Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute teaching, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen grounds everything in Śāntideva’s insight: all happiness comes from benefiting others. He walks through four concrete methods to work toward a better future: accumulating merit through generosity, purifying negativities through the four powers, training your mind on the path through impermanence meditation, and making prayers for all beings. Impermanence meditation is foundational—Buddha began and ended his teaching with it. Geshe Dhawa explains the three higher trainings (morality, concentration, wisdom), the five Buddhist paths, and shows how different practitioners’ aims shape their practice: seeking happiness in this life, escape from lower realms, personal liberation, or universal enlightenment. Suited to serious practitioners studying foundational Buddhist practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 P and G.mp3
UUID: bd13daf2-ea94-4b4d-842a-82e8dcc78315
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: Paths and Grounds (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1995 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.5 minutes
Words: ~2,199
So quoting from the teachings of Śāntideva, that Śāntideva explains in his teaching, saying that all the happiness that we experience is the result of benefiting other sentient beings. So, working for the sake of others, whatever practice one does, whether it’s meditation on the path or meditations on bodhicitta, one should do this for the sake of others, for the sake of others, which will be beneficial for their future. So one has to work for one’s future too. So there are four ways how one works, you know, for our future. Which is — one way is that using one’s belongings to accumulate merits, to make offerings and so on, to accumulate merit.
And the second way of managing our future is purifying the negativities. And thirdly, training one’s mind on the path. And fourthly, making prayers for other sentient beings, prayers for other sentient beings. So the first one, like, using one’s wealth for accumulating merits is that using one’s wealth to practice giving — the practice of giving — and doing these practices without attachment towards one’s wealth. So then the second way is that purifying one’s negativities and obscurations that one has collected from the beginning of time.
And purifying these negativities like applying the four powers. By applying the four powers, one can purify any negativities by applying the four powers. And it’s very important to do this practice of purification, purifying the negativities and obscurations. So it’s very important for us to do the purification practice because even just taking one step, just one step, we accumulate many, many negatives, like showers of negativities, just by taking one step. So it’s very important for us to purify that through visualizing refuge objects and purifying in front of them.
If negative deeds are being purified, then we’ll have a better rebirth in our future. So then the third way is training one’s mind on the path. And that is like meditation, or training in meditation, or practicing impermanence. Meditation practice on impermanence — that is where one starts going on the path. So training on the path.
There are many ways one can train one’s path. Many ways one can train oneself, like training oneself on the small scope, and secondly training oneself on the medium scope, and the great scope. So there are many ways one can train on the path. So then the fourth one is making prayers — benefiting prayers, making benefiting prayers for sentient beings, for other sentient beings. And there are many ways one can make prayers too.
And prayers — making prayers, like may I be born as a bodhisattva for the sake of other sentient beings. These kinds of prayers also can be made, and this is also possible. So making these prayers plus, like, dedicating all the merits that one accumulates, not only one’s merit, but also the merits of all Buddhas and bodhisattvas — all of them — you dedicate for yourself to be born as a bodhisattva for the sake of other sentient beings. And this also can be done.
So to be able to achieve these aims, which is working for the sake of other sentient beings, to start with our meditation, it’s important to start with meditation on impermanence. So meditations on impermanence — that is one of the actual practices of the small scope, the main practice of small scope. And meditation on impermanence is what leads to the medium scope. And thirdly, meditation on impermanence is what helps to develop one’s practice on the great scope too.
So the Buddha or the teacher also at the very beginning meditated on impermanence, and not for the self, not for the purpose of self, but for the purpose of others. And like solely working for the purpose of others, he finally achieved the fully enlightened state. So, people — those who are prosperous — they find it difficult to remember to do the practice of Dharma because of their lack of practice on impermanence. So for example, like in Tibet or in India, there are like these three great monasteries where there are about ten thousand monks in India.
And most of them, most of the monks are from poor families. And those young ones from rich families, they don’t come to the monastery. Mostly they go for other education, like to get educated in universities or schools. And the reason that they do this is because they don’t have enough practice on impermanence. So, not having enough practice on impermanence, or not thinking about impermanence — because of that, they don’t remember to do the practice of Dharma.
So any practice we are doing, whether it’s a practice of small scope, medium scope, or the great scope, it should be preceded by meditation on impermanence. So the reason why impermanence is important — for example, like Buddha, when he first reached the fully enlightened state at Bodh Gaya, for forty-nine days after his enlightenment, he didn’t talk, he didn’t teach. So then after forty-nine days, the first turning of the wheel of Dharma — he turned the teaching wheel of Dharma in Varanasi, and there he turned, the first teachings that he gave, like, it’s the Four Noble Truths, but the very first of his teachings was on impermanence. And then at the very end, he also taught on impermanence.
So at the very end, Buddha himself has full control over his life and death. But then he showed the sign of death at the very end, to lead his disciples, those who were faltering on the path. He showed the impermanence. So which is how it is shown — more in a sign, giving a sign that at the end, we all have to face this. That’s how he has shown this.
So because of that, meditation on impermanence becoming very important — one should, before one starts doing meditation on impermanence, do a short practice on refuge and generating the mind, generating bodhicitta. And right after that one makes requesting prayers to the refuge objects, to make the request to bestow the blessings that one may be able to realize impermanence. So make those requesting prayers. So by meditating on impermanence at the very beginning, it forces or leads one towards the practice. And that’s at the very beginning.
Then in the meantime, by thinking on impermanence, it helps to perfect what one is doing. And at the end, it also helps to perfect the practice of bodhisattvas and leads one to the fully enlightened state. So with this in mind, with thinking over impermanence, which is conjoined with the thought of bodhicitta, one should listen to the teaching.
So the teaching that we will be hearing is the presentation of the paths and grounds, which is the cause or the foundation of many good qualities of worldly and trans-worldly realizations. So the worldly path — the worldly quality or the worldly path — is the understanding or the realizations of the ordinary beings, for example, their achievement of calm abiding and special insight. Plus their practice of avoiding ten non-virtuous actions. These are what you call the worldly path.
So then the trans-worldly path — that is, among the four noble truths, the true path. That is what is known as the trans-worldly path. So to achieve those qualities — the worldly qualities or the trans-worldly qualities — as a cause or the foundation, we need the paths and the grounds. And the paths and the grounds are the cause or the foundation of those qualities. So generally speaking, different types of sentient beings have different interests and different needs.
So there are four different interests that those sentient beings have. There is a group of sentient beings whose interest is just to achieve or just to receive happiness in this very life. And there are other groups of sentient beings which don’t wish to be born in the lower realms and are working to become free from those states. And then there are a group of sentient beings which work for self liberation, mainly for self liberation. And there are a group of sentient beings which work mainly for others, to achieve the fully enlightened state. So the skillful one — that’s the Buddha — who with compassion knew that sentient beings have different interests and different needs.
So as he knew the interests of those groups of sentient beings, to them he shows the path that will free them from lower states. And then to those who wish for self liberation, for them the Scripture — the Buddha — has shown the method, which is the Four Noble Truths, and which also has taught the selflessness of the person. So then the other group which mainly works for the sake of other sentient beings — to them Buddha taught mainly the teachings on emptiness and the teachings on bodhicitta, the compassion and so on, which are taught for those beings. So all these teachings are what were taught by Buddha. And Lama Tsongkhapa, like, combined all those teachings into one.
That is the Lamrim teachings, where it shows all the teachings of the three scopes. So then, beings with different interests and needs — as Buddha has shown the methods, they train themselves in these three higher trainings. And they train themselves in the three higher trainings. So they train on the three higher trainings. And for example, if they are the followers of hearers, then they follow the hearer path.
And if they are the followers of the solitary realizer, then they follow that path. And if they are Mahāyāna followers, then they follow that path. So the training of morality — the first one — the general training of morality is within all beings. So then generally, the morality is within all sentient beings, and the higher training of morality is only within the Buddhist practitioners. And that is called the higher training of morality because it’s conjoined with the thought of refuge.
So the higher training of morality is the foundation or the cause of all the qualities that one generates. So the higher training of morality is the basis, the foundation or the cause of all good qualities, all qualities, and it is also the essence of Buddha’s teachings. Then the next one is the higher training of concentration. And that is focusing single-pointedly on a virtuous object without distraction. So this concentration, the higher training of concentration, can be perfected through training again and again.
And finally when we come to perfect that, then it is known as the perfection of concentration. Perfection of concentration — that is one of the perfections, from the ten perfections. So then the higher training of wisdom — that is what you call discriminative awareness, that which analyzes and examines objects. So that wisdom — becoming familiar with that wisdom, by getting familiar with that wisdom — when one comes to the end, one achieves the perfection of wisdom.
That is one perfection from the ten perfections. So then training oneself on these three higher trainings: if that person is following the path of Mahāyāna, then he or she comes to generate the great compassion and enters into the Mahāyāna path. So then by training on these three higher trainings, as soon as one generates the effortless wish to achieve self liberation, then the person enters into the hearer path. So when the person enters into the hearer path, then the hearer path — the hearer paths are explained as five: that are the path of accumulation, path of preparation, and path of seeing, path of meditation, path of no more learning. The path of no more learning.
And those five paths are same for the Pratyekabuddha. And they are also the same for the Mahayanists — the five paths. So there are fifteen altogether, like three times five. So then all these different paths — what is their main practice on the first stage of the path and what is their main abandonment? This will be explained individually in the coming time.
So then those who follow these paths, there are three types of beings: the beings of small scope, the beings of medium scope, the beings of great scope. So among the three scopes, the first one, the small scope — the one who seeks mainly to achieve the highest states in the future life — is solely working for self. So all the paths that lead to that — like for example, meditations on impermanence or the wish to achieve liberation — all those directed towards their aim are the paths of small scope. So these practices like the meditations on impermanence and so on are known as the paths of small scope because that is the cause for their aim or their liberation. So the small scope’s main aim is to achieve high states in their future life. And then going to the medium scope — being on the medium scope, known as that which seeks mainly self liberation, having aversion towards the prosperity of saṃsāra. So like, the paths.