Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 98-minute teaching, Ven Thubten Dondrub concludes his commentary on the chapter on patience from Śāntideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. He builds a comprehensive case for why patience matters: anger harms both ourselves and others, and developing patience requires deliberate, repeated meditation rather than passive acceptance. Dondrub walks through Śāntideva’s central arguments — that difficulties and enemies give us the opportunity to strengthen patience; that worldly concerns trap us in suffering; that sentient beings deserve respect because they have Buddha nature and are supported by the Buddhas themselves; and that by pleasing sentient beings we delight the Buddhas and accumulate vast merit. He emphasizes that patience is not mere emotional suppression but a fundamental reorientation of how we see hardship, enemies, and praise or blame. The teaching is woven throughout with practical advice on transforming anger through logic and familiarity rather than mantra or distraction. Pitched at practitioners already familiar with Buddhist practice and Śāntideva’s text.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Patience 6 2015 04 16.mp3
UUID: 091f54a9-0b13-4684-b535-67a616634ccb
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Patience (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2015-04-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 98.2 minutes
Words: ~9,903
Right. So thinking the Buddha is pleased with our motivation, we imagine the Buddha now comes to the crown of our head, and then when directly above our crown, we can think that the Buddha then happily 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 just by doing the, for example, the nine round breathing exercise or some other breathing meditation, just to let our mind become a little bit more calm, clear, more concentrated, so that we can use that level of mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. Okay. Thank you.
So there are many lines of reasoning to help us develop patience. As I mentioned before, the very basis is understanding how harmful anger is to ourself and others in every possible way and how beneficial it is to have the mind of patience. So then on the basis of that, one can develop patience by through the practices of developing familiarity with patience and developing courage by remembering the benefits of having problems and difficulties. So the more we can remember that, we won’t be so upset, we can be patient with them because we see these difficulties as meaningful, It’s when we see them as not meaningful and completely negative that anger can arise. And of course this also applies specifically to human beings or other sentient beings who appear to us as enemies.
And then there’s the method of developing patience through understanding dependent arising and emptiness. And particularly, there’s the method of developing patience through all the various arguments in relation to having compassion for oneself and particularly with the enemy. So if we can focus on that, then we will not get angry or so angry. Underlying all of that, remember, one of the crucial things that Śāntideva says at the very beginning of his teaching on patience is that all of these things will really the extent to which these methods will work also depends on a fundamental underlying factor as how much discontent we have in our mind. If we’re not dealing with that, then there’s always that discontent within our mind because of uncontrolled disturbing thoughts, particularly attachment, because it’s really due to a frustrated desire and attachment that we experience discontent, then if that’s always there, there’s always something that will make us upset and angry.
If however much contentment we have in our mind that helps us not to get so upset And if we do, it’s easier to work with that mind and calm it. But if the mind is already really unhappy about many things, then it’s much more difficult for these arguments to work. But again, sorry if I keep saying this, this is one of my themes, is that all of these arguments only work through the power of familiarity, which means meditating on them. Because we never had to learn how to be angry. No one has to learn that.
It just unfortunately comes naturally through the power of familiarity due to our self-cherishing, due to the fact that we’re in saṃsāra. So it just happens. So we are not familiar with being patient, generally speaking. So we have to create that familiarity and the way it’s done is through meditation, because that’s what meditation is. It means familiarising oneself with something which is virtuous and or meaningful, true.
So we have to become unfamiliar with being angry and becoming familiar with being patient. So we have to think about these things, meditate on them over and over and over and over again. It’s not just hearing these things one time and agreeing with them or even a few times or just meditating on them a few times. We have to do it over and over again. As as something I read from Lama Zopa by Lama Zopa Rinpoche just a couple of days ago, you know, if you think about it, that if we have a serious disease, physical disease, a really serious one, it takes a long time to get rid of it.
You just don’t pop a pill and it goes away. You have to do a lot for that disease to go away. Know, weeks, months, maybe even years working on it. And that’s just for some kind of physical complaint that has just arisen in this life. It started in this life, but it can take weeks, months, years, many years to go away.
But the disease of our mind, our delusions, these just didn’t arise in this life. They’ve been there for, you know, an infinite number of lives. So it takes a long time for them to go away, to to, you know, pacify them. Right? So we have to work hard on it, but if we do it, it’ll work.
But it takes time, a lot of time. That’s why we have to be patient. Because, you know, especially, you know, we modern people, people now, we are our our society, our culture, the way we live creates this we we we demand things happen instantly as quickly as possible. Alright? But changing the mind doesn’t happen instantly just like that.
It it takes time and a lot of effort. So when things don’t happen quickly, we can get angry. That’s why we need patience with the practice of Dharma, because with our mindset, we can expect things to happen very quickly, and when they don’t, we get angry with ourselves, with the Dharma, with our teachers, with the whole thing. So one definitely needs lots of patience in practising the Dharma, which means basically patient with ourself. We have to be patient with our own limitations and delusions, that they’re not just going to go away because we want them to, or we’re going to, you know, pray to the Buddha, to the guru, please take my you know, make my delusions go away.
It’s good to make that prayer, but the reason to make prayers is to make an imprint in the mind, a genuine imprint in the mind that will help us go in that direction, but we have to go in that direction. We have to push ourselves in that virtuous path. So anyway, there are many verses left of Śāntideva’s text, so what I’m going to do is in order to try and cover it tonight, I’m just going to summarise them, rather than quote them all, I’ll just try and summarise the arguments that he gives. So if you remember last week, was giving various arguments confronting different you gives some argument why it’s not good to be angry, but then the self-cherishing thought comes up with a reason why, oh, I should be angry because of this, and then Śāntideva refutes that, and then the self-cherishing thought comes up with another argument why it’s good to be angry, necessary to be angry. So now in verses seventy-three to seventy-five, what he talks about is basically making the point that it’s and this is especially useful in relating to developing patience in relation to practising the dharma one way to do that is to remember or to see that suffering can be meaningful.
It’s meaningful rather than getting angry with some difficulties, suffering, problems, sickness and difficult people. We should see this it is meaningful to be patient because it is meaningful not to get angry because all of these difficult situations are helping us to practise patience. So that itself is good. It’s reminding us we need it’s showing us that we need to practise patience. So this itself is very helpful, is meaningful.
And by developing patience, then we’ll be able to practise the dharma more successfully. And people, you know, worldly people are often willing to put up with a lot of suffering in order to do something from a dharma point of view is really quite meaningless. So if we are practising the dharma, which is something incredibly, there’s nothing more meaningful, more beneficial than that, then we should be willing to put up with some suffering to do it for something that is so meaningful. So that’s what we have to remember. So then in verses seventy six to eighty six, Śāntideva goes through various examples of how we can make ourselves unhappy and therefore get angry when other people, due to our self-cherishing, our pride and jealousy and so on, we can make ourselves quite unhappy, upset when other people are successful.
People we dislike, who we think shouldn’t be successful, who don’t deserve it, then we get unhappy, upset, angry, or people get praised. We would like the praise, but they get the praise. People get respect. We want the respect, but other people get respect. We want stuff, but they get it.
Other people get things. And we feel, they shouldn’t get those things, they don’t deserve those things. Why are they getting them? They’re not nice people. I’m a nice person.
I should have this, or something like that. And so we make ourselves, because of our self-cherishing, because of our pride, jealousy and so on, and basic underlying dissatisfied mind, we make ourselves unhappy and angry. So Śāntideva says, In all of those situations, we really need to be patient because As dharma practitioners, especially someone who’s claiming to follow the Mahāyāna tradition, trying to live the bodhisattva way of life, what is the wish of dharma practitioners, especially people trying to follow the bodhisattva way of life? It is the wish for all sentient beings, without exception, to be happy, and not just to have worldly happiness, but to have perfect happiness. So how can we possibly get upset if that is our genuine wish, or we’re trying to cultivate that genuine wish that everyone has every kind of happiness imaginable.
How can we be upset when someone gets a little bit of happiness, when they get a little bit of respect, when they have a little bit of success, when they get you know, someone gives them something and it makes them a little bit happy, how can we possibly justify being upset by that no matter who it is? I mean, it’s just so contrary. You know, if we’re saying, I want you know, every day we say, may all sentient beings have happiness in its causes. I’m going to become a Buddha to make everyone happy. And then we get upset because someone is is praised.
That that’s just completely crazy. We should be happy that they have they’re happy. Right? So that’s what we have to think about. We have to prepare the mind that way, remind ourselves what we’re trying to do.
We want, you know especially yeah. Actually, this is not just unique to the Mahāyāna. It is a feature of all Buddhist practises to wish others to have happiness, at least to wish them happiness. And it means all sentient beings, not just the nice people. May all nice people have happiness.
May all un nice people be miserable. This is not a Buddhist expression. There is no such prayer like that. The prayer is for all sentient beings to have happiness. Good people, bad people, friends, enemies, strangers, everyone.
So when they are happy, we should be happy. Even if they only have a little bit of worldly happiness, we should be happy that at least they’ve got that. Not upset and angry. Well, I think I’m gonna finish this talk in five minutes the way I’m going. For example, like Śāntideva says in verse eighty one, If I wish for all sentient beings to become Buddhas worshipped throughout the three realms, then why am I tormented when I see them receiving mere mundane respect?
If I do not wish for beings to have even this, how can I wish for them to awaken? In other words, if we get angry when people have some modicum of happiness in this life, this is creating a huge obstacle to actually developing any genuine love, compassion, and therefore we’re millions of miles away from being able to generate any kind of bodhicitta. And and for example, you know, Śāntideva here, I’ll give some go into more detail. And And Śāntideva was pointing out how ridiculous it is to get upset if someone we dislike or whom we think is undeserving, unworthy, has some success. For example, he says, What does it matter if my enemy or some unpleasant person is given something or not?
Whether he obtains it or whether it remains in the benefactor’s house, in either case, I shall get nothing. Right? There’s someone who’s got a nice thing. There’s the benefactor who’s got something. So whether the benefactor keeps it in his house or he actually gives it to the person I don’t like, in either case, I’m not getting it.
So why be upset if he gives it away? It’s just just crazy because my upsetness is not going to bring the thing to me. But, you know, because of our crazy mind, we can be upset that someone’s got something. But no matter how upset we get by that fact, it’s not gonna bring this thing to me. So why be upset?
Why be angry? Right. It is very logical, infuriatingly logical. It can make you really angry, Śāntideva’s arguments. So then verses ninety to a hundred and one talk about, well, they deal with getting angry if our worldly, know, the eight worldly concerns of craving happiness, fearing suffering and so on, when these are frustrated.
So again, Śāntideva is saying, it’s completely ridiculous to be upset if these things are interfered with, because our eight worldly concerns are just that. They’re worldly concerns. They are not going to bring us any genuine, lasting benefit. So if they get frustrated, why be upset? For example, Śāntideva in verse ninety three says, When their sandcastles collapse, children howl in despair.
So in the eighth century, it seems, little kids made sandcastles even then. Anyway, When their sandcastles collapse, children howl in despair. Likewise, when my praise and reputation decline, my mind becomes like a little child. So I get so you know, I’m so attached to these things, and when they don’t work out, I get really, really upset. He goes on to say, Praise and so forth distract me and also undermine my disillusion with cyclic existence.
You know, if people start praising me and telling me how wonderful I am, then one thinks life is wonderful, saṃsāra is wonderful. I start to envy those who have good qualities and all the very best is destroyed. Therefore, are not those who are closely involved in destroying my praise and the like also involved in protecting me from falling into the unfortunate realms? See? By following our eight worldly concerns, we’re just building up our ego, building up our delusions, engaging in negative actions that are going to bring real, heavy suffering to us in the future.
So the people who frustrate our worldly concerns are actually doing us a service. The people who destroy our pride, our reputation that we can get so attached to, all of these things are actually doing us a favour from a dharma point of view. From a dharma point of view, this is what we have to remember because this is what we need to develop, a dharma point of view of life, not a worldly view of life. We need to be developing that dharma view. So the more we follow the eight worldly concerns, Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, By following the eight worldly concerns, we won’t even be able to achieve a good rebirth.
So someone who is pointing out, is going against our worldly concerns, is really helping us. They’re actually very kind. So we shouldn’t be angry with them. We should really appreciate what they’re doing. It’s really kind of them.
Someone who is encouraging us to follow our worldly concerns, who appears like the friend, is actually encouraging us, whether they know it or not, just to be caught up in our self-cherishing more and more, to follow our delusions, to create more negative imprints, more causes of suffering. I who am striving for freedom do not need to be bound by material gain and honour, so why should I be angry with those who free me from this bondage? Of course, if we’re not striving for freedom, then it’s different, but in theory, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing. We’re claiming to be doing this. Striving for freedom from saṃsāra.
This is verse a hundred. And he concludes that section by saying in verse one hundred and one, Those who wish to cause me suffering are like Buddhas bestowing waves of blessing As they open the door for my not going to an unfortunate realm, why should I be angry with them? That’s how a bodhisattva thinks. So this is so this is how the the enemy is incredibly kind. They bestow wave waves of blessings.
Waves of blessings. But but then the self-cherishing comes back with the argument, but what if so, you know, the self-cherishing thought says, oh, okay. Maybe you’re right regarding I shouldn’t be angry with the person who stops me engaging in negative actions, but what about someone who stops me doing meritorious things, then surely it’s justified getting angry in that situation because I’m trying to do virtuous things and someone or something’s stopping me doing that. But Śāntideva says, in this situation too, it’s incorrect to be angry. For since there is no fortitude similar to patience, surely I should put it into practice.
So since there is no better strength of mind than being patient, than in that particular situation when someone is interfering with me doing something virtuous, then this is really forcing me to be patient, so that’s extremely helpful. So one can’t justify being angry even in that situation. But by because by being patient in that situation, I’m creating even more merit. So the person isn’t stopping me creating merit. They’re creating a good situation for me to make more merit by being very patient in a very difficult situation.
Yeah? Śāntideva goes on to argue, if due to my own failings, I am not patient with this enemy, the enemy who’s stopping me doing virtuous things, then it is only I who am preventing myself from practising this cause for gaining merit. So in fact, it’s not the enemy that is stopping me engaging in merit, it’s myself. It’s my own negative mind. The the angry mind is stopping me from from gaining merit.
And of course, know, Śāntideva doesn’t mention here that if one remembers his other arguments about the law of cause and effect, you know, if we are engaging in virtue and someone tries to stop us do that, why does that happen? There has to be a cause. This is a karmic result. And generally one can say the cause of that, if we’re trying to do some virtuous things and we’re prevented doing it, this is because in the past, we stopped other people doing virtuous things. So now that karma comes back to us.
The result of that karma comes back to us. So why be angry? We’re just experiencing the results similar to the cause. But if we practise patience, then we are purifying that karma. If we get angry, we’re just perpetuating that again and again.
So versus a hundred and two up until a hundred and twelve, Śāntideva talks about the benefits of having an enemy. So basically, the argument is that to practice patience, one has to have something that would tend to make you angry. So if there’s nothing that tends to make you angry, you don’t know if you’re able to practice patience or not. And if there aren’t things that tend to make you angry, there’s nothing forcing you to learn how to be a patient person in the first place. It’s only because there are things that make us angry that we start to realise, Oh, this anger is harming me.
It’s making me miserable, let alone creating all these negative imprints, etcetera. So the more we have these difficult situations, this learning encourages us to practise patience and then to know whether we’ve actually got any ability to be patient in difficult situations. We need those difficult situations or difficult people. So actually having an enemy is very helpful. It’s very helpful.
Because while we’re in Samsāra, there will always be difficult people and difficult situations. So the particular enemy we have, the particular difficult person we have to deal with is very helpful, is very useful, is actually very kind, is the best friend from a dharma point of view. Our worldly friends are our worst dharma enemies. So our worldly friends encourage us to be what we are, which is deluded. They go along with our delusions.
Maybe not consciously, but that’s what they do. Whereas the and and, you know, our friends tell us we’re nice, good people, you know, nothing to worry about, but the enemy points out all our faults. So that’s very kind. Very kind. So Śāntideva says, if without it something does not occur, and if with it it does come to be, then since this enemy would be the cause of patience, how can I say that the enemy prevents it?
They don’t. We need the enemy to bring about patience. And since patience is so important, the enemy is incredibly important. So absolutely no reason to be angry with the enemy because they are so helpful. If if every sentient being in the world was wonderful and kind to us, then then if there was one person who was the enemy, maybe you could, the self-cherishing, could argue that it’s justified to be angry with that person.
But since but the fact is, while we’re in Samsāra, which is gonna be for a long time, we will meet many difficult people in that time. All sorts of horrible people. So to protect ourselves from that, at some point we need to develop patience with people. And so the sooner we develop it and the stronger that patience is and the more, what’s the word, yeah, stronger and real it is, genuine it is, the better, right? So therefore, to have an enemy now is fantastic, because they’re giving that opportunity.
While we have a precious human rebirth where our life is not overwhelmed with suffering and difficulties and where we do have the dharma wisdom available to us to explain how we can be patient. So in that context, having an enemy is incredibly useful. Because through working with this one enemy now, and through the power of familiarity, we’ll be able to deal with other difficult people, you know. And I don’t know about people’s personal lives here, but I personally have never had to deal with many really horrible people in my life. At the time, think, Oh, this person’s really horrible and difficult, but actually they’re okay people.
I’ve never had anyone who’s tried to kill me, stab me, anything like that. But there are people who do that. So sooner or later I’m going to meet one. So if I develop a bit of patience before that, it will be very helpful. So these little enemies are really kind because they’re preparing me, giving me the opportunity to strengthen my mind so that when something really horrible happens, I hope I might be in a position to be okay with it.
And since there are some really gruesome people appearing in the world these days lately, there’s some really gruesome philosophies. We need to be patient. So Śāntideva gives an example. A beggar is not an obstacle to generosity when I’m giving something away. And I cannot say that those who give ordination are an obstacle to becoming ordained.
If you want to practice generosity, you can’t practise generosity with people who don’t want something. You can only practise generosity with someone who needs something. If you want to get ordained, you need someone who can give you the ordination. So the person who can give you the ordination is not an obstacle to getting ordained, it’s necessary. So to practise generosity, to accumulate the merit from practising generosity, we need people.
We need needy people. So to practise patience, we need enemies. We need difficult situations. So we should be happy when we meet the enemy and have difficult situations. And in fact, this is the sign of some accomplishment of developing patience, is that when one meets a difficult situation, a difficult person, one thinks, Oh, how great.
This is a fantastic opportunity to check my Dharma practice. Śāntideva says, Therefore, just like a treasure appearing in my house without any effort on my behalf to obtain it, I should be happy to have an enemy, for he assists me in my conduct of awakening. So even though the enemy has no intention to benefit us, quite the opposite, if from our side we think in the right way, then having the enemy is incredibly beneficial for ourselves. So actually, you think about it, the aim of the enemy is to hurt us, to harm us. So if we get angry with them, they have achieved their goal, because our anger will really hurt us.
But if we practice patience, we have undermined their intention. We have foiled them because instead of them, you know, they want us to be diminished and harmed, but by practicing patience, we develop and are benefited. Śāntideva concludes that section by saying in verse a hundred and twelve, therefore the mighty one has said, mighty one meaning the Buddha, that the field of sentient beings is similar to a Buddha field, for many who have pleased them have thereby reached perfection. So in the teachings, they talk about the field of merit, where one visualises the field of merit. Because the idea is just like with an ordinary field, by planting seed in that field, you get this crop of grain, and especially in ancient times, well, until quite recently, crops were the crucial thing in life, source of all wealth and comfort and security and everything.
So to have a large crop was something incredibly important. So in the same way, the field of merit, a Buddha field, is by developing devotion to the Buddhas and bodhisattvas and all the holy beings, one plants the seed of merit in one’s mind. One gets this huge crop of merit as a result, by relating correctly to holy beings, to the Buddhas, the bodhisattvas, one’s gurus and so on. So the Buddha himself said that sentient beings are like a Buddha field. Relating to them correctly, one accumulates enormous merit as well.
So by pleasing sentient beings, one accumulates great merit. And by not harming them, one accumulates great merit. So yeah. So by practicing patience with sentient beings, we are accumulating an enormous amount of merit just like we accumulate great merit from developing devotion to the Buddhas. So they act in the same way.
The intention may be different. Buddhists have this conscious intention to benefit us. Sentient beings may not have that. The enemy has the intention to harm us. But from our side, by practising patience, the result is the same.
We accumulate lots and lots of merit. We protect our mind, and in addition, we accumulate merit. Śāntideva says in verse a hundred and thirteen, A Buddha’s qualities are gained from sentient beings and the Buddhas alike. So why do I not respect them, sentient beings, in the same way as I respect the conquerors? Okay.
Is it time? Yes. It is. It is. Yeah.
Alright. Any questions? The conquerors. The conquerors of the Buddhas. It says Buddha’s qualities again in the sentient beings and the conquerors.
Yeah. Sorry. Which verse is this? You just read it? Yeah.
Buddhist qualities are gained from sentient beings and the conquerors alike. The conquerors are the Buddhas. Yes. Because the Buddhas have conquered their delusions. Right?
So a Buddha’s qualities are gained from, you know it’s talking about us. We obtain the qualities of a Buddha because we have the potential to be a Buddha. We have Buddha nature. We have Buddha potential. So our Buddha qualities are gained in reliance on sentient beings and the Buddhas.
And we respect the Buddhas. Why don’t we respect sentient beings? Because we need both. We depend on the Buddhas, due to our devotion to the Buddhas and paying respect to them, making offerings to them, we accumulate great merit, and depending on sentient beings, we accumulate we need sentient beings to practise generosity, right? We need sentient beings to help us in countless ways.
We need sentient beings to practise morality with. We need sentient beings to practise patience with. So we can’t achieve the qualities of a Buddha without depending on sentient beings. We also need the Buddhas, but we also need sentient beings. So we like Buddhas.
Why don’t we like sentient beings? We’re including being patient with them. That’s what he’s saying. Because we need both. They’re both equally kind.
The Buddhas have the intention to help us. Some sentient beings don’t, but it doesn’t matter what their intention is because the result that we get is the same. The result, if we are patient with these people, even though they want to harm us, we get the same kind of benefit from them as we get from the Buddhas who consciously want to help us. That’s what he’s saying. Yeah?
And that’s what we have to remember. We have to think about these things, meditate on it, come to the conclusion it’s true. And then we have to remember that, practise mindfulness, because that mindfulness of that can help us be patient. Yes. This person is screaming at me.
Yes. This person wishes to harm me. I I won’t which I mean, you don’t have to let them harm you, but the mind can be patient. Because one has to draw together all the different arguments remembering why is this person trying to harm me Because they’re angry. They’re suffering because of their anger.
Why are they angry? Because they’re dissatisfied. They’re basically unhappy anyway, so they are suffering. When my friends suffer, I have compassion for them. When neutral people are suffering, it’s possible to feel compassion for them.
Why can’t I be patient? If if the enemy is suffering, why can’t I why can’t I be patient with them? Why can’t I have compassion for them? Right? So we have to let that logic go into our mind.
We have to develop agreement with it, that it is correct. And then we have to become familiar with it. So we have to admire that. We have to understand the logic, we have to admire it, and then we have to become familiar with it. And we have to eventually become more familiar with that logic than this old stuff that we use unconsciously, blindly, instinctively to justify our anger.
Okay. Before you get angry with me, we better stop and have a cup of tea. Thank you. Right. So the the next set of verses, there’s quite a few of them actually towards till the end of the book.
I’m basically making the argument that The best way to repay the kindness of the Buddhas, who their teachings are going to by practising their teachings, we’re going to achieve not only liberation but complete enlightenment. So the Buddhas are inconceivably kind, so the best way to repay that kindness is by pleasing sentient beings, making sentient beings happy, because that’s what the Buddhas want. The Buddhas appear in the world only for the purpose of bringing happiness to sentient beings. So one of the ways we can make sentient beings happy in a sense is by not harming them. So not harming sentient beings is a great vehicle to please the Buddhas, to repay the kindness of the Buddhas.
So I’ll just read this section basically because it’s very nice, really. It’s quite beautiful. Well, the whole text is beautiful, but Śāntideva says, starting in verse hundred and nineteen, Furthermore, what way is there to repay the Buddhas who grant immeasurable benefit and who befriend the world without pretension other than by pleasing sentient beings? So every time we please a sentient being in some way, that is pleasing to the Buddhas. Therefore, since benefiting these beings will repay those who give their bodies and enter the deepest hell for their sake, I shall behave impeccably in all that I do, even if they cause me a great deal of harm.
So those who give their bodies and enter the deepest hell is referring to the Buddhas and those beings who become the Buddhas who are the Bodhisattvas. So the best way to repay those beings is to behave impeccably in all that I do, even if those beings cause me harm, a great deal of harm. So he goes on to say, When for their sake, meaning for the sake of ordinary sentient beings, those who are my lords, meaning the Buddhas, because the Buddhas are lords above us. So when for the sake of sentient beings, those who are my lords have no regard even for their own bodies, then why am I the fool so full of self importance? Why do I not act like a servant towards them?
So the Buddhas who are far more superior than myself in every conceivable way, they have no regard for their bodies. They’re quite happy to sacrifice their bodies and have their bodies injured and harmed and so on in order to benefit sentient beings. So Śāntideva was saying, If that’s the case, why should I be upset if I’m harmed in some small way trying to benefit sentient beings? I shouldn’t be angry. I shouldn’t be full of self importance.
Because of their happiness, meaning the happiness of sentient beings, the conquerors, meaning the Buddha’s, are delighted. But if sentient beings are harmed, then the Buddhas are unhappy. Hence, by pleasing sentient beings, I shall delight the Buddhas, but by harming them, I shall hurt the Buddhas. One can also think of this in terms of the Guru, which is sometimes more effective because maybe it’s, don’t know, more difficult to think of the Buddhas becoming happy or unhappy. And also the Buddhas seem maybe not to you, but to me, little bit far removed.
But the gurus are here and gurus do manifest showing pleasure and displeasure. The gurus exist to benefit sentient beings, to make sentient beings happy. So one can think, If I help sentient beings, that makes my guru happy. That’s what the guru wants. That’s what the guru wants for sentient beings.
That’s what the guru wants for me. The guru wants me to be a good person, to be kind and compassionate and to benefit sentient beings because this is also benefiting me, and the guru wants to benefit me, wants to bring the greatest benefit to me. But if I harm sentient beings, this upsets the Gurus because the Gurus don’t want sentient beings to be harmed, and by me harming sentient beings, I’m harming myself, and that upsets the Buddhas, the Gurus, because they don’t want me to suffer. They want me to be free of suffering. So I have to be patient.
Right? By being patient, that really pleases the gurus. It pleases the buddhas. And goes on to say, Just as desirable objects would give my mind no pleasure if my body was ablaze with fire, Likewise, when living creatures are in pain, there is no way for the compassionate ones to be pleased. So if I get angry with sentient beings and harm them, then there’s no way for the compassionate beings to be happy at that time, to be pleased, so I have to practice patience.
Yeah. So the the argument the idea is if one can’t think of reasons to be patient with the enemy, feeling somehow it’s okay to be angry with the enemy, at least I should be patient with the enemy because I don’t want to upset the gurus and buddhas. Because I do like the gurus and buddhas. I may not like the enemy, but I do like my gurus and buddhas, so because I like them and I don’t want to upset them, I need to be patient with this person. Because if I’m not, that’s going to upset the gurus and buddhas.
Right? That’s the argument. It’s a good argument. Especially if one has a Guru and one has faith in the Guru and has some faith that the Guru is at least, at the very least, if not omniscient, is at least clairvoyant and knows what I’m doing all the time. So that’s pretty scary.
Śāntideva goes on to say, Therefore, as I have caused harm to sentient beings, today I openly declare all my unwholesome acts that have brought displeasure to the compassionate ones. Please bear with me, O Lords, for this displeasure I have caused you. From now on, in order to delight the Tathagatas, which is another term for Buddhas, I shall serve the universe and definitely cease to cause harm. Although many beings may kick and stamp upon my head, even at the risk of dying, may I delight the protectors of the world by not retaliating. So this is a commitment that we can try to make.
There is no doubt that those with the nature of compassion regard all these beings to be the same as themselves. So for us, deluded beings controlled by ego and self-cherishing, we experience a great difference between ourself and others. Whereas the Buddhas, who have no ego, no self-cherishing, no wrong views of any kind, they see no difference between themselves and other sentient beings whatsoever. So harming a sentient being is really, when we harm a sentient being, it is harming the Buddhas because they feel that harm. They experience that harm as their own.
Just in the stages of the path to developing bodhicitta, there is the practice of exchanging oneself with others, where one trains the mind to see others as oneself, to feel suffering of others as oneself, such as, and one way of doing that is through the Tonglen practice, where you imagine taking on the suffering of others as your own suffering so that they don’t experience it. So this is something that one does at the level of imagination, but when one is a Buddha, one is able to somehow experience the suffering of others as one’s own. So if if we cause add to the suffering of a sentient being, then the Buddhas experience that in in some sense. Furthermore, those who see this Buddha nature as the nature of sentient beings see the Buddhas themselves. Why then do I not respect sentient beings?
So the Mahāyāna teachings emphasise that every sentient being has Buddha nature. There is not one sentient being who doesn’t possess the potential to be a Buddha. That is the very nature of mind or consciousness itself. There is Buddha nature. This is what we we’re trying to follow the Mahāyāna teachings, the Mahāyāna tradition, then this is something that we should try or can try to practice mindfulness of, that every sentient being has Buddha nature.
One thing we’re supposed to be trying to do or could be doing is training to see every sentient being as our mother because they have been. Every sentient being has been my mother many, many times. So this is a very helpful thing to do. Protects the mind from all sorts of negative thoughts. If one thinks this person is my mother, even even more powerful, maybe, is to remember that this person has Buddha nature, is potentially a Buddha.
In the practice of highest Yoga Tantra, you’re supposed to see every sentient being as a Buddha. Every sentient being is a Buddha. There is that commitment to have that pure view of everyone. That’s extremely difficult to do, but that’s apparently what people are supposed to do when they have those commitments. But at least one can try to be mindful that sentient beings have Buddha nature.
So people who do this, who really do this, who really see the Buddha, are trained to be mindful, really believe that each sentient being has Buddha nature, have a deep belief in that, deep confidence in it, and really are able to practise mindfulness of that. In a sense, they are starting to you can interpret that sentence as having two meanings, that they are starting to see each sentient being as a Buddha, but also that practice is creating the cause for them to be able to see the Buddhas. By seeing the Buddha nature in sentient beings, that is creating the cause to be able to see the Buddhas, which is an amazing thing to be able to do because once we can actually see the Buddhas, we can receive teachings from them. Because when we purify our mind, when we have pure view, it is possible to see the Buddhas. Lama Tsongkhapa saw the Buddhas.
Lama Tsongkhapa saw the thirty five Buddhas. We saw many others as well, but at one point, they were the thirty five Buddhas of confession. He was able to see them. Not have dreams about them, but see them. So one day we’ll be able to do that.
We’ll be able to see the Buddhas, we’ll be able to talk to them, they’ll talk to us. So by having that pure view of Buddhas, you know, so in the so by relying on sentient beings, we will be able to see the Buddhas, so why don’t we respect them? Yeah. That’s the point. Don’t get angry with them.
Respect them. Because by relying on them, every good thing will happen. Pleasing living beings delights the Tathagatas, the Buddhas, perfectly accomplishes my own purpose as well. Lama Zopa Rinpoche often says that is possible to practice the six perfections on any sentient being. One can realize the six perfections of generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration and wisdom on any sentient being, but especially on the enemy.
One can practise the six perfections on the enemy. By practising the six perfections on the enemy, by practising the six perfections in relation to any sentient being, one accumulates enormous merit. But by practising it on the enemy, this is the best practise, the most powerful practise, therefore skies of merit, oceans of merit, skies and oceans of merit, billions of skies and oceans of merit. Because it’s easy to practice, well, it’s easiest of all to practice generosity with a friend. Maybe a little bit more difficult to practice generosity with a stranger, but much more difficult to practise generosity with the enemy.
But if we can practise generosity with the enemy, that’s real generosity. Sky’s a merit. That’s really transforming the mind. So pleasing living beings delights the Tathagatas and perfectly accomplishes my own purpose as well. In addition, it dispels the pain and misery of the universe.
Therefore, I should always practice it, and therefore, don’t get angry. So then he gives this example. For example, should some of the king’s men cause harm to many people? Remember in the good old days, kings were what do call it? Had absolute power.
They could do whatever they liked. You know, the old famous, with his head and off it came. There isn’t, you know, whatever the king said happened. So for example, should some of the king’s men cause harm to many people, farsighted men would not return the harm even if they were able to do so, for they see that these king’s men are not alone but are supported by the might of the king. Alright.
So here’s this little person, and all these people come along and harm this person, but these people who harm this person have the support of the king. So other people don’t try and stop these people because they know if we stop these nasty people harming this person, the king will come along and, you know, we’re finished. Because although these people are powerful and maybe I could defeat them, the king and all his other forces are much more powerful, so one doesn’t do anything. Right? Likewise, I should not underestimate weak beings who cause me a little harm, for they are supported by one, the guardians of hell, and by all the compassionate ones.
Alright. So just like, you know, when someone’s being harmed by some nasty people, some clever people don’t interfere because they know if they do, this nasty king will attack them, then I shouldn’t get angry with someone who, although they are weak, they appear weak and looks like I can get angry with them and say and do whatever I like with them, actually I should realise that actually behind them supporting this person, I’m getting angry with the guardians of hell in a sense that by getting angry with this person, I’m creating the cause to fall into the lower realms. And also the other protection this poor little sentient being has is the Buddhas. The Buddhas are going to be really upset with me. Not pleased at all.
The Gurus are not going to be pleased with me at all. So that’s what I should remember. Just like someone remembers, Oh, I better not try and stop these people because they’re supported by the king. I shouldn’t harm the enemy because he’s protected by all the Buddhas and the guardians of hell. Does that make sense?
Yeah? Even if such a king were to become angry, could he cause the pain of hell, which is the fruit I would have to experience by displeasing sentient beings? No, he couldn’t. An ordinary king can’t do such things. But my anger can cause the pain of hell.
And even if such a king were to be kind, he could not possibly grant me buddhahood, which is the fruit I would obtain by pleasing sentient beings. Why do I not see that my future attainment of Buddhahood, as well as glory, renown, and happiness in this very life, all come from pleasing sentient beings. That’s Bodhisattva’s job description. Please sentient beings. That’s the Mahāyāna message, to bring happiness to sentient beings in whatever way we can.
So since that’s the most important thing, the most beneficial thing, then obviously what does the very opposite of harming them is something that I really have to avoid. And what harms sentient beings the most is my anger. And the last verse of this chapter says, While in cyclic existence, patience causes beauty, health and renown. Because of these, I shall live for a very long time and win the extensive pleasures of the universal chakra kings. So the karmic results of practising patience is that one is born beautiful, has a pleasant appearance, has good health, a healthy body, strong body, and one has a good reputation.
So there’s every reason to be patient. So that’s it. You were very patient, we finished the whole chapter. So I highly recommend people, if you don’t have this book, the Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, there are a number of different versions of it. It really is one of the most wonderful Dharma books in the Mahāyāna tradition.
As I think I’ve mentioned before, His Holiness says, Whatever he knows about the Bodhisattva way of life comes from studying and practicing this text. It’s really probably the most frequently quoted text in the Tibetan tradition. And the chapter on patience is considered the text on how to practice patience. So it’s really good to study this over and over again and reflect on it so that we can be mindful to bring to mind another way of thinking and looking at things than what we are habituated with because what we are habituated with is not helping us. It’s actually harming us.
It’s keeping us stuck in saṃsāra. It’s keeping us a limited suffering being. Who wants that? Any questions, comments? What do we do next week?
What we do next week? We are We are going briefly through the Heart Sūtra. Four weeks. Four weeks on the Heart Sūtra. Is there anything you’d like to suggest to prepare for?
Read it. Yeah. Study the entire teachings on the approach and on on emptiness. When the situation arises quickly, would it be helpful and and you could you feel yourself your mind’s ticking over and probably getting the wrong story. Is would it be helpful to say a little mantra to yourself that will not help calm you down?
Yes. Bring you back into the, like, present moment? Not to be angry, you mean? To upset? Yeah.
Are you talking about in particular in relation to anger or any delusion or? Well, well, the deluded mind. Like, a situation arises with another person. Mhmm. And you’re thinking, oh, when would I handle this?
And your mind starting to create stories, and those stories could lead to anger. To to say a mantra to try to bring you back into the present moment. Might go, well, hang on. The line’s telling me this. It’s wanting me to just get angry or something, but I mean, that could help a bit, especially or the Buddhist mantra, Those are good.
But in a sense, in those But I think in a sense, maybe that’s just sort of blocking things, choosing a because really to I think the best way is if you’re actually recognising what you’re starting to think isn’t very helpful, that itself is very good. Because often we don’t do that. We get caught, these stories start arising and we’re not conscious that these are actually maybe not very helpful. So if one can actually recognise that, that’s very good. One then needs to try to let go of that way of thinking and bring to mind some of the things we’ve been talking about, looking into, rather than just saying a mantra so you don’t have those thoughts.
I mean, better than nothing. It’s so quick when it happens, but anger arises. Yes, yes, yes. It’s very hard to interfere with it sometimes. Yes, yes, that’s true.
That’s why we have to cultivate patience beforehand, right? You can’t cultivate it in the moment. You can’t? No, I’ve been trying to say. You can interfere with it.
You can sort of, like, be mindful that it’s arising Yes. And then do something about it. That’s being patient in the moment, isn’t Yes, but the patience, as I’ve been trying to say, patience is this whole other way of thinking, all that Śāntideva’s been talking about. But for that way of thinking to arise, you have to have trained in that way of thinking. You have to have cultivated it when you’re not angry.
Right? In meditation. So that then when you start to detect with your mindfulness anger is arising, then having cultivated some patient thoughts, one tries to bring them to mind. You remember those as much as you can and you’ll remember them, more of them and strongly, the extent to which one can quickly bring those to mind and how many of those thoughts and how strong they are in the moment depends on how much you’ve cultivated them peacefully. Otherwise, our patience is just we all know that anger most people accept that anger in general isn’t good.
So when we notice we’re getting angry, we think, oh, I shouldn’t be angry. That’s not good. But that’s not being patient. It doesn’t have any power. And it may just lead to sort of trying to block it.
Oh, anger’s bad, so you repress it. The way patience comes from knowing, yes, it’s bad, it has all these disadvantages, so one has to replace that thinking. Do you think, like being around the Dharma, that it naturally evolves, that that’s part of coming to teachings and reading Yes. Yes. Being in the Dharma, that it the longer you’re around it, the more natural that evolves?
To some yes. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Walking through the mist.
Walking through the mist, you get soaked, but you have to keep walking through the mist. You have to make it as misty as possible. But the best way to make it misty is This is one of the very first things I ever read in the dharma about, which was very inspiring, find that practising dharma is like walking the mist. Is that when you’re walking in mist, you’re unaware of it, especially light mist. You’re hardly aware that it’s there.
But if you continue walking in the mist, this little thing I read said, After some time, your clothes are completely soaked. So if you keep your mind immersed in the dharma, it may not feel like one is changing very much, but actually, after some time, your mind is soaked in the dharma. But there is also another story which I Just very quickly. This is something simple, very important thing to know. There’s this Tibetan analogy.
I’ve never been able to think of a modern analogy. But in Tibet sorry for those people who have heard me say this fifteen times already, in Tibet, butter is a very important part of the diet and not only in the diet but they use it for making offerings, candles full of butter. And this butter traditionally is kept in leather pouches. When I was in Tibet, I saw this in the Bakur market around the cathedral, the Jokhang. They have these leather pouches which the barter is kept in, and after some time, leather pouches go really, like, hard, extremely hard.
The story goes, the analogy is that the purpose of listening to Dharma talks, teachings, is to practise them. And if you don’t practise them and you listen and listen and listen and don’t try and practise, what happens is our mind becomes impervious to the Dharma. And they give the analogy that it’s like butter in these bags. They say that if you take some leather and you take a little bit of butter and you rub the butter into the leather, just a little bit of butter, and you rub that in, the leather becomes very soft and malleable and you can do anything you want with it. But this butter, this big, big lump of butter that is in the leather all the time, the leather becomes impervious to the butter and becomes rock hard.
So the lamas say, You don’t want your mind to become like that. Because if your mind becomes impervious to the Dharma, then we are doomed. Because then there is nothing that can help us. We’ve heard it over and over and over again and never practiced it. So then our mind becomes impervious to it and then there is no other method to change the mind.
Then one is lost. There’s absolutely nothing we can ever do to help ourselves because we’ve become impervious, immune to the medicine. So on the one hand, it’s true that I almost lost my point that just by being around the Dharma sort of stuff sinks in. But if we don’t really meditate on it and really practice it, at some point, that little bit of sinking stops and we become immune. We become impervious to it.
So that is a huge danger. Just listening, listening, oh, that’s nice, and it becomes entertainment or something. The thing is to practice. To try and because, you know, the little bit of bratha is you know, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to understand the whole lot, have the whole lot.
But if you practice what what bit of the Dharma you understand, what you’ve heard, what you understand, you practice that, that will change your mind, that will soften our mind. But hearing everything all the time, you know, just hearing it all the time but not doing anything with it, the mind becomes impervious. Didn’t get any gongs denied at all. I’ve I’ve actually been pretty generous or nice to you. Think I’ve would buy something.
No. No. No. We can dedicate the merit of this time. 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 Bodhimind, 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 refuges, 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 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 sun 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 saviour, 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. 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 subduer’s 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.