Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 109-minute talk on patience from 2015, Ven Thubten Dondrub works through Śāntideva’s Buddhist approach to cultivating patience as the direct antidote to anger. He starts with the foundational understanding that anger—one of the three principal destructive emotions—arises from underlying discontent and attachment, and explores how mental unhappiness is the fuel that feeds the fires of anger. Rather than suppressing anger, the teacher explains, patience undermines it by addressing its causes. He then walks through multiple practical methods: recognizing the disadvantages of anger and advantages of patience; understanding what triggers our discontent; developing courage and familiarity with difficulty by working with small problems first; and finding hidden benefits in suffering and enemies, since they force us to practise patience and dispel pride. Throughout, Dondrub uses concrete examples—an anecdote of living in Taiwan, references to endurance athletes, the extraordinary resilience of tortured monk Palden Gyatso—to illustrate how the mind can be trained through familiarity. He closes with guided meditation on Śāntideva’s central verses and dedication of merit. Pitched at practitioners with some dharma background who are serious about developing the mind.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Patience 3 2015 03 26.mp3
UUID: e3e58110-02dd-45c8-9fe1-3d5804411d31
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Patience (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2015-03-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 109.3 minutes
Words: ~10,888
Good evening, everyone. So welcome to our third class on patience, how to cultivate patience, all the different ways to cultivate patience. So for this time to be as beneficial as possible, especially to make it a dharma action, this really depends from our side on cultivating the right attitude, putting ourselves in the right state of mind and cultivating the right attitude. So traditionally, are various prayers that we say to help us do that. So we start page page eight, I think it is.
Page eight. No. Page six. Sorry. Page six.
I prostrate to the gathering of dakinis and the three khatvangas who abide in the holy yoga of using space by your powers of clairvoyance and magical emanation. Look after practitioners like a mother of a child. Akashama Rāja siddhi sara samara hung pé. By the teachings of the three supreme jewels possessing the power of truth, may inner and outer hindrances be transformed, may they be dispelled, may they be pacified, may they be completely pacified, may all negative forces opposed to dharma be completely pacified. May the host of eighty thousand obstacles be pacified.
May we be separated from problems and harmful conditions to Dharma. May all enjoyments be in accord with the Dharma and may there be auspiciousness and perfect happiness here right now. Then visualizing Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as our source of refuge, inspiration and guidance and we offer a mandala of the universe as a way to request the teachings, to accumulate the merit that helps us understand and practice those teachings, and to help us to purify the mind of the obstacles, the disturbing thoughts that prevent us understanding and putting into practice the teachings. So as we continue to think of the Buddha in front of us, especially we can focus on all the kind suffering sentient beings in the universe, trying to think of all of them, at least those that we are connected to in this life, so our parents on either side, family, friends and helpers behind us, harm us in front, trying to cultivate as strong as we can right now an awareness, a recognition of how much we are connected to all these beings, especially through their acts of kindness and particularly how much we depend on the kindness of the mother, which we have received from every being many times in beginningless saṃsāra.
But also to cultivate that awareness that all these beings who have been so kind to me are suffering in saṃsāra. Myself, I am also in a cyclic existence, but I have the immense good fortune to have met the Dharma, have a precious human rebirth, the optimum chance to practice the Dharma that frees my mind from all suffering. So now I’m in the position before I was constantly dependent on the kindness of others. Now, just for this very brief time, I’m in a position to repay that kindness. So try and generate that thought that no matter what, I must, I have to use this life, this precious human rebirth to free the mind of all causes of suffering, cultivate all the positive qualities of my mind in order to achieve the enlightened state, which is the perfect state to perfectly repay the kindness of all beings.
So to achieve enlightenment, that involves following the path and that involves overcoming all negative qualities of mind, being able to face all sorts of difficulties with people, oneself and the practice of Dharma, and so it is absolutely vital that I learn to develop the mind of patience. So for this reason I will study and cultivate this practice for the sake of mother sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma and the Supreme Assembly by the merits I create through Śīla, Dana. May I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So thinking the Buddha is pleased with our motivation, we imagine that the Buddha shows this by now coming towards the crown of our head, and then when directly above our crown, we imagine that the Buddha then dissolves into blissful golden light so that that light can then pour down into us, blessing our mind.
Blessing our mind to be able to understand the teachings on patience, blessing our mind to be able to put them into practice, blessing our mind to be able to eventually gain the complete realization of the mind of patience. Okay. Thank you. Just to recap some of the things that I’ve been trying to say in the last two weeks, Patience is the antidote to anger, so anger is one of the three principal poisonous minds that is the source of all our suffering. It arises because of the root poisonous mind of ignorance, but underlying so that underlies our anger is this wrong view of self, the false and the wrong view of everything that we experience.
But on top of that, what makes it worse, what also acts as a basis for our anger to arise is attachment. If one checks in virtually every moment, in every incident, incident, incident, incident, Incident. You have to be very patient with me. Incident of anger. There was always some underlying attachment going on.
Anger is an extremely destructive emotion. It causes it leads us to harm others, but in fact our anger causes far more harm to ourselves than it does to others. But of course it can create a lot of harm to other beings. But the long term harm to ourself is far greater, so we really need patience so that we don’t harm ourselves, we don’t harm others, so we don’t harm ourselves, and so we don’t create obstacles to following the spiritual path. There are many, many ways to cultivate patience.
So also just one of the things I tried to emphasise in the previous weeks was that practising patience has to be done when we’re not angry. In order to overcome anger, we have to cultivate this mental factor of patience. We the potential for it, but we have to bring it into being. It arises dependently on creating the causes for it. If we don’t create the causes, we don’t create this quality or this ability to be patient.
And so if we haven’t cultivated it, when anger arises, we don’t have an antidote. So it will run out of control. We can try and suppress it, but the practice of patience is not suppressing anger, it is undermining it, it is pacifying it, it is getting rid of the fuel that feeds the fire of anger. So that’s really important to understand. So there are many ways to cultivate patience and the ones I’ve tried to talk about so far is well the first two are really basic ones.
We really need to think about these and meditate on them quite a bit because if we haven’t thought about these two points, then all the other factors won’t have so much other ways of cultivating patience, won’t have so much power. So the basic way to cultivate patience is by seeing, understanding, knowing, believing all the disadvantages of anger. There are disadvantages in this life, we get a bad reputation, we create enemies, we lose friends, we develop regret, All sorts of suffering can happen in this life, but there’s all the great harm that comes from generating negative imprints that can only ripen to bring terrible rebirths in the lower realms. Even as a human being, those negative imprints ripen to bring all sorts of suffering and problems. And that anger unfortunately destroys our positive imprints, which we need for just basic happiness while we’re in saṃsāra, but most importantly, we need those positive imprints, the merit, as a basis for developing the realisations that are going to liberate us from cyclic existence and also help bring about enlightenment.
I hope people do understand this point that one needs merit. One needs that merit. To gain a realisation that is going to destroy our delusions and also gain the realisations of stable, virtuous minds. The way to do that specifically directly is to meditate on those things, but for that meditation to work, then we need to have purified our mind. The more we’ve purified our mind, the more the meditation will work, but also we have to empower our mind through merit.
And if we don’t do that, it’s not going to work. Just meditating, many people I don’t know about many people, some people, maybe it’s many people think that Dharma practice is just meditating. That’s all you have to do. This is not correct. There’s a lot more to do than that.
One could say meditation is the single most important thing, but if one hasn’t got all the other background stuff, that single most important activity is not going to work properly. And also remember, not only does our anger destroy our merit and put these negative imprints that bring suffering, but those negative imprints, before they ripen, they act as obstacles. They obscure our mind. So that creates lots of obstacles to practising the dharma, even if we want to. So there’s no benefit in anger.
There’s only disadvantages. So the second method of generating patience, goes along with the first method, the two really need to go hand in hand, is seeing all the advantages of patience and of course the advantages of patience are the opposite to the disadvantages of anger. So by being patient, one won’t destroy one’s merit, one won’t create negative actions, and therefore one won’t create as many causes to be reborn in the lower realms. Will not create as many causes to experience suffering and problems and difficult people when we’re human beings. We will be able to sleep peacefully, have a relaxed mind.
One of the advantages of being patient is one is born with an attractive appearance and one of the disadvantages of anger is one is reborn with an unpleasant appearance. One can say, as I mentioned last week, well, as a dharma practitioner, one shouldn’t be worried about one’s appearance, whether it’s good or bad, but actually one could have the pure attitude of wanting to look pleasant in order to influence people, because the way the ordinary sentient being mind works is that we pay attention more to nice looking people than we do to ugly looking people, unfortunately. That’s why no one comes to my classes. If I looked like Brad Pitt, the place would be full, but unfortunately I don’t. So anyway.
Right. Okay. So then next what I’m trying to do is follow the way Śāntideva I’m not sort of going through the traditional outlines. There are very, very complicated outlines of Śāntideva’s text of what he’s doing, so I’m going to label that aside and I’m basically just following his system of arguments. So firstly he talks about the disadvantage.
Śāntideva does seem to chop and change a little bit. He seems to go all over place sometimes, but he’s entitled to when you’re a great bodhisattva, but he has his own logic. But also what I’m trying to do is just follow the main arguments he gives in order. So the first thing he talks about are the disadvantages of anger, then the advantages of patience, and then the next thing he begins to talk about is in some cases Śāntideva spends quite a few verses going through a particular argument. In some cases, even though the point is incredibly important, he sometimes only talks about it very briefly.
So the next argument or way of developing patience, which is really, really important but he only talks about it extremely briefly, is developing patience through understanding what causes us to be angry. So I did talk about that in a way at the very beginning of this little series of talks by saying how we should it’s really important before we can develop patience, because patience enables us to be if we’ve really developed it, we can be in a situation is activating our anger, but we don’t get angry, or maybe we start to get angry, but we’re able to subdue it. But to do that, we have to have cultivated our patience quite a lot. So before that, it is skilful to avoid the factors that set off our anger. And I was pointing out the main thing that we have the potential to be angry because of our ignorance and past imprints of anger.
So it’s only when we meet the conditions do those imprints become active, and the main one, of course, is when we meet the object. People who dislike us or we dislike them and so on, or some situation. So when we meet the object, when we mix with wrong people, get distracted by wrong things, all those factors I talked about. So there’s all of those things that can set off our anger. But what Śāntideva talks about, which is really important, is in verses seven and eight, he says, Having found its fuel of mental unhappiness in the prevention of what I wish for and in the doing of what I do not want, hatred increases and then destroys me.
Therefore, I should totally eradicate the fuel of this enemy, for this enemy has no other function than that of causing me harm. So the actual fuel that sets a light our anger is mental unhappiness. Why we get angry is because we’re already unhappy, And the more unhappy we are, or put it another way, is because we’re discontented. And the more discontent we are, the more angry we will get. The more quickly we will get angry, the more strongly we will get angry, the more easily we will get angry, the more frequently we will get angry.
Every little thing will set us off because basically we are unhappy, we are discontent, and we express that by exploding. The smallest thing will upset us if we’re really already discontent in our life. Something is going on, we may not even be conscious of it. That is why the best antidote to the general antidote to our anger is practising the dharma in general, just by practising the dharma as much as we can, as genuinely and sincerely as we can, because that, we are practising, will bring some contentment in our life. If it’s not, it means we’re not practising properly.
We may be going through the motions, but if we’re not getting some basic contentment and peace and a sense of meaningfulness in our life, then we’re not really practising properly. But if we are, then we will have that and of course we will still get angry because we’ve got lots of imprints with it. We still have the habit that we will be able to manage it. And the more contentment we have, it will take more and more bigger things to make us angry, right? So really check yourself in your own life, the truth of what Śāntideva is saying.
Because the point is, you know, we have to understand for ourself that this is the truth. You know, the dharma says this, and we can say, Oh yes, yeah, that’s true, but it can be just a very glib acceptance of it, and that’s not going to do much. It’s when it really hits home that yes, that is absolutely one hundred percent true, that you’re right. So basically, why are we unhappy is because of attachment, which is what I was saying before. Underlying anger is attachment.
Because the more we follow what is attachment doing? Attachment makes us discontent. And the more we follow our afflicted desire you know, afflicted desire wants something. Why do we want it? Because we’re discontent.
Because we think, well, new thing that’s come along, this will make me happy. I’m discontent. I’m not happy. I’m frustrated, not at peace. So what desire looks for something, you know, there, this thing will make me happy.
And because of attachment to instant gratification, we are discon and we don’t have it, we’re discontent. Then because the mind is like that with discontent, then something goes along which even frustrates our situation. Because as Śāntideva says, Having found its fuel of mental unhappiness in the prevention of what I wish for. So anybody or anything which prevents me getting what I want makes me unhappy, makes me angry, especially when I’m discontent. If I’m basically content and then something comes along stopping me from getting what I want, doing what I want to do, it’s okay.
It doesn’t bother me so much. But if I’m already discontented, and then on top of that, this thing stops me, you know, It makes you really upset. I can remember when I lived in Taiwan, I got sent to Taiwan by my wonderful guru, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, to start a Dharma centre there. It’s one of the few Dharma centers in the FPMT that was started consciously unasked for. Buddha House happened just because some students came together and wanted to create it for all sentient beings, inspired by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
The center in Taiwan Rinpoche sent me to start it. No one there knew about me. Anyway, that was a very difficult period of my life that was really a very suffering period, not speaking Chinese, tried to learn it, got taxi driver this is going be a long story, sorry. I just started crying. Anyway, everything was kind of very difficult at that time, very, very difficult, And it was very frustrating to do anything because I couldn’t speak, I didn’t have any money, it was difficult to do anything to fulfil what Rinpoche wanted, and I remember one day just coming back from somewhere I’d been and I was going back to where I lived, and this story is gonna completely bore you and you won’t see any point to it, but for me it was very interesting that street was completely empty.
There was no cars, no people, and as soon as I started crossing the road, this car came along and almost hit me. That just felt like a whole symbol of me in Taiwan that, you know, whatever I tried to do, there was an obstacle. So there was I mean, Taiwan is a very, very if you ever go to Taiwan, it’s a very busy place with millions of people everywhere and cars screaming along. I was in a quiet part, but at this particular time, there was just nothing. I couldn’t see a person, a car, but as soon as I just stepped over, whang, this car came along and I felt, you know, this is my life in Taiwan.
I can’t even put my foot across the road and an obstacle comes unexpectedly. Sorry. But that was meant to illustrate when your mind is unhappy, everything seems like an obstacle and makes you more unhappy. That’s how anger works. Śāntideva says, I should totally Oh, sorry, just to go back.
So this mental unhappiness, which is the fuel for anger, arises because one is being prevented doing what one wants, or something is doing what I don’t want. I’m trying to do something that’s prevented, or something or someone is doing something I don’t want, so that also makes me unhappy. And then anger arises. So the conclusion is I should totally eradicate the fuel of this enemy. So in order to eradicate the enemy of anger, I have to eradicate what fuels us, and that is this mental unhappiness.
And the very basis of that mental unhappiness is our own attachments, our self-cherishing. So that’s what we really have to work with. So the more we work on that, our self-cherishing, our afflicted desires and attachments, and the best way to do that is through the practice of Dharma in general, especially bodhicitta, especially bodhicitta, trying to replace that self-cherishing thought with the thought to cherish others. Then the more we can do that, then we have a basis. Our life has some basic contentment, meaningfulness, and then when we meet difficult people, difficult situations, it’s not so frustrating.
So then it becomes easier to deal with our anger. So that’s something really important to check up on, to recognise that. So in the next, I’ve quoted the lines that follow that in another, trying to make another point, but following that, Śāntideva goes on to say, Whatever befalls me, I shall not let it disturb my mental joy. For having been made unhappy, I shall not accomplish what I wish and my virtues will decline. Why be unhappy about something if it can be remedied, And what is the use of being unhappy about something if it cannot be remedied?
So basically he is saying, once I’m able to have some mental joy, some basic peace through the practice of Dharma and so on, I shouldn’t let things upset me. Because once I get upset, once that mind of discontent and upsetness arises, then I won’t accomplish what I want. And also because then I won’t practise the dharma and all my virtues will decline. And to cinch that argument, he says, what’s the point of allowing oneself to get unhappy if something bad is happening but we know it can be remedied? Because it can be remedied, so why be upset?
And if it can’t be remedied, if we can’t do anything about it, what’s the point of making ourselves unhappy? Because that unhappiness isn’t going to change it. It’s just going to make it worse. There’s no point to get unhappy when things are going wrong. It’s wonderfully logical, isn’t it?
Things are going wrong. Whether we can change it or not, there’s no point being unhappy because the unhappiness makes it worse. It doesn’t make it better. So if we were smart, we wouldn’t get unhappy. We wouldn’t let ourselves become unhappy.
That’s really infuriatingly logical. So the point is that what we need I don’t know about you, but from my side, I would never think, before I met the dharma, I would never think like that. And many people who don’t have any connection with the dharma would say, That is a really stupid argument. That’s stupid. I mean, if something’s going wrong, you should be unhappy.
You’ve got to be unhappy. You can’t help being unhappy. But Śāntideva is saying, Think about it. That’s the point we never do. We don’t think about it carefully.
We just react habitually, that something’s going wrong, so we habitually get upset. Because we also have this wrong view that somehow everybody and everything in the world really should do what I want. The world exists to make me happy. People exist, you know, the self-cherishing thought. It’s very embarrassing to admit that, but when we are controlled by the self, fortunately, which we’re not controlled by it all the time.
But when we are, the view of the self-cherishing thought is people and the world exist to make me happy. That is the view of the self-cherishing thought, and when they don’t, the self-cherishing thought gets really upset. Can’t cope with that. But the world doesn’t exist for us. It’s just there.
It wasn’t put there. People and the world wasn’t put there for my benefit. So if we could understand that, then what is the point of being unhappy? So of course, just thinking that one time is not gonna change our mind very much. But if we think about, if we really allow ourselves to meditate on that point, Just that one line, that one verse, to let the power of the logic sink in.
What is the point of being unhappy when something’s going wrong? There’s no benefit. Can anyone come up with a reason why it’s good to be unhappy when something’s going wrong? So, you know, you’re saying in relation to just things that are going wrong that are making you angry or things that are going wrong, like, generally, like people are starving or or people being mistreated or Yes. Anything that makes you that makes you unhappy about it.
Yeah. Yeah. That doesn’t mean, like, in the case of, you know, all the injustice in the world and people starving and whatever, it’s not saying, therefore, you should ignore it and not care about it, but one can develop compassion for, you know, people suffering injustice and and this and that, but but you don’t have to be angry. Yeah? Because the anger isn’t helping.
So it just makes sense for you. Yes. Well, that’s what we have to be convinced of. Well, I wish you know the one with having words with someone, you know, not when you’re one on one. Mhmm.
You know, when someone gets angry and then you’re trying to justify your point of the argument and then they get angry, and that that’s understanding. It’s just Mhmm. Yeah. But one also has to think about all the dharma points of view that it’s creating these negative imprints, it’s reinforcing, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So it’s having all those disadvantages.
So what’s the point of being angry? I mean, what a lot of people say is the benefit of getting angry is it gives you energy to do something that you wouldn’t have before. One could get that energy from being compassionate, from being wise, not through anger. It’s socially acceptable to be angry. You have a right to be angry.
Yes. Yes. Yeah. You should be. Yeah.
You know, I guess it’s it’s difficult for someone who hasn’t any down the knowledge to then suppress that anger, and then that makes it even worse for people who don’t, you know, don’t realize that it’s a harmless or not. Yeah. But Shanda Davis is talking to people who have some belief in the Dharma. Right? Because he’s talking to us, he’s talking to me.
Because we can’t make other people practice patience. We have to, Big shame. We can only try and practise it ourselves. Okay. So right.
So that that is a very important that that is actually one of the the most fundamental ways to practise patience, is by understanding the causes, our mental unhappiness, and because of understanding that, working on that mental unhappiness and everything that fuels it, to try and overcome that through our practice of Dharma. Even just things like through a little bit of meditation every day where we get into the habit, develop some familiarity with calming our mind for a short period of time, focusing our mind on something which is neutral such as the breath or something virtuous such as visualizing the Buddha or reflecting on some of the topics of the Lam Rim, the graduated path. So by doing that each day, that has a cumulative effect on our mind and it is modifying, it’s slowly, step by step transforming our mind. It gives a sense of meaning to our life and all of that brings some contentment, hopefully, into our life. So then another way, another method of cultivating patience is through the practices of familiarity and courage, developing courage.
So in other words, if we allow ourselves to become familiar with dealing with difficult people, difficult situations, then through the power of familiarity, things become easier and easier. But if we constantly habitually react to the slightest difficulty with another person within ourselves or difficult situations through that habitual response, will never learn to deal with difficulties, but if we try a little bit and we gain some familiarity with some small problems, then through that familiarity, then our strength of mind can increase. Everything gets easier through the power of familiarity. This is one of the wonderful qualities of our ordinary mind, that we can learn anything through the power of familiarity. And things are difficult at first simply because we’re not familiar with them.
It’s difficult to be patient at first because we’re not difficult with it, through allowing ourselves to be familiar, then it can become easier and easier to be patient. And at the same time, by being patient with difficulties and suffering, then we develop some courage, the ability to face, to support and bear pain and suffering and difficulties. So Śāntideva says in verse eleven, For myself and for my friends, I want no suffering, no disrespect, no harsh words and nothing unpleasant, but for my enemies it is the opposite. So I think that verse just seems to hang in the air in the text, but I think what Śāntideva is implying by that is that we just naturally want ourselves and our family and friends to not have suffering and so on, but for our enemies, it’s the opposite. We don’t care if they have suffering, but through the power of familiarity, if we can have the mind wanting family and friends not to suffer, then we can develop the mind that wants even our enemies not to suffer, simply through the power of familiarity.
So he goes on to say, The causes of happiness in this world, in this life, sometimes occur, but the causes for suffering are very many. So this is the nature of our saṃsāra. We’re all in saṃsāra. We all have our own samsaras. Samsāra is our own mind controlled by delusion and karma.
So first noble truth is that saṃsāra is suffering. Ordinary existence is in its very nature suffering, which means that because we’re controlled by delusion and karma, we engage in lots of negative actions, not many virtuous ones, and that means, as Śāntideva says, the causes of happiness sometimes occur. Sometimes we create the causes of happiness, and so sometimes we get a little bit of happiness in the saṃsāra. But the causes for suffering are very many. We have many delusions and we follow them a lot, so we create the causes of suffering, so we experience a lot of suffering.
That’s our life in general. That is human life. That is samsaric life. So he goes on to say, Without suffering, there is no renunciation. Oh, okay, Sorry, just go back.
So that is the reality that in ordinary life, for most human beings most of the time, most sentient beings, that we have a little bit of happiness and quite a bit of suffering. And yet, but for the self-cherishing thought, always, you know, we want it to be and expect the very opposite, to have lots of happiness and little suffering. Even though we’re creating the causes of lots of suffering and not creating the causes of happiness. So Śāntideva goes on to say, Without suffering there is no renunciation. Therefore, mind, you should stand firm.
Right? We live in a world, in our world within our mind, where there is suffering and without that suffering, we will never develop renunciation. If we’re constantly denying that suffering, running away from it, pretending it’s not there, there will never be renunciation. Renunciation is vital, is vital to the spiritual path to achieving happiness. We have to come to this conclusion that renunciation is not giving up happiness, it’s giving up the causes of suffering.
So the more we experience suffering, the more if we are wise, it should lead us to decide, I have to stop creating the causes of it. So instead of getting angry with one’s suffering and difficulties and frustrations, we should stand firm and be patient so that we don’t create the causes of more suffering, because by getting angry with our difficulties, we create the causes of more suffering. So we need a little bit of courage there. Did that make sense? Then he goes on to say, If some ascetics and the people of Karnata endure the pain of cuts and burns for no reason I don’t know who the people of Kangapa are, but apparently they were a group probably it’s referring to some kind of ascetics who believed, because in India, among various religious groups in India, and even today, there are groups who believe that if in this life you experience lots of pain, then this will help you achieve liberation.
So there are all sorts of Yogi, Hindu Yogis who do all sorts of bizarre things to experience all sorts of suffering, believing that is purifying them of the causes of suffering and therefore they will achieve liberation as a result. So there’s a particular group who have these ceremonies where they light all these fires and sit in the middle, they light all these fires and then sit in the middle of these fires, so it gets unbelievably hot, excruciatingly hot, believing that’s going to burn away their sins. I mean, don’t set themselves on fire, but they just sit in the middle of this unbelievably great heat. I think they even sort of put some kind of fire thing, pot of fire on their head as well, just to make it extra uncomfortable. So there’s all sorts of strange beliefs like that.
So this is the type of thing that Śāntideva is referring to here. So if some ascetics and the people of Karnata endure the pain of cuts and burns for no reason, then for the sake of liberation, why have I no courage? In other words, people do all sorts of really stupid things for no real benefit. In other words, they have a lot of courage to endure a lot of pain for something that actually is not going to bring any good result. So if they can do that, why can’t I have a little bit of courage to do something really meaningful, like practice the Dharma, and such as the practice of Dharma of putting up with suffering and difficulties and difficult people instead of getting angry with them.
Yeah, but it’s just a general argument. Yeah. But he’s just saying, you know, if people can do that for something that is complete you know, it is physical pain, but it also requires some kind of mental endurance to submit to it because it’s one thing to sort of endure, if you’re forced to endure something painful, it’s quite different to volunteer to undergo something painful and stay with it, which is what these misguided people do. So Śāntideva is saying, If people can do these really misguided, painful things, they’re just going to have no benefit for themselves or others, why can’t I be willing to endure some difficulty, some pain for something that is really worthwhile? There are so many examples in our life.
If you look at all the athletes of all kinds, Olympic athletes and footballers and whatever, who spend hours and hours training, doing all sorts of yeah. And diets they follow so that they can be super fit, so they can play this game or win some medal, which has a little bit of worldly benefit. Maybe they make some money, become a little bit famous, often ruining their health in the long run as a result. And if we were to spend that time practising dharma, that amount of time and energy and dedication to the practise of dharma, But we don’t have the patience. Because you look at all these people who, you know, yeah, who become famous, and and they work.
Some of them work you know, some people become famous by accident very easily, but some people become famous because they work really, really hard at it. They put an enormous amount of effort and sacrifice many other things so that they can become famous dancers or singers or whatever or athletes or whatever. Yeah. Yes, that’s what Śāntideva says. Yes, their whole reason is ridiculous.
So that’s even more bizarre that actually, if you look at it, what they’re trying to achieve is really empty of any meaning and benefit, and yet people are willing to spend so much time and energy and sacrifice for it. And we know, as a Dharma practitioner or a Buddhist, we know, or we tell ourselves that we know how beneficial the Dharma is, how important it is for ourselves and others. You know, I’m trying to be a bodhisattva, and yet we’re not prepared to suffer very much for it. That’s what we have to think, and the thing is we don’t think like that. And Śāntideva goes on to say, There is nothing whatsoever that is not made easier through acquaintance.
This is one of my favourite quotes from Śāntideva. I’m hoping to get somewhere, so let’s savour this one. There is nothing whatsoever that is not made easier through acquaintance. So through becoming acquainted with small harms, I should learn to patiently accept greater harms. So if we can learn to put up with a little bit of difficulty, then through that familiarity, when we face another difficulty that is a little bit more difficult, then there’s a better chance that we’ll be able to bear it, and by bearing it we won’t get upset.
So step by step we can develop our patience by firstly having the courage to deal with small problems. He goes on to say: Who has not seen this to be so with trifling sufferings such as the bites of snakes such as the bites of snakes and insects, feelings of hunger and thirst, and with such minor things as rashes. So in other words, we’ve all experienced these trifling things like getting bitten by cobras and whatever, or insects having a rash, So we could deal with that. So through the you know, if we can be patient with those things, we can learn to be patient with things a little bit more difficult than a little bit more, more, more difficult. And one can see that there are people who can bear a lot of suffering.
And they sort of have somehow trained their minds to be able to bear it, to not get upset with the people who are causing difficulty with the difficulty itself. I’ve mentioned before, when I was in Italy some years ago, I met Palden Gyatso, who was this monk who’d been tortured, had been in a concentration camp in Tibet or China for many, many he was arrested when he was eighteen years old, and I think he was in concentration camp for thirty years where he was tortured. He was had these cattle prods stuck down his mouth, so his tongue split open. He lost his sense of taste. He was just an ordinary monk.
He wasn’t some high lama or anything like that, just this ordinary young monk. And he was finally got out of that camp by the Amnesty International People. And he was just an amazingly wonderful person who was really very loving, very peaceful, had no bitterness in him whatsoever, no hatred towards the Chinese who had tortured him or anything like that. Just an ordinary monk. Not really an ordinary monk, but quite extraordinary.
So there are people who can do these things. So Now I’ll just try and quickly finish these verses, so please be patient. On the same argument, Śāntideva goes on to say, I should not be impatient with heat and cold, wind and rain, sickness, bondage and beatings, for if I am, the harm they cause me will increase. So in other words, if we’re experiencing the suffering of heat, the suffering of cold, the suffering of wind and rain, the suffering of sickness, the suffering of being beaten, so all of that involves already physical pain. But then if we get upset by it, mentally upset, we add to that pain.
We have this mental upsetness, this mental pain in addition to the physical suffering. So we’re already physically suffering, so why add to it with mental suffering? And the mental suffering, of course, makes the physical suffering worse. An ordinary person would argue that we have no choice but to be upset. But the great Dharma teachers are saying that we don’t have to be upset by these things.
We are, we are now because we haven’t trained our mind, because we’ve been conditioned to immediately get upset. But the Dharma is offering us an alternative. It is possible to train the mind not to be upset by these things. There is that potential within us. All of us have that within us, just like that young monk.
He was an extraordinary person, but he wasn’t some incarnated lama who could deal with these things. And sometimes when something is so bad, it forces the mind to either you go crazy or, you know, somehow can deal with it. But before we are put in that situation, we can begin to train our mind to think in another way. As Zopa Rinpoche says, One way of sinking creates all suffering. Another way of sinking brings every kind of happiness.
So that the Dharma shows us another way of sinking. And that’s what we have to do. That’s what meditation is, cultivating another way of sinking. The virtuous, compassionate, wise way of sinking. So we have to train our mind to think that way because as soon as suffering happens, our thoughts immediately go in the other direction.
This is wrong, this is bad, shouldn’t happen to me. This is terrible, it should stop, it should stop right now. All of this stuff which just agitates the mind. And he goes on to say, Some people, some, when they see their own blood, become especially brave and steady, but some, when they see the blood of others, faint and fall unconscious. So you see, it all depends on one’s mind, how we think.
Someone else is bleeding but the person not bleeding faints. For some other people, when they’re bleeding, they don’t faint, it actually makes them courageous. It all depends on how one thinks, how one looks at things. Śāntideva is saying, we have this freedom to train, to change that way of thinking. There’s that freedom there.
We’re conditioned in one way, but we can decondition that. We have the freedom, we have the precious human rebirth where we can train our mind in another direction. It’s going to take time and effort, but we can do it. And he goes on to say, These reactions come from the mind being either steady or timid. Therefore I should disregard harms caused to me and not be affected by suffering.
Even when the wise are suffering, their minds remain very lucid and undefiled, for when war is being waged against the disturbing conceptions, much harm is caused at the time of battle. So in other words, in any battle, you have to expect some suffering, some difficulties. So the real war is the fight against the delusions, fighting against the delusions. So in the fight with the delusions, one has to expect some suffering, some difficulties. Final verse, then we’ll stop for the break.
The victorious warriors are those, which are the bodhisattvas, are those who, having disregarded all suffering, vanquished the foes of hatred and so forth. Common warriors slay only corpses. Because ordinary heroes kill people in battle, but the people in battle they kill are going to die anyway, sooner or later. It’s like just killing a corpse. So the real warriors are the bodhisattvas who destroy the delusions.
That’s the real battle. That’s what requires the real courage. So Śāntideva is saying, We can be those warriors, the wise warriors, the compassionate warriors, who can put up with some suffering in order to eventually become completely free of it. By being able to put up with suffering, we won’t create the causes of it anymore. So we have to be patient.
Thank you very much. Tea break. Okay. So the the next the next way to, or another method of helping to develop compassion, which Śāntideva unfortunately deals with in only one verse, is also a very special way and that is through seeing the benefits of having problems and enemies. So although this is a very powerful form of dealing with patience.
It is only dealt with extremely briefly. So Śāntideva says, Furthermore, suffering has good qualities. Through being disheartened with it, arrogance is dispelled, compassion arises for those in cyclic existence, evil is shunned and joy is found in virtue. Finding benefits in enemies and problems is a whole subject within a practice within Mahāyāna Buddhism called Lojong or mind training, thought transformation. And the key to that is, as Śāntideva says, rather than focusing on the faults, the harm of suffering and so on, seeing its benefits.
And again, for the worldly mind, the ordinary mind under the control of self-cherishing, we don’t see any benefits in suffering and difficulties whatsoever. But from a dharma point of view, one can see in fact there are benefits in experiencing sufferings and difficulties and having enemies. So the key thing is again, training the mind not to focus on all the negative side of suffering, which is very obvious. The negative side of suffering is very obvious and our very ordinary mind focuses on that, and of course by focusing on that, it just makes it worse. Whatever we focus on becomes very, very powerful.
We reinforce it. So the skill is, and again it’s not something easy to do, but through the power of familiarity it can become something relatively easy to do. The skill is not to deny the suffering and difficulty and whatever, but not to focus on that aspect, but to find, not pretend that there is some benefit, but to find some personal benefit in experiencing a difficulty, a particular suffering, a particular problem, or having being in contact with a difficult person, the so called enemy. So if one can find that personal benefit, then one needs to focus on that and the more we focus on that, there’s less energy focused on thinking how terrible this is, which just brings suffering and makes us angry. But by focusing on the beneficial aspect, then the suffering, the difficulty, whatever it is, becomes meaningful and therefore it’s bearable and therefore we are patient.
When we’re bearing something, we are patient. And so Śāntideva points out some of the benefits of experiencing difficulties and suffering. So he says, By experiencing suffering, disheartens us and therefore it dispels our arrogance. It gets rid of, at least temporarily, our arrogance. And that’s a good thing for a Dharma practitioner.
Because arrogance is one of the great obstacles. Pride and arrogance is a great obstacle to Dharma practice. It prevents us learning the Dharma. It prevents us increasing our understanding of the Dharma because we think we know it. People hear one teaching on the Lam Rim and that’s it.
They don’t have to hear it anymore because, oh, now I’ve heard that. I understand that. And so we never really get to the real the very deep meaning of things because we remain at a superficial level. Also, if you think about it, if you check up pride and arrogance, it’s not only an obstacle to learning the dharma and going deeper into it, but it’s a great obstacle to developing compassion because we’re under the control of pride, it sets us apart from others. And if we feel ourselves, pride makes us feel different from others, superior to others, and one cannot develop genuine compassion in that state because compassion arises from feeling empathy with others and empathy arises A a a fundamental factor in feeling empathy with another being is feeling this person is the same as me, not not inferior, that they are like me.
Whereas pride tells tells me that I am different. I am superior to others. So you can’t have compassion for them because they’re different. So compassion is due to empathy, which is due to feeling this person is like me. Their suffering, I can empathise with it because that person is like me.
Their suffering is like my suffering. So experiencing suffering and difficulties has this been for a Dharma practitioner, if we think about it in the right way, if we think in this particular way, as Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, if we think one way about something, it brings every kind of benefit. Another way of thinking brings every kind of harm. So if we only think about the bad side of suffering, it will harm us. If we think about the beneficial side, if we really believe there is a beneficial side, the suffering, rather than reducing us, can what’s the word enhance us.
We can develop as a result of it. So similarly, not only does it destroy our arrogance, enable us to be more humble, but compassion arises for those in cyclic existence because the more suffering we experience, the more we can identify the suffering with the suffering of others. So the benefits of experiencing suffering is that it eliminates the obstacle to developing compassion, is arrogance, but also it actually enhances the ability to develop compassion because if we haven’t experienced any suffering, then it’s difficult to identify with the suffering of others, but if we’ve experienced suffering, then we can identify. Also, benefit is evil is shunned. As a dharma practitioner, we will question why I suffering?
The answer is, the dharma answer is, because my mind created the cause for this suffering at some point in the past, either earlier in this life or in a past life. So therefore this suffering now has the beneficial aspect of reminding me of the law of cause and effect. It is teaching me the law of cause and effect, that if I don’t want suffering, then I shouldn’t create the cause. So this is good. This is good.
This suffering is terrific. It’s reminding me of the truth of the law of cause and effect. There are many other benefits that Śāntideva doesn’t mention, but it’s also a teaching on the nature of saṃsāra, so it’s reminding me, it’s teaching me to develop renunciation. And he also says another benefit is that it So evil is shunned and joy is found in virtue. It encourages us to practice virtuous actions because they are the cause of happiness.
I don’t want this suffering, so I should stop creating the causes of it, but also since I want happiness, the very opposite of this suffering, I need to create the causes, so this will lead me to find joy in doing virtuous things. So it’s great. It’s terrific. I should have more suffering. And of course, although Śāntideva doesn’t mention it here, but in terms of having an enemy, the really good thing, the bad thing about having an enemy is they say insulting things to you and all these kinds of things and cause problems for you.
So sure, there’s that side, but the good side of having an enemy is an enemy forces one to practise patience. We need patience, you know, because why we need this enemy now is this enemy now, the present enemy, will force me to practice patience because if I don’t practice patience, everything’s gonna go haywire and berserk. So I need to practice patience with this person, and by learning to be patient with this enemy, I’ll be able to be patient with all future enemies and future problems. And the patience I develop through this enemy will enable me to deal with my own inner problems and the difficulties of practising the Dharma and the difficulties of dealing with difficult people in the future, because there will always be difficult people in saṃsāra. So that’s great.
In the Lojong teachings it says the enemy is the best friend for a Dharma practitioner because point out one’s faults. Our friends don’t do that. So because our faults aren’t pointed out, we continue them, but the enemy shows us our faults. The enemy shows us that I’m under the control of anger, and the only way one can develop, be encouraged to practise patience, is having problems and difficulties and enemies. You can’t practise patience with a friend.
By definition, you can’t practise patience with a friend. When a friend is being a friend, when a friend is being an enemy, you can, but when a person is being a friend, you can’t practise patience because the friend goes along with what we say and do. Our friend, by definition, goes along with our self-cherishing. The enemy, by definition, goes against our self-cherishing, the very thing we don’t want. But that, from a Dharma point of view, is good.
So one can only be forced into a position to want to practice patience by having problems and enemies. So that is the good sign of having problems and enemies. Because when we don’t have enemies and problems, our self-cherishing tells us there’s no need to spend time practising patience because my life’s fine. I don’t have any enemies. I don’t have any problems.
I’m not sick. Everything’s hunky dory. And of course, our self-cherishing thought believes that is permanent, but it’s not permanent. Because soon sorry, but sooner or later in our life, in saṃsāra, things go wrong. Some negative karma ripens, Things we can’t can’t imagine happen.
You walk into a chocolate shop, and there’s a lunatic there who wants to, you know, shoot everyone. Then what you do sounds absurd, but it happens, and it’s happening more and more. People blowing themselves up. In in in in in countries, this is happening practically every day. We hardly even read bother to read about.
Can you imagine if one of those incidents happened in this country? And unfortunately, it may happen soon. There are many, many unhappy people in the world. Sorry. Where am I?
So we need to be patient in this crazy world. No. I think I where where exactly was I there? Oh, yes. Permanent.
Yes. Permanent. We think that, you know, if we don’t have any problems and whatever, this is gonna be it’s always gonna be like that, but it’s not. Within this life, things can go wrong, but also if we’re going to die, the very thing our self-cherishing doesn’t want, then we need to be really patient. And if we learn to be patient now in this life, then we are creating a really good position, situation for our future lives to have less and less problems.
Therefore, it’ll be easier and easier to practice the Dharma because there will be fewer and fewer obstacles, because our anger hasn’t created those obstacles, because we’ve learned to practice patience. So it’s so good now to have something encouraging us to do that, such as having an enemy or a problem, because we have the freedom to then go away and train our mind in patience to sit down on the cushion and do these reflections again and again. I think I’ll stop here. The the next argument that Śāntideva gives oh, no. Maybe I can yeah.
Sure. Right. Well, this goes back to what I was saying. Until we’ve got until we’ve start again. When one is in the thick of a for a person who if if we haven’t trained our mind and we find ourselves in the thick of a of a really difficult situation that would make us upset and angry.
It’s too late to practice patience and think, oh, this is very beneficial and blah blah blah. We we need you know, especially when it’s a difficult situation, we need a really powerful antidote and that takes a very long time. So in the meantime, before we have that antidote, one has to avoid the situation, yeah, if one can. But also, maybe you didn’t mean it, but just the way you worded some of that, One of the big mistakes people make is when hearing about patience is people think that Because patience is about training your mind not to get angry in a difficult situation. It’s not saying that one shouldn’t try and stop what is happening.
If something harmful is being done to oneself, practising patience doesn’t mean you let that negative thing happen to you. What it means is simply while this negative thing is happening to you, don’t make it worse by getting angry, but keep your mind calm, but you can also try and stop what is happening. And you’re more likely to be able to do something meaningful in terms of, what’s the word, successful in reducing the external harm if you do it with a calm mind rather than with an angry mind. Yeah. But of course, if you can’t, then run away.
Yeah. That’s what I was talking about in the very first talk, that when you’re with the object, the delusion arises. So if you recognise that, if one knows one can’t be patient because one hasn’t trained or the situation is just too difficult now, avoid it if one can. But ultimately, we need to practice patience because sometimes we can’t avoid the situation. Since which is my sort of accident, I experienced headache and every single day since accident.
Mhmm. I’m trying to be trying to sort of deal use Susan’s. Called you to say, look, this has happened. This is the thing we’re doing now. So basically, focused on getting through your bad days and bad times there.
But sometimes it’s just just when you have a bad day, gets worse. When a good day, it sounds good. Mhmm. Just wanna stay happy and optimistic. It’s very hard to sort of stay in that mindset all the time because sometimes you have Oh, yeah.
Patience. It’s kind of trying to remain optimistic and achieve this sort of patient with the things that I’m still seeing doctors trying to get new solutions for pain and every twenty things the last few years. All the new systems that’s all there. Just wanna say, obviously, impatient and waiting for them to get their sort of their medication and what sort of healing for me. Mhmm.
So where it’s like trying to remain patient is very, very hard to most of any a bad day or stress out or something there. Sometimes it’s not very easy to sort of remain, oh, this is all I’ll get better. I’ll be better short tomorrow or something. No. I’m not saying it is.
Here I am sitting up here saying all these things. It’s very easy for me to say them, to actually practice them. It is very difficult for sure. No, no, no, I know. No, I know.
No. Know. Because I was trying to stay trying to follow the teaching and trying to follow what the Dharma teacher has said. So I was like, the right happy and positive I’m trying to. I always try always sort think, oh, I should be dead.
I’m not. I should be watching. I’m not. So I’m really lucky to watch out there, but try some information in the bad pain. I saw painkillers today, and she seems to still tell us was there.
So she’s having problems there. So I was trying to always remain sort of trying to be optimistic and happy and positive all the Some of it gets very tolerant and drained trying to settle in. I can imagine. Mhmm. Yeah.
Yeah. But keep going. Power of familiarity. That’s what Śāntideva was saying, that if you keep going, don’t give up, it it will it will get easier. I’ll try and develop further on this, but we’re into meditation back to the bad days.
Seems to be getting there on really bad days. Read Śāntideva more on the bad days. And what? This this chapter six. Chapter six.
Okay. Read it. Yeah. Okay. I’m here as well.
Good. This is it. What’s chapter six about? Patience. I knew you.
You’re being stationed on group. I was pretending. No. I know you. See.
Chapter six, Patience. That’s what I’m reading from. Right. Okay, so I’ll stop here. There’s still many more methods to go and many more verses.
So maybe we can just do a little bit of meditation on a couple of these verses, depending on the time. So we can just begin by sitting comfortably in the correct posture as much as possible. And just do the nine round breathing exercise just for a very short time just to let the mind become a little bit more calm and focused. So then reflect on Śāntideva’s words that why anger exists is because having found its fuel of mental unhappiness in the prevention of what I wish for and in the doing of what I do not want, hatred increases and then destroys me. So just reflect how or check up on seeing how true it is that the reason I get angry, underlying that is that sense of dissatisfaction, discontent, unhappiness.
And that itself is due to afflicted desire and attachment. So one of the best ways I could deal with my own anger is to achieve some basic contentment within my mind. And that basic contentment can come from having a meaningful life, and that comes through the practice of Dharma. And the best Dharma practice is to dedicate one’s life to others. And then reflect that if I give into my anger when experiencing the enemy or difficult situations, then my anger destroys me.
It destroys my peace of mind now and future happiness. But if I don’t give in to my anger, then there’s many good things I can learn from experiencing suffering. I can grow as a result in humility, in in compassion. I can become more patient. So what’s the point of getting angry?
So we can bring the meditation to a conclusion by making a strong determination to be more and more mindful in daily life of the arising of our own anger and not to give into it, but to try and apply whatever antidote one feels is most beneficial at the time, remembering all the harm of the anger, the advantages of being patient, the benefits of enduring difficulties, And also reminding oneself that this anger is just really it’s aimed at something outside myself, but really it’s due to my underlying dissatisfaction. So I need to deal with that. So then we can dedicate the merit of this time. So the our prayer book on page nine. Through the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state.
May the precious boat in mind, not yet born, arise and grow. May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. Page eleven. The object of refuge of myself and of all transmigratory beings in all our life times 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 is a dark land. But now that I have met with the Dharma, I have received perfect human body, enabling me to lead a meaningful life. Our refuge and savior, the Supreme One, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan people have been so kind to us. Remembering this, we make the following dedicating prayers: May all His Holiness, the Dalai Lama’s wishes be successful immediately. May the snow land of Tibet achieve pure freedom and develop the Buddhadharma even more than before in Tibet.
All mother transmigratory beings achieve enlightenment quickly. Page thirteen. 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 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,