Bodhisattvacaryavatara, 24 October 1988, part 1

So Śāntideva has said that the Buddha’s looking upon all beings with love asked by what means might we best be able to help them? And the answer that they came up with is the awakening heart of bodhicitta. So the text that we’re going to be looking at is the Engaging in the bodhisattva’s Deeds. Here it’s translated as a Guide to the bodhisattva’s Way of Life and written by Śāntideva. And it’s a text which is included in the great vehicle, the Mahāyāna.

And within the Mahāyāna, the great vehicle, there are two overall categories or divisions. That is the profound and the vast. And this text falls into the category of the vast. So within the category of the vast, the or concerns of the subjects which are taken up are compassion, the awakening heart, the 10 grounds of the bodhisattva, and the six perfections, such as the perfection or the transcendence of generosity, ethics, patience, effort, concentration, and wisdom. And then also included in this is the four categories of cultivating the minds of the students.

So amongst these six transcendences or perfections which are studied in the vast category of the vast, that is generosity, patience, ethics, etc, we’re going to look at the perfection of patience. So the text, Engaging in the bodhisattva Deeds, has 10 chapters. The first chapter takes up the benefits of developing an awakening heart, That is the bodhicitta. The second chapter is concerned with exposing one’s past negative actions and is the practice of confession. The third takes up the ceremony whereby one actually accepts the vows of a bodhisattva, the vows of developing an awakening heart.

And the fourth chapter is the development of the awareness of the various conditions for fostering the awakening heart, that is to say, developing conscientiousness. And then the fifth chapter is the guarding alertness, ensuring the conditions are as such for developing the awakening heart. And then the sixth chapter, which we’re going to look at, is the chapter on patience. So, you know, this is a practice contained within the great vehicle, which is, you know, of tremendous significance in our lives. We should, in order to develop the to take the most benefit from it, purely dependent upon the motivation.

So essentially, initially, we have to we should adjust our motivation such that we’re going to listen to this teaching in order to put it into practice, and we’re doing that in order to benefit all sentient beings as vast as space. So begin with by taking a look at the various faults of anger. You know, if we were to practice, engage in various skillful actions, positive actions, such as, for example, generosity, practicing ethics, effort, meditation, For long periods of time, for hundreds of eons, it is said. And even having gathered together all this skillful energy, one moment of anger is said to be able to destroy even this that we’ve gathered over a 100 eons of time. So how does anger destroy the roots of our skillful energy that are positive actions that we’ve created?

The various fruits, the various results of positive actions are happiness, as in various sources of happiness that we have around us. But, so these are the results of committing positive actions, happiness. But it’s the nature of anger that it destroys this happiness, which is the fruit of positive actions. Therefore, it destroys our positive actions because it destroys the fruit of our positive actions. We cannot have the happiness that positive actions would have given us due to anger destroying our happiness.

So, to give you so the text mentions that the positive energy that we have created over a thousand eons of time, just to develop some idea of what we mean by an eon. There are 80 intermediate eons in one great eon. And within a great eon, a great eon is divided into four parts, such that they put the part the part of creation, abidance, destruction, and emptiness. So I might have got this turned around. So in one great great eon is divided into four eighty intermediate eons.

The intermediate 80, the 80 great, this period of 80 great eons has four divisions, each having 20 intermediate eons in length. And they are the 20 divisions of twenty twenty intermediate eons of creation, abidance, destruction, and emptiness. For example, now the present world is abiding in the intermediate eon of abidance. So so we’re abiding in a period we’re we’re existing in a period of an intermediate eon of abidance. One, now to give an idea of what one intermediate eon is like, it is said that at the beginning of an intermediate eon, when first the, in our case, when the first humans first were created, they had a lifespan which was immeasurable.

Now during this period as the intermediate eon goes on, this life span will degenerate down to ten years. So the significance of this discussion is to give you some feeling about when we say that one moment of anger can destroy the positive energy or the positive actions that we’ve created over a 100 eons. A 100 eons is meant here, the hundred great eons of which we’ve divided down into these various time periods. All these positive actions are destroyed by one moment of anger. So, in general, we can talk about three types of objects that we become angry at.

Such types of objects as the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. That is, those beings who are spiritually superior to ourselves. And then there are those individuals who are equal to ourselves. And the third object of our anger are those who are in some way inferior to us. So this, this, this, discussion up to this point about the disadvantages of anger had been in accordance with the anger directed at individuals of high spiritual realization such as Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

So this destruction of positive actions over a thousand eons occurs when our anger is directed toward those of high spiritual realization. Those who have equal spiritual realization to us, who are in some way similar to us, we destroy a 100 eons of positive actions with one moment of anger. So this is, you know, we can’t these figures that we’ve been giving for these various destructive quality of anger, We can’t see for ourselves directly. It’s necessary to rely on the words of the Buddha and to develop conviction that these are valid words that he’s speaking as he actually saw them. So the text goes on to say that there is no destructive action like that of anger.

And just as there is no destructive action such as anger, there is no more constructive action than patience. That patience is of great spiritual significance, it is extremely beneficial, and is a great constructive action. So we have to look at the many disadvantages of anger and the many benefits to be derived from patients. And the fact that we were looking at these, weighing these two factors, understanding that we do not like to have any disadvantages, we and prefer the advantages, the profits that we gained, then we are motivated to engage in the various means, the methods, whereby we can strive in developing patience and begin to pacify our anger. So how do we go about actually reflecting upon patients?

How do we actually cultivate patients? First we have to begin to see for ourselves the great benefits to be derived from patients and having seen the disadvantages of our anger. You know, the fact that patience is of a great benefit to us, that not only is it a great benefit to us in this life, it’s going to be a benefit to us in all our future lives. And that it’s the tremendously constructive quality which is to be gained from developing patience. So if we discuss some of the benefits of developing patients, the Master Candrakīrti, he talks about some of the benefits to be derived.

And having accustomed ourselves to patients, the results, even in this life, are that when people see us, they like us. They’re happy when they see us. And, you know, there’s a big difference between some people have very beautiful bodies and some people have not so beautiful, unattractive bodies. And this, Having an attractive body, a beautiful body in this life is a result of having accustomed yourself to patience in previous lives. Then there are other people, you know, we’ve just seen them.

You know, they always have a black face, a black appearance, and there’s always negative atmosphere about them. And we have just we don’t like to be around them. We feel, you know, some uneasiness just to be with them. And this is due to their having habituated themselves to anger in past lives. So by, through the power of our patients we can develop, become skillful, and our wisdom will develop.

That we can, one of the advantages is that we are able to understand the operation of cyclic existence, how it’s actually working in our lives, and therefore we’ll be able to develop the means by which to liberate ourselves from it. And then in future lives, through the practice of patience, we can be reborn as some types of celestial beings or human beings, And we’re sure to have a beautiful body. And not only that, but we’ll have a kind heart. We’ll be able to help others and they’re going to like us quite naturally. We can look at the disadvantages of anger.

For example, you know, all the disputes that arise between husbands and wife are based upon allowing ourselves to be accustomed, habituated to anger. And this not only stops there, but it pervades the entire area where we’re living. That there’s a lot of disharmony in the area and this can spread to actually the entire country and finally the basis of all the conflicts within the world are dependent upon the angers in mind of the beings who live here. And in the future, through the force of accustoming our minds through anger, we can be reborn as a snake, as a scorpion. And these are the types of beings where people have just seen them become afraid.

They have a very ugly appearance and people just automatically are fearful and they throw stones at them without even thinking about it. So also we can be reborn as hell being or hungry ghost due to the force of anger. So, you know, we have to make effort and seeing for ourselves within our own experience the disadvantages of the faults of anger that when we generate them and the benefits of remaining patient in various situations. So, we can’t immediately change our mind all at once. We have to work at this very gradually.

But, you know, if every day we make some effort looking at the advantages of patience and the disadvantages of anger, then, you know, understanding this well, then maybe we can keep our minds in the practice of patience for even half a day and not generate any anger during that period of time. And little by little, our mind will develop the ability to lessen our anger, lessen our anger, and to develop patience. So Śāntideva has said that Śāntideva has said that there is nothing which does not become easier upon accustoming ourselves or habituation. That is to say, if we are willing to put the energy into practice, then there’s no reason that we cannot develop in any direction that we wish. So, anyway, we talk about, for example, that we can lose the constructive actions that created over a thousand eons, you know, we can’t know that for ourselves.

It’s a matter of having conviction in the words of the Buddha. But to the various disadvantages of anger and advantages of patience which are going to be discussed further, then we have direct experience of these. We can understand these for ourselves. So we can understand, you know, from our own direct experience that the moment that we that anger is developed within our mind, at that very moment, our mind is in pain. It’s suffering.

And we could be in a very comfortable, relaxed frame of mind. And then due to the simple fact of various adventitious conditions, temporary conditions aggregating, causing within our mind anger to arise, then automatically our relaxed, peaceful frame of mind is destroyed. So just, you know, automatically when, you know, no matter how much happiness or joy we may be experiencing, when anger develops, it’s completely all our happiness and joy is completely destroyed. So, you know, not finding any joy or happiness, having destroyed by the anger, by anger, then even when we try to sleep we cannot sleep. And even in our mind it feels uneasiness.

It’s quite unsettled. And not only that, when when anger arises, then it’s as if our mind is out of control. Yes. So in such a condition when anger arises, it’s as if our mind is out of control and we don’t quite know what we’re doing. You know, even to those people who help us, who are really our friends, who perhaps have given us material things, who have come to our aid when we were in problems, had when we’re angry, we’re even going to hurt them.

We’re going to fight with them. And to the extent where we could actually might even kill someone under the under the powerless control of anger. And not only does so not only do we hurt ourselves, but we hurt others. When we develop anger within ourselves, then all those people around us, you know, our husband or our wife, their relatives, our friends, are also affected. Their minds become unpeaceful and unhappy.

And seeing what we’re doing to others, seeing, you know, I hurt my wife or I hurt my husband, on top of all the unhappiness that we created for ourselves and others, thinking in this way, we become we become even more depressed. So, you know, you should should reflect upon what we’re talking about and see whether this is it’s okay to become angry or not. It’s okay. So we not only hurt ourselves, immediate our immediate the immediate people around us, but even the country that we lived in. And finally, all the disharmony in the world is dependent upon individuals, upon the hatred and anger within the minds of individual people.

You know, we think of when we think of anger, we think of very repulsive things, you know, like we associate it with things like snakes and spiders and scorpions, which nobody likes and are quite fearful. This is the quality of anger within our minds. So, just speaking briefly about the faults of anger, you know, is nobody who can be happy when they’re angry. Therefore, anger creates, anger destroys happiness for oneself and all those around oneself. It destroys one’s happiness and the happiness of those around oneself.

It not only does that in this life, but it does so in future lives. We have to identify, be able to recognize the moment anger is beginning to arise in our mind. You know, if the anger is of small strength, then we can begin to avert it. We can cause it to calm down. But it’s extremely difficult if we allow our anger to become very strong, then it’s extremely difficult to cease it.