Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 90-minute teaching, Venerable Thubten Dondrub offers a detailed exposition of patience based on Śāntideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, focusing on how to undermine anger rather than suppress it. He begins by identifying three main objects requiring patience: harm from other sentient beings, personal difficulties and illness, and obstacles in spiritual practice. Dondrub then walks through multiple methods for cultivating patience, starting with understanding anger’s destructive consequences and the advantages of patience itself. The core teaching centres on dependent arising: everything, including others’ harmful actions and our own anger, arises from causes and conditions beyond anyone’s inherent control. He uses concrete examples—sickness, fire burning, momentary anger—to show why blaming enemies is illogical, and emphasizes that patience means protecting one’s own mind from being harmed by anger, not passivity. The teaching concludes with Śāntideva’s powerful argument that we should blame our own past harmful actions, not the person wielding the stick. Pitched at practitioners familiar with Buddhist philosophy and ready to engage close textual analysis.
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File: Patience 4 2015 04 02.mp3
UUID: 3dbe5774-f398-4abb-bb39-a80fa1bad80a
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Patience (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2015-04-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 90.7 minutes
Words: ~8,906
I prostrate to the gathering of dakinis and the three kayas who abide in the holy yoga of fusing space. By your powers of clairvoyance and magical emanation. Look after practitioners like a mother, her child. Akar Samaya Radzha Sadhara Samara Yipa. By the teachings of the three supreme jewels possessing truth, may inner and outer be transformed, may they be dispelled, may they be pacified, may they be completely pacified, may all negative forces opposed to dharma be completely pacified, may the host of eighty thousand obstacles be pacified, may we be separated from problems and harmful conditions to Dharma, May all enjoyments be in accord with the Dharma and may there be auspiciousness and perfect happiness here right now.
So then we go to page eight, visualizing Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as our source of refuge and thinking of the Buddha as the embodiment of the Three Jewels of refuge and the source of all our perfect teachers of the past, present and future, then we offer a mandala of the whole universe as a way to request the teachings so that we can eliminate by making these offerings. It helps to eliminate obstacles that prevent us understanding and practising the teachings and it also, by making the offering, it helps us accumulate the merit that actually makes it easier to understand and practise the teachings. So there is a traditional way to visualise the mandala of the universe but if you don’t know that, it’s just okay to visualise everything that you can, all the most beautiful things and think of many of them and offering these to the Buddha with a sincere thought of wanting to offer these things, thinking how wonderful if I could actually offer all of these things, give them up, let go of all attachment to them. So then as we continue to think of the Buddha in front of us, particularly now we can think of all sentient beings surrounding us and for the purpose of making ourselves more and more aware how we are connected to all sentient beings, how we depend on them in every way, directly and indirectly.
Especially we depend on the kindness of a mother and we’ve received that from every sentient being in beginning with Samsāra many, many times. And all these kind beings are suffering in Samsāra helplessly, completely lost in their confusion, trying to experience happiness and freedom from suffering. In reality much of the time they are just creating the cause of more suffering, more saṃsāra. So we can generate that thought that no matter what, I must use this in all my future lives to achieve enlightenment so that I’m in a position to perfectly repay the kindness of Mother Sentient beings by helping them to overcome all causes of suffering, helping them to establish the causes that lead to peerless everlasting happiness. So to achieve enlightenment, that involves following the path to enlightenment and that involves avoiding all kinds of negative actions and having to face many kinds of difficulties, not only with sentient beings but one’s own inner difficulties, problems, sufferings, physical and mental and also the difficulties of practicing the Dharma itself.
To face all these difficulties, to maintain a virtuous, peaceful mind, I need to practice patience. So for this reason, for the sake of all beings, I will study this subject. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly by the merits I create through teaching the Dharma. May I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings? So then one can imagine that the Buddha is very pleased with one’s motivation and shows this by now coming towards the crown of one’s head and then when directly above our crown we imagine the Buddha turns to face the same direction as our self and then dissolves into blissful golden light so that that light can then pour down into us, blessing our mind.
So then we can enhance that positive state of mind by just briefly doing some breathing exercises such as the nine round breathing exercise, just to let the mind become that much more calmer, clearer, more focused. So we can use that mind to listen to and think about the Buddhist teachings tonight. Okay. Thank you. So just very briefly, just to recap what I’ve been talking about so far.
There are three main kinds of objects of patience that we need to train in. So we need to develop patience so that we Sorry, firstly, patience is the antidote to anger. So there are three and anger is the most destructive of our disturbing thoughts. So to overcome that anger, we need to practice patience. And there three main areas or objects that lead us to get angry and upset and the most obvious one is our sentient beings, other sentient beings, their behaviors and so on.
What also causes us to get upset and angry and annoyed and bitter and resentful and all those things that are associated with anger is our own inner problems, physical sicknesses and difficulties in our life and so on. And thirdly is the difficulties of practicing the Dharma itself. So this can cause all sorts of problems and if we’re not careful, we can get really upset by that because we’re not, you know, we’re expecting everything to go well and expecting it to be easy and so on, but then we find various practices are difficult so that can upset the mind and so that’s really important that that doesn’t happen. So we need patience with this as well. So there are many ways of cultivating patience.
So the ones I’ve talked about so far are, and these are all general ways of cultivating patience, is firstly one can develop patience by understanding the disadvantages of anger. So this is the most basic one because if one doesn’t really understand the disadvantages of anger, one won’t be motivated to apply all the different other ways of cultivating patience. One won’t see the need or much need for it, but the more one understands how disastrous getting angry is for oneself and others now and in the future, then one will want to cultivate patience and one will see the need to and just understanding the disadvantages itself, bringing those to mind when the tendency to get angry occurs, then that itself enables us to be patient. Because as I said before, just to remind you, that the practice of patience doesn’t involve hiding our anger, repressing it, suppressing it. It involves undermining it so that it doesn’t arise.
Once it’s arisen, we think in a different way that stops the different ways of thinking and perceiving that act as the basis on which anger arises. So we don’t suppress or repress our anger, we have to undermine what is causing it to arise and that process leads to patience. So one way of undermining what gives rise to anger is thinking of the disadvantages, because anger arises partly because we believe it’s the appropriate good response to the situation. So we have to counteract that habitual thinking that thinks I should be angry. Associated with that, another method of helping to generate patience is understanding the advantages of patience.
And another method is understanding the causes of why we get angry. So there are very specific causes in specific situations, but what we were looking at last week was particularly that there is this very general underlying cause of getting angry, is this basic discontent in our mind, this basic unhappiness in our mind. So the more discontent and unhappy we are in our life or at any particular time, that is a condition that when something else happens, that will set off our anger. We meet someone or something goes wrong, so if we’re already unhappy and discontented and frustrated in our life, that can make us really angry. But if in general our life is going okay and we are feeling good about ourselves and our situation, we feel that what we’re trying to do in our life is meaningful and worthwhile and I’m trying to do it okay, then when something happens, it may be annoying, but great anger or whatever is less likely to arise.
Or if it does, it’s more easy to manage it and pacify it. So then another way of cultivating patience is through, just simply through familiarity, starting with small things and then building up step by step and just also understanding that this is how I can practise patience. That by trying it with small situations, I can develop the strength of mind through familiarity to deal with more and more difficult things. And this is also connected with cultivating courage and confidence in oneself. And then another method is a very special unique method, which unfortunately in this chapter, Śāntideva doesn’t talk about in any detail but in the Mahāyāna teachings there is a whole field of study and practice about this which is called Tibetan Lojong or thought transformation, where one trains to see benefits of having problems and difficulties and suffering and enemies.
Because when we see when we only focus on how enemies or difficult people and problems and suffering are one hundred percent destructive to me, then if we think that way, then that will really upset the mind and we can’t bear that situation, and so that leads to anger. But if we can start to train the mind to see the possibility that even this very difficult situation has some positive aspect to it, then by focusing on that as much as possible, it means, of course, we don’t focus on the very negative aspects. We don’t deny those, but we we gain some some heart by seeing there’s a good aspect, especially from a spiritual point of view. So this is a very powerful way to actually develop patience, seeing the benefits of enemies and so on, and difficulties. That it helps us develop compassion, humility.
It reminds us of the truth of the law of cause and effect. It shows us that we need to avoid negative actions. It’s encouraging us to develop renunciation and so on. So from a dharma point of view, in fact, there are many benefits of having difficulties and having enemies. The enemy is the best friend.
For a true dharma practitioner, the enemy is the best friend, because you can’t cultivate patience with friends, only with enemies. When life is going well, you can’t cultivate, you can’t develop patience. It’s only when life goes wrong that one can practise patience. Or not practise it, but realise one needs to practise patience and one is forced to then do so. So that is the good aspect of difficulties.
So that’s where we finished last week, believe it or not. So another way of cultivating patience, which is what Śāntideva in his text, The Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, talks about next, is basically by understanding dependent arising. How everything arises dependently, particularly in this situation, everything arises depending on conditions, causes and conditions. So the more we can understand that, as Śāntideva goes on to explain, the more we can practice patience. We will not get upset so much.
So for those who are interested, this section about practising patience this way starts with verse twenty two in chapter six, the chapter on patience. So he says in verse twenty two: As I do not become angry with great sources of suffering such as jaundice, then why be angry with animate creatures? In other words, sentient beings. They too are provoked by conditions. So although we can get someone who’s really out of control can get angry by having a sickness, Generally, we don’t tend to get angry when we get sick.
We may be upset by it, we don’t want it, we may be suffering, but it doesn’t necessarily make us angry because we understand it has a cause. So if that’s the case, why should we get angry with sentient beings? Because they also, the things they do that upset us, there are reasons for it. There are causes. There are conditions.
Because if you check so many times when we get upset with other people, we don’t acknowledge that they may, at least from their side, have a valid reason for doing and saying and behaving the way they do. We just assume they’re just being terrible. They’re just being inherently horrible. They’re just bad. They’re just annoying.
They’re just nasty people. I mean, reasons they may have for behaving the way they are may not be very good reasons, they may not be valid reasons, but from their side they are. They believe them to be. So he goes on to say, Although they are not wished for, these sicknesses arise, And likewise, although they are not wished for, these disturbing conceptions forcibly arise. So just as for ourselves, a sickness we don’t want to be sick, but sometimes it happens.
And in the case of the so called enemy, they don’t want to have these disturbing thoughts arise in their mind, but they do. Because this person who’s upsetting me is doing so because they have all these disturbing thoughts operating in their mind, controlling them, and so they do and say all these unpleasant things that upset me, make me, as we say, angry. But those disturbing thoughts that are operating in their minds, they didn’t ask for them to be operating in their minds, just like we don’t ask for sickness to arise within us. It just happens. We have no control over it at the moment due to, you know, karma.
We you know, our body gets sick. Our mind you know, disturbing thoughts arise in our mind. So why get angry with other people yeah, when they’re behaving like that? Because they have no control. Just like we have no control over our sickness arising within us.
Do you get it? And he goes on to say, Without thinking I shall be angry, people become angry with no resistance. It just happens. Not consciously, it doesn’t just happen, but it happens not because the person decides to be angry. Just like the enemy doesn’t decide to be angry, we also don’t decide to be angry either.
It just happens, but it just happens because of causes and conditions. And without thinking, I shall produce myself, likewise anger itself is produced. So the disturbing thought of anger doesn’t consciously think, I’m going to arise. I’m asleep now, I’m dormant, but now I’m going to become active. Anger itself doesn’t think like that, it can’t.
Anger is something that arises depending on many, many factors. That’s what we have to understand. All mistakes that are and all the various kinds of evil arise through the force of conditions. They do not govern themselves. So when people are acting in what we’d say evil ways, saying evil things, doing evil things, this is not something that is arising in dependence upon its side, it arises through the force of conditions.
This is what we have to understand. So if we can really be aware of that, then we won’t be so upset. This person is acting like this because that person has no control over their situation, just like we don’t, really. As a Dharma practitioner, maybe we’re trying to, but it takes a very long time to have complete control over all the situations because it’s all due to karma, karmic imprints that we created in the path. So when the conditions come about, then karma ripens and that’s it.
If it’s good karma, good conditions, something happens, really good happens, but we have no control over it. It just happens, and that’s fine. But, you know, if the negative conditions are there and the negative imprint is in our mind, then something terrible happens. Some unwanted suffering happens, and we just have to endure it. That’s it, pretty much.
Know, his Holiness has said on a number of occasions, you know, that the Tibetan people have incredible faith in him and so they write to him and ask His Holiness to pray for them and all these things. He says, But I can’t do anything. Once a person’s karma ripens, that’s it, basically. I mean, it’s not actually completely that, you know, prayers can help, but once a ripens, it’s very difficult to change it. Before a karma ripens, all sorts of things can happen.
You can purify it, but once it’s, you know, underway So there are people in this life who have, you know because of past actions, they’re experiencing the karmic result now and so they have suffering lives and so they behave negatively as very difficult for them to change. So why be angry if one understands that? If one really understands that that person is really under the control of all these different karmic forces, just like we are. Because of course, by thinking along those lines, one, instead of developing hate or aversion to that person, one can begin to have some compassion for that person. And of course, that is the real nature of patience.
It has this quality of compassion. We don’t want to cause suffering to ourselves, so we practice patience. We don’t want to cause suffering to others, so we practice patience. And the mind not wanting to cause suffering is compassion. So that is the, you know, the very nature of patience, is to be compassionate.
So he goes on to say that all these conditions that bring difficult things and problems for people and whatever leads them to behave in negative ways, these conditions that assemble together have no intention to produce anything and neither does their product have the intention to be produced. It just arises because the conditions are there. There’s no conscious motivation involved. It’s just when the condition’s there, something will arise. When you get all the conditions coming together, kaboom, it happens.
No one’s manipulating the situation. No one’s controlling. There’s no higher force or the person themselves isn’t controlling it. It’s just the law of cause and effect basically operating throughout the universe. So then in the next couple of verses, verses twenty seven to thirty, Śāntideva, I’m not gonna explain these directly, but they’re all about the wrong view of self, different religious views or philosophical views that existed in India at that time.
So Śāntideva refutes those, but they’re all related to this wrong view of self, of seeing the self as permanent. So basically in these verses, what Śāntideva is arguing is that he’s saying for you people who have this wrong view that the self truly exists, is permanent, it doesn’t depend on anything. If such a self existed, which you believe exists, you have this religious or philosophical belief that the self exists this way, if you have that belief, then there’s no reason to be angry because such a self could never be harmed because it’s permanent and it doesn’t depend on anything. So he’s saying it’s illogical to get angry if you think the self is a permanent thing because it couldn’t be harmed and therefore there’s no reason to get angry. Cause the reason we get angry is because we think I am being harmed.
I’m going to be this person or situation is going to harm me harm me or mine. Yeah. But if me is permanent, it can’t be harmed. So it’s ridiculous to get angry. Right?
Yes. No. But wouldn’t words like if some if I thought I was permanent Mhmm. Which we I get the body bit I get the body bit like you couldn’t do any harm to my body. Mhmm.
But what about to my mind with words? Well, actually, he talks about that later on, but it’s even more the case. How can words harm your mind? Your mind is something formless. Are we are we talking now about if I think I’m permanent?
Yes. No. Sorry. What’s your point? You were saying that Śāntideva is disputing the Indian view of A permanent.
That I’m permanent. Right. I understand to the point I I understand the point that if you do harm to my my body, it’s permanent. It’s gonna no. You can’t do harm to my body because it’s permanent.
Mhmm. But with words, you could still harm my ego. How If it’s permanent. Wouldn’t your ego still get upset though, even if it’s permanent or not permanent? No.
If it was really permanent, it would never change. It wouldn’t it couldn’t change from being okay to being upset. Okay. So it’s just a like a a static thing almost. Yeah.
Permanent is what permanent means. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I just wanna be able to understand.
No. No. No. That’s true. You’re you’re right.
Very good. No. But this is Śāntideva is arguing about people who have a wrong view that they believe that the person, the self is permanent. Yeah? So and and he’s saying, well, if you really believe that, that that is really true, then that is a reason not to get angry because this this permanent person couldn’t be harmed.
Because something that is permanent doesn’t depend on anything. So it couldn’t be harmed depending on an enemy doing something to it is what he’s saying. You know, you have to understand the arguments for them to work. You see, if if a if a car was permanent, if you bought a brand new shiny, clean car and it was a permanently new shiny, clean car, such a permanent car could never get dirty. It’d be impossible to get dirty because there wouldn’t be a permanent shiny new clean car then.
It’d be a dirty car. A dirty car isn’t a shiny new car, shiny clean car. So a permanent shiny new clean car is permanently shiny and clean. So one drop of dust could never touch it because then it would be a different kind of car. And a permanent thing is something that doesn’t depend on causes and conditions, but nothing can exist that way in reality.
So if there was a permanent self, this permanent self would either be permanently happy or permanently unhappy. And in talking about getting angry, that implies you’re not angry and something is making you angry, but if you’re not angry and you’re a permanent person, you could never become angry. That’s more civil than quite simple. Good. Yeah.
I think if you change the word permanent to unchanging, then maybe that well, to me, that makes Not such a nice word, though. Well, no. You have to tell all the Buddhist translators around the world. But it’s easy to understand when you say it’s unchanging. But this is one of the things, you know, when when in studying Buddhism, one has to remember that what translators have to use in our language are words that have, well, certain English words are being given a specific meaning in a Buddhist context.
But permanent really means, in a Buddhist context, static, unchanging, and impermanent is not static and and therefore changing. That’s what we have to remember. It’d be rather droll, I reckon. Droll? Yeah.
If you were permanent if you had a permanent mind. Doesn’t matter. So you couldn’t change your mind? Yes. You couldn’t.
Yeah. Very droll. Very boring. Boring? But you have to remember though, deep down we do believe we are permanent.
That is the problem. We do believe that. It’s not just Indian religions believe that. See, there’s intellectual beliefs, there’s philosophical systems that argue things are permanent. That’s one thing.
But then actually, down, the wrong view of ignorance that we all have is that there is a truly existing self, and that truly existing self is also permanent. It doesn’t change. It’s really there from its own side, not depending on anything. It doesn’t depend on the body, it doesn’t depend on the mind. It’s just really there.
This is why actually Lama Zopa Rinpoche says that the best way to practice patience is to understand emptiness. How things, although they do exist, they exist conventionally, they exist arising dependently, they are actually empty of inherent existence. Which is basically what Śāntideva is saying here, when you understand things arise depending on causes and conditions, that they arise dependently. When one understands that, one can understand that there’s not a truly existing enemy. The person appears as the enemy arising depending on many, many factors, many causes and conditions.
One very important one is a vital one is one’s mind, one’s own mind labeling a person enemy. Until you label something, in other words, not label in the sense of until our mind conceives of something in a particular way, we cannot experience it in a particular way. And if we could slow down our mind, figuratively speaking, slow down our mind, which we can actually, if we learn to meditate properly and clear our mind and purify our mind, come to Easter retreat and learn how to develop or learn how to have a little teeny experience of it. Anyways, too late to enroll now. Next year.
What am I trying to say? You know, There is a person in front of you who is saying something you don’t like and there’s just this person and they go on and on about it and this causes more and more, you know, because of it, some more and more agitation arises in the mind. And at some point, there is a point where this person who appeared to us as just a person, maybe just a stranger, maybe even a friend, was appearing as a stranger or friend, but because of what they say or do, at some point the mind sort of labels that person the enemy. And then they appear back as a truly existing, inherently existing, real enemy. And that’s when we get really angry.
Because what that also means when we see this person as a real enemy, as an inherently existing enemy, is that they are like that for no reason. They are inherently like that. They are an enemy not because of causes and conditions, but they are just simply that is what they are and it’s permanently what they are. And we believe that, but that is all completely a projection of our mind. But as we know, we’ve become convinced of it.
And that agitates our mind. It’s our own conception that agitates our mind, but we believe it’s that person who’s doing it. We blame them for what our mind is doing. You know, we say, Look what you made me do. He made me, she made me angry, but they don’t.
It feels like it, we would like to believe it, but in reality what makes us angry is our way of thinking about the person. And we don’t actually have to think that way, that is the point. Most people would argue, oh, there’s no choice but to think in a particular way about that person because if a person does that, you have to think that way and therefore that will make you angry. But the Buddha is telling us we don’t. It may be extremely difficult to change that way of thinking, but we can, especially with the help of Śāntideva.
This is not Śāntideva, his book. I’ll just put another advertisement here. Join our pilgrimage and you can go to the monastery where he see the monastery where he lived in India, Nālānda monastery. One time I went, the the tour guide actually showed us his room, which, of course, is just a complete joke. No one would know where he actually lived.
Anyway. Okay, moving along. Then Śāntideva goes on to say, Hence everything is governed by other factors, which in turn are governed by others. So a particular thing, situation is governed by many, many factors and each of these factors is governed by many, many factors. And each one of those is governed by many, many factors going back and back and back and back.
And in this way, nothing governs itself. Having understood this, I should not become angry with phenomena that are like apparitions. Because that’s what phenomena are. They are like apparitions, like a rainbow. Everything is arising like a rainbow depending on many, many factors.
It’s not there in dependence upon its own side. It’s just a momentary product of many, many things and as we’re experiencing it, it’s changing because what it depends on, all the factors it depends on are changing. So if we really understood that, we wouldn’t get angry because Śāntideva understood it. So that verse, I think, is a really, really powerful, important one to try and remember. Not just in terms of practising patience with enemies and difficult situations, but just about everything.
That everything is governed by other factors. What what number is that verse? That’s verse thirty one in chapter six. Remember, chapter six is the patience chapter. So then in the next next chapter, Śāntideva puts an argument.
He pretends he’s sort of like someone who’s oppose you know, Śāntideva just said, everything is like an apparition. Everything arises depending on causes and conditions. Everything is empty, doesn’t truly inherently exist, so there’s no reason to be angry. So then he puts the opposing view that someone who doesn’t believe that or is trying to, you know, make an argument for for being angry. So he says so this argument is, if everything is unreal, like an apparition, then who is there to restrain what anger?
Surely in this in this case, restraint would be inappropriate. In other words, the opponent is saying, well, if you say everything is just like an apparition, then it’s not necessary to restrain oneself. It’s not necessary to be patient because if you get angry with the apparition, it really doesn’t matter because it’s just an apparition, so you might as well get angry. And the anger is an apparition, so it doesn’t matter. So what’s the problem with you, Buddhists, carrying on?
Yeah. Without yeah. So and Śāntideva counteracts that by saying, it would not be inappropriate to restrain one’s anger because conventionally, I must maintain that in dependence upon restraining anger, the stream of suffering is severed. In other words, one of the things that is emphasised a great deal in the Buddhist tradition, which is very much misunderstood, is that in the teachings about emptiness that things don’t inherently exist or don’t truly exist, this doesn’t mean that they don’t exist at all. It just means that they don’t exist the way they appear to our obscured mind at the moment.
Things do exist, they conventionally exist, they exist arising dependently, depending on causes and conditions, parts, and they exist depending on our mind. Things exist like a rainbow, like an illusion. But they do exist. So anger does exist, it doesn’t inherently exist. If it inherently existed, we could never do anything about it.
We could never reduce it or overcome it and it has effects. The effects exist. They don’t inherently exist, but our anger has effects. It brings suffering. And if we engage in anger, we pollute our mind, we generate negative imprints that only bring suffering.
These things are existing, so if we don’t want suffering, we have to avoid the causes. And one way to create the causes of suffering is to follow the mind of anger. So Śāntideva is saying, you know, don’t be such a smarty pants, you know. Things do they don’t inherently exist, they don’t solidly exist from their own side independently, you know, out there just, you know, but they do exist. They do exist.
So we do have to practice patience. So conclusion is, when seeing an enemy or even a friend committing an improper action by thinking that such things arise from conditions, I shall remain in a happy frame of mind, or at least, you know, with a peaceful state of mind. That also doesn’t mean you just let people do negative things, you know, happily let negative people do negative destructive things to oneself or others. One one can, you know, try to stop these things happening, but one tries to stop them with a mind that is, you know, peaceful and virtuous, not angry. Because that anger is harming us.
It’s not benefiting us or benefiting the situation. It’s only harming me now, and it’s going to harm me in the future. Any questions? Okay. We’ll have a non inherently existing tea break.
Okay. Hello? Sorry. Right. So these were some ways of Some general ways of cultivating patience.
So now a more specific Sorry? I’m just having trouble with my So then there are some more specific ways to practice patience. So here, now particularly, Śāntideva focuses on how we can cultivate patience with the enemy, especially through compassionate thinking. Particularly the method is, well, put it this way, one of the factors that is acting for anger to arise in our mind, to dominate our mind, is that when we have to deal with a negative person, what happens or someone who is going contrary to what we want, when that happens, what we are habituated to do is to focus, we focus on what is happening to me. I don’t want this, this person is against me, this is causing problems to me, I am suffering because what this person is saying or doing or whatever.
And so by focusing, and we just kind of instinctively do that, it seems of course that’s what we would do, but by doing that, by focusing on what is happening to me, that focusing on the pain or the unpleasantness, that becomes more and more unbearable so that anger arises more and more. And as we do that, as we’re focusing on me and what is happening to me, we don’t focus on the person, the so called enemy. So in practicing patience, what we have to try to do is move the focus away from me, me, me to the enemy. What is happening to them and why they are saying and doing what they are doing. So Śāntideva begins this by saying, If things were brought into being by choice, and so he’s been talking about that earlier on, if things were brought into being by choice, then since no one wishes to suffer, suffering would not occur to any embodied being.
But of course it does happen, suffering does occur, but this is not by choice. So through not being careful of virtue, people even harm themselves with thorns and other things. Anyway, so one way to help begin to develop patience is to understand what Śāntideva goes on to say is that actually sentient beings, being controlled by their delusions, do all sorts of terrible things to themselves. They harm themselves in so many ways, cause so much suffering to themselves, Trying to be happy, trying to avoid suffering, people do all sorts of ridiculous things in their lives. So if they cause suffering to themselves, for sure, they’re gonna cause suffering to others.
So why be angry? Isn’t that a great argument? That’s correct. That makes sense. But it does.
Excuse me. The whole lot does. All of Śāntideva makes sense if you really Maybe you should get a better explanation from another teacher, but if you really check it, he makes an awful lot of sense. But this is it, you know? And of course this always applies to us.
We cause suffering to ourselves, so for sure we’re going to cause suffering to others. Here we’re working with developing patience for others and other sentient beings, because they are ignorant, have self-cherishing, have disturbing thoughts, they harm themselves. For sure they’re going to harm other people, so that sooner or later they’re going to harm me. So why be surprised? Why be upset?
It’s bound to happen. It’s all very it’s just very rational, very logical, but this is what we have to apply, that logic to destroy this other way we think. So to illustrate that, what he says is, through not being careful, people even harm themselves with thorns and other things, and for the sake of obtaining women men and vice versa, and the like, they become obsessed and deprive themselves of food. And there are some who injure themselves through the unmeritorious deeds of hanging themselves, leaping from cliffs, eating poison and unhealthy food. So if, when under the influence of disturbing conceptions, people will even kill their treasured self, how can they be expected not to cause harm to the bodies of other living beings such as myself?
Yeah? I just mentioned something recently on that point. That pilot that Yes. Threw that plane into the ground in the French Alps and killed all one hundred and fifty people, including himself. Yeah.
That’s a pretty powerful Yes. To drive him to do that. Surely, he knew there was people on board. Of course, he did. Yeah.
See, that’s hard to grasp, isn’t it? Yes. But that’s going into another territory here if we maybe we could leave that for the time. I’m sorry? Alright.
Well we could argue that. Came to me then? Śāntideva. Sorry. Well, I mean, that does, in a sense, does illustrate if someone’s prepared to kill themselves, then they’re prepared to kill other people as well.
You know, if circumstances get extreme. But yeah, I think there is no way to really understand that way of thinking. People’s behaviour, how that but other than I don’t know, maybe this is a superficial thing to say, but I think it it must have to do with also past imprints. It’s not just something in this life to think like that. You must have some strong imprints of of from past lives that where you can quite happily kill many other people in order to make one’s own death significant.
Anyway Those other people deserve it. Right? Sorry? When were those other people on board deserves that to have that result? Well, you can’t say they deserve it.
No one deserves anything. But from a Buddhist point of view, I mean, for that to happen for the people on that plane to experience that, they they had to create the cause at some point in some way, somehow. What came to my mind? I mean, when did when did Shanti back then? In the eighth century.
Yeah. And here we are in the twenty first century, and we’re still not happy, and we’re doing more things. More people suicide and Yeah. Feeling quite we haven’t learned anything, actually. No.
Because we saying all that. People haven’t been reading his book. That’s true. Right. It’s true.
People don’t I mean, and, like, in our in our culture, we have psychologists and psychologists who tell people you should be angry. Yeah. Yeah. Because anger is supposed to be cleansing. Yes.
Yes. Oh, yeah. There’s all these arguments that if you don’t express it, you know, you’ll go crazy. You’ll repress it. But, Buddhism is arguing you don’t have to repress or you shouldn’t repress it.
I mean, the psychologists say that. That’s true. You shouldn’t repress it. But there is an alternative to expressing it, which is pacifying it. Yeah.
Well, not just not acting it out, but undermining the factors that cause it to arise. Because like I was just saying before, suppressing, you have all those factors that make you angry and then there is repression and suppression, which doesn’t get rid of those factors, so the anger’s there, so it’s harming you. Whereas patience is undermining those factors. And when they’re undermined, there’s nothing, because anger doesn’t inherently truly exist from its own side, it can’t exist. It hasn’t been suppressed.
It’s been eliminated, at least temporarily. So that’s what we’re trying to do. So of course that is much harder thing than suppressing or expressing, but it’s it’s much more beneficial for everyone. It’s there on the surface all the time. I said that anger is under the surface all the time.
It can arise just like that. Well, lots some people a good twenty years ago, I think I wasn’t an angry person. That’s because I didn’t rave and rant and yell and all the rest of it. And I had a situation once at work on the phone hearing something, and that anger was arising within me and him. I didn’t actually think out because I was supposed to to to record a message.
And that’s when I thought that is anger because it was hitting the solar plexus Mhmm. The seat Mhmm. Of the anger. Mhmm. Yeah.
So most people think, oh, I don’t weak and mild, and I don’t get angry and all the rest of it. But for for me Mhmm. I learned that that was anger. Sure. Well, that’s what I what I was trying to say is it arises when the condition the object well, the object is there.
One of the causes is, or one of the conditions is when the object is there, such as some irritating machine going on and on. What was being said. Yes, what was being said, That was out of my control. Yes, yes. That’s the object.
Change the Yes. That changed the rules of the house. Is it like how the hot coal in the palm of your hand? Yeah. Shanti, should we go on?
So Śāntideva says, Even if I cannot develop compassion for all such people who through the arrival of disturbing conceptions set out to try and kill me and so forth. The last thing I should do is to become angry with them. So this is again something that this wholeness says in a different sort of context, but if we can’t help people, at least we shouldn’t harm them. Then Śāntideva gives some very interesting little examples, logics for why not to be angry with sentient beings. He says, Even if it were the nature of the childish to cause harm to other beings, it would still be incorrect to be angry with him, for this would be like begrudging fire for having the nature to burn.
So for example, if we think this person is just a naturally angry person, that’s their nature, or we believe all sentient beings are just naturally angry, then that is their nature to be angry, then why I be angry with them because I acknowledge that that is their nature? It’s like saying, We know that the nature of fire is to burn. So when it burns, we don’t get angry because we know that’s the nature of fire. You expect that. So if one believes that that particular individual or all human beings are by nature angry, why be angry with them?
Because it’s their nature. Why get upset with fire for burning? That’s what it does. It’s not a surprise. Right?
If someone is naturally angry and they suddenly get angry with you, why be surprised? Why be angry? Because we we believe that’s their nature. Did you come to the first class? If you can’t practise patience, you avoid the conditions, remember?
And then the opposite argument is that if we believe that this person is normally a nice person but then suddenly in this situation they’re being really unpleasant, or we think human beings in general are basically good people, but just occasionally they go berserk, then again it is illogical to be angry with them because we acknowledge this anger is just a momentary aberration that basically they’re good. Yeah? Why be upset if this person is just just temporarily out of control? Because it’s not their real nature. Their real nature is to be nice, kind people.
But just at the moment, they’re not. You know, it’s just a a temporary aberration. So is it best to avoid them? No. That’s another thing.
Yeah. Yeah. They yes. But yeah. Sure.
But it’s don’t don’t get angry. And so he says, you know, if even if the fault were temporary and in they who are by nature reliable, it would still be incorrect to be angry, for this would be like begrudging space for allowing smoke to arise in it. The smoke’s not there for very long. It’s just, you know, space cannot allow anything to occur in it. So just momentarily, there’s some smoke.
How can you be upset with the space allowing the smoke to be there? That’s what space does, and the smoke’s there only for a short time. So why be upset with this person who’s usually nice, but just momentarily, they’ve lost it? So we have to meditate on these points. They’re very simple points, simple arguments, simple but powerful and correct.
So we have to familiarise with them. That’s what meditation is, remember, gom. We have to gom. We have to make that familiar in our mind because we have we are so familiar with arguments in our mind contrary to that. And they’re the ones that make us angry and make us miserable.
So then verse forty one, I’ve quoted this many many times before, but when I first read this, it’s very simple. You’ve all heard I’ve I’ve given this so many times before, but this really blows my mind, this example, where Śāntideva says, if I become angry with the yielder, although I am actually harmed by his stick, then since he too is secondary, being in turn incited by hatred, I should really be angry with his hatred. In other words, if someone hits you with on the head with a stick or, you know, hits you with a stick, it’s actually the stick that is is actually the direct cause of the pain. Right? But we don’t get angry with a stick because we know that it’s not the stick that has the intention to hurt, even though it’s what is causing the hurt.
It’s the person holding the stick who has the intention to harm, is the reason I’m being harmed. But Śāntideva was saying in that verse, well, actually, if we were smarter, we would realise that, in fact, even the person is is is like just like the stick is being held by the person, the person holding the stick is being held by their anger. So it’s not logical to be angry with the person. If you’re gonna be angry with anyone, you should be angry with their anger. Or in other words, you shouldn’t be angry at all.
Alright? You should be such do it again. But turn the other cheek, do it again. No. No.
No. It’s not saying that. It’s not saying that. I will repeat again with a lot of patience that when someone says something wrong, does something wrong, practising patience is not about doing nothing about it, it is protecting one’s mind. It’s only that.
Practising patience is about protecting one’s mind from getting angry because that anger, one’s own anger in one’s own mind, is going to cause far, far, far, far, far greater harm to oneself than anything, anyone or the entire universe can do to us. That’s the point. That is the point. So we should, especially as Mahāyāna Buddhists try to stop the terrible things in the world, but not with an angry mind. Because all the terrible things in the world are done by people with minds disturbed by delusions.
They are suffering, and they are creating much more suffering for themselves than the suffering they’re bringing to others. Right? It’s time well, you you I sent him too. So it’s It was past him too. But everyone’s so interested.
And so then Śāntideva goes on in the next verse to say, Previously, I must have caused similar harm to other sentient beings. Therefore, it is right for this harm to be returned to me, who is the cause of injury to others. In other words, for us to have an enemy who is doing something against me, I have to have created the cause for that. And the way I created the cause was harming another person or people at a previous time. So now the result is coming.
So why be angry? It’s not actually that person that is harming me. What is really harming me is my own negative action, that previous negative action, which again was possibly done with an angry mind. So this person wielding the stick is there because I created a cause for it. Why be angry?
This is what we have to reflect on. Understanding the law of cause and effect actually is one of the very powerful ways to practise patience. That we have the outer enemy because we have the inner enemy, our own delusions, particularly anger. No inner enemy, we don’t have outer enemies. Or we don’t see people as enemies.
There may be people harming us, trying to harm us, but we don’t see them as enemies. That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. Could be. Yes.
I think we’ll have to stop here. I I this this didn’t do your job. Now she’s blaming others for not doing your job. Anyway, I’d just like to quote something. I meant to quote it last week but I don’t know where I ever discovered or found this, but it actually comes from a Christian saint called a French saint called I think lived in around the seventeenth or eighteenth century whose name was Saint Francis de Sales.
So he says or said or wrote: Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself. Do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage. Make a fresh beginning daily. There is no better means of attainment in the spiritual life than by continually beginning again and never thinking we have done enough. How are we to be patient with our neighbours’ faults if we are impatient with dealing with our own?
He or she who is fretted by their own failings will not correct them. All profitable correction comes from a calm and peaceful mind. Pretty good. Yep. That was that was the Easter bunny for you.
Oh, Okay. So we can dedicate the merit we’ve accumulated tonight. Page nine onwards. 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. Page eleven. The object of refuge of myself and of all transmigratory beings in all our lifetimes is the embodiment of the Three Jewels, often encompassing refuges in one. The Guru, the wish granting jewel, his wholeness, 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 dedicating prayers: May all his holiness, the Dalai Lama’s wishes be successful immediately.
May the snow land of Tibet achieve pure freedom and develop the Buddhadharma even more than before in Tibet. And may all mother transmigratory beings achieve enlightenment quickly. Page thirteen. On the 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, to you who are supreme. O Lama, please, please live long. So we can finish with three prostrations to the triple gem for those people who find this meaningful.