13. Week 2 - Teaching 10 – Kadampa Festival Notes

2025 Summer Festival

13. Week 2 - Teaching 10

2025.08.04

As Geshe-la says, “If the mind accepts, there is no problem. It is only when the mind doesn’t accept that we have a problem.” Remind ourself, the function of wind is to move objects. External winds move external objects, internal winds move minds. When we hear the wind outside, it can remind us that we need to control our inner winds to tame our minds. Everything needs to appear to us as Dharma.

See all living beings as your father or mother, and love them as if you were their child.

In 1994, VGKG explained:

  We should recognise all sentient beings as our mother. In the Condensed POW Sutra (in MOD), Buddha said, “You should recognise all living beings as your mothers or fathers, and always help them with loving kindness and compassion. We should keep this advice to heart.” We should immediately regard everyone we meet as our mother as explained in the Lamrim teachings.

It’s simply imputation.

  This is a special Mahayana Lamrim view. All living beings are our mothers. There are very good reasons for proving this. Even if there weren’t good reasons to prove whether this is true or not it wouldn’t matter because it has great benefit. We already know this as it is explained in the Lamrim teachings. We can understand how all sentient beings are our mother.

Everything depends on our view. From this view, love comes. We choose how to discriminate people. We choose deliberately - to view everyone as our mother. We turn everyone into an object of meditation. The purpose is to love them as if you were their child. As Kadampas we love everyone.

Dharma gives us choice. Delusions give us no choice. Take our freedom to choose. In MOD and HTUTM: “It is our choice whether something or someone is our virtuous object or not. We should learn to use all living beings as our virtuous objects, the objects of our compassion and patience, and all phenomena as our objects of training in emptiness.”

  Conventional objects such as people, trees, atoms, planets, have a relative degree of reality that distinguish them from non-existents, such as square circles and unicorns. Only the ultimate nature or emptiness of phenomena is true, because only emptiness exists in the way it appears. Objects exist only in relation to the minds that cognise them. We can change the objects we see by changing the way we see them.
We choose to view ourself, other people, and the world, in the most beneficial way.

This is beneficial believing. It changes things for the better. If we believe that all living beings are our mother, they change, we change, and our love grows. Because only emptiness is ultimately true, we impute / believe whatever is beneficial.

At this point, in 1994, Geshe-la stopped giving commentary to Atisha’s Advice. Later, Gen-la Dekyong had the opportunity to request him in a meeting to please give commentary to the remaining verses. He then gave some special encouragement and blessing to find where he had already given commentary to some of the remaining verses in his books and oral teachings. He also explained some of the meanings to Gen-la Dekyong directly.

As a human, what are we using our speech to talk about? What are we using our human life for? What activities, particularly mental activities, are we engaging in? All the verses after “Generate compassion for lowly beings, and especially avoid despising or humiliating them” are removing obstacles to our love and helping us to use our body, speech, and mind, to cherish others. Yesterday we investigated some of the obstacles - finding fault, not contemplating the good qualities of others, being jealous, etc. These are all obstacles to our supreme good heart, bodhichitta. To accomplish bodhichitta we need to go against our self-cherishing. They are opposites.

In 2004, when teaching on NESTH, Geshe-la said:

  We need to go practically against the self-cherishing mind. We need to go against the self-cherishing view. We should make other people happy. Whoever we meet, whoever we associate with. We should develop familiarity with this activity by doing it every day. Here is a simple method that anyone can do: Whenever we meet someone including our friends and other people we can always talk nicely to them. Whenever you are communicating with people, talk nicely, talk kindly. And show your smiling face. We should try to respect others and give the love. Talk to them with good speech. Speech which is beneficial for them, in any way that helps them. In this way we can make others’ happy at any time, physically or verbally.

If we have a mind intending to serve, which means we’re respecting others, naturally our body and speech will follow that mind. Because our physical and verbal actions are determined by what we’re thinking.

  At least show good behaviour and respect. Talking respectfully, peacefully, gently. Whenever we talk, our discrimination should be a little bit concerning others’ view. Not just from our point of view. This makes them happy. We dedicate our jobs and any kind of daily activity for the benefit of all living beings. To flourish Buddhadharma and Dharma Centres which gives immense ultimate benefit for all living beings. Whenever we are engaging in all these actions we are helping others practically. So we are going against this evil spirit of our self-cherishing mind practically. Self-cherishing always encourages us to work for our own purpose, to make ourself happy and neglect others. Now we are helping others so we are working against the self-cherishing view practically. By doing this practice day-by-day with our daily activities our self-cherishing view will naturally become weaker and weaker. It will reduce. You can do like this.
Also we need to accept difficulties. This goes against our self-cherishing mind, which we have learned already.

Elsewhere VGKG has said: Principally we should show a good example, have a happy mind, be kind, and respect others. Keep a smiling face. Then they will understand life has a different meaning and our Buddhist way of life is different from others.

From JPGF, Geshe-la teaches us 4 types of negative action with regards to our speech: lying, divisive speech, hurtful speech, and idle gossip:

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Whenever we are with other people we must guard our speech and consider whether or not our words will hurt them. We check inwardly ‘Could these words be disturbing? Could they create unhappiness?’ Atisha said that when we are on our own we should be especially watchful of our mind, and when we are with others we should be especially watchful of our speech.

Guard our speech. Idle chatter wastes our life. Nothing good is happening. Use our life for spiritual activity.

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The object of idle chatter is any object that is meaningless… There are many ways of engaging in idle chatter. For example, we can just utter everything that comes into our head. We can talk without purpose or without any sense of responsibility. Any talking that is mindless or of no real benefit is idle chatter.

We’re doing these verses a little bit together because they’re related to each other.

Always keep a smiling face and a loving mind, and speak truthfully without malice.

If you talk too much with little meaning, you will make mistakes; therefore speak in moderation, only when necessary.

If you engage in many meaningless activities, your virtuous activities will degenerate; therefore stop activities that are not spiritual.

It is completely meaningless to put effort into activities that have no essence.

What is a meaningful activity? What is a meaningless activity? What is a spiritual activity? What is an activity that is not spiritual? Any activity can become a spiritual activity through the power of the mind. What motivation is behind the physical or verbal activity we’re engaging in? This is about bringing every appearance into the path.

In HTTYL in the section on bodhichitta:

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We need to make our meditation sessions and meditation breaks mutually supportive… We must learn to integrate our spiritual practice into our daily activities so that day and night we can maintain the peaceful states of mind, pure intentions and pure view that we developed in meditation.

It doesn’t mean changing our activities. It means changing the mind in which we engage in those activities. We continue our normal human activities. There are no activities that are not spiritual from their own side.

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We can overcome this problem by transforming all our daily activities and experiences into the spiritual path through developing special ways of thinking. Activities such as cooking, working, talking and relaxing are not intrinsically mundane; they are mundane only if done with a mundane mind. By doing exactly the same actions with a spiritual motivation, they become pure spiritual practices.

Unite daily life with Dharma. We make everything spiritual. There are no meaningless activities from their own side. We’re cooking, talking and working with a wish to benefit others. It’s not the actions that need to change, it’s the mind that we’re doing them with. That’s an emptiness teaching.

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For example, when we talk to our friends our motivation is usually mixed with self-cherishing and we say whatever comes into our mind, regardless of whether or not it is beneficial. We can, however, talk to others with the sole purpose of benefiting them, encouraging them to develop positive states of mind and taking care not to say anything that will upset them. Instead of thinking about how we can impress people, we should think about how we can help them, recalling how they are trapped in samsara and lack pure happiness. In this way, talking with our friends can become a means of improving our love, compassion and other realizations. If we can skilfully transform all our daily activities in this way, instead of feeling drained and tired when we sit down to meditate we will feel joyful and inspired, and it will be easy to develop pure concentration.

If the things you desire do not come, it is due to karma created long ago; therefore keep a happy and relaxed mind.

Beware, offending a holy being is worse than dying; therefore be honest and straightforward.

Since all the happiness and suffering of this life arise from previous actions, do not blame others.

All happiness comes from the blessings of your Spiritual Guide; therefore always repay his kindness.
` We’re learning here why things appear in the way they do, why we experience the things we do - where they are all coming from.

In Lord of All Lineages:

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The cause of all suffering is non-virtuous actions
And the cause of happiness is virtuous actions.
Since this is completely true
I will definitely abandon the first and practise the second.

The sign that we really believe karma is that when we experience suffering in our life, we blame our previous non-virtuous actions. We train never to blame others. If we blame others it’s sign we don’t really believe the law of karma. Others are just the instruments for our potentialities to have their effects. They’re just secondary conditions. They’re not the main cause. We look within - this is real refuge - where is my suffering coming from?

If the things you desire do not come, it is due to karma created long ago; therefore keep a happy and relaxed mind.

Everything is coming from our actions in the past, they’re mere appearance coming from potentials we placed in our heart from previous lives.

Since all the happiness and suffering of this life arise from previous actions, do not blame others.

Don’t blame others - this makes it worse. Don’t be upset when the things that you want don’t come. Create the causes for them to come. The more we believe in karma, the more progress we’ll make on the spiritual path.

Beware, offending a holy being is worse than dying; therefore be honest and straightforward.

Read the chapter on reliance on the SG from JPGF where we’re taught the benefits of relying on our SG, and the dangers of not.

VGKG said in London during the transmission of OIOM:

We need to rely purely upon our Spiritual Guide. Just relying upon a Spiritual Guide is not necessarily important. For example, many people rely upon a Spiritual Guide for their worldly attainment. They rely on their Spiritual Guide for worldly attainments such as a special position, or for their reputation, or for their power to control people. This is using the Spiritual Guide. So the word ‘purely’ is very important. Just relying upon a Spiritual Guide is not good enough. For example, many people are relying upon a person they like. Maybe sometimes this is attachment, attachment to their Spiritual Guide. This is a very popular activity. Very popular.

With respect to reliance upon a Spiritual Guide there are just two possibilities. One is a wonderful possibility. If people rely upon their Spiritual Guide purely then wonderful developments can take place. But if we rely impurely, impurely misusing their Spiritual Guide then there’s a huge danger. Great danger.

Many people relying upon a Spiritual Guide who is very popular so they can improve their worldly attainment such as their position, their reputation, or their power. This kind of student at the beginning is maybe pure but then through increasing their good conditions they want more, more, more and their motivation, their intention, changes, from pure to impure. So, then this unqualified student is misusing their Spiritual Guide. Why? because they are using the Spiritual Guide to increase their worldly reputation, their pleasures, their attainments. And also if the Spiritual Guide is not qualified then he or she will also increase the student’s inappropriate attention. What does that mean? This means encouraging the student to focus in such a way as to increase the student’s delusions.

An unqualified Spiritual Guide and an unqualified student are the real enemy of Buddhadharma.

All happiness comes from the blessings of your Spiritual Guide; therefore always repay his kindness.

It’s very interesting that this verse comes straight after the teachings on karma. We can see there’s a special meaning here. Through relying on our precious SG we can accumulate huge good fortune. We can purify our negativity. And we can receive continuous powerful blessings. This is the function of Guru Yoga - relying upon our SG. But whether or not we do this depends upon our belief in karma. Geshe-la has said at least twice in his more recent teachings, that the effectiveness of our Guru Yoga practice depends on our own belief in karma. The opportunity to practise Guru Yoga is present in every moment of our life. Because the Field of Merit is always in front of us. Or in our heart. Do we use our SG to create real happiness? Do we do everything as if we’re in the presence of our SG?

  We should judge for ourself whether or not we believe the main cause of suffering is our non-virtuous actions, and the main cause of happiness is our virtuous actions. If we do not believe this we will never apply effort to accumulate virtuous actions , or merit, we will not purify our non-virtuous actions, and we will experience suffering and difficulties in life after life without end. Our Guru Yoga practice will remain as empty words with no effectiveness. Please do not forget this. Geshe Kelsang said this.

In Paris 2008:

  We should know, believing happiness comes from virtuous actions and suffering comes from non-virtuous actions gives us immeasurable meaning in this life and in countless future lives. Due to lacking this belief we have wasted countless former lives in meaningless activities.

This is what it means in the verse, “It is completely meaningless to put effort into activities that have no essence.” What karma are they producing?

  Understanding this we should make the strong determination to believe the main cause of suffering is our non-virtuous actions, and the main cause of happiness is our virtuous actions. It is our responsibility. We meditate on this determination again and again until we spontaneously believe this is the truth. This belief is basic Buddhist view. It is the foundation of the path to liberation and enlightenment. If we do not believe this, we will never apply effort to accumulate merit or purify non-virtuous actions. Because of this we will experience suffering and difficulty life after life without end. Please do not forget this.

We need to create indestructible imprints that take us swiftly to complete purity.

15. Week 2 - Teaching 12 14. Week 2 - Teaching 11