Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute teaching, Venerable Thubten Dondrub introduces the relationship between Sūtra and Tantra as the central topic, beginning with a careful explanation of why certain teachings remain restricted and how practitioners should approach them. He frames tantra not as exotic mysticism but as a compassion-driven accelerated path taught by the Buddha for those with profound bodhicitta — the resolve to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all beings. He guides the audience through establishing the proper motivation via breathing meditation, posture instruction (the eight-point Vairocana position), and a visualization of Śākyamūni Buddha. He then outlines the foundation of all Buddhist teachings: the four noble truths, explaining how ignorance causes suffering, how this can be eliminated, and how wisdom is the universal remedy. He contrasts the Hīnayāna vehicle, aimed at individual liberation, with the Mahāyāna vehicle and its vast compassion; discusses the arhat state and its limitations for benefiting others; and develops the Mahāyāna motivation by reflecting on how all sentient beings have been our mothers across infinite lifetimes and deserve repayment of their kindness through perfect enlightenment. Aimed at practitioners interested in contemplative practice with some openness to Buddhism.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13.mp3
UUID: a007b3ad-915c-4e11-8ac6-da8d7355e067
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: z done but no sheet no info (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.2 minutes
Words: ~4,550
The relationship between sūtra and tantra. So talking about tantra is a very difficult thing to do. So firstly, I I need to know how many people here have taken refuge. No. I think it’s okay.
I’ll not. And so are there people here who, how can you say, who have some level of tantric initiation? Some? Yeah. Actually, many people don’t.
Right? So because you see, there’s many things one is not allowed to say about tantra to people who don’t have tantric initiations. So I have to be careful. I can never remember the things I’m supposed to say and not supposed to say. That’s one of the tricky things.
Of course, lot of tantra is now one can read about it very openly, or in some of the most secret things one can read very openly. But from the side of someone who has taken tantric initiations, you yourself are not allowed to speak about these things. If other people find out about them from their own side, that’s okay, but oneself can’t say certain things. So that’s quite tricky. Anyway, what I’d like to are many, many books you can read, very good books, about tantra and the practice if you’re interested.
So I’m going to try and talk more from the point of view of things that you need to know if you are entering, if you’re really wishing to do this practice, and I’m assuming that everyone here is here because they want to practice tantra. Because it’s really not just something you just talk about for information. The idea should be that people here have come here because they want to practice the path, and particularly they want to practice tantra, interested in it, and have faith in it. Right? I can only hope that’s your case because I I mean, I’m not really interested in talking about tantra just as information to people.
It’s not my I mean, it’s not this tantra is not something you talk about just to entertain people. Right? So so that’s sorry. My introduction. Because it is a very serious thing.
Well, the the whole of the dharma is something quite serious. And, so I’m not particularly interested in talking about dharma from the point of view of just information, because you can get much better information from books than I can give you. The way I try to talk about the Dharma is to influence your mind somehow in order to practice the dhamma, to change the mind. So, anyway, for to make this time really worthwhile, this day worthwhile, we need to have the right motivation, especially if we’re listening to something about tantra. Since tantra is part of the Mahāyāna tradition, it’s an integral part of the Mahāyāna tradition, So we’re going to consider the Mahāyāna sutras and tantras and their relationship.
When listening to teachings on this subject, then we should have a motivation that fits with the subject. The best motivation we can have is what is called the bodhicitta motivation, which is the motivation wishing to achieve enlightenment, to develop the full potentials of our mind, to develop our buddha nature for the benefit of others, to become enlightened for the sake of others. That is the best motivation we can have. That is the Mahāyāna motivation. Not just to have some interesting experiences in this life or to achieve liberation for oneself, but to really wish to be able to benefit others in a perfect way, and the way to do that, the only way to perfectly benefit others, is to achieve complete enlightenment.
So of course, generally speaking, probably none of us have that motivation, in fact, because that motivation is something incredibly difficult to generate. But we can try to aspire to that type of motivation as much as we can. And because that motivation is so virtuous, so powerful, so positive, and at the same time, it also purifies all kinds of negative thoughts. Since we’re considering tantra as well, the reason the Buddha taught tantra as special aspect of the Mahāyāna teachings is that, as you probably all know, in trying to follow the sūtra path, the general exoteric aspect of the Mahāyāna teachings, this path takes an incredibly long time to accomplish, an inconceivably long time to accomplish. And so the Buddha taught the tantras for those very, very special people whose compassion was so great, who found the suffering of sentient beings so unbearable that to spend such a long time to achieve enlightenment was something unbearable.
Not because they wanted to experience some bliss quickly for themselves, but the thought of taking that while while it took so long to achieve enlightenment, sentient beings continued to suffer. So the Buddha taught a very special quick path, which is the tantric path. So it was taught for people who had a very special, rare group of people who had the most profound bodhicitta of all, the most unbearable, vast compassion. That was taught for those people. So of course, we are not really in that category at all.
But that is really the motivation for listening to teachings on tantra and trying to practice it, not because it’s something interesting and entertaining and mystical and special and secret and that other people can’t hear, but it’s because one can’t bear the suffering of others. That’s why one practices tantra. That is the only reason, actually, of practicing tantra. That’s why the Buddha taught it. And that’s why it was kept secret, because it was only for a very special group of people who developed this very profound compassion.
So that’s what tantra is about. Tantra has now got a completely different reputation in the west and out of Tibet. So, definitely we should have some kind of compassionate motivation for others wishing to really being aware of the suffering of other sentient beings and wanting to take responsibility for, in some way, to free sentient beings from their suffering, then we listen to the teachings and try to practice them so we can try and generate that motivation right now. As way of helping to generate that motivation, firstly, we can spend a short time doing some breathing meditation just to focus our mind, and by doing that, we establish what is basically a neutral mind, and on top of that, we can try to then develop a really virtuous motivation of bodhicitta. So we’ll do some breathing meditation for a short time, and then we’ll do a quick visualization of Śākyamūni Buddha as our object of refuge, say the prayer of generating refuge in bodhicitta, which is in the book.
It’s page one of the book. So we just sit in correct posture in the seven the eight point Vairocana posture, Vairocana Buddha, as much as one can. So if you can’t sit in the full vajra posture, then try the half vajra posture. But if that’s not possible, at least to sit with your if you’re sitting on the ground with your left leg closest to your body and then right leg placed a way that’s comfortable. The main thing is to try to keep the back straight but not tense.
In fact, to try to avoid any tension in your body because if the body is tense, then the mind is also also tense. So just try to keep the back straight and also not leaning to the left or right or forwards or backwards. Then place the right hand on the left with the thumb slightly touching, resting in the lap. Keep the elbows just a little apart away from the body, just a short distance. Then you tuck your chin in just a little bit with the head, not your neck, but your head slightly tilted forwards.
Have the eyes a little bit open, just fixed, gazing, staring at a point maybe two feet in front of you, but not really looking, just staring at that point. And place tip of the tongue rest to rest at the back of the top teeth of the palate. So these are the seven points of the Vairocana posture, and then the eighth point is to do the breathing meditation. So we can just simply watch the breath coming in and going out, not changing it, and particularly being aware of the sensation that the breath creates at the nostrils as it comes in and goes out. Just trying to focus on that in a very relaxed but alert way.
Just taking interest in that experience. And let every other experience just fade away, not force it away or become attracted to it, but just let it go. Don’t take any interest in any external sounds. We can’t help but hear them, but we don’t have to take interest in them. There’ll be different sensations in the body.
We can’t stop them arising, but we don’t have to take interest in them. And the uncontrolled mind produces thoughts again and again, but we don’t have to take interest in them. That’s our choice. We can choose now just to rest the mind in the experience of the breath, just being interested in that. So then we can think that right now, all this life, I’ve been seeking happiness but only experiencing dissatisfaction.
This process has been going on during beginningless time. But in this one very brief lifetime, having met the Buddhist teachings, having developed faith in them, I have the chance to completely reverse all the mistakes I’ve been making, to overcome the self-cherishing thought. Because in my search for happiness, I’ve been obsessed just with a thought of myself and ignoring the welfare of other living beings. So now having met the Buddha’s teachings, I have the chance to understand how this way of behaving, following a self-cherishing thought, actually is only the source of suffering and confusion, and that the way to achieve my own perfect happiness is to let go of the self-cherishing thought and develop a thought cherishing others more than so. So there is a method, a path to bring about this achievement.
And this path is the Buddha’s teachings coming from the perfect mind of the Buddha, that perfect mind that achieved that state, that overcame self-cherishing and achieved the mind that perfectly cherishes others, a mind free of all thoughts, possessing all good qualities. So I have this potential, this Buddha potential right now that I can depth develop for the sake of others. By relying on the outer refuges of Buddhadharma and Sangha, it leads me to take an inner refuge in my own pure mind. And if I think about it in this life and all previous lives, I’ve always depended on the kindness of other living beings. So in this life, by following the Mahāyāna teachings, especially the tantric teachings, I can quickly achieve enlightenment in order to repay the kindness that I’ve been continuously receiving from the most sentient beings.
So therefore, I will listen to the teachings in order to understand them more, in order to be able to practice them, to quickly achieve enlightenment. So to develop this sense of refuge in the thought of bodhicitta, we can visualize Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as our object of refuge, our source of inspiration and guidance. Thinking of him sitting on a very beautiful, vast, golden, and jeweled throne supported by eight white snow lions, resting on the throne as a many petalled lotus. Floating on that is a slightly which is within the lotus, is a golden sun disc. Above that, a silvery white moon disc.
And seated on that, magnificent form of Śākyamūni Buddha, having a body of transparent golden light. Thinking that he is looking at me with a mind of incredible compassion, complete acceptance, but at the same time, aware, compassionately aware of all other living beings throughout the universe without any discrimination. Try and think of oneself surrounded by all the different sentient beings of the different realms, each experiencing the sufferings unique to those realms. And it generates thought how wonderful it would be if I could really free all these beings of this suffering. So I can say the prayer of taking refuge and generating bodhicitta.
Actually, we should say the one off, which is on page oh, it’s on page one verse verse three. Okay. So, how topic is the Sūtra and Tantra and the relationship between them? Are they coming or going? Oh, I see.
Oh, okay. There’s a note on the door. Alright. Alright. So just an overview of the Buddha’s teachings.
There are two main lineages of the Buddha’s teachings, systems of the Buddha’s teachings, which is called the Hīnayāna system and the Mahāyāna system. So in the Buddha’s teachings, the central point of all the Buddhist teachings, no matter what the system is, is the development of wisdom. Right? This is what we are trying to achieve. This is the fundamental thing, because every living being wants to experience perfect happiness, perfect lasting happiness, and to be free of suffering.
Way to experience this perfect lasting happiness is to eliminate all the causes of suffering and the causes of suffering within our mind. When that is eliminated, then there is peace, there is perfect happiness. So, just going back to the four noble truths, the Buddha said that there is the truth of suffering, dissatisfaction. The life ordinary life is is suffering unsatisfied. Now, not just for a few people, but for all people, yet for every living being, life is unsatisfied.
It doesn’t mean there is some pleasure. Sure, there’s pleasure in it, some little bit of happiness, but finally, deep down, life, existence, ordinary existence, is unsatisfied. And the Buddha said, so the second truth of of noble beings is that there is a cause for this dissatisfaction, And this cause is our ignorance, this ignorance that obscures our mind, that doesn’t allow us to see oneself and all phenomena as they actually exist. This ignorance not only doesn’t allow us to see our true nature, it actually distorts the way we exist. We have a distorted perception.
It’s very subtle that we have this subtle, distorted perception of who we are, how we exist, how all phenomena exist. And every living being suffers from this ignorance, from this affliction. It is the very worst disease in the entire world. If we put all the diseases together, if we suddenly went to the doctor and found that we had cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, and all these other strange, new, unmanageable diseases that exist. All of these diseases put together, all they can do is kill us.
And if we had all of them at once, it wouldn’t be so bad because we’d die very quickly. But if we were told we had just one of these diseases, we’d get incredibly upset and do everything possible to get rid of it. But in fact, all of us, every living being, has the worst disease imaginable, far, far worse than any of these physical diseases. We have the disease of ignorance. And this disease of ignorance produces every kind of other physical disease and every other problem.
It’s only because of this ignorance that we have suffering, dissatisfaction, pain, worry, fear, awe, disease, everything. But I’m not gonna prove that now because I’ll never get onto the topic, but this is the essential point of the Buddha’s teachings, that there is dissatisfaction of all kinds, and it has a very specific cause. And only if we remove that cause will we experience peace and contentment, happiness, joy, meaningfulness. There is no other way. It’s very dogmatic.
There’s no other way. Absolutely no other way. Just like if you have a disease, there is a reason for it. If we have a physical disease, there is a very specific cause for it. And until that very specific cause is discovered, one will always have the disease.
Right? And you can take various medicines that may cure or not cure, but modify the disease to some extent, but until the actual cause of the disease is discovered, one will always suffer. So it is exactly the same from the point of view of our mind, which is the source of all experience. Our mind is not at ease. It is diseased at the moment.
It is unsatisfied, unfulfilled. And that has a very, very, very specific cause. And until that cause is eliminated, we will always be unhappy and cause unhappiness to others and be of no real benefit to us. Right? So the third noble truth is, or the third truth of noble beings, noble beings, the ones who have perceived reality as it is, is that this this this suffering, this dissatisfaction can be eliminated.
It definitely can be stopped, not and not just temporarily, but for all time. This situation that has been going on during beginningless time definitely can come to an end. And the fourth truth is that there is a path, a method, that brings about cessation of suffering and dissatisfaction. So that path leads us to the development of wisdom. There is a particular path we need to follow step by step, And this is a simple but crucial point.
It is step by step. First, you have to do one thing, then the next thing, then the next thing, and then the next thing, like climbing up a ladder. And then you get wisdom. Then one develops wisdom. When that wisdom is fully developed, it eliminates the core of ignorance, which is the root of all suffering.
So this is the basic, essential point of all the Buddhist teachings. But what distinguishes the various traditions in the Buddhist teachings, especially the two main vehicles of the Buddhist teachings, the Hīnayāna and the Mahāyāna, what distinguishes them is the motivation. The Hīnayāna vehicle is what is called can be translated as the individual vehicle. So in that vehicle of teachings, that system of teachings that the Buddha taught, the goal, of course, is to achieve wisdom, the wisdom that will destroy one’s ignorance in order to bring about one’s own perfect happiness, which is called nirvana, liberation, nirvana. And when one achieves that, one becomes an arhat.
And in this case, in this system of practice, the motivation is basically wanting to be free of suffering and having happiness for oneself. The main concern is me. Alright? Within the Hīnayāna system, of course, one has to develop loving kindness and compassion. These absolutely essential, essential, and one has to develop them in a quite extensive way.
But one doesn’t develop them fully because the main concern is still oneself, one’s own suffering, and one’s own desire for happiness, contentment, peace. An age also the Hīnayāna path was taught for people who basically don’t have the confidence that it’s possible to benefit all sentient beings. They may have the thought how wonderful it would be if all living beings could be happy and be free of suffering, suffering, but they don’t have the confidence, the courage that it’s possible that I could stop the suffering around us. So for such people, the Buddha taught the Hīnayāna path, the individual vehicle that leads to one’s own liberation, one’s own benefit. But for those who are more courageous, more confident, the Buddha taught the Mahāyāna system, the great vehicle, or what Lama Yeshe used to call the universal vehicle.
Maha means great. Yana means vehicle. The Mahai, the great vehicle or the universal vehicle. So this was taught for those people who had the confidence that it is possible to achieve, to benefit not only oneself, but others as well, perfectly. So in this system, although, again, the goal is to achieve wisdom, in the Hīnayāna vehicle, one develops one’s wisdom to the extent that it destroys what are called the obstacles to liberation.
The obstacles to liberation are all one’s disturbing thoughts, particularly the three poisonous minds of anger, attachment, and the root poisonous mind of ignorance. These are the obstacles to liberation. Right? When they are eliminated, one is liberated. One is an an arhat.
One enters a state of nirvana. So the point is when you enter the state of nirvana, this state of nirvana you can achieve as a human being in a human body. You can practice the Hīnayāna path step by step and destroy ignorance, and you achieve as a human being in this life, you become an arhat. And so your mind is in a state of you when you meditate especially, and you can do this for years and years if you like as a human being, as an arhat, you just sit down and you just meditate the whole time in a state of meditative absorption on bliss. nirvana is the state of perfect bliss.
And in this state, of course, you’re not aware of anything else. You’re just absorbed into this blissful state. When you come out of that blissful state as a human being, as an arhat, you have great love and compassion, and of course you don’t want others to suffer, so you teach them, guide them away from suffering, teaching them to practice morality and so on, all the different things. So in an arhat, as a human being, while they’re alive, they can be of great benefit to others. Just their presence radiates incredible peace, serenity, love, and compassion, because all the delusions have completely gone from their mind.
Right? So just to be in the presence of an arhat is is a wonderful experience because mind you know, our minds have great power. Even if we don’t say anything to anyone, we can pick up the vibes. Right? So if someone is very angry and you walk into a room where there’s a very angry person and you’re in a basically peaceful state of mind, then you can feel that anger.
Right? You can feel it. You can actually almost hit it, bang into it practically. It’s so strong. I mean, if you’re very angry, you won’t feel it.
You can’t notice it. Or if you’re in the presence of someone who is very kind and compassionate and loving, you can feel that if you’re open to it, if you’re sensitive enough. Right? So an just radiates incredible love and compassion to others, and while they’re in their daily life, they benefit. But when they die, when an arhat dies and even an arhat leaves the body, then the mind of the arhat just goes into this nirvanic meditative state of bliss, where the mind is not aware of anything other than that bliss.
They are not aware of the world, other sentient beings. So there’s no way an arhat in nirvana can benefit others. They certainly don’t harm because that mind is very pure, but it is not able to benefit others. Whereas when we follow the Mahāyāna path, again, what we’re trying to do is develop our wisdom more and more, but we’re also trying to develop our love and compassion, the compassion to increase that, to be aware of the suffering of others more and more, particularly from the point of view that these suffering sentient beings have been kind to me in previous lives. In this life and all previous lives, every sentient being has been unbelievably kind to me in so many inconceivable ways.
As it’s taught in the Mahāyāna tradition, every sentient being, in fact, has been one’s mother, because we’ve had countless lives, infinite lives, beginningless numbers of lives. And in most of those lives, we’ve needed a mother. When one is a human being, we need a mother to be born. When you’re an animal, an insect, any kind of being in the animal realm, you need a mother. When when you’re in the preta realm, the hungry ghost realm, you need a mother.
Well, there are three kinds of hungry ghosts well, there’s several kinds of hungry ghosts. Some are spontaneously born, but some are are born from mothers. Right? There’s the story of the the preter who had five hundred children. You know that story?
Anyway, there is that story. Well, I won’t go into that story. It’s a very interesting story, but a bit off the topic. But anyway, that illustrates that preta’s have children. As a preta, and we’ve all been pretas, we’ve had preta mothers.
We’ve all been animals, we’ve had animal mothers. We’ve been human beings many, many times, so we’ve had many human mothers. In the hell realm, you don’t have parents, just instantaneously born there. In the desire god realms, in some of those, parents, but in the form and formless realms, you don’t. But anyway, we’ve had countless mothers, infinite mothers.
The Buddha said, in fact, every living being, every sentient being, has been our mother, and not just one time but many times. And when they weren’t our mother, they were our father. When they weren’t our father, they were our brother, our sister, our uncle, aunt, granny, grandfather, best friend, best teacher, best helper. Everything, every sentient being has been so kind to us in unbelievable ways many times. Sentient beings have sacrificed their lives for us countless times.
They’ve done everything for us countless times. If we meditate on that and really meditate on it, this develops great compassion and the sense of what his holiness calls universal responsibility, the sense that I I have to do I have to repay this kindness. Now, I myself, I have to repay this kindness. I can’t leave it up to others. Other people are doing this.
Other Buddhas are benefiting sentient beings, but that doesn’t matter. I alone have to. Because I’ve received this kindness, I have to repay it. It’s my responsibility. And as you develop that that thought, as we develop that thought more and more, this generate develops into what is called bodhicitta.
bodhicitta is the thought wishing to reap to benefit sentient beings perfectly, Because one thinks, how am I going to repay the kindness of sentient beings? Give them a box of chocolates? A new barbecue? A dream kitchen? A dream home?
Pay for their operations, give them a new heart. None of these things will repay the infinite kindness that we receive from any one sentient being. If we think, what do I want? What do I want? I want happiness.
Do I want just temporary, superficial happiness? No. I want deep down what I want is real peace, contentment that lasts, that is perfect, and it lasts forever. That’s what I want. So isn’t that what other people want?
Isn’t that what would really satisfy others, all the kind sentient beings? Yes. That’s what I have to give sentient beings. Help them experience that perfect happiness. It’s the only way to repay sentient beings.
Nothing else is good enough. Nothing else. So the more we think about that so that’s one aspect of what bodhicitta is, the wish to repay the kindness of sentient beings perfectly by somehow being the cause for them.