Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute session, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen opens with an explanation of bodhicitta—the heartfelt commitment to lead all beings to liberation—before moving into a rigorous account of the Hearer’s path of seeing. He describes the moment of first direct realization of the selflessness of the person, then systematically unpacks the eight forbearances: four dharmic forbearances that uproot misconceptions of the four noble truths within the desire realm, and four subsequent forbearances that accomplish the same for the form and formless realms. The teaching assumes prior engagement with the graduated path framework and is suited to serious practitioners.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 16 P and G.mp3
UUID: 4748321c-b413-4e90-a044-fd0ff83162f0
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: Paths and Grounds (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1995 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.9 minutes
Words: ~1,901
So according to the teachings, a text called the Lamp on the Path explains the practice or the teachings of the medium scope, where it says that one contemplates or meditates on the sufferings of saṃsāra generally, and then out of that practice they generate the effortless, genuine wish to become free from saṃsāra, and with that aspiration, one comes to achieve personal liberation. So then for the beings of the great scope — recognizing the sufferings of oneself, and taking the example of oneself, how one experiences these sufferings, and thinking of others’ suffering, and generating this motivation to free all of them from the state of suffering and lead them to the enlightened state — that is the motivation of the great scope.
So to bring others or to free others from suffering, what type of method should we use? So the method is that first, to take this responsibility to work for the benefit of others, and engage in that action. Engage in that action.
So the way the sun and moon eliminate the darkness of the world — similarly, through the methods of the great scope, one should work for all sentient beings. So in order to take that responsibility — which is to bring benefit for all sentient beings — the most needed, the most necessary thing is bodhicitta. So like wisdom knowing emptiness — this high wisdom — the wisdom which is like a mother, which gives the result of realizations of emptiness — that can give the result of — what do you call — Hearers’ enlightenment and Solitary Realizers’ enlightenment.
So as example, like a mother who gives birth to different kinds of child — some as king caste, Brahmin caste, and so on. So in order to give birth to a child of different kinds — like to give birth to a child of a king family, the mother has to have a husband who is of king caste. Similarly, for the mother to give birth to a Brahmin child, it is the father. And similarly, like for a seed to give a sprout, it needs to meet with its common conditions like water and so on.
So if one wishes a specific sprout, then one has to plant a specific seed. If you want rice, you have to plant rice seed. And if we want barley, then we have to plant barley seed. So similar to that — like, generally — the wish for liberation and the thought of renunciation, and practice on emptiness, these are general causes. So these are the general cause of liberation.
And as the specific cause of enlightenment, for example, is bodhicitta — bodhicitta is the specific cause of full enlightenment. And the specific cause for bodhicitta is the special insight. And the specific cause for that is compassion and love and so on. Like, the mind realizing emptiness or the mind realizing the selflessness of the person — these are general causes for the generation of bodhicitta, but that doesn’t mean that without this one cannot generate bodhicitta. So to generate bodhicitta, the specific causes are love, compassion, and so on. These are the specific causes for bodhicitta.
So as it is explained — those who have generated bodhicitta are objects of worship, whether they are lay or ordained, whoever they are — if they have generated bodhicitta, then they are objects to be worshipped.
So at present, we have gained this precious human body, and we should at least try to generate bodhicitta within oneself. If not, then at least what we should do is try to plant the seed of bodhicitta within oneself. So if one is able to keep imprints of bodhicitta within oneself, then maybe in one of our future lives, if one hears the words of bodhicitta, then that imprint will ripen right there, and one doesn’t need much effort to understand bodhicitta. So before we enter the teaching, we do a short meditation on bodhicitta, and that is thinking over the specific cause of bodhicitta — that is the special insight, the great compassion, the love, and so on, like recognizing all beings as having been one’s mother.
So today, this will explain the Hearer’s path of seeing, and to go with the text word by word is not so easy to get all of it translated. So probably we will do that — to get a rough idea of what the Hearer’s path of seeing is. So when we talk about the path of preparation — the supreme Dharma of the path of preparation — there you single-pointedly concentrate on the selflessness of the person. So while in single-pointed meditation on the selflessness, as soon as that being comes to have a direct realization of the selflessness of the person for the first time, that person enters the path of seeing.
That is the Hearer’s path of seeing. And that path is the path of seeing — seeing the true nature, which has never been realized before, for the first time. And that path is known as — So then this path of seeing, the Hearer’s path of seeing, can be classified into three.
That is: the Hearer’s meditative exalted wisdom, and the Hearer’s post-meditational exalted wisdom, and the third one — the path of seeing which is neither of these two. So the Hearer’s meditative exalted wisdom is what the person on that path single-pointedly concentrates on — the selflessness of the person. So the path of seeing that single-pointedly concentrates on the selflessness of the person — that is like the meditative exalted wisdom.
So then the next one is the Hearer’s post-meditational exalted wisdom. That is the wisdom which, through the power of that meditation, comes to know all the conventional phenomena. That is the post-meditational exalted wisdom.
So then the third one — the path of seeing which is neither of these two — is that person’s bodhicitta, his or her practice of bodhicitta, his or her wish for liberation, and his or her practice of compassion and renunciation. These are what is known as the third one — neither of these two, the first one and the second one. And many others.
So the Hearer’s post-meditational exalted wisdom which comes to realize emptiness — that realization of emptiness of that person is also not the post-meditational exalted wisdom. So the realization of emptiness within the person on the post-meditational state — that realization of emptiness is not the meditative exalted wisdom. And it is also not the post-meditational exalted wisdom, because it is not the first one — because when one says it’s not manifested, it is not the direct realization of emptiness. And it is not the second because — so it is not the meditative exalted wisdom. It is the wisdom within the post-meditational state, and yet it is not the post-meditational exalted wisdom, because that realization of emptiness is not manifested in a direct way.
So when one is engaging in the actions of the post-meditational state, that person does not have the meditative exalted wisdom — does not have the meditative wisdom. And the same thing with the one who is sitting in meditative wisdom — that person does not have the post-meditational wisdom. So like sleeping and eating — these are actions of the post-meditational state, and this does not occur while one is in the meditative state.
So the path of seeing — its object of meditation is the selflessness of the person. That is its object of meditation. And that selflessness — that object is the selflessness of the person — acts as a direct antidote for the intellectually acquired delusions. So then the path of seeing is classified into two. The two are: the uninterrupted path of seeing and the liberated path of seeing.
So the uninterrupted path of seeing acts as a direct antidote for the intellectually acquired delusions. And plus, it is not interrupted by other paths in generating its resultant wisdom. So this uninterrupted path has again eight tolerances — or what is it — eight tolerances or eight forbearances. So it is used the term forbearance or tolerance because it is able to tolerate — in the sense of abandoning — the abandonment of the path of seeing.
So, and this is explained as eight. So the abandonments on the path of seeing are of two types: the abandonments that are included in the desire realm, and the abandonments that are included in the upper realms, the two upper realms.
So, the abandonment on the path of seeing that is of the desire realm is: grasping — holding true suffering as being permanent. That wrong conception of being permanent. And so similarly, seeing suffering as being pure, and also seeing suffering as being inherently existing. These are the abandonments on the path of seeing.
So there is one uninterrupted path which acts as an antidote to these. And that is one type — one of the four forbearances. So then similarly, there is another uninterrupted path which acts as an antidote to the wrong understanding of the true origin, the true cause of suffering. And that is the second one. So then, again, similarly, there is also misapprehension of the true cessation, which needs to be abandoned on the path of seeing.
So there is one uninterrupted path which is explained as a direct antidote for it. And then the fourth one is, again, the misapprehension of the true path. And to remove that, there is another antidote which is explained — another uninterrupted path of the path of seeing. So these four are known as the dharmic forbearance.
These four are called dharmic forbearance. They are called dharmic forbearance because, at this level, they come to realize the absolute nature of all the four noble truths of the desire realm. And that meditative practice is known as the dharmic forbearance.
So then the next is to explain the subsequent forbearance. And the abandonment of the path of seeing that is of the two upper realms — the form and formless realms — that which acts as an antidote, a direct antidote, of the abandonment of the two upper realms, is known as the subsequent forbearance. And the subsequent forbearance is also explained as four types.
So the four are: one, the uninterrupted path which acts as an antidote to the true suffering of the form and formless realms. And then the next one, an uninterrupted path which acts as a direct antidote of the true origin — or the true cause of suffering — of the form and formless realms. And then similarly, again, another uninterrupted path which acts as a direct antidote of the true cessation of the two upper realms — that is the form and formless realms. And then similar to that, the next one — also an uninterrupted path which acts as a direct antidote to the true path of the two upper realms.
So these four uninterrupted paths are known as the subsequent forbearance. So they are known as the subsequent forbearance because here they come to realize the absolute nature of the four noble truths of the upper realms. And they become a direct antidote to the abandonments of the upper realms. They become a direct antidote to the abandonments of the upper realms.