Session 48 - Saturday July 31, 2022

Chapter SIX:  Showing Patience (Continued)

REFUGE | MANDALA | REQUEST for TEACHINGS

Lama’s Invocation

Short practice of Mental Quiescence

Hello to each of you.

First, allow me to express and share with you the great joy I feel as I return to Theg-Chog Norbu Ling after several months of absence.

This means that the surgery I recently underwent was conclusive. Being so, I will soon be able to resume my Dharma activities. For this, I am very grateful. Acknowledging to be indebted to all those who contributed to my recovery, I wish to manifest them here my deepest gratitude.

As you know, we are looking forward to the imminent visit of Venerable Gyaltön Rinpoche.

The logistics involved in this event require significant preparation on many levels. I am most happy to be able to support our resident members who are already working hard to make this event successful and beneficial.

I am asking you to attend this event, register and pay the seminar fee as soon as possible. Your registration will indeed provide us with the funds needed to carry our task well and timely. Thanks!

Resuming our study of the Bodhicaryâvatâra, within that of Chapter 6 teaching the practice of Patience on the level of the Paramitas, last week we completed the topic of cultivating patience towards those who treat us with contempt.

The next topic presented by Shantideva is about:

“Cultivating patience toward those who ill-treat our loved ones”.

This topic will run through the stanzas 64 to 75.

Stanza 64:

Even toward those who revile and destroy

Images, stupas, and the sacred Dharma,

My anger’s improper,

Since there can be no harm to Buddhas and the rest.

Out of attachment to their own views and because of their dislike to the opinions of others, it ensues that individuals may come to commit heinous actions towards the representations of body, speech, and mind of the Buddha: vilifying and destroying sacred images, stupas, and even the sacred scriptures.

This constitutes a very negative karma, regardless they are Buddhist or not. Acting in such a way, they break their own tradition out of aversion, even going as far as committing acts of immediate retribution.

Such people should only ever be the objects of our compassion. We should not be angry with them.

Why is it so? could we ask. It is so because the Buddhas are themselves unaffected by such behaviour, for their nature is uncompounded. As for Buddha images and representations of the Dharma, being material and inanimate, they can feel no pain when damaged.

Stanza 65:

And toward those who injure my spiritual teachers,

My relatives and so on, and my friends as well,

My rage will be averted, by having seen that

This arises from conditions, as in the manner before.

And even when our teachers, parents, family and so on, members of the monastic order, and Dharma friends become the object of incorrect attitudes, whenever they are criticized, robbed, or harmed in any way. It is their karma that has summoned such actions from their aggressors.

We ought to understand that these sufferings arise themselves from causes and conditions, as it was taught by Shantideva in the sloka 31 of this chapter. To remind you, in this sloka Shantideva states:

All agents of harm are without autonomy. They arise through the power of circumstantial conditions. And these same conditions arise successively owing to the influence of still earlier conditions and are thus themselves without autonomy.

Stanza 66:

Since injury is inflicted on embodied beings

By both those with a mind and things having no mind,

Why single out and begrudge only those with a mind?

Therefore, be patient with harm!

Injuries are inflicted by both, animate beings, such as animals or humans or by inanimate entities like fire, water, wind, falling rocks, and so on.

Animate and inanimate are akin in their capacities to inflict harm.

They are also alike in the sense that both are conditioned.

And they are similar too in being devoid of self.

Nevertheless, we are so selective by invariably choosing animate agents as the focus of our anger. This is quite illogical. We should simply bear with injuries regardless of their provenance, animate or inanimate.

Stanza 67:

Some commit misdeeds because of naivety,

And, because of naivety, some get enraged:

Which of them can we say is without fault,

And which of them would be at fault?

Some people, in their ignorance, perpetrate evil actions such as stealing, entertaining wrong views, belittling others, abandoning the Dharma, and committing the sins of immediate retribution.

Other people who have no compassion toward them are, in their ignorance, moved to anger and retaliation.

Which of the two parties is guiltless? Both accumulate great evil, and both are equally at fault in committing wrong doings.

Stanza 68:

Well, suppose I said, “Rage for someone who maligns me

Is because it makes limited beings lose their trust.”

Well then, why don’t you get similarly enraged

With someone defaming someone else?

The question is: Why did those in the first category (our teachers, friends, and so on) commit evil in the past, which is now the cause of their being harmed at another’s hand?

The effects of their past actions cannot be avoided and are now maturing on them.

We should not be resentful when this happens.

Since everything derives from karma, what reason is there to dislike the harm-doer?

Stanza 69:

If you can tolerate distrust when it’s for someone else,

Because that lack of trust depends on other things.

Then why not be patient with someone who maligns me,

Since that’s dependent on disturbing emotions arising?

Having brought up this understanding, Shantideva declares that no matter what, he will not be offended when others harm his relatives and loved ones.

He will not get annoyed and give into anger but will endure the situations and engage in virtuous ways, calming the bitterness that exists between his friends and their enemies.

And he will do this to nurture in their hearts, both relatives and enemies) an attitude of mutual love that discards all hatred and resentment.

We will stop here for today.

Let us practice mental quiescence for a short while, before dedicating the merit of this session for the benefit of all.