Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 43-minute teaching, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen frames the three refuge objects through a striking medical analogy: saṃsāra is sickness requiring doctor, medicine, and nursing care—an image he anchors in three vivid narratives showing Buddha’s complete fearlessness. In each story, Buddha remains unmoved while others panic: Devadatta’s lifelong assassination attempts failed; King Ajatashatru’s mad elephant charged but Buddha subdued it while disciples fled in terror; a householder’s fire trap became a bed of lotus thrones. From this foundation, the talk covers the Buddha-bodies, Pure Land teachings, the power of setting motivation before practice, Lama Tsongkhapa’s visions of Mañjuśrī, and how spiritual companions clarify dharma through discussion and debate. Pitched at practitioners familiar with the Lamrim framework.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 GP 1996 01 28.mp3
UUID: 84c97c2a-151c-4f8e-bf3c-9efdc7bc8107
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: Graduated Path (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1996-01-28
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 43.1 minutes
Words: ~2,281
To his followers, to his later followers. So it should be understood as to us too, which is our practice shouldn’t be just mere word. Should should come from there from the after. So we’ll give another example or analogy here why we need three refuge object to to completely become free from the fear of saṃsāra. So like a person who is very sick, in order to get rid of his or her disease, the illness, whatever it may be, that person have to rely on the doctor not only that, but also the medicine that is prescribed by the doctor.
And plus the nurses who can help. So so similar to that that example, are are we are we the patient? Are we the patient? Then, no, I wanna say, we are not the patient, what known as patient as an worldly sense. We are not the patient in all these things, but we are tortured by the sickness, which is the sickness or the fear of saṃsāra.
So so in order to become free from the saṃsāra sickness, we need to rely on on a Buddha who who can who can show us how to get, how to remove those sickness. Then, secondly, have to rely on that method what Buddha have shown like a method like the medicine which is teachings on three scope. So then we need accompany in our practice which is like the nurse and that is the Sangha. So these three has to be there. So these three are, I wanna say, Buddhist refuge objects.
So then why we need to go refuge into these three objects? So the reason will be explained. The first reason for going refuge in Buddha. So the reason why we call refuge in Buddha is that Buddha is free Buddha himself is free from all types of fears. So if, for example, if both person is like, what do call, sinking, both person is in a place where the very muddy place, then to get out of that mud, one cannot help the others because both are sinking into the mud?
So because of that, our refuge field / refuge object should be one who is free completely from all fears for himself or herself. So one who is completely free of all fears is is is is the Buddha. The only only Buddha is who is only the Buddha is free from all types of fears. So So is there like a how and what sources are there to, I wanna say, to see or to prove that Buddha is completely free of all fears? So there was a was a fully ordained monk known as Hejin.
So that is Devadatta. Yeah. That is a related a person who is related to Buddha. So so this person, Devadatta, in in many in many lifetime. He has this stories that he is always competing with with Buddha.
So so then during the time of Buddha, that again Devadatta wants to compete Buddha and wants to compete in five things. So which is first one is not not eating meat. Secondly, not drinking milk. Not eating salt. So and then wearing the robes which is a certain monk’s, a fully ordained monks’s dress, usually it has to be First, it has to be cut in many small pieces and again, it has to be mended together.
So should be should wear that type of cloth. So the reason that need to cut into many pieces and then mend back together is that to not to have attachment towards to the cloth. So so so then Devadatta, he he just did the did against what Buddha would have taught, which is he he don’t want to wear the what do say? He don’t want to wear clothes which has been cut and mended back again. And then and then the fifth one is not living in a isolated place or in a monastery.
So so in in order to become, I would say, more more famous than the Buddha, Devadatta, like, did these five. So so try to compete with these five, but he couldn’t he did he can’t succeed. And finally, he he wants to kill Buddha and and, like, throw stones towards him. Even then, because Buddha is free of all delusions that he didn’t get he didn’t get harmed. So so then and similarly, in a later time, again, in in Rajagriha, there was a king living there called Ajatashatru.
So so that king, Makkeda, before he he was been he’s been subdued, he was a good friend of Devadatta. So so because they were friend that one day, Devadatta went to see the king and told told the king that Buddha, which known as another name called Gautama. And Gautama was like, Gautam is going around all the villages and gathering all the poor people and now he’s becoming very famous. So if we two get together and do something and if we were kill him then it will be very helpful for me, said Devad and and if then I can also help you afterwards. Like, I can be very helpful to you, Devadatta told the king.
So so then the next day was that in that same town, Buddha was invited by one of the locals for meal. So Buddha came there together with five hundred arhats to have the meal to that householder’s place. So there was a mad intoxicated elephant was there, and if they had to send that towards Buddha, then that might kill the Buddha. So that’s the that’s the plan they made here. So so then that’s what they planned.
And next day when the when the monks oh, sorry. The the arhats and Buddha, they came for a meal to this that householder’s place That as they planned, let free the mad elephant. And then while the mad elephant was coming towards them, most of the arhats, they were scared, they were afraid, and they ran away. And they like they flew some through their miracle powers flew into the sky and ran away. And finally, the two left was Buddha and this one of another disciple called So because Buddha in short, like Buddha himself is completely free from all fears that the the elephant can’t do anything.
Instead, he came to subdue the elephant. So so then, again, at that time, that another householder invited Buddha for a meal. And also the householder wants to kill Buddha and he like in front of his house, he dug a big hole and the way he put a lot of fire, like a big fire inside and then cover from the top. So Buddha knew that already but then he accepted his invitation and came there and when he came too close to the hole that he just, what do call, put his hand forth like that and while he put his hand forth like this. That from there, from this that hole, like five lotuses appeared and then which is holding thrones.
And then he walked on top of that and what do say? The the householder couldn’t harm Buddha and instead, again, Buddha subdued the householder. So these the, like, the reasons or or or, like, a proof that how Buddha himself is free from all types of So, that’s the first reason the first reason is that Buddha himself is free of all types of fear and the second reason is that he can show the method to others to become completely free from all fears. So that is the second reason and because we don’t have time now, we’ll stop here today and if you have any questions. So the mind realizing emptiness, the great compassion within Buddha, the bodhicitta, These are the wisdom truth body.
So so what do you call the nature truth body is the purity of two, which is the, in other words, the Dharma Dharma the sphere or the reality of dharma. So what do call? One which is a naturally understand, which is a here means the inherent existence. The inherent of it. The inherent existence as an extent is naturally understand by that.
So so then it also is free from the adventitious defilements or delusions which are like attachment, hatred, and so on. So so the mind what do you say? The wisdom realizing emptiness, that mind, and then the emptiness itself. Both of these is known as the truth, the dharmakaya or the wisdom truth body. Anymore?
Yeah. The supreme law. Yeah. So so first to explain the enjoyment body with the Sambhogakāya is is that Buddha is completely adorned with, like, full ornaments? So so then the emanation body was taking the emanation body into the world, into this world.
That emanation body was, what do say, seen by the fortunate ordinary beings. So so then next, Amitābha is is also the supreme emanation body which is in Tuśita heaven. Where in Tuśita too, what ordinary beings there. The, they see, I wanna say, the Amitābha Buddha, which is the supreme Nirmānakāya. So in in this Pure Land known as Sukhāvati where they are also the ordinary beings and ārya beings, the superior beings.
They all see the emanation body. So so then, like, if we wish to be born in in that pure land, then we have to make sorry, good wishing prayers and we have to have the karma to be reborn there in the Amitābha, we have to make prayers to Amitābha Buddha and we have to have the karma to be reborn there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So when, like, setting up the motivation at the very beginning, set up, like, complete and well. Set set a complete and well motivation. So so then when one come to the actual part of the practice, actual session, then as an we as a what do you say? We as sentient beings, our conscious our mind can only focus one thing. So so because we can’t think two things at once there, because we have set it up, the motivation at the beginning very well, what do you call the the warmth of that motivation is still there.
So one doesn’t need to like reset a motivation which is because when I’ve said it there already, what do you call the warmth of that, what you said in the beginning, still there. So that serves for one shouldn’t one don’t need to like a free change or rethink again about motivation. So to make more clear, our motivation that which we have said at the very beginning, it’s it’s in a more unconscious or what do you call, in a hidden hidden manner. It stays it is it’s it’s there in a hidden manner. Yep.
Okay. So, when Lama Tsongkhapa had this direct vision of, what do say, manjushri, He had five different visions. So so there are in five different aspect that he had at the vision of Mañjuśrī like in aspect or a sambhogakaya aspect and and there are others which I don’t remember clearly, but the one also which we see here in the Thangka, the Mañjuśrī, aspect to which is the Sambhogakāya aspect. So so and then had these visions and what they discussed is the ultimate view which has been taught or which has been explained by Nāgārjuna on that view or that theory which Lama Tsongkhapa discussed or talked with. So division that when Lama Tsongkhapa saw Mañjuśrī, it is in the aspect of Sambhogakāya.
And Sambhogakāya is not visible to ordinary, shows that Lama Tsongkhapa, when he had the vision, is not an ordinary being. So so that happened because at that time in Tibet, there were many different views which have discussed. So to clarify those views that Lama Tsongkhapa made this request to Mañjuśrī and Mañjuśrī appeared him and discussed the right view. Yeah. So as a meditator or teacher, with the ultimate Sangha refuge it’s the Ara beings.
As an ordinary, for example, as an accompany, like, that doesn’t mean one like, meditations needs accompany someone someone to accompany him. So so so then, like, say the person is meditating on bodhicitta, during retreat in bodhicitta, before he or she goes into retreat, he or she have accompanied with and received teachings on bodhicitta and discuss on that subject. Those are what do you call in dependence upon those friends or the sanghas that he understood he or she understood the teaching on bodhicitta. So So So for example, like the debate that the monks do in the monasteries, like say, if there’s five teachers who are teaching some bodhicitta and many other students who goes to his teachings. So that’s individually individual house.
Then also there are big gatherings which all come together. So when those five teachers, when they explain on bodhicitta, they give their own explanation that they are understanding of bodhicitta, like five different explanations. So then when they come all in group, again, they discuss those five different ideas, bodhicitta. And then finally, they come to a point or they come to the point where they can hold to one thing which is unmistaken or unmistaken bodhicitta. From that time they can hold to that.
So then when one finds the pure bodhicitta, when one gets a hold of that, then one look for its cause. Are its cause and what are the necessary thing for that. And then on that different step that you meditate on. Any other question? Yeah.
So we stop here.