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 anchors Dharma practice in meditation on suffering, citing the Bodhicaryāvatāra. He outlines six concrete benefits: removing pride, generating compassion, clearing negativities, cultivating virtue, and awakening renunciation—the essential basis for all three levels of practice (small scope refuge, medium scope four noble truths, highest scope bodhicitta and the six perfections). He then systematically presents the ten primary delusions (attachment, anger, pride, ignorance, doubt, and five view-delusions) that misconceive the four noble truths. Using vivid examples, he explains why each obstructs progress: attachment spreads like oil on paper; anger consumes virtue and distances loved ones; pride blinds one to others’ qualities. He demonstrates how these ten multiply across the four noble truths and three realms, yielding 112 delusions to be abandoned on the path of seeing.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 23 P and G.mp3
UUID: f30cf872-8295-4483-92a1-024cc29af0d7
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: Paths and Grounds (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1995 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.1 minutes
Words: ~2,157
So quoting a line from Bodhicaryāvatāra, the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. It advises us to meditate on the sufferings. And like other mind training teachings, they do also explain to meditate on the sufferings. And meditating on suffering is something very important that we need to do. So it’s important for us to meditate on suffering and meditating on suffering.
One receives six benefits out of meditating on suffering. And not meditating on sufferings, there is one disadvantage of not meditating on suffering. And the one disadvantage is that it is something very broad, like an airport. So any practice that we do should start with one of these three types of motivations. That is the motivations of small, medium, and the big scope. So in all these three scopes, one has to set the motivation, and secondly, one has to engage in the practice.
So meditating on impermanence is one way of setting up this small scope motivation. And then the actual practice of small scope starts from taking refuge. And then in the medium scope, like the practice of the four noble truths. The first two truths — like practicing or meditating on the true suffering and the true origin, or true cause, of suffering. Meditating on these two is like setting up the motivation for the medium scope, being in the medium scope.
And then the two truths — that is the true cessation and true path — these are the actual practice of the medium scope. So then with the highest scope, meditating on bodhicitta is like setting up the motivation, and then engaging — the actual part of the practice is engaging in the practice of the six perfections and so on. So there are these three levels of motivations which I explained. The small, medium, and the big.
And also three levels of achievement or three levels of practice according to the motivation. And in order to gain or reach those states, one necessary thing to reach all these states is the thought of renunciation. Renunciation is the one. Yeah. Oh, today, using the — So renunciation here is renouncing or contemplating over the suffering of saṃsāra and renouncing saṃsāra.
So in order to generate this thought of renunciation within one, one has to first meditate on the sufferings of saṃsāra. And by meditating on the sufferings of saṃsāra, one will generate this wish to leave saṃsāra or generate the thought of renunciation. So as it is explained before, the one disadvantage of not meditating on the subject of suffering is explained as the one — only one disadvantage — and that is something very extensive. Like, as explained, what is it? The airport.
So if one is to meditate on sufferings, then there are six advantages or benefits which I explained. So the first advantage is that meditating on suffering removes our pride. So that it removes our pride by meditating on suffering — that is, when we don’t have a gross suffering or gross level of sickness within one, and when one finds oneself physically fit, then on top of that if one is quite well educated, then one feels proud of oneself. And to remove that pride, one has to meditate on the sufferings.
Yeah. I do — does anybody — So the second benefit or advantage is that by meditating on sufferings, one can generate compassion towards the other. So how does one generate compassion? By meditating on suffering — if one is being aware of one’s sufferings, the suffering one goes through, gross or subtle sufferings, taking that as an example for others, that others too go through that type of suffering, then when you contemplate the sufferings of others, one generates compassion.
And then the third is explained as meditating on suffering removes negativities. So it is by meditating on sufferings that is what makes it possible for one to generate the thought of renunciation. And renunciation is that which leads one on the path. And by meditating on the path or practicing the path, one comes to remove all the delusions. Yeah, that’s how also meditating on suffering removes our negativities.
And then another benefit is that it leads one into virtue. So by continually meditating on suffering, one generates this wish to get rid of these sufferings. When one continually meditates on suffering, one will find the only way to get rid of suffering is to collect merit. And because of that, one engages in the practice of virtue. So the last benefit is that by meditating on suffering, one is able to generate the thought of renunciation.
If one has the thought of renunciation, then that is what leads one to liberation or to generate the bodhicitta within one. So because of that reason, the text Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life says that without meditating on suffering, it is not possible for one to generate renunciation. So because of that reason, most of the mind training teachings explain or advise one to meditate on sufferings. Secondly, they advise one to also meditate on impermanence and emptiness and so on. And meditating on suffering is what leads one to generate renunciation, and meditating on impermanence is that which leads one on the path.
On the path. So as it is explained before, once you generate one of these three types of motivation — the motivation of the small scope, or either the motivation of the medium scope, and if possible, then the motivation of the high scope — that is like meditating firstly on bodhicitta. So here we should do short meditations, setting the motivation that I listen to this teaching in order to achieve the fully enlightened state for the sake of all mother sentient beings. Generate this mind through short meditation. So the main obscuration that obstructs one from achieving liberation is known as the delusion.
So that delusion which obstructs one from gaining liberation, you know, is of two kinds — that is the intellectually acquired delusions and the innate delusions. Intellectually acquired delusions are something that one comes to have under the influence of different tenets, different philosophical tenets. And then another type of obscuration, which is explained as the obscuration to omniscience, and that is what obstructs one from gaining full enlightenment. And that too is classified into two, which is that which is intellectually acquired and that which is innate. So the path that acts as a direct antidote for this type of delusions — like the intellectually acquired delusion — is the uninterrupted path. It is what directly acts as a direct antidote towards the intellectually acquired delusions.
And the liberated path is that which gets rid of these delusions from its seed, from its imprint. So there are ten types of delusions that are abandoned on the path of seeing. So if these ten are explained in more detail, then it is said that a total of one hundred and twelve delusions are abandoned on the path of seeing. So there are ten types of delusions that are known as those which misconceive the four noble truths — misconceiving the four noble truths in a direct manner or in an indirect manner.
So each of these four noble truths has — how do I say? — Like, first, in relation to the true suffering, there are ten delusions that need to be overcome or that need to be abandoned. Sorry. And similarly, in relation to the true origin, the second noble truth, there are also ten delusions which are explained to abandon. And that is the same with the true cessation and true path — ten each.
Total altogether forty. And these forty explain the four noble truths in relation to the desire realm. So then again, similarly, there are also delusions that are abandoned in relation to the upper realms, that of the form realm and the formless realm. And of these ten, in the form realm there are thirty-six types of delusions. And similarly, there are thirty-six in relation to the formless realm, which is a total of seventy-two.
So the forty from the desire realm and then seventy-two from the upper realms — if you add these two up, then it is one hundred and twelve. So at the beginning, Geshe-la said — what do we say — ten delusions which I explained as ten misconceptions which I explained. So he will explain what these ten are. So among ten, the first one is attachment.
Second one is anger. And then the third one is pride. And then the fourth one is ignorance. Then the fifth one is doubt.
And then a transitory view. And the extreme view. And wrong view. And view holding ethics and conduct as supreme. So these are the ten types of delusions.
Sorry. First one is attachment, number one. Second one, anger. Third one, pride. And ignorance, fourth.
And doubt, fifth — number five. The transitory view, the sixth. And extreme view. And the eighth one is wrong view. And the ninth one is view holding ethics and conduct as supreme.
Conduct. Conduct. Yeah. And then view holding — how do you say it? Holding one’s view as supreme.
Oh. That’s the last one. So there are a total of ten delusions, and these ten delusions — these are ten in relation to true suffering, and ten in relation to true origin, ten in relation to true cessation, and ten in relation to — what is it — true path. And total of forty. And these forty are known as the delusions related to the desire realm.
So these ten — in the upper realms, the form and formless realm, they don’t have anger. There is no anger in the upper realms. So the beings in the desire realm have anger — the delusion of anger which misconceives the four noble truths. But then in the upper realms, the form and formless realm, they don’t have anger. Like the anger that misconceives the true suffering, true origin, true cessation, true path — therefore, of the form and of the formless realm, a total of eight types of anger are taken out. So there are thirty-six types of delusions in the upper realms.
So attachment — the delusion of attachment — is the wish not to separate from these different things like possessions, body, and friends. Not wanting to get separated from these different things is what attachment is.
So the rest of the delusions are explained as like dust which falls on our clothes. If we shake it, it can be removed easily by shaking it. But attachment is different. It is like a drop of oil getting into our clothes or into paper. That is what it is like.
It is not easy to remove. So like in the beginning, if it’s a drop of oil that drops on the paper, slowly it spreads out and becomes bigger and bigger. It spreads into more places and finally it becomes very difficult to separate the two — the paper and the oil. So attachment is like a desire towards all these things — food, clothing, and utensils and so on. And it is very hard to remove — like separating paper, like taking oil away from paper.
So then next is anger — anger is the ill thought towards sentient beings or non-sentient beings. That is anger. So it is the rough aspect of the mind which hates the enemy. It is that rough aspect of the mind.
So like the fire that burns — it consumes, like, firewood or cloth. Similarly, anger destroys virtue, and it also puts distance between close ones. And not only that, but anger can lead one to take the life of another person or to stab.
So anger is one of the bigger faults. So then next is pride. That is known as an inflated mind which arises out of one’s wealth, out of one’s knowledge, or from one’s caste, and in many different ways, pride can arise. So as an example, if one is to climb one of the highest mountains around and look, then one will see the rest of the mountains which are lower. And the mountain one is on — this is the highest. So similarly, a person with strong pride sees other sentient beings as lower than oneself, and oneself as much higher than all around. So a person with this kind of pride — it is very hard for them to gain different qualities. So as an example, water can only gather where it is at the bottom of a hill or where there is a reservoir. And if it is on the top of a hill or on an egg-shaped or round mountain, the water will not stay.
So then the next delusion is ignorance, and that is —