Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 94-minute teaching, a Gelug instructor presents foundational Buddhist philosophy to a mixed group of beginners and experienced students. Starting with Nāgārjuna’s assertion that bodhicitta—the aspiration to attain enlightenment for the sake of all beings—is the root of both worldly and ultimate happiness, the teacher stresses that intellectual understanding must rest on valid reasoning, not mere faith. He addresses a critical gap: most modern Western students lack the cultural presumption of past and future lives that traditional Tibetan audiences brought to Lam Rim studies. The bulk of the talk anchors practice in meditation on death and impermanence, explaining how this foundation enables renunciation, proper rebirth, and entry into the Mahāyāna. He traces the three scope levels—small, middling, and great—and emphasizes that bodhicitta, not philosophical realization alone, is the sole criterion for being a Mahāyāna practitioner. The session closes with practical questions on dying under anesthesia and the nature of emptiness.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2012-03-18.mp3
UUID: d62dc6dd-8462-4556-9a68-b8ea82ea2740
Teacher: HH Dalai Lama
Collection: Awakening Heart
Date: 2012-03-18
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~4,104
# 2012-03-18
**Collection:** Audio Recordings — Unclassified
**Duration:** 94.0 minutes
**Words:** 4,104
**Model:** Deepgram Nova-3
**Corrections applied:** 16
**Transcribed:** 2026-03-08 00:59
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As said in the Precious Garland, Madhyamaka Ratnāvalī, as to myself, should I desire happiness in this life or for that matter, peerless full enlightenment, the root thereof is none other than bodhicitta. Other means are the generation of love or great compassion. This quote clearly indicates that whether one wishes for worldly happiness, the ordinary happiness of sentient beings or one aspires to the state of full enlightenment, it is necessary to generate bodhicitta. Nāgārjuna expands on this indicating that the uncommon causes thereof are none other than these three principles of the path. In other words definite emergence, bodhicitta, and the view which realizes emptiness.
Now we will proceed in keeping with the usual teachings on Sunday. Sunday in Australia is a day of rest and many of you have not come to the teachings which is alright. One can just stay at home and relax at home but when all is said and done that amounts to a wasted day. For those who have come to the teachings it is important to reflect why we have come. We have come striving to attain the state of unalloyed, fearless, full enlightenment for the sake of others and to do this we need these three principles of the path which are definite emergence, bodhicitta and the view which realizes emptiness.
To generate these we must give rise to hearing, the wisdom which arises from hearing and for this we must study. Therefore with the motivation of studying we have come to the center. And we will therefore meditate for two minutes on such a motivation. As our teacher Buddha Śākyamūni said, monks and scholars accept not my words out of respect for me but verify them as you verify gold through cutting, burning and rubbing. The meaning of this stanza is that the Buddha himself said one should not accept his words out of veneration or respect for him.
Instead one should examine whether his words, in other words his teachings are concordant with reality or not. If they are concordant with reality one can accept them and if they are at odds with reality, if they are false in other words then one should not accept them. And therefore, even though this is a difficult point, we from our sides should not accept merely the Buddhist teachings or the teachings which are explained without any further investigation. If we do this or if we are among those who are raised in a Buddhist culture and merely accept the religious traditions of our parents in an unexamined fashion, this will lead to a very unstable and unreliable practice which will not withstand the test of time. Therefore one must investigate the teachings using reasoning even though they are difficult and profound and gain ascertainment if possible by a valid cognizer.
It is not sufficient to say I have become a Buddhist because Buddhism is Buddhism and the teachings seem profound. And here at the center, the main topics which are taught are Lam Rim, in other words, the graduated stages of the path and Lojong or mind training. Now in both cases, these are imparted by a teacher and the intended trainees of Lam Rim and Lojong, in other words, the audience for which these treatises were composed was actually a Tibetan audience. It was therefore taken for granted without further ado that the entire audience accepted the existence of past and future lives and naturally accepted the existence of karma and causality, which was taught within the family and had been accepted for centuries. Therefore, it is simply taken for granted that every member of the audience understood that there were past and future lives and that from non virtue arose suffering and from virtue arose happiness.
And the Lam Rim started immediately with the presentation of the precious human rebirth and so forth. And we can only imagine the level of karmic imprints a nation would have to have to have such automatic and profound faith in karma and causality and in past and future lives. Indeed, the Tibetans had extraordinarily profound karmic imprints and one can basically say with the exception of a couple of Muslims who lived in Lhasa and a couple of Zoroastrians who venerated the sun and the moon that all Tibetans were Buddhist without exception. Their faith was profound. They naturally offered prayers to the Buddhas, made requests.
They considered automatically that the statues of the Buddhas which they saw in the temples were the Buddhas in person which is unfortunately in that case a clear result of the lack of education of ordinary Tibetans. Since the statues themselves are conditions for faith, they are supports for the generation of faith but they are not Buddha Śākyamūni who departed some twenty five centuries ago. So this was a situation in Tibet. However, in our case, we are not in this situation whereas it was traditionally said that one had to have studied in the great monasteries both the Pāramitāyāna, that was Prajñāpāramitā and Madhyamaka before starting the study of Lam Rim. In our case the very foundations for the study of Lam Rim are absent which are an analytical conviction in the existence of past and future lives as well as in the authenticity of karma and causality.
As His Holiness the Dalai Lama said based on the quote from Buddha Śākyamūni, Monks and scholars accept not my words through veneration or faith alone. Instead check them as a goldsmith checks gold through burning, rubbing and cutting. It is faith which arises in dependence on a valid cognizer which is most stable. Therefore, it is quite legitimate for us to have doubts regarding past and future lives and karma and causality. If we have doubts regarding these it is extremely difficult to generate renunciation bodhicitta and view understanding emptiness.
Now where are the teachings on the existence of past and future lives presented in the great treatises of ancient India? Foremost in Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika’s second chapter in which Dharmakīrti says, having established the existence of past and future lives through reasoning thereby establish the existence of karma and causality. Thereafter strive for higher rebirth and on that basis understanding the four truths generate the wish for liberation from cyclic existence. There are therefore five stages here which must be crossed incrementally. The teachings Geshe la has given so far rest on the premise that we understand and believe in past and future lives and in karma and causality which is far from evident.
Teachings such as the precious human rebirth, death and impermanence and so forth. It is for this reason that it is said when one meditates one should not at the beginning with faith engage in single pointed meditation instead one should engage in analytical meditation. The meaning of this quote is that over and again one has to engage in analysis until the foundations become solid. Now in this class, overwhelmingly the students are beginners and this is of great benefit for them. However, older students as well who have studied Dharma for fifteen or sixteen years seem to have unstable foundations and would benefit greatly from such teachings.
Now the foundation for Dharma practice is meditation on death and impermanence. It is meditation on death and impermanence which impels us to practice virtue and to abstain from non virtue. As Je Rinpoche, Tsongkhapa said in a famous quote, Over and again meditate on death and impermanence otherwise you will not engage in the practice of virtue. What is meant here by over and again is that one should not think of death and impermanence when one is old and withered since at that point one anyway is certain to die. It is when one is young that one must reflect on death and impermanence because it is only on that basis that it is possible to put energy in the practice of virtue and abstaining from non virtue.
Now as to the ordinary person, the man on the street, the clear proof that he or she does not engage in meditation on death and impermanence is that he or she behaves like a beast or an animal. Therefore one can formulate the syllogism the ordinary person does not meditate on death and impermanence because he or she behaves as an animal. This animal behavior which is total subjection to the instincts we can see all around us. Animals however do fear death. We can see quite easily that when an animal approaches a precipice it will draw back out of fear of its own death.
So this is not the fear we are talking about here. What we are talking about is a generation or a meditation on death and impermanence which occurs early on through repeated habituation and which leads us to avoiding non virtue. Otherwise, if one thinks that one is going to practice within the last period of one’s life, this is mere fantasy. This is simply not going to happen. Now what is the benefit of the study of Dharma which is interwoven with Dharma practice?
Its benefit occurs at the last instant of this life. At the last subtle instant of this life, the mind will be inextricably bound with virtue and this acts as the substantial cause of the first instant of the next life.
So what is this death to which we are referring here? In reflecting upon it, we can see that the mind travels from life to life like a river and at present our situation is one in which our body and mind are bound. Death is the separation of the body and the mind where the mental consciousness continues alone. In keeping with Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa in which it is said for as long as life energy and this life are bound inextricably for so long the mental consciousness is stable. There is a clear identification of the mental consciousness embodied in this body and the present life.
Now this quote of Vasubandhu only applies to the desire and the form realms in which consciousness has a coarse or a subtle body. In the formless realms, since there is no body, one could not use this quote. Therefore, when the coarse aggregate, in other words, the body in this case and the mind are separated we say of a worldly being he or she is dead. Such an understanding of death and impermanence is a bit narrow minded. Now in ordinary worldly terms, when the coarse body, the physical body and the mind are separated we speak of death.
Non Buddhists consider that at this point the continuum of the person, certainly materialists consider that at this point the actual continuum of the person is severed and the person ceases to exist completely. Buddhists, on the other hand, consider that the mind which has come from previous lives moves onwards to future lives. Now this is broadly speaking the view of the Mahāyāna and Geshe la thinks that in the Hīnayāna, the view is broadly speaking similar. Regarding the actual process of death as the separation of consciousness and the body, while this is the general understanding of the Pāramitāyāna, one has to qualify this in the context of the Tantric presentation. In Tantra specifically, it is said that the subtle consciousness which dwells in the body is actually what transmigrates from life to life and this fundamental consciousness can remain in the body after physical death.
This may be one of the reasons for which in Tibet a body after the signs of physical death had occurred was left untouched for at least three full cycles of twenty-four hours. Now there is clear evidence of the existence of past and future lives from the extraordinary meditative feats of practitioners such as the disciple of Khensur Kangurwa Rinpoche, Kushok Tulku, in New Zealand who remained for some nineteen days in the death meditation even though his body was physically dead. And if his mind was the product of the activity of his brain, there should have been no mind one could point at. So we have had many instances of this in recent years. A disciple of Khensur Rinpoche stayed for seven full days in the death meditation. After setting up representations of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas behind him, he entered in full meditative posture. And even though he was physically dead there was evidence that he could understand speech although the ear consciousness, certainly the ear organ was no longer functional. Likewise, two years ago in 2010, Gen Lama from Sera Je remained for nineteen days in the death meditation. Likewise in 2010, the Ganden Tripa who was from Drepung Monastery, who was the head of the Gelug tradition, passed on. He remained for a full twenty days in full death meditation in the heat of India without any decomposition.
And numerous Tibetans came requesting an audience with the body of Rinpoche. So all of these cases are clear and unambiguous evidence regarding the existence of past and future lives. Therefore we study to blend our studies with practice. We study with only one time in mind, the time of our own death which is forthcoming. It is not far away.
To think like so many people do, I fully am aware of the fact that I will die but I don’t want to think about it now is rank foolishness. As Śāntideva says, what behaviour is that when one says I know that I will die but I do not care. Instead we should prepare for this time. Now generally speaking there are several ways to prepare for the time of death. If one prepares for the time of death in keeping with tantra, one engages in meditations on the drops, the winds and the channels. But in our case, training for the time of death in keeping with the non tantric vehicle, the sutrayana, what is most important is to generate at the last instant before we die a virtuous state of mind and to blend our mind with this virtuous state of mind.
Then dying with a virtuous state of mind, it is 100% sure we will be reborn with a higher rebirth. Therefore, within the two resolutions, the one that there are for sure future lives, the other that there is nothing after death, it is clear that the resolution that there are for sure future lives is beneficial at the time of death. It is the same thing as if we have to jump into a void. If we are going to jump into a void and we see below us a promontory, it is reassuring. We know we are going to fall onto something. If on the other hand, we have to jump in a void and we see nothing whatsoever beneath us, it is a source of great fear and terror. If we are convinced that there are future lives, this eliminates fear or reduces fear at the time of death and provides repose in the same way as the body leaning against something. As to the viewpoint that there is absolutely nothing after death, Geshe lah finds this a very strange viewpoint.
And therefore, in the practice of the being of small scope one trains in meditations on death and impermanence and the suffering of the lower realms based on the foundation which Geshe-la explained. When one enters in the practice of the being of middling scope, one’s main focus is to attain liberation from the sufferings of the totality of cyclic existence. This aspiration to gain liberation from the sufferings of the totality of cyclic existence when it is uncontrived and spontaneous is probably the sign that one is a being of the middling scope. Technically it is said that one has entered the path. Now there are numerous debates in the context of the monastic debates on what is meant by having entered the path or not and whether it can only occur in a higher rebirth or not. Putting these aside, one can say that this spontaneous and uncontrived wish to gain liberation from the totality of the sufferings of cyclic existence is a sign of a being of the middling scope.
Then after this, when the wish to free all sentient beings without exception from suffering arises spontaneously and specifically from the suffering of composite phenomena, the third category of suffering, at this point one can be said to have entered the Mahāyāna. If on the one hand one has the wish to attain freedom from suffering for one’s own sake and will engage in the meditation of the selflessness of persons and so forth, then most probably one will be entering the path of the hearers or the Shravakas. On the other hand, if one wishes to attain the state of full enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings motivated by great compassion, then one will be entering the greater vehicle, the Mahāyāna. And therefore, in the context of the commentary mind training like the rays of the sun on Geshe Chekawa’s seven point mind training on page three of your English text, you have within Geshe Chekawa’s root text the first train in the preliminaries. How is this to be understood?
To practice the Mahāyāna which is the focus of this text, one must generate bodhicitta and to do this one must practice the practice of the being of middling scope. To do this in turn, one must train in the practice of the being of small scope. This is what is meant by the preliminaries. And at present we have reached page 42 of your English text Cultivating the Conventional Awakening Mind after having presented the preliminary teachings of the beings of small and middling scope. This has two subdivisions, how to enter the great vehicle and a presentation of the nature of bodhicitta.
Regarding the gateway of the great vehicle, the great vehicle, the Mahāyāna is subdivided into two and two alone. The Pāramitāyāna or the vehicle of perfections and the Mantrayāna or the Tantric vehicle. There is no third vehicle apart from these two. One who has entered into the Mahāyāna is a Mahāyānist and the sole criterion for becoming a Mahāyāna practitioner is the uncontrived generation of bodhicitta. Irrespective of the qualities present within one’s mental continuum such as the realization of emptiness and so forth, without bodhicitta one is not a practitioner of the great vehicle.
Irrespective of the qualities absent within one’s mental continuum with the presence of bodhicitta one is a practitioner of the great vehicle. Moreover if bodhicitta declines or degenerates one can fall away from being a practitioner of the great vehicle. Therefore the presence or absence of bodhicitta is the criterion for being on the Mahāyāna path or not. If being a being who has entered the path and who has therefore generated uncontrived renunciation, one trains in bodhicitta and in the difficult topic of cherishing others and being unable to accomplish this in turn once bodhicitta declines and one abandons bodhicitta, the question arises within which of the three categories of practitioners will one fall? It is certain that one will fall within one of the two categories, the Shravakas or the solitary realizers, the Pratyekabuddha.
There is doubt regarding which one. Now in the Sera Jey Monastic Textbooks of Jetsün Chökyi Gyaltsen, it is said that such a practitioner whose bodhicitta has declined will necessarily fall into the category of the Pratyekabuddha. But there is considerable debate on this topic. It is said however that one who has taken bodhisattva vows and who has trained in bodhicitta but broken his bodhisattva vows remains immeasurably superior to one who has never taken the bodhisattva vows. In the same way as a diamond which is shattered remains through its nature of being a diamond superior to gold.
As Pänchen Sonam Dragpa, the monastic textbook author of Drepung Loseling monastery says, it is indispensable to receive the four initiations of Anuttara Yoga Tantra to have first generated a pure bodhicitta within one’s mind stream. In other words, an uncontrived bodhicitta. Without having generated uncontrived bodhicitta within the mind stream, it is not possible to receive the four initiations of Anuttara Yoga Tantra. And therefore numerous similes or examples are given for bodhicitta within the great treatises. The concordant ones say that bodhicitta is like a seed, it is like a sprout, it is like a field, whereas the discordant ones say that bodhicitta is like armor, it is like a sword to defend oneself. It is said that bodhicitta is akin to the butter which arises when one churns milk because bodhicitta is the very essence which arises when one churns the ocean of milk of the scriptures.
We will stop here for today and next time Geshe-la will start explaining the methods for generating bodhicitta which are twofold, the so called sevenfold cause and effect method and the method of the interchange of self and others. The method of the interchange of self and others is the foremost one taught by Geshe Chekawa and that is the one Geshe-la will insist upon. And therefore Geshe la would like to advise us to practice slowly, quietly and regularly. It is not possible to give rise to renunciation to bodhicitta or to the view realizing emptiness immediately. It is only over many many lives of constant habituation that eventually we can reach the goal.
Since there are fifteen minutes, Geshe-la will take some questions. Yes? It’s a difficult question. Basically, once a person is under morphine then there is no clear possibility for any virtuous state of mind to arise. That period is over.
However, the question which arises is does the person know before receiving the injection that they are going to die or not? And do they have at that point the possibility of creating a virtuous state of mind or not? If through habituation with virtue during their life, at that point they are aware that they will die and before receiving the injection they create a virtuous state of mind then that will carry through. So the great practitioner, Lama Lhundrub Rigsel Rinpoche, was ill once in Dharamsala and had to receive general anesthesia. He as a very great practitioner was able to notice these things.
He noticed all the signs of death in the process of anesthesia.
But you have to practice for this. Just studying without practice, it won’t happen. Are there other questions? Yes. So your doubt arises from the usage of the term reality.
You see the existence of a reality as incompatible with emptiness. So in this context the topic of emptiness is a difficult topic. If one wants to explain it correctly one must first explain subtle impermanence. Then on that basis one must explain the selflessness of persons which is a coarse selflessness of persons which is persons not being permanent, one and autonomous. On that basis one must explain the subtle selflessness of persons which is persons not being autonomous entities.
Now this is complicated and Geshe la would not like to enter into it. Instead, he would like to ask you so that we can start talking about this to tell him what you mean by the self, by the I. What do you mean by representation? You’re giving Geshe la an easy answer. It’s just talk.
Geshe la would like to know what is your I within your mind. When you say I, when you feel I within yourself, that’s what he’d like to know from you. So your name is Diva. Then this Diva we are talking about, where is she? Is she in your body or is she in your mind?
So it’s what? The only way to start understanding emptiness is to first understand who Diva is. Are there other questions? Yes. Definitely they have a self.
Now that self may not manifest due to conditions like Alzheimer’s but it is there. Yes? I mean, you’d have to know what is going on in the mind of the person. Clearly, if they led a meaningful human life and there were imprints of virtue and they had been able to connect their minds to that, then they would be reborn in a fortunate rebirth. And we will stop here for today.
Key terms in this teaching
- bodhisattva vows chang sem dom pa (Tib)
- The vows taken when one enters the bodhisattva path. LYWA
- Gelug
- The Virtuous Order. The order of Tibetan Buddhism founded by Lama Tsongkhapa and his disciples in the early fifteenth century and the most recent of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. LYWA
- Highest Yoga Tantra Anuttara Yoga Tantra (Skt); la na mä pä gyü (Tib)
- The fourth and supreme division of tantric practice, sometimes called Maha-anuttara Yoga Tantra. It consists of the generation and completion stages. Through this practice, one can attain full enlightenment within one lifetime. LYWA
- Mahayana teg chen (Tib)
- Literally, Great Vehicle. It is one of the two general divisions of Buddhism. LYWA
- pratyekabuddha rang sang gye (Tib)
- A solitary realizer or self-realizer; a Hinayana practitioner who attains liberation from cyclic existence autonomously, without relying on an external teacher or teachings. Cf. shravaka. LYWA
- Sutrayana döi thegpa (Tib)
- The Sutra Vehicle, another name for Bodhisattvayana or Paramitayana; the non-tantric path that encompasses both Hinayana practices such as the thirty-seven wings of enlightenment and Mahayana practices such as the six perfections... LYWA
- thought transformation lojong (Tib)
- Also known as “mind training” or “mind transformation”. A powerful approach to the development of bodhicitta, in which the mind is trained to use all situations, both happy and unhappy, as a means to destroy self-cherishing and self-grasping. LYWA
- Yoga Tantra näljor gyi gyü (Tib)
- The third of four classes of Buddhist tantra, literally meaning "union" due to the increased emphasis on internal activities compared with the previous two tantras. LYWA
Definitions adapted from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive glossary, as taught in the Gelug tradition.