Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 93-minute commentary on verse 17 of Togmey Zangpo’s 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas, Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen begins with practical monastic disciplines—restraint from nonvirtue, sense-gate control, measured eating, and sleep schedules—drawing on Asaṇga’s Abhidharma Samuccaya. He then turns to the central verse on impermanence and death: how attachment to family, wealth, and this life must be relinquished since consciousness leaves the body at death, and only virtuous karmic imprints benefit us then. Geshe-la emphasizes training in the ten virtues as the foremost path to higher rebirth, contrasts evil spiritual friends who increase the three poisons with virtuous friends who cultivate compassion, and introduces the Buddhist concept of relying on a spiritual teacher through examination and purification of perception. The final section includes extended Q&A on Buddhist epistemology—imputed phenomena, valid cognizers, and the nature of unobserved objects. Pitched at practitioners with some Buddhist background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 37 Practices 17 Jul 2011 – KR.mp3
UUID: 6e046af8-25b9-4d89-81fc-c03e59a52214
Teacher: Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen
Collection: Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra
Date: 2011 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~3,947
And at present, all of us, without exception, are afflicted by all pervasive suffering within cyclic existence. And with the motivation of freeing not only our own selves but others from this all pervasive suffering, we should strive to attain the state of a fully enlightened Buddha endowed with the three bodies. And for that, we should listen to these Mahāyāna teachings. We will generate this motivation for a couple minutes. So some nine hundred years after the Buddha attained full enlightenment, the glorious Ārya Asaṇga manifested, and in his treatise, the Abhidharmasamuccaya, he said on the basis of these aggregates, we should strive to attain enlightenment.
Geshe-la has commented in the last week on the preciousness of the human rebirth in this context. Geshe-la would like to thank all of you for coming on your day off on Sunday to the temple to receive teachings and introduction to the Buddhist Dharma and try progressively over time to start practicing it. Generally speaking, here in the West, Sunday is your day off, your only day off every week. At Sera Je Monastery, Geshe-la’s place, the place where I studied, the day off is not Sunday, but it is Tuesday. It is Tuesday because Tuesday is market day in Kushalnagar, and we have to go to Kushal Nagar to purchase groceries.
Therefore, we took Tuesday off. At the glorious Sera Je monastery, the foremost period of study was in the evening. Now generally speaking, Monday evening, which is the day before Tuesday, one was happy at the thought of Tuesday. But the schedule of the monks at the monastery was as follows. They would, generally speaking, receive pecha or teachings on the topic they were studying in the mornings or early afternoon, and then they would spend two or three hours every day studying that topic.
However, the main period of study and effort was in the evening from 06:00 until 12:00 at night, during which the monks would debate and compare their respective viewpoints on the topic and analyze them. And during the great debates on Buddhist logic on Pramanavartika, called the the winter debates, the monks put extra effort in debating and would study all day, assemble at six, and seldom leave the debate courtyard before one or two in the morning. And then the monks with his very hard and difficult schedule, Monday evening would rejoice at this at the thought that the next day was a day off, and they would assemble in the debate courtyard, but would tend to talk a little bit more than debate. And upon returning to their rooms, they would tidy their rooms, set aside the clothes, the vestments for the next day. And that evening alone, they were allowed to read the great biographies of the Mahasiddhas and to study a little bit initiation material, which they would do until one or 02:00 in the morning.
And Monday evening, therefore, the monks would also wash all their clothes, and they were, that evening of the week alone, allowed to study something different from what they had to study for the monastic curriculum, which was, as you understand, hard. And therefore, their minds were very much at ease. And the following day, instead of traveling a long distance to Kushalnagar with modern contraptions, they could get there rapidly. So this was our practice at Sera Je Monastery in this great seat of learning, and Geshe-la would like to express his gratitude to you again for coming here to these teachings and receiving what he has to impart. And the magnificent quote from Asaṇga’s Abhidharma Samuccaya, which starts with Asaṇga’s recommendation for practice, includes the following items.
First, practice disciplinary restraint, then control the gates of the senses, limit intake of food, and so forth. Here, disciplinary restraint refers to that restraint which involves abstaining from the 10 non virtuous deeds. Controlling or restraining the sense gates means controlling the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the bodily or tactile sense. Of these three, the foremost are the three first. The eye sense organ, ear, and nose sense organ.
The eye, because the eye itself is the gateway for most of our desires. At the same time, however, it is based on the eye sense consciousness that we are able, for instance, to study most of what we study. For this reason, the American president gave very well felt advice to US university students when he said, you should study carefully and with concentration, and stop fooling around and enjoying yourselves. The Chinese and the Indian students study hard and if we continue like this, they will move ahead of us. Then passing on to the second sense gate, which is the auditory sense organ and the auditory sense consciousness.
Generally speaking, a large swathe of our studies depend on listening teachings. Therefore there is great benefit in using this sense consciousness wisely, and not using it to listen to meaningless distraction. Also, is very important for us to be measured in our speech. It is very easy to infer wrongly the purported qualities of another based on externals and on appearance, and if we see something we do not like, to then lash out verbally. The mind is beginningless, and this verbal lashing out will actually harm us down the line.
Therefore, is very important to restrain our gate of speech in Geshe-la himself when he had disciples at Sera Je Monastery, before saying anything always reflected, is this of benefit to the student or not? And then the third sense consciousness is the taste sense consciousness. So this is also referred to in the following passage of Asaṇga’s Abhidharma Samuccaya’s verse, be measured in your consumption of food. This was taught by the Buddha in the Vinaya. In the monastic discipline, the Buddha taught that one should abstain from eating in the evening, and the reason for this is because eating in the evening causes one to become overweight, and it interferes with study and reflection.
So it is often said that one should eat heavily in the morning as a king because one is eating for one’s health. At noon, one should be measured in one’s consumption of food, and at night, one should eat like a beggar. Take example on our teacher, Khensur Rinpoche. Khensur Rinpoche is extraordinarily measured in his personal habits and does not eat in the evenings. He sets down to rest around 09:30 and rises between 03:30 and 04:00 in the morning. And as a result of this, he has done exceptionally well in his studies.
Geshe-la, in his opinion, considers that an ideal schedule would be going to sleep at midnight, which is his personal habit. And he finds when he does that, he can rise around five or 05:30. And he would like strongly to recommend us to follow this schedule as much as possible. He does not eat in the evenings either. And the final two instructions of Ārya Asaṇga is practicing with energy in this way, the yogi does not tarry late and rises early.
Tarry late probably refers to not going to sleep after 09:00 or so in the evening. Then in the monasteries, obviously there are studies, so that schedule is a little bit modified, and rising early means definitely to rise before seven or 08:00 in the morning. Regarding one’s mental health, the core of one’s mental health is the practice of the Mahāyāna. This practice is to practice a mind which cherishes others more than oneself. In other words, a mind which wishes to benefit others.
And it is with this mind that we should perform all our daily activities. Until we die, all of us have to work in one way or another for a living, And this work should be made meaningful by doing things not meaninglessly, but doing them for the benefit of others, and doing them in such a way that they are of the nature of love and compassion. Michel I remember, actually a remarkable monk who was at the Lachi, which is the office of the monastery, which basically supervises both Sera Je and Sera Me, who had passed on. And he had been a disciplinarian’s assistant, literally the arm of the disciplinarian. And he commented to him that some monks he knew he would have to strike during the public prayers for disciplinary reasons, and they felt no pain.
And he asked him why they felt no pain, and they said, we feel no pain because of the shame of being struck in front of 3,500 monks. It is when we return to our houses that we feel a bit of soreness in the upper neck. Geshe himself was, chatting once with a classmate, which is forbidden during the, public prayers, and the head of discipline approached him and slapped him in public, which is a punishment. And Geshe-la was so ashamed of his behavior, he did not feel the pain of the slap. Now this is the power of the mind over the body, and the point here is that our mind is in this body for one hundred years and has control.
So today, we will be covering, the stanza which is translated on page 11 of your handout, relinquishing this life through recollecting impermanence. In other words, meditating on death and impermanence. One will be separated from kith and kin, befriended for long. One will abandon the remnants of the traces of wealth accrued with effort. Consciousness, the guest, will cast away the body in the end.
Mentally relinquishing this life is a practice of the children of the conquerors. And regarding reflections on death and impermanence in this room, almost certainly not one of us will live beyond the age of 100. Actually, Geshe-la thinks Anila may be 79 or 80. Then we hope she will be with us for another twenty years. But if we reflect on what or how one hundred years pass, one hundred years is composed of 100 times one year, therefore every year it changes.
One year is composed of twelve months, therefore every year that month that, every month that year changes, One month is composed of thirty days. Therefore, every day that month changes. One day is composed of twenty four hours. Therefore, every hour that day is changing. One hour is composed of sixty minutes.
Therefore, every minute, that hour changes. One minute is composed of sixty seconds. Therefore, every second, we are in a constant state of disintegration and And the three first verses of Togme Zangpo’s stanza on page 11, therefore are to be understood as follows. One will be separated from kith and kin, befriended for long. This means that even though we have known for long our family and friends, nonetheless we will have to abandon them, we will not be able to take them with us.
We will abandon the remnants of the traces of wealth accrued with effort. We put great effort to accumulate money and wealth, and yet we cannot take 1 penny of it with us. Finally, consciousness, the guest will cast away the bodies in. Our body is like a hotel in which a visitor stays for a couple days, knowing he will leave after those days. Likewise, consciousness leaves the body at death.
Now irrespective of whether we are Buddhist or not, whether we accept Dharma practice or not, the reality of death is one we will have to deal with. And at the time of death, the only thing which would be of benefit are stable, virtuous, karmic imprints. To give an example, Geshe-la says, we all know that if we have been thinking forcefully about something before going to sleep, for instance, something related with our jobs, then there are good chances it will appear in our dreams. Generally, the sleep is divided between two sections, dreamless sleep and dream full sleep. It will appear in the dream full sleep, especially the dream full sleep before rising.
Karmic imprints may also manifest in our dreams. Now this is an example for the practice we do, so that in future lives, the virtuous deeds we have accumulated in this life manifest and give rise to their fruit. And therefore the stanza which means, which reads, it is in dependence on the karma which is accrued that one is reborn in any of the realms of cyclic existence such as the hell realms is most profound indeed for this reason. Togme Zangpo, in the last verse of this stanza, reads, mentally relinquishing this life is a practice of the children of the conquerors. Mentally relinquishing this life means turning away from the vanities of this life, such as food, garb, and repute.
Generally speaking, we do need food and garb, food and clothing, to protect our bodies within this life and to function. What is meant here is turning away from that attitude which sees food, garb, and reputation as supreme, or as the most important. This is what is to be understood as turning away from the vanities of this life, or relinquishing this life. Now, the foremost way of doing this, Geshe-la personally suspects, is that practice of training in the 10 virtues. And Geshe-la would suspect that if we are able to restrain from the practice of the 10 non-virtues, we can hope for a higher rebirth in future lives.
These 10 non-virtues are the three non-virtues of body, which are killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct, which refers to sexual misconduct. Then the four non-virtues of speech, which are lying, divisive speech, harsh words, and gossip. Perhaps the easiest to engage in is gossip, because when one studies, it is quite easy to comment about others, and therefore this is to be guarded against. And the three mental non-virtues are covetousness, ill will, and wrong views. Of these, the two easiest to engage in are covetousness and ill will.
Covetousness is related to desire, and ill will is related to anger. It is particularly, dangerous since it acts as an obstacle to the development of empathy. And this presentation of the ethics of the abandonment of the 10 non virtues leads us to the following stanza on page 14, abandoning evil friends who are a contradictory condition. Here, friends refers actually to evil teachers. These are teachers whose teachings lead to an increase in the 10 non virtues in our life.
If befriending him increases the three poisons and the activities of listening, thinking, and meditating degenerate, abandoning that evil friend who causes the destruction of love and compassion is the practice of the children of the conqueror. So if following his teachings leads to an increase in the three poisons, desire, anger, and ignorance within our minds, and the activities of listening, thinking, and meditating degenerate as a result of his teachings. And even if within our minds we had previously love and compassion, but through following him our love and empathy decrease, then this is a wrong teacher who should be abandoned. And Geshe-la has heard on account, which happened in Lhasa, of two young children who traveled to the market in Lhasa, and they saw a butcher slaughtering a yak, and the yak kneeled, and the butcher with his cleaver slaughtered him. Then the children came home, and they decided they were going to play at being butcher and yak.
So one knelt to the ground after being tied up, and the other took a cleaver, and he slaughtered the first child. Now these things do happen, and likewise in the West, where children run around shooting guns, and imitating everything they see on television, the results can be quite tragic. And the following stanza on page 16 of the translation, the favorable condition of relying on the virtuous friend. If one relies on that one, faults will be extinguished and qualities will increase, like the waxing moon. Cherishing the holy friend even more than one’s body is the practice of the children of the conquerors.
So in contradistinction to the evil friend, the evil teacher who leads to an increase in non virtue within our minds, and an increase in the practice of the 10 non virtues, the virtuous friend leads to an increase in ethical behavior, and as a result of this, our mind is progressively subdued. Therefore, if one relies on that one, faults will be extinguished, and qualities will increase like the waxing moon. Here, the virtuous friend, often translated in English as a spiritual teacher, it’s literally the virtuous friend in Tibetan, is the Sanskrit Kalyana Mitra, the Tibetan Gewa means virtue, and Shenyen means friend. This has the following two etymologies. He is called a virtuous friend because he is a friend of that virtue of study, which leads to the attainment of both liberation and full enlightenment.
He is also called a virtuous friend because he is a friend of all virtues in general. Such a one should be valued or cherished more than one’s own life. So Geshe will start training you in keeping with the Sera Je monastic system. When Geshe-la taught at Sera Je, his students would come and receive teachings for an hour or so, and then he would encourage them to have doubts and to ask questions, because otherwise he felt the time was wasted. He feels that it would be beneficial for you if he interrogated you on the meaning of the various stanzas we have covered.
And for instance, one of the ways he would go about it would be to ask you the meaning of the stanza. The second stanza, desire swells like water towards kin and kith, hatred blazes like fire toward foes on page eight. Gloomy benightedness forgets what it is to be adopted and relinquished. Abandoning one’s homeland is the practice of the children of the conquerors. So he would ask you what is this desire, which is to be abandoned?
What is this anger to be abandoned? What is benightedness, which is referred to? And why does one speak of one’s homeland or one’s country? So would it be okay with you if from time to time, for half an hour or even an hour, occasionally, Geshe-la would ask you questions on the 37 practices of the Bodhisattvas. And Geshe-la says it was a problem in the monasteries that certain monks would meditate so intensively when Geshe-la taught that they would fall asleep.
So he would ask questions strategically as a way of awakening those who were in contemplation. So we now have twenty minutes. And during these twenty minutes, do you have questions? Yes. So the imputed phenomenon is that new designation which is placed on a basis of imputation.
To give an example, I was called in the Tibetan tradition Tenzin Tempa. Then for someone who had never met me before, and who looks at this long body for the first time, such a person seeing this long body sees the basis of imputation, but upon hearing that person is called Tenzin Tempa, he actually connects the imputed phenomenon with the basis of imputation. Does that sort of answer your question? So if there is no imputer of the table, then the fake table does not exist. I don’t remember that, but yes.
So this is true. The Buddhist tradition, however, is the following one. If we take the example of Jetsün Milarepa, the great Tibetan yogi. When Jetsün Milarepa met his teacher, Marpa Lotsawa, Marpa was to the or in the eyes of Jetsün Milarepa, a farmer who had a wife, who was extremely stingy with money, and very brutal. He beat Milarepa over and again.
But Milarepa considered that perception of Marpa was a perception which arose only because of his own personal impurities. And he trained his mind over and again to see the qualities of his teacher and to purify his mind, until he actually saw Marpa as Vajradhāra. So this is how we should practice. So there are two ways to practice relying on the spiritual teacher. The mode of practice for those of sharp faculties, and the mode of practice for those of coarse faculties.
For those of sharp acumen, one understands that there are three different modes of relying on the spiritual teacher, in keeping with Vinaya, in keeping with the Pāramitāyāna, or the vehicle of perfections, and in keeping with Mantrayāna. In every single case, the foundation is that one sees a spiritual teacher as far superior to oneself, in as much as he knows something which we do not know. This is the foundation of the practice. Then, the example which is given on how to rely on the teacher is that one apprehends his as yet unseen qualities in keeping with the simile of the ocean full of fish. The ocean may be full of fish, but until the fish spring out of the water, in other words, until the qualities manifest, we have no way of knowing this.
Are there many ways to look at this fundamentally, you have to examine very carefully. Geshe-la said that in the Buddhist tradition, one must examine the teacher for twelve years before taking him on board. However, it is acceptable to examine him for one or two years. So, in the example you give, then when the imputer dies, the imputer himself ceases to exist, obviously, but the snake which bit him obviously continues to exist, in the same way as if you have a child called Tenzin, who has been given the name Tenzin by his parents, and his parents die, Tenzin still exists. Has that clarified your doubt?
So I reformulated your questions. So the question I asked Geshe-la is, So I reformulated your questions to ask Geshe-la whether an unobserved phenomenon exists or whether a phenomenon which is unobserved by a valid cognizer exists since phenomena are defined as that which is observed by a valid cognizer. So he said, that which is not observed by any valid cognizer at all obviously does not exist. There’s no debate about that. Now, what the status of an unobserved phenomenon in general is, is open to debate.
He said, taking the case of the table, if the table is not at present being observed by a valid cognizer, we can definitely say that its basis of imputation does exist. So if we take a given phenomenon, that phenomenon does not exist for a being which does not understand what it is. On the other hand, the basis of imputation of that phenomenon does exist for that being. For that being himself, that phenomenon does not exist. He does not understand what it is.
There are many examples of this involving eye consciousness. Questions, good doubts. So the answer to your question is no. Someone who, for instance, is striving to protect the 10 virtues, even though he does not have the three principles of the path and engages in speech, does not engage in gossip or idle talk. Also, for that matter, it is probably true that Christians do not have these three principles of the path, yet we cannot say that the speech of all Christians is gossip.
So we will stop here for today. And in the monasteries, as you know, when one studies a topic, it is reviewed at home. One would do 20 or 30 verses a day. Here we have 37 stanzas. So Geshe-la would like us to cover, at home what we did today.
You have been to Sera Je, Chris? Yes. He attended Khensur Rinpoche’s teachings. Thank you very much.