Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute session on the Graduated Path, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen explores the eight sufferings of human existence through vivid, concrete examples: enemies, separation from loved ones, failure to obtain what we seek, and the burden of having wealth (or lacking it). He illustrates each through farmers rising before dawn, merchants anxious about profit, servants struggling for wages, and prime ministers weighted by state responsibility. The core insight: all these sufferings arise from karma—negative actions accumulated through body, speech, and mind—not from external demons or spirits. Understanding this grounds the practice: what to adopt and abandon. The teaching briefly introduces the Great Scope toward the end.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 40 GP 1996 07 28.mp3
UUID: 5c07e46e-cb3b-47a8-b458-ff95cb23250b
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: Graduated Path (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1996-07-28
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.7 minutes
Words: ~2,499
So such as meeting with with enemies? So, like meeting with enemies which are undesired objects, and beating or getting into, say, like getting beaten or enemy coming and taking your, I would say, belongings. And also, meeting with unwanted objects such as meeting with sickness, and also receiving the harm from spirits and experiencing different sufferings. And also, there are other type of sufferings that one has to go through which are like, what do you call, going into a cold and getting defeat what do you call, getting defeated in in your like, in getting defeated and experiencing the suffering of getting defeat. So similarly, like when one faces these sufferings, then once both body and mind becomes busy, where one experiences many types of sufferings.
So, all these things happen because of what type of because of type of karma that one have collected. So, for example, such as those animals, like donkeys and so on. They have to carry a big load on their back. This too happened to them because of their karma. So, meeting with different conditions and one experiencing sickness or one getting separated from one’s close one.
All these things come into one because of a type of karma that one have collected. So, all these, if one don’t wish for oneself in the future, then one have to look what causes all these things and abandon the causes. So the causes are such as attachment, anger, and ignorance. So, are the causes for that. So, knowing this being the cause, one should, if possible, then try to abandon this from its root.
If not, then applying antidotes against these causes as much as possible. And then the seventh one, suffering of not finding the desired object or the object that you wanted? So this is a type of suffering which for wealth, or projection, or whatever, even if one puts great effort to get those things, one is unable to find these things. So, the suffering is unable to get what one wants or what one wishes for. So, as an example, such as in order to get some help, you go to person in charge of the country, like a minister or whoever, go to the person and ask his or her help.
And after asking his or her help, even then afterwards when one doesn’t become successful in one’s wishes, one wants, then one goes through our sufferings. So so for example, in in this country here, there are people living in the city and people living in the country. Those who are living in the city might think the one living in the country is better and see something better. And even the ones are living in the country, the farmers, they are also not free of, what to say, sufferings. So looking to the farmers that, like, they have to get up early morning and don’t have time to eat breakfast, goes to the farm to work.
And in the daytime they get burned by the sun, like the sun heat, suffering of the heat. So in this way, they also experience these sufferings. So, after doing the farming, until they come to the end, like all the crops are gathered and put in the bag, until that time they go through great sufferings. So, some with great effort, they do things, but have very little crops. And also, whatever crops that you planted getting destroyed by what you call frost.
Yeah, like getting destroyed by the frost. And there are these, I would say, many sufferings that the farmers or the farmers go through. So then, again, then farmers, you look the way they think, then the people living in the city seems happy or better off. They have their own shops and houses and so on. So, even the shopkeepers they too are not free of sufferings.
They also have to go through great sufferings. Have to put everything, all what they earned into the bank try to collect more and all these sufferings they go through. And even in the nighttime while they’re sleeping, have they sufferings of, what to say, like, suffering of losing those things that are unable to have a good sleep. And for some business people like they’re looking for profits, but even not having any profit they also lose their capitals. So, these type of sufferings.
And also, they sometimes also can lose their life because of their enemies, thieves, things. Similar to this, if we don’t have wealth, then again there’s suffering of not having. So, for example, the baggers, when they get food for today, they are suffering of what I will eat tomorrow and have to go to another place. Going to another place looking for food, but not finding food. So, these sufferings that they could this one of the sufferings which looking for food, not finding it.
So, again, if you have worldly possessions, again, there is sufferings. So, saṃsāra, sufferings. So, in saṃsāra, whatever have, one falls in these two, one experiences sufferings. So, if one has a hundred thousand dollars, one hundred thousand sufferings. And if one has a million dollar, one a million sufferings.
So, like, if one hundred thousand dollars then there are sufferings too which somebody might steal it or you might lose or you might spend it. Spending again, you might spend it. So all these sufferings that you go through. And similar with the farmers, when they gather all the crops and put in the bags in the store, even then they have sufferings such as mice and mice coming to eat it, and these sufferings that they go through. So even those who are skilled in different things such as carpenters and so on, all goes through these different kinds of sufferings.
So, for example, as a carpenter, the person, the purpose for him doing that job or work is to get food and shelter for one and one’s children. So so so for him to or her to experience not having enough food and shelter, that type of suffering he or she goes through too. And also after completing whatever he or she has to make, again goes through suffering of not able to satisfy the owner. So, there are these different kinds of sufferings that the being go through. So, tailors too, Shao was saying, in Tibet the tailors, they used to make a hat.
Would say a fox skin head, which the tailors used to make where the firm of the fox, there are some parts where it had good ones and some parts of the skin is not so good. So the tailor has to really be good in cutting the skins and set it out, well set it out and then make the hat. So then the owner, whoever it is, also comes and looks at the tailor how he does. Sometimes the tailor also steals some of the skin. So then the owner, whoever, don’t know how to make it.
So tailor like chits it somewhere like that just cuts the good part of the skin and throws it on the corner, a little bit of it, and then cuts it another corner, a good part of it, and then throws it on the side. So then after when he finishes hours of work in the nighttime when he goes back, just collects all the little bits that he throws and takes it for him? So, then when he gets back to his home, then he pulls out all the bits that he have cut and then collects altogether and makes a hat for himself. So again, these sufferings, even not having enough skins here to make your head for him. So this type of suffering detail goes through too.
So, same with the president here, the prime minister or such as president, whoever. We might think they have no suffering and they have a good time going here, there, or flying to different countries and so on. But within themselves, they have great sufferings. So, they have to take the responsibility for the country, that whenever there’s something wrong or something goes wrong in the country that they have to take care, they worry and they have great mental and physical sufferings. And like these sufferings which are unable to defeat the enemies, and also unable to protect the friends, and losing country to others.
These are different sufferings that they go through. So, from the side of the ministers, they see the population, people are very happy. No problem. But from the people side, again, they see that the minister or the ministers are very happy and no problems. So, all these suffering that you wish but not finding it.
And then the one, the eighth type of suffering, the eighth one is the suffering of the five aggregates. Contemplating the sufferings of the five aggregates. So, of the five aggregates, there are five types of sufferings. So, the five types of sufferings which which is explained in Great Lamrim teaching, which says that So, this contaminated aggregates which induces suffering in one’s future, unlike when one takes another body. Is what the five contaminated aggregates is what induces future sufferings.
So, the second is that at present, while having these five contaminated aggregates, because of having these five contaminated aggregates that one goes through these different states of suffering such as birth, sickness and aging. So then the third type of suffering, which is So, it’s a basis of suffering. So, the aggregates, the five contaminated aggregates, a base on which one experiences past sufferings, and it is the base of suffering of suffering, and it’s also the base of suffering of cause, the cause of suffering, sorry. And then, next one is that it also is the base of pervasive suffering or conditional sufferings. So, this, what do you say, suffering of the five aggregates, which is not explained especially not explained in liberation on the BAM of your hand.
But it is only explained on the Great Lamrim teaching. The reason why it’s not explained in here in the liberation on the BAM of your hand is because when it explains the three types of sufferings, the three types of sufferings. When the three types of sufferings are explained in detail, it comes, it includes in there. So, the reason why it is separately explained in great Lamrim text, these five, is that because it is explained in the sūtra separately, so because of that, it’s also explained separately in the Lamrim. So these eight sufferings are the suffering of human beings?
So, And so, let’s now explain all more in brief, the explanation on Lamrim teaching in a more abbreviated version, which because now only a few more weeks to go. That before he actually stopped teaching, he would like to go into the great scope and explain a little bit on the great scope. So if he can explain on the great scope, then shows that it completes full Lamrim teaching while he’s in Australia, like here for two years, for this period two years. So, as was saying that when one goes through some problems or want to have some problem in the family, or if someone dies in the family, then most likely people think that something that is caused by external from outside. They don’t think about the internal cause of it.
So, the way of thinking about something external not right. So, all these happening, one should understand it being the nature of saṃsāra. So, when these bad things happen to one, it is because of one’s own karma? So, one already have left karmic imprints in one’s mind. So, for that imprints to ripen or ripen its result, it has to meet with the condition.
So the condition might be external things such as spirit spirit harm or anything. So, if one is to think that whatever problems or difficulties that one faces in the life, thinking that it is caused by some spirit or it’s a harm of a spirit. Then on the other hand, if one experience like happiness or pleasure, then for that, if one thinks that is because oneself had done something good or because of one’s own merit that one is experiencing, then So, if that is all the happiness that one is experiencing is because of one’s own collection of merit, the suffering or the problem that you go through shows that it’s not caused by demons and spirits. So, all these, the experience of happiness and health is, how to say, of our positive actions, through whatever positive action that we have done through our body, spirit and mind. And similarly those sufferings or the trouble or the problem that one goes through is because of our negative karmas.
It’s because of our negative karmas that which we have performed to our body speech mind. So, with understanding this as a base, one should then engage in one’s own practice, such as what to be adopted and what needs to be abandoned. So, then if one follows in that way, then it becomes like the advice which Tsongkhapa is giving. It’s nothing to be trust in the wealth of saṃsāra or the prosperity of the saṃsāra and being untrustworthy and that which makes one lead to the path which seeking for happiness and liberation. So, as the advice which usually His Holiness gives, Such as like, if you can benefit other sentient beings, then benefit them, but not harm them.
And this is a very profound advice here. So, when the first part, benefit if you can, to the other sentient beings, there includes the Mahāyāna or the greatest scope. And then the next part which says, not harm, don’t harm them if you can’t. In that part it sort of abbreviates the whole teachings of the two small and medium school. So we stop here for now and if you have any questions.
So, the contaminated aggregates, is, what is it, a reason or that which is caused by karma and delusion. So, of those five aggregates, the last four aggregates are consciousness. And this is caused by karma and delusions. So, the uncontaminated aggregates is the mental So, the uncontaminated aggregates, which is the body or the aggregates, which is not caused by karma and delusions. So when the being like one who practices along the path, when he or she comes to have a direct realization of emptiness, That point, when they have this direct realization of emptiness, at that very point when they have this direct realization of emptiness, the body, the contaminated body to transform into the, how do say, the uncontaminated body?
So, explanation that we take, what is it, we are reborn in the world, in saṃsāra, because of our under the