself and of all transmigratory beings in all our lifetimes is the embodiment of the Three Jewels, the all encompassing three refuges in one, the guru, the wish granting jewel, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. The Master Padmasambhava the Dharma King Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Detsen the Abbot Shāntarakshita and the numberless holy beings who preserved and spread the Buddhadharma in Tibet and the Tibetan people who practiced and served Buddhism so faithfully for 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 son of Tibetan Buddhism has now risen in the West, which was 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 have achieved pure freedom and develop the Buddhadharma even more than before in Tibet. May all other transmigrating beings achieve enlightenment quickly.
Savior of the snow land teachings and transmigratory beings who makes extremely clear the path that is unification of emptiness and compassion to the lotus holder, Tenzin Gyatso, I beseech, may all your holy wishes be spontaneously fulfilled. You who uphold the subdueers’ moral way, who serve as the bountiful bearer of all, sustaining, preserving, spreading Mañjuśrī’s victorious doctrine, who masterfully accomplished magnificent prayers honoring the Three Jewels, Savior, myself and others, your disciples, please, please live long. Lord of Dharma, who in accordance with the various dispositions of those to be subdued, makes clear in the light of your well spoken advice, the sacred Ganden tradition, essence of Buddhist teachings, are foremost and holy Lama to you who are supreme. O Lama, please, please live long. We can finish with, three prostrations for those people who find it meaningful.