The Very Venerable Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Loving Kindness Talk One

Topic Index

The video clips are in Microsoft media format.

Loving Kindness and Compassion

Video [6:13] Dialup Broadband

The Very Venerable Mingyur Rinpoche: Thank you, everyone for coming tonight. Tashi deleg. This evening I would like to discuss loving-kindness and compassion.

The qualities of loving-kindness and compassion protect us as well as protect others. The Buddha also taught that these qualities of loving-kindness and compassion spontaneously accomplish benefit for oneself and others and are just like a wish-fulfilling jewel.

There are said to be actual cases of wish-fulfilling jewels in histories that really existed. We do not have those types of things anymore, but this is taken as an example to illustrate what loving-kindness and compassion are like. It doesn't matter whether wish-fulfilling jewels really exist or not; we can take them as an example.

Enemies and Anger

If our mind streams are filled with aggression and anger, not only will we be unable to help ourselves, we will not be able to help anyone else either, and therefore unable to accomplish benefit for this life. Further, if we talk from the perspective of future lives, we will not be able to accomplish any good in them either.

For example: If you are someone who, with a mind full of anger, is always thinking about enemies and ways to overcome them, there is never a time that you will be happy and peaceful.

In the daytime you will not be able to eat your food well. When you are sitting down you will think about standing up and when you are standing up you will think about sitting down; and at nighttime you will not be able to sleep well.

Furthermore, your enemies will increase. They will never decrease.

The mind of anger or aggression thinks about enemies and about how to overcome them. It considers the enemy to be someone who is harming us or will harm us, and therefore thinks about how to overcome the enemy, obtain victory over the enemy.

The opinion of this attitude of anger is that we actually can overcome our enemies by way of anger. But actually we find that if we follow after this mind of anger, if we follow after those thoughts, we can not overcome our enemies at all.

It is possible to inflict some levels of harm upon our enemies. The ultimate level of harm of course would be to kill them. But if we killed someone, then two enemies would rise up behind that person we killed. Then if we killed those two people, we would then have four enemies that rose up behind them.

If we killed those four enemies, they would multiply into eight, and eventually that would lead to having a hundred enemies, and eventually the whole world would be filled with our enemies.

We can see how this mind of aggression cannot really overcome enemies.

Another Approach

Video [7:21] Dialup Broadband

Translator: Rinpoche is going to give another example to you, and then will ask you a question - it won't be a hard question, so you shouldn't have too many worries [laughter].

Rinpoche [in English]: Don't worry, really [laughter].

There was a nomadic people who lived more than two or three thousand years ago. Everywhere they went they had to go by foot - they couldn't drive anywhere, so they had to walk up and down mountains and through plains and so forth. Sometimes they encountered roads on which there were very small, sharp stones and thorns that pierced through their feet.

They thought that to get around this problem was to cover the ground with leather. In that way the thorns and stones would not pierce their feet. So they gathered together all the leather they could find and were able to cover about fifteen or twenty kilometers of road. After that all of their leather was gone.

The question for you is: What could they really do to ameliorate the situation?

Student: Make shoes.

Rinpoche: So we have one suggestion, that they could make shoes out of leather. Does everyone agree with that? Even if you don't agree, you should speak up. You could come up with other suggestions. [There was much laughter throughout this section.]

S: Sweep the roads.

Rinpoche [in English]: Okay. Good idea.

S: Walk beside the road.

S: Go back from where they came from [laughter].

S: You could make a new road, without thorns and the sharp stones.

S: Re-use the leather.

Rinpoche: Thank you all for considering this topic well [laughter] and providing your answers.

If you take just enough leather to cover your feet, then it will protect your feet no matter where you step. It is equivalent to covering the whole earth with leather. This is the best idea, even though this was a time two or three thousand years ago when there was not good machinery to make sneakers, and there weren't good plows to make new roads.

If we take just enough leather to cover our feet, it becomes the same thing as covering the whole earth with leather. In the same way, if we tame our mind from within, it becomes the same thing as taming all enemies on the outside.

If we imbue our mind streams with mindfulness and with loving-kindness and compassion, what will appear to us will be happy experiences. How we appear to others will also be pleasant. Things will be pleasant both for ourselves and for others. In this way we accomplish both benefits.

How They Differ

Video [6:56] Dialup Broadband

To give another example:

If our minds are filled with aggression, hatred and other kleshas or mental afflictions, then our minds are never relaxed and never open - they are always tight and stuffy.

If our minds are tight, we won't have any self-confidence. If we are devoid of loving-kindness and compassion and lack this wish to benefit others we won't feel brave. When our minds are this way, this is mirrored in external appearances. Things that appear to us externally will also seem to be unpleasant.

If we had two people standing before this assembly tonight, and one of them had a mind filled with loving-kindness and compassion, a very open and relaxed mind, and the other person had a mind that was very disturbed, very tight and only concerned about their own benefit, they would see two different pictures as they looked out into the audience.

I am not talking about myself and the translator in this case [laughter].

I'm saying, if there were two other people [laughter].

The person with the disturbed mind filled with aggression would be looking at everyone and thinking badly of them. They would look at each person and say, "That's not a very good person, that's not a very nice person." They seem to have a lot of pride, fixated on their own concerns.

The person with loving-kindness and compassion in their heart would look out and see nice people, good people. They would look and say, "Oh, what a nice person, what a good person."

They would be able to keep company with anyone and be harmonious with anyone in any situation.

The narrow-minded person with a mind filled with pride would not be able to get along with many people because they would see faults in everyone. Not only that; they would see small faults as very big faults - for instance, when we get into fights over very small, menial things.

We could take this cup and put it neatly right here on this table in front of me.

Someone else might think it is better to put the cup over there. [Rinpoche demonstrates two people arguing over the precise placement of his cup.]

"No, it's better to put the cup here."

The two people would fight.

The fight would become greater and greater until it became a huge fight.

But the whole issue of where to place the cup isn't really a great one to begin with. We need to recognize that this is the case. If our minds are filled with aggression and concern only for ourselves, it is very hard to recognize when that happens.

We Are All Interdependent

Video [7:48] Dialup Broadband

In this way when we get into fights through having such a narrow mind, we do not accomplish our own benefit, nor do we accomplish the benefit of others. How is it that we don't accomplish any benefit?

Because everything is interdependently arisen. Everything comes into being by depending on something else.

For us as humans to experience goodness or benefit, we have to depend upon others to experience that goodness, benefit or happiness. Without depending on others, it is very difficult for anything good to happen to us.

Since we all live in a human society on one single planet, we have to depend upon each other. The best way to depend upon and communicate with each other is through having loving-kindness and compassion. If we have these qualities, we will be able to relate with each other, we will have connections with each other, and we can depend upon each other. But if we don't have any loving-kindness and compassion, the entire path of depending upon, communicating with and having connections with each other will become destroyed.

If we have loving-kindness and compassion with an attitude that we are contributing to this interdependence of humans, things will come along well for ourselves, things will come along well for others and the whole world will benefit.

When that happens we will not need armies or a lot of laws or police.

Take the example of bees working together, and see that one bee by itself doesn't have much power at all to accomplish anything. But when you have a whole hive of bees working together, look at the beautiful house they can make. Even if humans tried to make a house that beautiful they could not succeed.

It would be pretty hard for humans to try to make a house like bees have. And the honey! Look at the honey they make. The bees do not have any army or any security or police, or even any law enforcement.

We also could use an historic example of how being without compassion and loving-kindness leads to one's own demise. Hitler was filled with such hatred and aggression in his mind, and this hatred and aggression brought the ultimate result of his own demise. He destroyed himself. We can see how he did not gain any benefit from all of his hatred and aggression.

Mr. Gandhi, on the other hand, thought only about his fellow country-people of India. He had only about five rupees worth of clothing that he kept as personal possessions. (Remember we're talking about five Indian rupees, not five American or Canadian dollars.) Mr. Gandhi worked tirelessly only for others. In the end not only did he accomplish the benefit of his country-people, but also he himself became foremost among his citizens. He was revered as the best citizen in India. So we can see how this altruistic attitude accomplishes both benefits of self and other.

Benefits of Compassion

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This is the way of the relative truth - the interdependence of everything. This principle has the two main qualities of loving-kindness and compassion. If we ask what qualities or benefit is brought about through having loving-kindness, loving-kindness makes our mind open and spacious, brings confidence into our mind, and pacifies the anger in our mind.

What happens when we have compassion? When we have compassion, we have exertion, or delightful diligence, and are free from being lazy. Not only that; we gain wisdom because the objective of having compassion, what we think about when we have compassion, is accomplishing a certain goal. That makes us have diligence and wisdom.

Some people think that if everyone had loving-kindness and compassion the world would be a really boring place - everyone would be like sheep, just kind of idling about with nothing to do.

That might be the case if we had a lot of laziness on the one hand and a little anger on the other, but if we have loving-kindness and compassion in a genuine way, becoming like sheep is never possible.

When we have loving-kindness and compassion, we focus on accomplishing a certain benefit, a certain goal. We have diligence and wisdom, prajna. To accomplish any goal, we need to have a method. Working with the method involves working with our wisdom because method and wisdom come together. Therefore, by having compassion and loving-kindness we overcome our aggression and our laziness.

We could look at the example of herbal medicine and how, if we have low blood pressure, the herbal medicine brings our blood pressure up, and if we have high blood pressure, the herbal medicine brings our blood pressure down.

Translator: Good herbal medicine.

Rinpoche [in English]: And organic [laughter].

In the same way, it is very important for us to understand the reasons why it is important to have loving-kindness and compassion - what their function is, and what benefits come from having loving-kindness and compassion. If we undertake the practice of generating these qualities while endowed with the knowledge of the reasons, we will be able to actually bring them about.

Meditating on Loving Kindness and Compassion

Video [7.11] Dialup Broadband

We proceed through the stages of view, meditation and conduct. Up to this point we have been discussing the view, the wisdom aspect - what the benefits are of having loving-kindness and compassion, what the faults are of not having those qualities, what we want to be free from and what we want to accomplish when we're trying to train in loving-kindness. We have been discussing this up to this point. Now I will explain how we should go about meditating - how we should actually go about the process of generating these qualities.

Begin With Ourselves

In the practice of loving-kindness, we first consider ourselves.

It is important for us to think about our attitude, our basic being, what it is that we want and what it is that we don't want.

If we think about who we are in terms of our basic being, we find that we are good: both our body and mind are good in their basic being. From the perspective of our body, we have what is called a precious human body. From the perspective of the Buddhist teachings, it is something very good and very precious. If we look at our minds, according to the Buddha we all have buddha-nature. The Buddha taught extensively that the essence of our own mind is no different from the essence of the mind of the Buddha. So both our body and mind are extremely positive in their essence.

The Sanskrit word for a human or person is perusha, which has an etymological sense of something that possesses power - being a human being means that we have the power to accomplish anything we want.

When we think about what we want and don't want, we find that we want to be happy and we do not want to suffer.

We can see how this is true for everyone.

Is it true for you?

In Europe, some people say that they enjoy beating themselves, and they get money for doing that. Actually they go so far as to give money to other people to beat them, and set aside special times to be beaten.

Do you think they want happiness?

Yes, they do. It is very important to understand that happiness and suffering are created by one's mind - they do not exist in the external world.

People who desire to be beaten definitely want to be happy, but the way in which they want to be happy is different from other people. The way in which people want to be happy can be different, but the desire to be happy itself is always the same.

In the practice of loving-kindness, we consider ourselves first. We generate an appreciation for how our basic nature is positive in this way and think, "How wonderful would it be if I were to enjoy happiness and the causes of happiness."

In the same way we generate joy and appreciate this basic goodness of our body and mind.

Recognizing Our Basic Nature

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By not recognizing our basic nature, we come under the influence of ignorance and behave in many ignorant ways. Then we contemplate how we suffer because of ignorance and have the aspiration, "May I be free from such suffering."

At first we do not recognize the goodness of our basic nature and engage in activities that do not accomplish good for others or ourselves. Compassion comes about when we realize that even though we have this basically good and positive nature, we don't always recognize it, we are not always aware of it.

For example: Take this watch. It's a very expensive watch and it keeps two different times: Halifax time and Indian time. The watch is made of gold and silver and has diamonds. I am the owner of the watch.

What if I were not aware that I am the owner, did not know how expensive the watch was, did not even know that it is a watch.

I could look at it and put it on my wrist, but I would not be able to tell the time from it.

Someday someone might approach and tell me that this is a watch, and then I could look down and recognize it. "Oh, this is a nice watch! It has Halifax time and Indian time." I could tell the time from it and the watch would be helping me. It would accomplish my aims.

The fact of my ownership of the watch never changed. I was the owner beforehand, still the owner now and still possess the watch.

It is the same way with our basic nature. It is always with us, we are always the owners of it but we don't recognize it. Because we do not recognize it we do not know how to put it into practice.

Loving Kindness and Compassion For Others

Video [4.58] Dialup Broadband

If we consider these points well for ourselves, it will be easy for us to apply the same thinking to other people - how they want to be happy and don't want to be suffering, and how they are just the same as we are.

When we consider this situation and aspire that they be free from suffering and enjoy happiness, then the qualities of loving-kindness and compassion arise.

We will be able to understand how other people think and will not get into fights about small issues like where cups should be placed, because we will know that they're just coming from a place of wanting to be happy and not wanting to suffer. In the same way we will not be frightened of other people. The only reason why we become scared of other people is through not understanding that they only want to be happy and free from suffering just as we do.

When we're beginning to meditate on these qualities, it is very helpful to do so thinking of people with whom we can easily generate loving-kindness and compassion, like our relatives, friends and parents.

When we familiarize ourselves well with them, then we can extend loving-kindness and compassion out to neutral beings and finally to all sentient beings. It is really true.

A neutral sentient being means someone who is not an enemy and not a friend.

All of these people are the same - they want to be happy and do not want to suffer. They are the same as we are.

Once we understand that well, we can even meditate on our enemies.

Our enemies are also just the same as we are - they want to be happy and don't want to suffer.

We can reflect on how our enemy is under the influence of their own aggression and disturbing mental state and, therefore, are not happy.

When we think carefully we can see how our enemies are actually very good. It is very good to have enemies because we can cultivate loving-kindness and compassion much more effectively. Having enemies will actually force us to cultivate loving-kindness and compassion and cultivate patience. Patience is a quality that is impossible to train in if we do not have an enemy.

But we are not saying that we need to go out and make enemies [laughter].

Practicing Loving Kindness and Compassion

Video [9:15] Dialup Broadband

One time in Tibet Patrül Rinpoche was teaching in Kham at the Kahthok Monastery, and he was teaching the people there about the importance of meditating on loving-kindness and compassion.

There was a monk attending the teachings, a student of Patrül Rinpoche's, who was very prideful and thought that he didn't need to meditate on loving-kindness and compassion. He thought that he already knew about that.

The student said to Patrül Rinpoche, "This loving-kindness and compassion stuff is really easy. I already know all about it and it's not going to be a problem for me to meditate on it." Patrül Rinpoche said, "Well you should be careful and not be so prideful, because when you meet up with your enemy, you will find out how well you can cultivate loving-kindness and compassion.

That will be the real indication of how much loving-kindness you have."

One day this monk was meditating by a stupa made of stone to the east of the Kahthok Monastery, just like Rinpoche is demonstrating [laughter] with his shawl over his head.

He was meditating on loving-kindness and compassion.

[Rinpoche speaks in Tibetan and makes gestures and moves his eyes around eliciting laughter from the assembly.]

And he was moving his eyes around, just like Rinpoche was demonstrating, back and forth. He wasn't looking at any particular thing but just letting his eyes kind of flutter about.

Patrül Rinpoche always dressed very humbly and made himself out to be an ordinary person. So when Patrül Rinpoche arrived on the scene, it was very hard to tell that he was a lama or anything like that.

He came to the stupa and began circumambulating it.

The monk continued meditating in the same way and Patrül Rinpoche approached the monk in a very respectful manner with his hands folded and said, "Oh, venerable one, what are you meditating on?"

The monk didn't recognize Patrül Rinpoche as being a lama.

He said, "I'm meditating on loving-kindness and compassion."

Patrül Rinpoche folded his hands and said, "Oh, how wonderful," and continued on his circumambulation.

When he came around for another lap around the stupa, he stopped and bowed down with his folded hands and said, "Venerable one, what are you doing?"

"I'm meditating on loving-kindness and compassion."

"Oh, how wonderful!" and Patrül Rinpoche kept circumambulating.

He came around for his third lap and stopped again and said, "Oh, venerable one, what are you doing?"

[Rinpoche speaks gruffly in Tibetan with exaggerated gestures eliciting great laughter.]

The monk replied, "Why are you bothering me? You've asked me for the third time now, I'm meditating on loving-kindness and compassion!" When the monk got angry in this way it made him open his eyes wide and look clearly, and he suddenly recognized Patrül Rinpoche's face.

Patrül Rinpoche said to him, "Is that what your loving-kindness and compassion is like?"

The monk was very embarrassed and apologized to Patrül Rinpoche, and later on his loving-kindness and compassion became genuine.

If we do not have loving-kindness and compassion, it creates problems for the world and for our own individual lives. We get into fights over very small and meaningless things, which disturbs our relationships with our friends, with our studies, with whatever it may be that we are trying to accomplish.

If we don't have any loving-kindness and compassion, but instead have a mind full of aggression, then we become overly sensitive to everything that happens to us, we get very irritated at the slightest provocation, and it is impossible for us to have pleasant experiences.

We need to familiarize ourselves with the loving-kindness and compassion we already have, and improve upon and expand what is already there. If we do that, our lives will be happy.

If we effect change in a small part of our life we will be able to effect a great amount of change. Our minds work in the exact same way - if we effect a little bit of change in our mind, we will be able to transform our mind in a very great way.

Please keep this in mind.

Questions

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If there is anything about this presentation that does not make sense, that you didn't understand, then it's fine to forget about it [laughter].

Tonight we discussed the basic forms of loving-kindness and compassion, and tomorrow evening we'll talk about limitless loving-kindness and compassion along with bodhichitta, the awakened heart. Are there any questions?

Student: When ones comes across his or her enemy, how is that enemy tamed through loving-kindness?

Rinpoche: When we first encounter an enemy, we think about how they want to be happy and be free from suffering just the same as we do. After we contemplate that, we try to put ourselves in their shoes, so to speak - we try to exchange ourselves for our enemy. We try to look from their point of view, try to see what it is that they are thinking about.

If we look at the situation from their perspective, we will be able to see very clearly who is wrong, who has the mistaken idea, and who is at fault in the situation. We will be able to see our own faults clearly as well as their faults.

If we examine this person from their own perspective and still find that person clearly at fault and acting in a confused way, we will still be able to see that situation with compassion - we will see how the person is desiring happiness but is confused about how to accomplish the happiness that they desire. They might be harming us and they might be harming many other people as well, and we can see that their behavior actually is harming the happiness that they are trying to achieve. At that time if it is possible for us to challenge that person in a way that will stop this negative action - in a peaceful way having loving kindness - then because of our good motivation it is okay for us to do that.

When we challenge our enemy by trying to stop them from negative action, we should do so in a way that will not upset them further. We should not call them names or anything like that, but rather try to explain to them clearly the reasons why what they are doing is harmful, why it is harming themselves as well as other people. Whether or not this benefits the enemy in the end is not really up to us. We can just simply try our best.

If through this contemplation we find that we are the ones at fault, then we can begin to remove those faults in ourselves.

If it is over a very small issue, like the placement of a cup on a table, then we can simply let go of the whole thing and let the other person have their way. It is important to cultivate patience at times like that.

If we treat our enemy harshly by speaking harshly to them, that will not give them any chance to see their own faults. It will just perpetuate their anger and elicit more aggressive responses from them. But if we have patience towards our enemy, even if they are treating us aggressively, we give them the space to see the faults of their own aggression. After they are finished venting their aggression on us, there is space for them to stand there and say, "Oh, maybe I was wrong in saying that, or wrong in doing that." If that happens they are going to have more respect for you and more loving-kindness towards you in the end.

S: I have many questions, but I think I'll just pick one. First, I wanted to say thank you - you're a great storyteller. The one question I would really like to ask is: Will there ever be that Utopia of loving-kindness where we will have no more enemies and where everybody has loving-kindness towards each other?

R: If we practice in this way, then yes, it is possible.

S: Yes, it is possible?

R: Yes.

S: Okay [laughter].

R: If we practice, we can accomplish anything.

S: Are you basically saying that compassion is a result of understanding the meditation's action?

R: Yes, you could definitely put it that way. The understanding is understanding your basic essence, your basic nature, and the basic nature of others; understanding your basic desire and the basic desire of others, and then engaging in actions that accord with those basic desires. When we engage in actions that way, we're engaging in actions that accord with these basic desires, not our immediate desires. Our immediate desires can be causes of disturbance, but if we act in accordance with our basic desires, then those are causes of peace. Wishing to enjoy happiness is loving-kindness, and wishing to be free from suffering is compassion.

S: Would you say that to have loving-kindness and compassion for other people [indistinct]?

R: It is said that it is easiest to train in these qualities if you start with yourself first. But it is also possible to end up having compassion and loving-kindness for yourself on the basis of first experiencing it toward others.

It is also said that if we think well of others, it is easy for us to have compassion for ourselves, that compassion for ourselves will be automatic.

If there are no more questions we can conclude now.

Okay, goodnight. Bon soir.

Audience: Goodnight.