Sun Radiance: Thought Transformation, 27 February 1990, part 1

So from the from the root root text on mind training, we are going to be discussing the fourth line. The four applications are the best are the best method. The four applications are the best method. So, we’re discussing the methods for transformation of adverse circumstances in those two which are conducive to our practice of the great vehicle and training that constitutes the training of the mind. And because of the great vehicle practices are such a rare types of practices and in such a precious nature, there is a proportional proportionate obstacles to its practice in proportion to its preciousness.

And we have to expect that we are going to have difficulties in our practice and there are going to be those who appear to be harming us in obstructing our practice. Therefore, the it is necessary to engage in a successful practice to transform these adverse circumstances into conducive circumstances. And we discussed last time in seeing that those who harm us are actually seeing us as seeing them as assisting in our practice and this was from the point of view of attitude and now we’re going to discuss it from the point of view of actual behavior. So the actual four applications which are to be made use of as the best methods for the transformation of adverse circumstances and conducive to such circumstances are first, the collecting a vast accumulation. The second is the purification of negativities.

The third is the offering of ritual cakes to malevolent beings. And the fourth is making request for the support supporting activities of the Dharma protectors. With respect to the first collection of the accumulation more specifically the accumulation of positive potential. What we in order to bring about the happiness that we wish for and to not experience the suffering, the unwished for suffering, we have to create the various causes for the happiness and not to create the causes for unhappiness. And, the causes for happiness are the are skillful or constructive actions.

So, we must it’s necessary to engage in various types of constructive activities. So it said that there are various mean various means, variety of means to, create positive potential, personal power. But just to list a few which I mentioned here that to those who exceed us in their excellent qualities to make offerings to them. Those who are equal or in some way lower than ourselves, more unfortunate than ourselves to practice generosity with respect to them. The offerings and the types of generosity are various degrees, lesser, middling and greater types of generosity and offerings.

Also, the practice generating love, practicing developing the attitude of persevering effort, these qualities are all means of generating positive potential. So with respect to the practice of giving as a means of creating the accumulations of personal power, It’s it is very much dependent upon one’s attitude, the power of one’s motivation which will create the degree which will determine the proportionate amount of power created. It’s not dependent upon the the thing itself which is given. Even if one were to give a person a piece of bread, this is a very small thing to give. It’s very insignificant.

But if one had an expansive attitude, a very powerful type of motivation, then one even as this means in terms of small insignificant thing one could create a great deal of personal power, positive potential in giving this. On the other hand, the converse is also true. Though we might give a magnificent gift of some nature. If it’s with a a narrow minded attitude, a wrong motivation, then there’s little or no positive potential created out of such a type of generosity. So whether we’re making offerings to those with magnificent qualities such as the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas or whether we’re offering giving things to those who are to the destitute.

It all depends upon our motivation, the attitude with which we give the article not the thing itself. Is various degrees of person of power which are derived from the motivation for giving and this can be exemplified in accordance with three levels of capacities of being. There various attitudes by which they make use of in the practice of giving. Those of the small capacity, even if they, when they give a small piece of bread, they give it with the intention, with the seeking to gain a human life in the future and this would be, this giving would serve as a cause to attain a human life in the future. Those in middling capacity would have the motivation to seek liberation for themselves from cyclic existence and therefore this giving of this single small piece of bread would act as a cause for their attaining self liberation.

On the other hand, those of greatest capacity would give with the attitude of seeking Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings and this simple act giving a piece of bread would be transformed into a cause which would bring about their eventual Buddhahood as in order to benefit all sentient beings. So it’s not the size of the offering, it’s not the significance of the offering, but the type of cause that we create and it’s the degree of personal power in which it is translated into is dependent upon our motivation and attitude with which we do the action. So whatever insignificant or significant article we may give, the degree of personal power which is created by means of this practice of generosity is dependent upon the quality of our motivation. Can even giving this one piece of bread can for different types of motivation for different people, it can serve as a cause for to attain a human life in the future. Can serve as a cause to attain liberation or ultimately it can serve as a cause to achieve Buddhahood.

The difference in the degree of the effectiveness of the giving is purely dependent upon the motivation, the attitude of mind with which it is given. If we give with no beneficial intention but rather with an indifferent state of mind, then it’s not sure what what whether it’s going to be of a benefit in the future, what types of benefit it will take. On the other hand, even if we give with these a sense of expectation of expecting something in return, then this is a, you know expecting something return in this life as a reward, then this is a very poor type of generosity, a very poor poor type of practice of giving. If, for example, we were to give even a a insignificant piece of bread to someone with the motivation of that it serve as a cause for attaining the Buddhahood. Then even this because of the motivation, it would be extremely vast and extremely powerful method for the as a means to develop a great amount of personal power.

If we were to carry that further and share out that merit that we’ve created, not we don’t we’re not creating that merit for oneself, but that we would we would make the prayer, may may all sentient beings share in this positive potential and may thereby they achieve Buddhahood. That by the power of this sharing of one’s positive potential, it becomes even more vast and becomes even greater because we’re shared it with numberless sentient beings. If it’s not destroyed by anger, then the positive potential is proportionately, immeasurable. So this is applying this, the quality, the significance of the quality of the motivation which was an act done is done based upon giving but this also applies to the various other types of practices whether it’s ethics, patience, effort. They all, the degree of effectiveness of the practices and therefore the proportional creation of positive potential is dependent upon the quality of the attitude with which the act is done.

And proportionate to the degree of personal power that we create, we will experience that much happiness in the future. So that is the first of the four applications. The creating the causes for the happiness by means of creating the accumulation of personal power which brings happiness. The second is since we do not want suffering to to begin to cease creating the causes of suffering which is the afflictive emotions and the unskillful actions arising from the afflictive emotions. We’re discussing the necessity to begin to cease the causes for our unwished for suffering and these, and we can make use of the temporary measures in removing the causes, removing the causes which are based upon the afflictive emotions by applying various antidotes.

It’s very difficult to eradicate the root of the causes, the afflictive emotions or disturbing attitudes from roots initially in the beginning but we can begin to cease the gross types of afflictive emotions and therefore the gross types of afflictive unskillful actions which arise out of them. Under the influence of the afflictive emotions, we engage in all types of unskillful physical and verbal activities and creating unskillful actions, destructive actions. We’ve been doing this from the beginning of this time. Not only have we done it ourselves, but we’ve incited others to engage in other types of unskillful actions and additionally, when we see somebody, we have committed an unskillful action, we often rejoice in their having committed such types of unskillful actions. So, beginning to make some determination not to come under the influence of the afflictive emotions and begin to turn away from them to cease creating the, to cease creating the unskillful actions, the physical and verbal actions which are influenced by the afflictive emotions.

The same holds true of the mental unskillful actions that we create that we’ve been creating from beginning of this time that we ourselves have done, that we have incited others to do and that we rejoice when we see others performing such types of actions to begin to turn away and make this determination not to go under the influence of the afflictive emotions as a temporary measure. Actions in terms of the three possibilities which we just discussed based upon an example. If we were to kill a sheep ourselves and this would be we would harm we would be one person harming one sheep and this would be a single action, a negative action with negative consequences. But we oftentimes we might order a sheep killed. You know, we go to the butcher and we say, I’d like a sheep killed.

And therefore we’ve compounded because now two people have brought about harm having to the sheep. And therefore there’s an even more negative action. There’s a more powerful type of negative action that’s been created. And if we were to even to go beyond that and compound that, we think, oh, he did a great job and think how wonderful it was now that we have this sheep and what we can do with it now that it’s dead. Would and rejoice in him having killed that sheep, then we’ve compounded our negative even more so.

The another example would be if a general in the military ordered his soldiers to kill the enemy and then he would create as much negativity as his soldiers created individually. If they killed a 100 people, then he would create he would collect the the negativity of having killed a 100 people. If they killed a thousand, likewise, the negativity of having killed a thousand people. So, it’s definite that we’ve created various types of unhealthy destructive types of actions previously and that these are the causes for undesired suffering. So, how are we to ensure ourselves that we don’t have to experience consequences of these causes that we’ve already created that are within ourselves?

The method that we can make use of is the four opponent powers. If we apply these four opponent powers, then we can remove these causes of undesired suffering completely from the root. If we apply them in a lesser type of, fashion then we will purify that lesser type of degree of negativity. We apply it in a middling type of fashion, a middling, purification purification will will take take place. Place.

If it’s applied extremely proficiently then we will we can we can completely eliminate all of the negative causes for future sufferings. So, we can make use of these four opponent powers to remove all of the negative negativities within our mind which bring about future undesired suffering. And what are these four opponent powers? The first one is called the power of of reliance and this is as we do at the beginning of each session. We go for refuge and we generate a, we generate what is called mind generation or the awakening heart.

We recite the verse to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened. This is the going for refuge to the Three Jewels and then the generation of the motivation which is expressed in the words through the merit I create by practicing given the other perfections may attain Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. This is the generating of the, kind hearted motivation of the awakening heart. These are the first power of the power of reliance. The second opponent power is the power of regret.

And it’s as if we develop the quality of regret when if we were to take some accidentally take some poison, understanding that one has a poison in one system and it’s beginning it will take effect and we will go under undergo a great deal of suffering as a consequence. We develop a sincere regret that we took that, we ingested that poison. Likewise, that we acknowledge the fact that we’ve created these various negative actions in the past and that they will have a suffering consequence in the future and therefore likewise we are not wishing to undergo that suffering we develop a regret from the point of view of not wanting suffer that we created these actions in the past. The third point of power is the power of reversal or turning away. And this involves the recognizes the the negative quality quality of the action that you’ve committed, develop having developed a sincere regret at having at having created that action, understanding its its unhealthy, its destructive quality, one decides to definitely turn away from enacting that same action again in the future.

This could be depend this would the quality of this turning away would depend upon it will very much determine the quality of the purification which will take place. One could develop a very powerful turning away, a sense of reversal and say I’m not going to do this action again for my whole life. But also in lesser fashion one could say I’m not going to commit this action again for the next year, next month or I’m not going to commit this action again for the next day. And this without this turning away, without this intention not to repeat again, then there’s the purification is not complete. And the fourth opponent power is the power of antidote.

And this is such that you know whatever we might do, whatever practice we might engage in, we engage it into with the attitude that I’ve created this negative action in the past and as a consequence I’m going to suffer and but I don’t want to suffer. Therefore, I’m going to create a particular type of positive action in order to destroy that previous negative action which I’ve created. And the types of practices that we might engage in are there are a number of types of positive actions that we can engage in. We recite the 100 syllable mantra of Vajrasattva, a particular mantra, OM MANI PADME HUM for example, meditation on emptiness, meditation on the awakening heart, love, compassion. Whatever we do, we do it with the attitude that my motivation for doing this is to create some positive action as an antidote to that negative action which I previously created.

We could engage in for example the there is a the Sūtra of Confession to the 35 Buddhas. This would be an extremely powerful method, but anything which is done with this quality of motivation. So these are the the four opponent powers which we can apply and if we can apply them in a complete method then whatever types of negative actions we might have created no matter how powerful they might have been they can be completely purified such that we will not have to experience the suffering consequence of such types of negative actions. If because if there’s no if there’s no negative action then there’s no suffering because the cause of suffering is negative action and if there’s no cause, there’s no consequence. And therefore, this is the way that we can, begin to achieve a type of happiness which is completely divorced of any type of suffering.

That is to say we create the causes for happiness by creating the accumulations of personal power and begin to acknowledge, to lay bare, various negativities that we’ve created as a means of purifying them. So, this method that we just discussed acknowledging that there is negative actions created in the past, laying them bare, and accumulating, creating the accumulations of personal potential are not isolated from one another. In fact, they mutually assist one another through the process of laying bare our negative actions created in the past we accumulate personal power and in creating personal power we also are at the same time purifying various past negative actions. Therefore, in this way, by practicing this way, we create the personal power, remove the causes of suffering, bring about the causes of happiness. Not only that, but in our meditation, we will quickly gain realizations as a consequence of acting in this way.

You know, though we might enjoy like meditating, sometimes the situation is such that we gain no realizations. This is a this is due to the fact that we have a great deal of negativities and have created a small personal power. And the third application was the offering to benevolent spirits. In the course of our practice, that we may be, that we may be harmed by various types of malevolent spirits, non human spirits, ghosts such as that. In such a situation we should make use of the previous explained mind training in the practice of giving and taking.

Atisha said that those non-human beings who harm us are actually emanations of the Buddhas. And what did he mean by this? He harms that come to us by by these different spirits and whatnot, actually force us to engage in our practice of Dharma to a higher and higher degree and therefore they’re ultimately a great benefit to us. Do you think that our nonhuman spirits bring us harm? In Tibet, it seems that there are a lot of these ghosts, demons, and various types of nonhuman forces which if they didn’t like you, they could bring you sickness and harm you in various ways.

What do you think exists?