Sun Radiance: Thought Transformation, 27 March 1990, part 3

The next commitment is don’t don’t reduce a god to a demon. Don’t reduce a god to a demon. In general, there are two types of gods. There are worldly gods and transworldly gods. And transworldly gods have few faults.

But in the case of worldly gods, they have great faults. And if if we rely on them for help, they may benefit us. If we praise them, if we treat them well, then they will probably help us. But they are not very stable. They’re not very reliable.

In fact, though we may seek benefit, help from them, they may actually return rather than giving us benefit to kill us, harm us, that is to say not benefit us. And in this way they are what a God is reduced to actually what would be a demon. The reason that we’re that we’re practicing the Dharma of mind training is in order to generate the awakening heart. We’re generating the awakening heart in terms of by means of the practice of exchange of self for others. It’s by in through the activities of listening, contemplating, and meditating.

And why we do this is that in terms of the exchange of self for others we are seeking to benefit mainly others. And we we listen, contemplate, meditate in order to subdue our self centeredness and self clinging. But if on the other hand, we we through our listening, contemplating, and meditating, our self centeredness and self clinging increase, then we have reduced a god to a demon. Then the next commitment is don’t seek suffering as a component of happiness. Don’t seek suffering as a component of happiness.

And this the meaning of this is that in order to find happiness for one’s self alone, thinking to cause pain to another as a means to find happiness to oneself alone, thinking to cause pain to another as in the case of an enemy. And this is inappropriate, and we should refrain from this type of action. Commitments of training of the mind. As we spoke about previously in Sanskrit it’s Samaya and what is meant is committed to those actions which are not to be separated from or that which is to be practiced or those faults which are to be abandoned or those qualities which are to be cultivated. So if we were to act in this way by abandoning these various faults and cultivating these various qualities, then the awakening heart which has not been developed will arise or that which has been developed will remain and increase higher and higher and we should have no doubts about that.

But then on the other hand, if we don’t guard our commitments, then this will act as an obstruction to the development of love and compassion. The non the previously undeveloped awakening heart will remain undeveloped and the the the actually developed awakening heart will degenerate and we will never be able to bring about the awakening heart. The awakening heart arises out of love and compassion. If there is no compassion then there is no awakening heart. It is said that the root of the awakening heart, the main cause of the awakening heart is compassion.

Therefore in order to generate the awakening heart we have to in following mind training to put into practice the various commitments of what is to be abandoned and what is to be cultivated. If we do not, then we will not be able to newly develop the awakening heart, and even that awakening heart that may have been developed will degenerate. Therefore, considering the difficulty in developing an awakening heart in general, and its great preciousness and its great importance, here it is definitely necessary to guard the commitments and therefore this clear explanation on each and every of the commitments of mind training has been set forth. So that completes the explanation of the commitments of mind training and then the next teaching will take up the guidelines of mind training. So today we won’t have any questions.

We’ll stop there.