Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Thubten Dondrub leads a 116-minute Mind Training session rooted in the bodhisattva vows and the practice of generating bodhicitta. He begins with foundational motivation and visualization, then grounds practitioners in the preliminary meditations—precious human rebirth, impermanence, karma, and suffering—that prepare the mind for genuine bodhicitta. The core teaching focuses on renouncing self-cherishing and cultivating love and compassion through both analysis and practical meditation. He clarifies misconceptions about generosity and possession: even bodhisattvas who have taken the engaging bodhisattva vows own things but use them without attachment, for the benefit of others. The final extended section teaches tonglen, the mind-training practice of taking and giving. He emphasizes starting with oneself, then expanding gradually through loved ones, strangers, and enemies to all sentient beings, imagining taking on their suffering and its causes in order to destroy self-centered attitude. Throughout, he stresses that real compassion addresses root causes, not just symptoms, and that transforming suffering into the path makes life meaningful and difficult circumstances bearable for serious practitioners.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 08 29 Mind Training.mp3
UUID: 469084f4-d073-499c-8d21-a470ec178166
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Mind Training (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-08-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 116.0 minutes
Words: ~11,692
Prayer, page five. I prostrate to the gathering of dakas and the three dakinis who abide in the holy yoga of using space,, borrow your 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 inner and outer hindrances be transformed, may they be dispelled, may they be pacified, may they be completely pacified, may all negative forces opposed to dharma be completely pacified, may the host of eighty thousand obstacles be pacified, may we be separated from problems and harmful conditions to dharma, may all enjoyments be in accord with the dharma, and may there be auspiciousness and perfect happiness here right now. 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 a patient love of a father for his only child, all creatures caught in the prison of saṃsāra, confused in the darkness of their ignorance, overwhelmed by their suffering. You whose dragon thunder proclamation of the dharma arouses us from the stupa 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 the 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. Then visualizing the Buddha in front of us, we offer a mandala of the universe as a way to request the teachings to free our mind of attachment and that which creates obstacles to understanding and realizing the practice and as a way to accumulate merit that acts as an empowering condition to understand and be able to put into practice the teachings. So it’s really important when we listen to the teachings to try to do so with a conscious motivation, not just coming out of habit and sort of sitting down and listening, but really having a clear understanding of why it’s important to listen to the teachings and having that wish to put what one understands into practice as much as possible to lead the mind in a path that eventually results in complete enlightenment so that we’re in a position to completely benefit all sentient beings, understanding that we’re connected, we’re intimately connected with every sentient being.
They’ve all been our mothers many, many times, our fathers, brothers, sisters countless times, even when not in those intimate relationships. We’ve received every kind of kindness from sentient beings during beginningless time. We are totally dependent on them and yet these beings are suffering in cyclic existence and because the vast majority of sentient beings don’t have teachings in their heart, haven’t got refuge, they don’t have a way, a method to make real sense of their suffering, they don’t have a valid method to meaningfully reduce, transform, or eliminate their suffering. Instead, sentient beings, much of the time unknowingly, are creating the cause to perpetuate their own cyclic existence, their own suffering. Thinking like this, we can generate the thought that no matter what, now that I have found a precious human rebirth, I can’t waste it you know, living an ordinary worldly life.
I’ve got the optimum chance to practice the Dharma, so I must practice it not only for my own sake, but for the sake of others, following the path, not just this life but all future lives. So in order to follow the path to enlightenment successfully, I need to understand the path, and that’s why I study these teachings especially because they are about the entrance and heart of the Mahāyāna path which is bodhicitta. So trying to imagine also as we think of the Buddha in front of us as the embodiment of the triple gem and the embodiment of all our teachers of the past, present and future, we try and think of ourselves surrounded by all sentient beings, starting with our parents on either side, family, friends, and helpers behind, harmers in front, and then as much as possible, all the beings of the the different realms of cyclic existence. Trying to have that awareness, real sense that these beings are all equally connected to me. There’s no difference in the relationship.
They’re all equally kind, but they’re all equally suffering. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma and the Supreme Assembly by the merits I create through teaching the Dharma. Now I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So there we can imagine the Buddha very pleased with our motivation and showing this by now coming to the crown of our head, and when directly above our crown, we imagine the Buddha dissolving into blissful light so that that can pour down into us, blessing our mind. And we are just briefly doing the nine round breathing exercise or any other breathing meditation as a way to reinforce that positive state of mind, helping the mind become calmer, clearer, more concentrated, so that we can use that mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight.
So we’re on page seventy one of the minor training text, and in the root text, the body of the text starts with the lines first trained in the preliminaries. Then it goes on to say banish the one so the preliminaries are the preliminaries to developing bodhicitta, which is firstly renouncing this life, then being able to renounce one’s attachment to all of cyclic existence. So we have to train in all the practices that will help us bring about this great renunciation, which is particularly, you know, the main preliminaries are recognizing that we’ve got the precious human rebirth, recognizing everything is impermanent, we’re going to die, recognizing the importance of the law of cause and effect and the suffering nature of cyclic existence. Those four meditations in particular. There’s others, but these are the core ones that help us generate great renunciation.
These are the preliminaries to train in to prepare our mind to be able to generate bodhicitta and practice it. And so in terms of really trying to develop bodhicitta, what we have to do is banish the one to blame for everything which is our self-cherishing. That’s the one thing to blame for all our problems, all our difficulties. It’s the greatest obstacle to developing and practicing bodhicitta. And in the process of doing that what we need to do is meditate on the great kindness of all beings, develop great loving kindness in response by realizing the kindness of others, we develop love for them, wishing them happiness, and then we’re advised in the next point to practice a combination of giving and taking.
So we’ve gone through that the commentary where it talks about giving one’s body as a way of practicing imagining giving one’s body, transforming one’s body into countless beneficial things for all the different kinds of sentient beings and this is a way to actually practice loving kindness or strengthen one’s loving kindness. Alright. And so now we just think we got up to page seventy one. Does anyone actually remember who was paying attention to what we were doing? I don’t think we actually finished it.
Yes. Is this where we got to? You sure? Yes, okay. Yeah, I think so.
Yes, so it’s just at the very bottom of page seventy, just a little bit further down from there. Because I think we’ve got further. Yeah, more, more, more, more. Yeah, a bit more. Oh, in this way.
Yeah. So it says in this way by practicing generosity sincerely towards all sentient beings we can instantly accumulate merits as enumerable as the beings themselves. And in our precious garland, this very famous text composed by the great bodhisattva Nāgārjuna,, in there it says: If the merits of speaking thus could be given physical form, it would completely fill the whole of space and even overflow that. This was stated by the Subduer Buddha and supported by sound reasons. For just as the number of beings is beyond limit, so is the intention to benefit them.
I think that’s where we got up to last week. We finished there, I think. So then the text goes on to say, this is an interesting point. And it says: When we use the food, clothes and so on that we have sincerely dedicated to other beings, if we forget the welfare of others and use them in the food clothes and so on with attachment to ourselves it is a defiled downfall. So what this is referring to is the bodhisattva vows.
So someone who has actually generated bodhicitta traditionally what happened in the past, probably still does, when being actually authentically generates bodhicitta in order to help their bodhicitta not to decline but to be able to continue they take the bodhisattva vows, the engaging bodhisattva vows. These days we tend to do it the opposite way. We take the Bodhisattva vows as a way to help us lay the groundwork to be able to generate bodhicitta in the future. So there are two levels of Bodhisattva vows. There are what are called the wishing bodhisattva vows and which is basically the vow wishing to generate bodhicitta in the future and then there are what are called the engaging bodhisattva vows which are much stronger.
So where takes the engaging bodhisattva vows there are eighteen root vows and there are forty six branch vows. I’ve never been actually one hundred percent sure which vow it is but I always remember Lama Zopa Rinpoche making this point and it freaked me out totally when I heard it because I didn’t know it was actually one of the vows. So some of you here have possibly taken the engaging bodhisattva vows. Yeah? So this is something you should know.
So one of the vows and I think it’s connected to root vow number two which is the vow to give one’s wealth or the dharma to others when so if what this implies is sorry if I can I’m very bad at explaining things is that one of the who takes the engaging bodhisattva vows, one part of the vow involves actually giving all your possessions to others, dedicating everything, your entire bank account, house, furniture, everything to all sentient beings. So if you think this is mine, you’re breaking your Bodhisattva vows. And the Bodhisattva vows are very, very heavy, strong vows, you see. So the basic level of vows are the pratimoksha vows such as the five lay vows. If you break those well put it this way.
If you engage in a naturally negative action one accumulates, such as killing or let’s say stealing that’s more appropriate in this case. Stealing is a naturally negative action. So whether we know this or not, believe it or not, if we engage in stealing it generates negative imprints in the mind which will ripen suffering. But if we take a vow not to steal and we steal, then the negative imprint that is generated is far greater, more powerful. Therefore it will bring a far greater suffering result than just stealing.
But having a vow not to steal and breaking that is infinitely worse. So that’s one level of karma. There a much higher level or deeper higher level of karma is relating to the Bodhisattva vows. So it’s thousands of times they say stronger. So if you keep the bodhisattva vows, the merit we accumulate is enormous.
Breaking the bodhisattva vows is super heavy. Then of course there are the tantric vows so that’s like just another realm altogether. So according to the bodhisattva, the engaging bodhisattva vows, we’ve taken them actually everything we’ve got becomes the possession of others and we shouldn’t think it’s mine, this is mine. So if someone asks for something that’s ours we’re supposed to give it to them because it’s not ours anymore. That’s a worry.
So here it’s saying when we use our own what we think of as our food, our clothes and so on our furniture, car, bank account that we have sincerely dedicated to other beings. If we forget the welfare of others and use these things with attachment to ourselves it becomes a downfall. It becomes a diluted downfall because it’s mixed with attachment. In other words, it’s breaking the Bodhisattva vow. If we do this, if we use these possessions thinking they’re mine, but it’s done free from attachment but forgetful of others’ interests, it is an undiluted downfall.
It’s still breaking the vow but not quite as heavy. If you have dedicated a certain thing okay yeah so that’s something to be aware of yeah That we should try to we should at least at our level we should try to train our mind to reduce our attachment to our own possessions by thinking actually I only have these things, the things I already have, the only reason I’m keeping them is that I need them to practice to benefit others. And if we acquire something new we should do it with the mind thinking, I’m acquiring this to help myself help others. Otherwise, it becomes transgressing the bodhisattva vows. And that’s not something that we shouldn’t take.
If we’ve taken the bodhisattva vows, then we should try to see them you know, we should take them very seriously as much as we can, practice them as best we can. So don’t you know, have you heard that? Don’t think if you if you don’t have the bodhisattva vows well that means I’m not ever going to take the bodhisattva vows. One should because I mean it’s really good at some point to be able to take the bodhisattva vows because even though as ordinary people it’s very easy for us to break them they can be purified but also by keeping them it accumulates so much merit. Yeah.
And vows are very important in following the spiritual life because because why because? Because they force us depending you know, vows really only work depending on our understanding and belief of the law of cause and effect. Right? The more that’s that’s why to take vows one has to have refuge. If one doesn’t really have refuge in one’s heart, there is no basis for taking vows because vows will only affect the mind in a good way by one’s belief in the law of cause and effect which is at the very heart of taking refuge.
So on the basis of having a strong belief, faith in the law of cause and effect, if we take a vow at any level pratimoksha, bodhicitta, tantric we understand that if I break it, this is very heavy if I keep it, this is very very positive, very powerfully positive. So that especially to avoid breaking the vows, having the vow sort of forces us to be much more mindful than we normally would be. And so by being mindful, we we tend to be more virtuous, avoiding negativities, engaging in positive things. So it’s really in a very it’s a very very practical thing to take vows. That’s why we were encouraged having once we take a vow or a set of vows such as the different kinds of Prātimokṣa vows or the Bodhisattva vows or the Tantric vows to familiarize ourselves with them regularly to read the vows you know regularly even every day if we can to receive commentaries on them and study those commentaries ourselves because that will help us remember the vows we’ve got Because if we don’t remember them, it’s easy to break them.
Right? If we don’t remember the vows we’ve got, then we can break them and we don’t even know we’ve broken it because we’ve forgotten we’ve got the vow. So it’s really important to to read the the vows memorize them if possible. So it goes on to say if if you have dedicated a certain thing to someone else, is this means regardless of the bodhisattva vows, this is something else. Just in general, if you’ve dedicated a certain thing to someone else who knows it and has taken possession of that thing, put it very simply, if you’ve given something to someone, that’s what that’s saying, and then motivated by self interest and an intention to steal, you make use of that thing.
This qualifies as stealing and is a breach of the vows of individual emancipation as the compendium of training makes clear. In other words, if you give something to another person and then you take it back, that is stealing. Yeah. That is a natural naturally negative action of stealing and and is a breach of the of the pratimoksha vows, the vows of individual emancipation. So it’s a negative action.
It’s a negative karma. So knowing that using breaking the pratimoksha vows, this is far worse. So we should examine how a bodhisattva should behave when he or she makes use of such things. If we make use of something with the intention of working for sentient beings, there will be no moral fault. The Compendium of Training says: There will be no fault if you think I shall use these with the intention of protecting both the possessions and their owner.
So there’s nothing wrong with having something if are following the bodhisattva way of life, if we have the idea that this will help me in my practice, which is the practice of eventually being of great benefit to all sentient beings. This is still up to the case of a slave who, always in the service of his master, has no belongings of his own. So in many texts including Śāntideva’s Bodhisattva way of life, it compares a bodhisattva with being a servant or a slave to a bodhisattva, someone who has generated bodhicitta, thinks of themselves as like a servant to all sentient beings, as being a slave to all sentient beings because a bodhisattva has dedicated their body, speech and mind, their life, all their future lives to working for sentient beings, to help them become free of every kind of suffering, helping them to achieve every kind of happiness. So a bodhisattva doesn’t see themselves although in fact a bodhisattva is infinitely superior to an ordinary sentient being from the side of the bodhisattva they see themselves as inferior they are the servant of every sentient being. They are the happy slave of every sentient being.
Right? That’s how we should try to think that we are going to be the servant of all sentient beings because this is the way to repay their kindness. Because in past lives we made sentient beings our slaves. We used sentient beings. Maybe we still do this in this life.
We make people in one way or another directly, indirectly help us. And we’ve we’ve been doing that for lifetimes and lifetimes. So now we need to kind of reverse that situation. And just to emphasize that point, I just happened to come across this today on the web. There’s a little article about all the songs that singers have written for their because Father’s Day is coming up.
There was a thing about how there are so many beautiful songs written by singers about their children. And there’s a very famous song by Eric Clapton who wrote a song for his child who eventually fell out of a building and died. There’s this little quote from Eric Clapton when he was interviewed where he says just come across this today just a couple of hours before this where he says Up until I became a father it was all about self obsession but then I learned exactly what it’s all about the delight of being a servant. Eric Clapton said that. And then he quotes someone, but I’m not sure who the someone he is quoting.
It says Olivia. The only person I know who is Olivia is Sir Laurence Olivier. But anyway, it says Olivia wrote that the greatest thing you could aspire to in life was to be a good servant. Now this is Olivier, Olivier, not Olivia. Don’t you do it again with names to me you’d Okay.
Yeah. So even though Eric Clapton got the point that being a servant is the best thing. Know, that’s classic, you know, it was all about self obsession and that’s what we are. All our past lives, it’s all about being obsessed with me and using other people for me now. So that’s the self-cherishing thought.
So now we’ve met the Buddha’s teachings which say and prove logically that that is a recipe for disaster. It just doesn’t bring any benefit in the long run. And what brings benefit and real happiness is the opposite. Giving up the self-cherishing thought, cherishing others more than self, trying to be a servant to others rather than them being our servants. So the text goes on to say: You might think that it is futile to dedicate your possessions to others since you are using them yourself.
In other words, seems like it’s fake. It’s pretending, it’s false pretending that you’re using them for the benefit of others but the text says or Khorton Namkapel says this is not so. The above text, the Compendium of Training says Some who have not realized suchness, meaning emptiness, the nature of reality, lose faith in bodhisattvas who practice in this way. This is unreasonable because such Bodhisattvas have a thorough realization of the munificent thought of giving. It is therefore inappropriate for others to have doubts about how they behave.
So in other words, bodhisattvas are by definition people who have perfected generosity. They have dedicated their life in every possible way. They have dedicated the the all the energy of their body, speech, mind to others. They they are willing to give their life and limbs to others, yet they have things. His Holiness has things.
He’s a whole Potala in Tibet. But they use those things for the benefit of others. So we shouldn’t doubt that it’s a valid practice to have things but have them with a genuine thought I have this to benefit others. Munificent. Maleficent means something like magnanimous, doesn’t it?
Something like we could Google it quickly but munificent. Yes, magnanimous and great. Yes, splendorous and Khorton Namkapel now says, now I should explain the benefits of meditation on great compassion. So, that was the section on loving kind developing love and giving. So it says, repeated contemplation of which repeated contemplation great compassion will increase your delight in it.
The supplement to Nāgārjuna’s treatise on the middle way says This is a text so Nāgārjuna, the great bodhisattva Nāgārjuna, he was responsible for reintroducing it is believed according to the Mahāyāna. He was the the great bodhisattva who was responsible for reintroducing the Mahāyāna teachings of the Buddha back into the world of ordinary human beings and particularly the teachings on emptiness, the nature of reality. So he wrote a text called the Treatise on the Middle Way and then several hundred years later another great Indian master called Candrakīrti came along and he wrote commentary on Nāgārjuna’s text which is called the supplement. The supplement to the treatise on the middle way. In other words it’s commentary trying to make Nāgārjuna’s very difficult text more accessible.
So in that text it says by Candrakīrti Because this alone, meaning great compassion, is the excellent crop of the conquerors, the propagated seed and the water that sustains it, and the fully ripened fruit at the time of harvest, I first pay tribute to great compassion. So in other words, great compassion is the harvest, the result of the practice of the Dharma. It’s the seed of the Dharma. It’s the water that sustains the practice. It’s the fruit of the practice.
Everything about the Buddha’s teachings is about great compassion in a sense. So what is great compassion folks? What what is meant by great compassion? Specifically, compassion is wishing sentient beings not to have suffering. Right?
Yeah. Which is also implied to be happy, but it’s specifically to be free of suffering. So it’s Right? That’s what compassion is. So what is great compassion?
This is great compassion. What is we use this word, know Right? Yes. It has to include every sentient being, not just humans, all the realm of friend, enemy, stranger and all the six realms beings. Yeah?
Yes. Yes. Because compassion just compassion is just the thought not wanting others to suffer. Great compassion I think there’s a number of elements. Great compassion has to have it has to include all sentient beings without exception.
It has to include an awareness understanding of all the levels of suffering, not just the suffering of pain, but the suffering of change, which we think of as happiness, and also the most subtle kind of suffering, which is called all-pervasive compounded suffering. So great compassion includes all sentient beings, all three levels of suffering and its causes. And the vital thing is that great compassion is the mind determined to be involved in reducing in stopping the suffering of others. Not just wanting it, but I’m going to help stop that. Right?
So that’s a big difference. And that that is really one of the differences between one could argue between the mindset of a person who is actually committed to the path to liberation and someone who is committed to the path, the Mahāyāna path to enlightenment. Because someone following the path to liberation or interested in that path definitely has to develop love and compassion, but they don’t generate the mind saying, I’m going to stop the suffering of others. Maybe a little bit, but I am not going to dedicate myself to that project. Whereas a Mahāyānist, it it does.
They say, you know, I’m going to be responsible for stopping helping stop the suffering and the causes of suffering of all sentient beings. Alright. So that’s something important to remember when we because there are always different terminology. If we study the teachings, then there are many many technical, ideas, terms, concepts to distinguish, to understand. And then, so in generating bodhicitta one has to generate firstly compassion, then great compassion, and then there is something called the fifth Great compassion is the fifth cause in Asaṇga’s method of generating bodhicitta, and the sixth cause of generating bodhicitta is called Tibetan lhak sam, which is translated as the great wish, or his holiness calls it universal responsibility.
So what is that? That is a step beyond even more powerful than great compassion. So what what just what is that? Yes. Yes.
So great compassion says, I’ll be part of the process. I’ll be one of the people who help stop the suffering of all sentient beings. Whereas the great wish says is this even more powerful mind that says, I will stop the suffering of all sentient beings by myself. I will be solely responsible for ending the suffering of all sentient beings. Not just be I’ll not just be one of the crew, but I I will be the sole destroyer of all sentient beings suffering.
Which is a pretty mind boggling state of mind to generate. And that leads to developing bodhicitta. Because you realize the only way I can do this by myself is to become a Buddha. I have to become a Buddha in order to stop the suffering of all sentient beings myself. So therefore I am going to become a Buddha.
Your great resolve, great wish, lhak sam. Sam means thought. Sam, thought, wish. Yeah. It’s yeah.
It is sometimes translated as resolve, literally it doesn’t actually mean that, but it it has that implication in this context. And means, you know, superior because it’s don’t know if this is actually true. No. I’m just making that up. Because of luck.
It is the the the, you know, the word for God is lha and this word is lhak. So it has that same kind of root there of something divine and superior, the superior wish, this inconceivable like godlike wish, divine wish to free all sentient beings of suffering. I don’t know. Keep yourself busy busy for a long time. Yeah.
Yes. But it doesn’t matter because there’s nothing better to do. And as a Buddha, it’s effortless. It doesn’t require any sweat. It’s just it’s just spontaneous and totally blissful doing it.
So it really doesn’t matter if, you know, it goes on forever. Right. It remains so that’s Śāntideva that’s his holiness quotes that that’s the great Śāntideva’s words yeah So that’s the way a bodhisattva thinks yeah So it goes on to say with regard to its practical value the compendium of perfect conduct says, O Subduer, meaning the Buddha, Bodhisattvas do not train in many teachings. O Subduer, if they perfectly grasp and accomplish one doctrine, they have enlightenment in the palms of their hands. If you ask, what is that doctrine?
It is great compassion. O Subduer, if you have great compassion, you have all doctrines in the palm of your hand. O Subduer, it is similar for example to the precious wheel of a universal monarch around which all other forces gather. I think you all know about Universal Monarchs, right? Oh dear, Universal Monarchs.
They’re floating around somewhere. Universal monarchs are apparently bodhisattvas anyway, and they have all these particular symbols of their authority. Sorry I’m being disrespectful here, but of course in one way if one’s honest, seems very difficult to believe that these beings exist. I find it easy to understand Bodhisattvas and Buddhas exist, but universal monarchs, when you think about it, seems a little bit like fairy story that there are these monarchs who control the whole universe. So where are they?
But if you think about it, you know, Australia is a monarchy. It has a queen. It does have a queen. Who’s seen the queen? Who’s It’s so bad actually.
Probably was what seven at Victoria Racecourse when she went around and around. Send the Queen mom too. But I mean, you know, you don’t see her in reality very often. Right? Right.
Or, you know, know, her son Prince Charles, you know. Right. Okay. But, you know, those people who have all the power in the world, all ordinary mortals don’t have too much contact with them. Right?
But they do exist and they have a lot of power, right? That’s my point. They do exist but you don’t actually really see them very much. So maybe there are these beings, these Universal Monarchs existing in some realm that actually in some way do have some control over the universe. But of course were in no way able to make connection with them.
O Subduer, similarly wherever the great compassion of a Bodhisattva exists, there also exists the Buddha’s doctrine. O Subduer, likewise wherever the life faculty is present, there also are the sense faculties. O Subduer, thus if you have great compassion, you will acquire all the other qualities of a bodhisattva. So that’s it. That’s the core of a bodhisattva.
The bodhisattva way of life. The Mahāyāna doctrine is great compassion. And it brings everything in. If one has that or is developing it, it will bring everything every other quality of generosity, love, patience, perseverance and so on and ultimately wisdom as well. Compassion meditation has two parts.
This particular meditation has two parts taking sufferings from the inhabitants and taking from the environment. So the text says giving and taking should be practiced alternately. So this is the root text, the the seven point Mind Training. So the next lines say: Giving and taking should be practiced alternately and you should begin by taking from yourself. In commentary Khorton Namkapel says: Firstly, as it says, we should meditate on compassion by taking from sentient beings their suffering and the causes of their suffering.
So as I mentioned before, the basis of developing love or awakening our potential for love is allowing ourselves to recognize more and more clearly and strongly that our self and others don’t have real happiness. Right? But, We can experience pleasure and what we call happiness, which actually is the suffering of change. But we don’t have real happiness, an experience that is pure, complete, perfect, lasting, fully joyful and satisfying. We just have something that to our confused mind looks like it for a while.
But that’s just the suffering of change. So one of them realise that then love wishing, which is the mind wanting actual happiness will arise. So in the same way the basis of compassion is recognizing that someone is actually suffering. You can look at another person and their face, their body can look okay. Their mind well you can’t see their mind but from their facial expression one makes the logical deduction that they’re okay but no individual being in saṃsāra is okay.
We are all suffering. And most of us don’t want to think about that or feel that because our self-cherishing says: If I think about the suffering of others, or even worse, if I allow myself to identify and feel the suffering of others, this will make me miserable. But somehow what the Buddha is saying is that allowing ourselves to feel the suffering of others is the very beginning of freeing ourselves from suffering and awakening to real joy. It seemed, you know, very contradictory, but that’s how it is. That our ability to identify with others and feel their suffering is the most wonderful thing that we can have and develop.
Here it says firstly, we should meditate on compassion by taking the sufferings from others. But actually there’s another first before that. Firstly, we have to recognize the suffering of others. And not just the obvious suffering, but to realize that someone may not have at this present moment they may not have obvious suffering but they still have the causes to experience the suffering of pain. Even if they’re not experiencing pain now, they have the causes for it.
So that is also suffering. And if they’re not experiencing the suffering of pain now, they are possibly experiencing the suffering of change which looks like happiness to us. And even if they’re not experiencing that, maybe they’re in a neutral state, they’re experiencing all sentient beings all the time are experiencing the very subtle suffering of compounded pervasive suffering which is referring to the fact that just by having these five aggregates, a body and mind, made up which are produced and controlled by delusion and karma, just that very fact is suffering. It’s unsatisfying because having a body controlled produced by karma and delusion and controlled by it means we will experience suffering sooner or later obvious suffering sooner or later. So we we have to allow ourselves not just to intellectually understand that and acknowledge it and be aware of it, but, feel what that means.
We we need to allow ourselves to feel what that means in relation to us. Take firstly taking ourself as the example, the more we can feel our own suffering, then we have a basis to understand the suffering of others. If we deny that we are suffering, we can’t fully sympathize with the suffering of others. If we say, oh, I’m okay. So if this you know, I’m not really suffering because I’ve got this, this, and this.
So all these people who’ve got even more than me, they can’t be suffering. You know, this is just a great example. But if we if we can recognize that, well, I’ve got all these good things that people say make you happy, but I’m suffering, so maybe people who’ve got even more stuff, maybe they’re not happy either. Maybe they are suffering as well. But especially, you know, no matter how much you’ve got, that doesn’t touch your delusions.
Having a billion dollars doesn’t reduce your attachment. It probably increases it. You know, having a billion dollars doesn’t change the fact of the the tendency to get angry or jealous or proud. Having a billion dollars doesn’t change the fact that we’re ignorant and don’t understand our reality. So everyone’s suffering.
What would you mean? Why is it self-cherishing to acknowledge that you’re suffering? Well, I it incredibly important to understand what self-cherishing means. Right? And what selfishness means.
Because we discussed this. Was it last week? Or was this in the or was it in the twelve months ago. Right. Someone brought up a point.
Was it last week or the week ago? Maybe it was in the Discovering Buddhism. What did they say? Some of the people make this point about any concern for yourself is labeled self-cherishing but this is not right, you know? Wasn’t it something that also someone said about last week if you if you, you know, you give it to people and you enjoy it, isn’t that selfish?
It’s self-cherishing. So enjoy, you know, the mere enjoying of things is selfish and self-cherishing. It’s not. It depends on the motivation and so many things because the whole point of Dharma practice is it makes you happy. It has to.
Dharma practice is virtuous. It is not non virtuous All genuine, not fake Dharma practice or pseudo Dharma practice but actual Dharma practice is all one hundred percent virtuous and all virtue it brings happiness. So giving up self-cherishing makes you happy. So to want to be happy that way, to want to be really happy is not self-cherishing. Giving up self-cherishing.
Putting yourself before others is self-cherishing. self-cherishing is about thinking, you know, holding on to this ordinary view of self that we have, which is not who we actually are, and wanting this self to be instantly happy no matter what. Not thinking of the consequences of what we do to ourselves or to others. Cigarettes is self-cherishing. Eating too much is self-cherishing.
Good. Good. All self all selfishness are examples of self-cherishing but not all self-cherishing are examples of selfishness. Yes, think that’s what I said. I hope that’s what I said.
Yeah, there’s a slight difference between selfish and self charging. Well, so all selfishness are examples of self charging, but not all self-cherishing is selfish because the nature of selfishness is a particular kind of self-cherishing where this is my this is this is my own personal thing, this bit, you know. Probably the lamas won’t say this, but this is probably just, you know, what I thought about. There’s a difference between selfishness and self-cherishing. And selfishness examples of selfishness there is some some benefit, you could say, some recognizable benefit from a very gross worldly point of view in being selfish such as you know, I you know, I always give the same boring example.
If there’s a bowl of fruit, if you’re selfish, you take the best piece of fruit. So if you’re selfish, you you take the best bit. So you get a nice apple. You get the nicest apple. So there’s some apparent obvious benefit in being selfish.
Or you get the car park or you lions cheat and you get the job, you know, you get the promotion by lying about the person who’s going for the job. So by being selfish that way, there’s an apparent worldly benefit. Whereas in some examples of what in general self charging it often doesn’t even benefit you even in a worldly point of view. Such as the simple example of which I gave, if you remember, of lying in bed and yourself, you know, it’s you have to get up to to make it you have an appointment for a job, you know. The job the job what do call them?
Dream job. Dream job. You know, the job I just wanted with, you know, fantastic, you know, car, huge income, reputation, status blah blah blah. There’s this interview you have to go for but it’s cold and your self-cherishing says stay in bed five minutes longer and yourself, you know, the self and you say yes, that’s a good idea, I will. And you stay in bed and but then it’s too late.
You know, miss the bus, you know, something don’t get the job Because you listen to the self-cherishing thought that says this pleasure now is the most important thing. The self-cherishing thought only thinks like now, you know, a minute what what appears to be a merit benefit now and which is easy, easy happy now. As I often say, I once saw this movie called Elvira Madigan which is based on a true story about these two a girl who was a type this was somewhere in Denmark or Norway or Sweden in the nineteenth century. There’s a girl who was a tightrope walker. She fell in love with an army officer who of course came from the upper classes.
In those days it was utterly impossible from a working class girl to marry an army officer. So they ran away, and and and I had nothing to eat. They had no money, no food. So they they they I’ve spent their last money on a bowl of strawberries and and and cream. Anyway, they eventually died.
But there’s a scene in this movie. Sorry. This is a long story. I always do this. But there’s a scene where, you know, there’s this beautiful idyllic, you know, countryside and they’re lying on the grass and that the young man picks a blade of grass and he says, if you hold a blade of grass to your eye, you can block out the whole world.
That’s the self-cherishing thought. It only thinks about what looks nice now and it blocks out everything else. This one tiny thing, this tiny thing, this thing, seems so incredibly important. You can’t see anything else. Mhmm.
Yeah. I think sometimes there could be a bit there’s a bit of a dojo of mixing Freudian and you all in psychology with Buddhist terminology, but know it might be to some extent. Yeah. Because I don’t know if the I I don’t know anything enough about well, I don’t know anything about Freudian to comment. Yeah.
Just the more whiting, I don’t think that is necessarily self check. Mhmm. Okay. Yeah. Yes.
Yes. Right. This got into a very long and complicated discussion, but oh, we were supposed to have a break. You have to we don’t have to do it again because I’ve forgotten. I just remembered.
What I was trying say to give themselves a hard time about not understanding the difference between just wanting to do good things and enjoy and saying, oh, this is self-cherishing. You know, this is really not good. You know? There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be happy and have enjoyment. The trouble is yeah.
Oh, no. No. Long story. Yeah. There’s a wise way of going about it and a destructive way, a self-cherishing way, and a wise, compassionate way.
And the dharma is the wise, compassionate way to have real happiness, real enjoyment, satisfaction. There’s a natural wish to be happy. It’s impossible not to want to be happy. But self-cherishing mankles that into something, yeah, just self centered and destructive and harmful. Anyway, break.
Oh, we can’t have that because that’s self-cherishing. By taking from suffering from sentient beings their sufferings. And So this is a kind of forceful method of generating compassion or strengthening one’s compassion by, like forcing oneself to, open one’s heart by, not just being aware of the suffering of others and trying to feel it, but feeling it so strongly that you imagine taking it from them. You know, of course, just to repeat the obvious, we we cannot take the suffering from others. But it’s still a valid psychological practice to imagine doing so.
The ordinary mind doesn’t want to think even think about the suffering of others. The self-cherishing thought doesn’t want to think about the suffering of others, doesn’t want to feel about it feel it at all. So to cut through that self-cherishing mind, we not only try and we feel the suffering, not only think about the suffering of others, recognize it, not only feel it, but take it a step further by imagining taking that suffering from that person because the nature of compassion is if you think about it if compassion is the mind not wanting suffering, if one’s compassion gets stronger and stronger that not wanting the suffering of others would lead to a thought, eventually would lead to a thought, oh, I’ve got to take it from them. That’s the way to stop it. It’s so unbearable that I’ll take it from them.
So it says: Begin by taking upon yourself all your own actions and disturbing emotions, meaning negative actions and disturbing emotions and the sufferings that you will have to experience as a result in future lives in any of the five or six states of existence. So I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago that when I talked about Tonglen practice which is what this is leading up to is where we imagine taking the suffering of others onto ourselves destroying our self-cherishing thought and the aim of this meditation is to imagine taking all the sufferings of all sentient beings onto it, know taking it from them putting in imagine breathing it into ourselves destroying our own self-cherishing but as I said a couple weeks ago if we started at that level it becomes meaningless because you know it’s practically or it is impossible to imagine all the sufferings of all sentient beings. If we even try, it’s practically impossible to imagine all the sufferings of one sentient being, all the sufferings that one sentient being endures in a lifetime. So to imagine all the sufferings that every sentient being has has, is, will experience, I mean, is is it becomes meaningless because we can’t do it.
So it’s not much benefit. So we have to all practice is a lam rim, a graduated path, a step by step process where we should start to make it really meaningful. We start at the beginning in the simplest way. So the most meaningful thing is to start with one person, imagining the suffering of one person. And the easiest person to take is ourselves because we like ourselves.
Or put it this way, we’re concerned about ourselves most. So it’s really helpful to think about all the suffering we will experience in this life, future life, even just to think of the suffering we will experience just in this life as a result of our self-cherishing and selfishness. All the future suffering, by not trying to modify and reduce our self-cherishing, we will be controlled by it you know, throughout all of this life. And then you we try and think of all the suffering that I will have to endure because of not having the courage and compassion to face my own self-cherishing. So we develop compassion for ourself, our future self, future me.
So we try and imagine all that suffering, feel it to the point where it’s unbearable so that we imagine taking that now, experiencing it now imagining it, breathing it in so it’s so unbearable it completely suffocates, destroys our self-cherishing. And again, as I said a couple of weeks ago, in doing this practice it’s important to understand that we have self-cherishing, to understand how harmful it is, but our self-cherishing is not me, it’s not our true nature. Because if we don’t understand that really clearly, doing if we try and do this practice, it becomes like masochism. You know? It’s it’s like punishing ourselves saying, oh, I am a bad person.
Therefore, I’m going to make myself miserable by putting up you know, drowning myself in suffering. But it’s not like that. It’s nothing remotely like that. Because what one imagines is that by destroying the self-cherishing one liberates the natural blissful positive qualities of the mind and then you imagine giving your future self all this incredible happiness and joy peace and contentment. So we’re not the purpose of the practice like everything in Dharma, is not to make ourselves miserable but to make ourselves happy.
But to make ourselves happy via, dependent on, a virtuous wise method not a stupid non virtuous method. Whereas self-cherishing tells us to be happy using a stupid non virtuous method. So imagine that these meaning that all the different kinds of sufferings and negativities that we’ve engaged in form black heaps similar to trimmings of hair upon your present mental and physical aggregates and think that you are thereby freed from these sufferings and their causes in all future lives. So firstly here in this text normally the Tonglen practice involves imagining breathing all this suffering in the form of black smoke suffocates the self-cherishing and then you imagine breathing out all your goodness to yourself and others in the form of white light. But here Namkapel explains the process firstly he talks about the light meditation with the smoke and light a little bit later on but here he is saying firstly you practice this way you imagine taking on the suffering in the forms of this kind of these black heaps like trimmings of hair.
I’m not quite sure why trimmings of hair like trimmings of hair. Certainly imagine that you accept the sufferings and sources of suffering of tomorrow, the day after that, the coming months and years, and the rest of your life upon your present temporary aggregates of today, this month, and this year, and think that you thereby free yourself from all misery from tomorrow onwards. So to make this practice really meaningful, realistic, and powerful, one can even just imagine something that’s going to happen tomorrow that you are worried or concerned about. And you can think that the problem why this thing is going to be a problem for me tomorrow is because of my self-cherishing thought. My self-cherishing, my attachment to myself, my reputation, my comfort, my this, my that, all of that is going to create this problem for me tomorrow.
Like going to the dentist. So you take pity on, you know, pour me in the chair getting the, you know, the dentist drill. I mean, this is just a very, very simple example. And you take pity on that that person, Tomorrow’s person, me. Tomorrow tomorrow me.
You take pity on them now. You feel compassion for them now. Think about that suffering now. Or you think of something, maybe some negative habit you have that I am probably going to do the same thing tomorrow. Yeah.
I did it yesterday, day before, you know, and I’m probably gonna do it tomorrow, and I’m gonna be feel miserable again tomorrow, but I’m gonna do it. So you imagine you try and think of that situation tomorrow as real as possible. Try and identify with the actual suffering you will experience tomorrow. Try and experience it now in order to destroy the self-cherishing that will force you to do that thing tomorrow. If you destroy it now, you won’t do it tomorrow.
Right? Oh that made sense, did it? Yes! Right! That’s how it works so if we can really get into it that it can be incredibly helpful.
So in taking all the sufferings of others upon yourself, you should not keep them, meaning the sufferings, in some inconspicuous place like in a cupboard, but in your heart. So we imagine taking the sufferings of others and putting them in our heart so that we can really feel the sufferings of others. Since the very purpose of accepting them is to eradicate your self centered attitude. So I’ve heard I’ve read and heard some tapes by some various Buddhists excuse me leaders doing Tonglen meditation where they turn it into this ridiculous fluffy meditation. This Tonglen meditation is not a light fluffy thing where you just imagine some kind of suffering coming in and it all floats away.
It’s supposed to freak you out. You’re supposed to feel it. His Holiness says you have to do it really strongly so you really so you don’t put the suffering somewhere inconspicuous. The whole idea is to threaten cherishing, to really touch one’s own self-cherishing. Yeah?
To get rid of it, to or, you know, be yeah. To really look at it and and and frighten it therefore reduce it. Know, cop this. You don’t like this, I’m gonna give it to you. One does it in the context of genuine affection for oneself, not punishing oneself but actually trying to benefit oneself by getting rid of this horrible disease that one has in the mind.
So the whole purpose of it is to reduce the self-cherishing thought. As explained during the meditation on love, you should accept all the originating and resulting sufferings of the denizens of hell at your heart like heaps of black hair trimmings. So in other words when one is trained on taking on the sufferings of others then you do it with all the beings in the different hell different realms of cyclic existence. So the hells, the pretas, the animals, and so on. But actually, if I can just disagree with this holy lama, I’d probably go to hell.
Rather than starting off with taking the sufferings of hell beings, which is very heavy, I would recommend to go the other way. You first like, well, it says you start with yourself, then and actually the tradition in other texts in the lum rim, it advises then you start with another human being, someone who you have have a great deal of affection for, such as, you know, hopefully, your mother or father, brother, sister, you know, someone who’s been very kind to you. So you then think of their suffering, and then you you so then you you start like that with human beings close to you, friends, then strangers, then then maybe human enemies, little little enemies, not big enemies, little enemies. You could work up to big enemies if you’ve got some. Or maybe not personal enemies, but like the human beings that you think are the most horrible human beings on the planet at the moment that you find very difficult to feel compassion for, then one tries to think of their suffering.
Then you start with that, then move to animals, predators, hell beings, the gods, Bardo beings trying to cover eventually think of the sufferings of all the different kinds of beings. So that itself is a big project, this meditation, but very worthwhile. It says: Think that your selfish attitude or self-cherishing attitude is mellowed and subdued and that the denizens of hell or whoever you’re dealing with are freed of all sufferings without exception. So in Tonglen practice it’s also important not only to imagine taking the suffering but also especially the causes of the suffering because that’s one of the features of developing great compassion that you imagine not just reducing or eliminating the symptom but the actual cause. The cause of suffering.
Because again the nature of self-cherishing is to deal with the symptom not the cause. Real compassion because self-cherishing to the deluded mind can look like love and compassion. I want myself to be happy. I don’t want to suffer, therefore I’ll get drunk. That’ll make me happy and I won’t be suffering when I’m really drunk or stoned or shooting up a couple of kilos of cocaine or something.
Not a couple of kilos. Just keep it as lum rim. Yeah. So that’s the self-cherishing solution to one’s problems is, you know, we block them out by some pleasure. That looks good.
And it’s easy. It’s easy. Whereas, if we had real love for ourselves, real compassion, we wouldn’t just try to mollify you know, do something about the sentient beings. We would try and deal with the cause. But of course, that’s much more difficult.
It’s much more difficult, takes more effort but you know that’s what really works and that’s what the Buddha is telling us if we have to deal if to eliminate suffering, we have to stop the causes. To have real happiness, we have to create the actual causes. But both the creating the actual causes of happiness, eliminating the actual causes of suffering, this is hard, difficult, time consuming work. But that’s what actually works. And if we have real love and compassion for ourself, that’s what we’ll do.
And that’s not self-cherishing. That’s not self-cherishing. So it goes on to say: In a similar way, take on the originating and resultant sufferings of all the hungry spirits, animals and human beings of the four continents and the eight subcontinents, the six categories of gods of desire such as the gods of the four great kings, the twelve categories of gods of form from the Brahma family to the great result. So these are names of the different types of gods and the beings of the four states of the formless realm from all the worldly realms throughout the ten directions no matter how many there are. Imagine that all these originating and resultant sufferings fall as if shaved off with a razor onto your heart, that your self centered attitude is mellowed and subdued, and that sentient beings are freed of all sufferings and their causes without exception.
So the thought is taking the suffering onto myself. You know, is this suffering, so who’s going to experience it? Others or myself? So we decide, I will do it. Because these are my kind mothers, they can’t I don’t want them to have this suffering.
Someone has to experience it, so I will experience it. Or, not I, but I will force my self-cherishing to experience it, and in so doing destroy my self-cherishing, free my mind. Likewise, apply the same mode of thought by taking on the miseries of the beings of the intermediate state those who are seeking rebirth. It is worthwhile to think briefly of taking on each and every suffering distinctly, in general and in particular, as well as their origins in actions and disturbing emotions from all sentient beings of the four kinds of birth which is referring to what is it birth in the womb, birth from eggs, birth from heat, and spontaneous birth. Heat and moisture.
Yeah. Womb, egg, heat and moisture, and spontaneous birth. These are the four ways that one can be reborn in cyclic existence. This is actually good advice for us. Because just trying to imagine taking on all the sufferings of a particular group of sentient beings gets, you know, pretty overwhelming.
But we could think, like, in terms of human beings of taking on a particular kind of suffering, like the suffering of sickness or even a particular sickness that sentient beings experience. And we can try and think of what are the karmic causes to have that sickness. So we imagine taking on that sickness ourselves. Of course one way of practicing that is if you see someone in the street or you read about someone who is experiencing a particular suffering, one can imagine taking on that suffering from that person. And all the causes, whatever karmic causes there are for a person to have that suffering, one imagines, I will take that on.
And we could imagine doing that with just that individual or you could imagine taking on that kind of suffering that whoever has that suffering in the world imagining taking on that disease or problem. I will bear it so they don’t. A very powerful way of practicing Tonglen is it’s not explained here but in the Lam Rim tradition it talks about how like when we have a problem suffering like it can be some kind of health problem or a financial problem, an emotional problem, a work problem, any kind of problem we have. Why are we experiencing this suffering and the suffering that goes with that problem, that difficulty? This is the ripening of a karmic and negative karmic imprint because of having done some negative action in the past due to our self-cherishing.
Right? Normally, why we’re suffering is simply because negative karmic imprints are ripening. To make that experience of suffering bearable so when we you know, have suffering we get pretty upset and we don’t, you know, we find it difficult to bear that suffering. Can make suffering bearable is feeling that this suffering is meaningful. If it’s meaningless, it’s very unbearable.
Right? That’s why so many people in the world now, in our society, who commit suicide because people don’t have sustaining religious beliefs anymore. So even very small problems can become unbearable because they have no meaning at all. So it’s unbearable. So people can kill themselves because also they feel their life doesn’t have any meaning.
So it doesn’t matter to kill yourself. Nothing happens when you die. Everything stops. My life isn’t you know, doesn’t have any meaning anyway. This suffering is meaningless.
Might as well end it. Yes, yes. Yeah especially in Australia we have one of the highest rates of young you know young male deaths yes but yeah And like kids killing themselves because the high school exams, difficult. Yeah. I met a family whose son hung himself because of that.
Yeah. So yeah. So what make what can make suffering bearable is feeling, you know, believing, knowing that it has a meaning. So when we do really oh it’s time to finish. Sorry, just quickly.
Important point. When we practice Dharma really strongly and do virtuous actions, this also has the power, has the effect, can have the effect of purifying the mind and forcing our negative karmic imprints to ripen in this life in a small way. So some of our suffering as a practitioner, if we are a serious, good practitioner, some of the suffering we experience is not not the result of just, you know, uncontrolled negative imprints ripening, but we’ve forced them to ripen. So it’s actually a good sign. Yeah, it’s a good sign.
I’ve said this many times before in the past that there are specific practices to purify the mind and if one does those strongly it will force purifying the mind does getting you can’t completely get rid of negative imprints. When you purify your mind you don’t just totally eliminate a negative imprint. That only happens when you realize emptiness. In purifying the mind as an ordinary person, what happens is the power of the purification forces the karmic imprint to ripen in this life but in a very small way. So a karma that could have brought many lifetimes of suffering in the lower realms ripens as maybe a disease in this life, or even just a headache, or having a horrible accident, or a small accident.
So what looks, from a worldly point of view, as quite bad is actually good, because some really horrible negative karma has ripened. But it can only ripen as suffering, but it’s good. But we can never know when we’re experiencing suffering whether this suffering is the result of just negative karma ripening as it normally does or it’s some negative karma ripening because we’ve done some purification. But it’s helpful for our mind to think, Oh, to make the suffering bearable and meaningful is to think, Oh, this is purification. So especially in this Tonglen practice, when we have suffering, how to make this really meaningful is to think, is to practice Tonglen and think, This suffering I’m experiencing, I will bear it.
Say you’ve got a sickness so you think this I will now I’ve got sickness X disease X. I will take disease X from every human being in the world so that they so my having disease X now means no one, no human being will have to experience disease X now or in the future. This is really meaningful. If I can bear this disease now, no one will ever have to experience it. So I’ll do that.
Did that make sense? Alright. Sometimes it looks like get I’m very paranoid. That becomes a purification practice but it also makes the it’s a way to make a suffering situation bearable by making it very meaningful. If one can put one’s mind in that state and according to the teachings, this is actually a way that, for example, diseases can be cured.
There are people who’ve done Tonglen practice and cured their diseases. But the point is not to cure the disease. I mean, the worldly point of view, we’d like our diseases to be cured, but the real point is to be able to transform all our suffering into the path to make it meaningful. That’s the greatest thing. So whatever problem we have, we can think, Well, I’ve got this problem.
When we think with the self-cherishing thought, whatever problem we’ve got, we kind of feel I mean when we say it out loud or look at it, it’s obviously stupid and ridiculous and illogical but, you know, but our self-cherishing is stupid and illogical, but we’re not conscious of that. But when we have a problem, our problem feels like it is the worst problem in the world. No one has a problem like this, and my problem is unique. No one has ever had this problem. Right?
But the point is, thousands and millions of people have had this problem, have it right now, and many of them have got it far worse than me. So that becomes a basis for feeling compassion, and then you can think, Well, I’ll take all that. What I’m experiencing now is, in fact, an encouragement to take that same suffering that others have. I will bear it for them, and by me bearing this, they won’t have to have it. Of course, they still do have their suffering, but it’s a mind training.
Right? It’s training the mind in empathy and compassion and courage and transforming our suffering into the path. Right? Thank you very much. So we can dedicate the the merit, the positive imprints we’ve generated tonight.
May these become a cause of being able to generate bodhicitta and achieve enlightenment. So if you’d like to join in our dedication prayers page eight starting 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 body 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 a thousand years, as well as those who, along with many others, died sacrificing their lives for Tibet and His Holiness. May all their positive wishes be fulfilled immediately. Due to their limitless kindness, the 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 dedication prayers. May all his holiness, Dalai Lama’s wishes be successful immediately. May the snowland of Tibet achieve pure freedom and develop the Buddhadharma even more than before in Tibet. And may all mother transmigratory beings achieve enlightenment quickly.
Next page. Savior of the snowland teachings and transmigratory beings who makes extremely clear the path that is unification of emptiness and compassion. To the lotus holder Tenzin Gyatso, I beseech, may all your holy wishes be spontaneously fulfilled. You who uphold the subdueers’ moral way, who serve as the bountiful bearer of all, sustaining, preserving, spreading Manjunatha’s victorious doctrine, who masterfully accomplished magnificent prayers honoring the Three Jewels, savior of myself and others, your disciples, please, please live long. Lord of Dharma, who in accordance with the various dispositions of those to be subdued, makes clear in the light of your well spoken advice the sacred Ganden tradition, essence of Buddha’s teachings, O foremost and holy Lama, to you who are supreme, O Lama, please please live long.
Okay, just a couple of points. Sorry it is getting late, if you don’t mind, before we finish. Right now, Lama Zopa Rinpoche is leading a month long