Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen challenges a pervasive assumption in Eastern spirituality: that inner peace requires withdrawal from the world. In this 46-minute talk, he argues for the Mahāyāna bodhisattva path—one that balances personal realization with active compassion for all beings. He explains the six transcendental practices (generosity, ethics, tolerance, joyous effort, concentration, wisdom) not as rigid perfections but as skillful means to transcend selfish attitudes and help others genuinely, without attachment. He emphasizes that mental health requires both inner peace and healthy relationships—a person cannot find wholeness in solitary meditation alone. The talk closes with a guided meditation on the death process.
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File: 07 H and M of A.mp3
UUID: 64415dd4-6768-48f9-8c71-df0673836ecc
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996 Jul-Sep (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1996 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.9 minutes
Words: ~5,108
The time, create the space to reorient and get back in touch. And the traditionally, the term going for refuge. You know? And within the Buddhist context, our orientation, our directions are in terms of what is actually going to serve to help us to solve our problems at our most fundamental level. What can bring us the sacred in our lives?
Find some kind of peace for ourselves. And these are explained in terms of the Buddha, Dharma, and the supreme community, the Sangha. And we, again and again, adjust our motivation as we do in terms of talks and in terms of our personal practice, in terms of our motivation in our meditation sessions. And if you notice in the actual formula there’s a verse that we recite in going for refuge and awakening our heart as our motivation for going for refuge — the why behind what we do. There’s a line which says through the creative potential of my practice and generosity and the other perfections.
And I thought — having talked probably as best as I can in terms of going through Buddhism — I’ll maybe briefly explain what those lines mean in terms of the creative potential of my practice and generosity and other — may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings? By the creative potential of my practice of generosity and other perfections. Generosity and other perfections refers to the six perfections, sometimes referred to or translated as transcendental practices. I’m trying to decide what’s a better translation.
Transcendental practices or the six perfections. Maybe you can give me some feedback on that. Anyway, these are the practice of a bodhisattva. And I’ve talked a little bit about who or what a bodhisattva might be. A bodhisattva — bodhi is awakening, sattva — the original meaning of that term can be taken back to the source of a hero, heroic, a courageous individual, someone who heroically dedicates their lives to the attainment of awakening, and this for the sake of all beings.
And you know I talked about very briefly about the nature of what it means to be human, the dimensions of our being in terms of two aspects to ourselves — the way that we actually live our everyday life is in terms of a private self which is our own inner experience, the I of the inner dimension of our being. But there is another aspect to ourselves, the social aspect — that I which exists in relationship with the world about us, with other people, the I within the social context of the dimension of life. And there are these — that we are both self-assertion and self-integration — in fact two ways that we normally exist in our everyday life. That we have to pay attention to both of these aspects of ourselves. These are the dimensions of our being.
That from the point of view of the universal vehicle, what is called the Mahāyāna, the lesser vehicle or the individual vehicle is seen to fall to the extreme of individuality. And by this it’s meant that there is an overemphasis on attaining an inner experience of peace, to the neglect of the social aspect to ourselves, the social dimension to what it means to be a human being living in the world. And that a holistic approach — that is an approach to mental health which is going to take in all aspects of ourselves, the totality, the whole of ourselves — has to in some way satisfy both of these areas of our needs. We want to experience some kind of inner peace. We want to experience the sacred within our lives.
But we also have to acknowledge the fact that we live in a world with others, that we are inextricably related with the world and we’re interdependent with the world. And therefore we also not only have to find and work towards some kind of inner peace for ourselves but some kind of way of being in the world in the most optimal way, most skillfully, most meaningfully being with others. So this is what the universal vehicle is emphasizing for us. That we can bring about these two welfares of ourselves, the two purposes — the purposes of both ourselves and others. If we can attain a situation, a state of being, the capacities and the skills to be able to bring about our own welfare in terms of inner peace but also be able to develop the skills and abilities to be able to help others to experience that same peace that they too, just like ourselves, are looking for — then there’s nothing more that we could hope to ask for out of our life.
This takes into account the totality of our dimensions of possible ways of being. So this is what the bodhisattva is working toward. And the way it’s worked toward — you know, explained in terms of what are called method and wisdom. Method and wisdom. You know, mentioned that a spiritual journey involves placing one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other.
And generally we term these wisdom and compassion, one assisting and bringing the other to greater expression and greater force, greater power. Compassion can also be spoken of in terms of method when you come to the universal vehicle. In the lesser vehicle, the entire spiritual path is broken up in terms of method and wisdom. But the word method has a different meaning according to the vehicle, which level of Buddhism we are looking at, what we’re talking about — within the individual vehicle, the Hīnayāna. Method is just determination to be free.
You have the will to awaken. But one simply has a revulsion toward the recurring compulsive pattern of dissatisfactory existence. It’s like a bad dream that you want to end. You want to wake up from it. You’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.
You want to remove yourself from the whole situation entirely. It’s a very interesting notion in a way because — you know, we can perhaps intellectually in theory look down upon such people and think, well, you know, I’m in it for others as well. But in fact it’s rather seductive and it has been seductive throughout the history of spiritual practice — that many within the Indian traditions of Hinduism, within the Buddhist traditions — saw there was an allure of solving one’s own problem. This was a captivation with that — there was also the doctrinal notion that one had to leave the world in order to find what it is that we could most want for ourselves, in order that we could realize our potential — that we had to blank out the world. There was no possible way of staying in the world and relating with others and still finding one’s own inner peace.
This was a significant traditional way of thinking. But it was very much the — in terms of the rise of the bodhisattva idea within Buddhism and the notion that we could go beyond the limits of our present way of thinking — whereby we could still maintain a state of inner peace while at the same time being in the world with others. This was a radical conception. Maybe we can’t quite get our minds around it at present, or it’s taken for granted. But in fact this was a radical way of thinking.
For most it was a withdrawal from the world. This was a trend within a great deal of Eastern thought — that the various absorptions within meditative concentration meant that we had to blank out the world, that we had to remove ourselves from the world if we were going to find peace from these recurring compulsive patterns within our lives. That there was no way that we could function in the world and still be at peace. That there was a limitation to the mind. But the great contribution in this respect that in fact Buddha offered to spiritual practice was that there was in fact very subtle factors within the mind which, if removed, one could simultaneously be open to the world, could relate with conventionalities — people, things about you — but at the same time the mind can remain in absolute peace within ultimate reality.
That is to say there is a method whereby to achieve both a simultaneous realization of ultimate reality and conventional reality at the same time. That one didn’t have to either alternate between the two or simply remain in some kind of self-oblivion, some kind of ultimate reality removed from the world. The way this operates, the way that one achieves that is in terms of method and wisdom. Now the method is the accumulation of creative potential. And what we mean by creative potential — the actual means — creative potential operates on the basis of what I call the six perfections.
These are activities which are motivated by compassion. Activities of generosity, ethics, tolerance, joyous effort, meditative concentration, and wisdom. These are called the six perfections. These are the primary activities which a bodhisattva involves themselves in. Outwardly motivated by compassion.
This is the empowering force. Now this will bring about — this leaves an imprint which will directly bring about what is called the form body of a Buddha. Maybe perhaps this is getting a bit abstract, but maybe it’s useful to begin to become familiar with some of this terminology, some of these ideas because they’re quite profound. A form body of a Buddha — that is to say a body, a mode of being which can exist within the world, which can communicate and be with others.
This is the force behind that which finds expression, whereby the Buddha — let’s say someone who has achieved awakening — can actually maintain a presence within the conventional reality. That is the imprint or mainly due to the force of the collection of creative potential or merit. The usual term is merit. There is — so that’s one of our steps. You know, we want — we’re looking at this holistically.
That way we can fulfill the social aspects of ourselves — the social dimension to our being — through the practice of the six perfections motivated by compassion. The other is accumulation of the collection of wisdom. This is the means whereby we can achieve the welfare for ourselves in terms of finding inner peace, of removing all of the dysfunctional patterns from our mind and therefore all sources of suffering such that they can never return again. The imprint of the accumulation of the collection of wisdom brings about what is called the truth body or the Dharmakāya. Okay?
So this brings about the fulfillment of our experiential self. The I in terms of our own inner being — that the I of our inner being finds only unceasing peace, only unceasing bliss, while simultaneously the I of the social aspect of ourselves is able to operate in the world to benefit others. These come about through these two steps of wisdom and method. Wisdom and method.
Method is the six perfections or the six transcendental practices motivated by compassion. So I thought I’d just talk very briefly. Does that make a bit of sense? I think it’s interesting from the point of view — I mean very practically in a relevant fashion — you know, we want to be happier. And the notion is that mental health as a basis of happiness involves not only some kind of solitary realization, some kind of direction of development which is focused upon ourselves and our own achievement.
But simultaneously we have to be concerned about how we’re relating with others if we’re ever going to be happy, if we’re ever going to find mental health. How am I being with others? A person who is centered — and we know this from our own experience, perhaps — perhaps we haven’t seen the relevance of it to ourselves. A person who is totally self-centered, selfish, who is very caught up in their own happiness, who has a great deal of anger, a great deal of hostility. But even people who find it difficult to trust others, to be open with others, to be vulnerable in the world.
They too — these are areas — they simply cannot find mental health. These — you know — that we have to — if we’re going to be healthy mentally, if we’re going to grow — we have to make some kind of effort about relating with other people in the world. How we’re going to deal with others, overcoming our selfishness, overcoming our mistrust, defensiveness — these barriers that we place between ourselves and others. This is all as much a part of our practice as working on our own individual realizations in terms of our own feelings of peace inside of ourselves.
It’s not enough to sit on your cushion and feel warm and fuzzy. We actually have to work with the difficulties of being with other people as part of our program of mental health, as part of our program of growth and development. Now this is kind of the message when we bring it down to a more relevant level to ourselves in our everyday life. So the six perfections, the six transcendental practices. Generosity, ethics, tolerance, patience — sometimes called patience. So this is the way a bodhisattva — someone who has awakened their heart to all living beings and is really focused, really, you know, awakening is very primary to their life.
It’s central to their life for the sake of others — knowing that in fulfilling the needs of others, their own needs, their own welfare — I think — what you get is brought about as a byproduct. They — both, you know — this is the notion that the last thing you have to worry about as a bodhisattva is the willingness to help others — it helps themselves. Whereas perhaps most of us have the opposite notion — by trying to help ourselves to the exclusion of others, we in fact fail ourselves. We don’t achieve anything of what we might want. It’s rather paradoxical but it’s only paradoxical due to our lack of wisdom and our lack of compassion.
The six perfections and six transcendental practices. There’s a verse. Various difficult practices such as generosity and proper ethics which include the welfare of sentient beings and tolerance while working for the benefit of others. By these three, the element of Buddha evolved. The element of Buddha is our Buddha nature.
So these are the actual conducive conditions whereby we create the internal mental ecology whereby our own Buddha nature begins to evolve into ultimately a Buddha. And the second part of this — in other words, joyous effort in all spiritual practices, engaging the mind in meditative concentration, and constant firm wisdom. Are these three also awakening? And so dissolved. So, you know, the Sanskrit word paramita is usually translated as perfection. But it means — it has the idea — the reason that I tend — I’m trying to decide what to translate this word.
Sometimes I think the general translation is perfection. But I think in a way transcendental perfection, or transcendental practice, may be better. The reason — because sometimes we get pretty heavy-handed with ourselves, you know — the notion of being a perfections. And I was sort of — I don’t know if it has that connotation then I’d rather not use that word at all. The notion of striving to be perfect in all that we do can be just another way that we can find ourselves wanting, that we can be self-oppressive toward ourselves.
But the actual word paramita has the meaning of going over there, going beyond, going to the other shore. These are the actual means the term conveys. You know, that’s why I think maybe transcendent — you know — going over there. The practice of my practice of generosity has gone over there. It’s not that it’s perfected.
You know, just what do we mean to perfect generosity? I mean, Buddha Śākyamūni, for example, brought his practice of generosity to consummation. There are still poor people in the world. So it’s not a matter of, you know, filling up everybody’s storerooms so that there’s no need in the world. Anyway we’re going to talk about that.
There is a sense of transcendence in terms of our practice. These six primary practices of a bodhisattva are said to transcend ordinary spiritual practices through the force of the wisdom and compassion with which they are joined. So they transcend ordinary practices. You know, having awakened their mind, having awakened their heart, the bodhisattva accepts sole responsibility to bring about the welfare of all other living beings. And maybe this conception is beyond our present imagination.
It doesn’t mean it’s not a possible way of thinking, a possible way of being in terms of compassion — to accept sole responsibility for the welfare of all living beings. The awakening of his or her heart. The practical implication of such a commitment — if it’s to have any meaning at all — is that we have to actually respond to the needs of others. If I say I’m going to take responsibility for you, if it’s to translate into some sort of practical fashion, I have to develop the ability to respond. You know, that’s what the word responsibility comes from.
If I can’t respond to what it is that you need, if I’m not able to respond, how can I take responsibility? I can only take it in wishful thinking, not in practice. And the bodhisattva wants to be able to respond in practice, not simply in wish and wanting to do so. Sure the wish comes before the practice — the sincerity and the genuine aspiration. But then there’s an actual involving oneself in developing the skills such that one will develop the capacity to be able to respond.
But not to respond in the ways of an ordinary attitude of the world — not in terms of attachment or aggression, in terms of pride — the ways that we normally operate in the world — but in ways which transcend that. To respond to all things, you know, to be all things to all people so that by some means we might be able to help a few. So the bodhisattva tries to transcend in his responding to others the general attitudes of the world in terms of aggression, in terms of attachment and pride, etcetera. But also the practice of these various practices — the practice of generosity and ethics and so forth — are engaged in conjoined with the force of his or her wisdom. That is to say, you know, the bodhisattva involving themselves, say, in a practice of generosity — while they’re involved in that practice — they are understanding that the practice of generosity is conjoined with the understanding that they themselves, the agent of the giving, that the object that they’re giving — the person to whom it’s given — and that which is being given are all empty of true existence, all lack inherent existence.
So there’s no grasping. There’s no possibility of objectifying. I’m doing something to you. There was only the giving. There was no truly existing giver, no truly existing person being given to, nor was there any object.
Therefore, this — the ability to give — is unimaginably extended, infinite possibilities. There’s no holding on to truly existent objects. There’s no possibility of pride. There’s no possibility of objectifying others, expecting something in return. Objectifying others.
So all of the bodhisattva’s activities are said to be conjoined with the understanding of openness and thereby transcend the ordinary attitudes of the world — ordinary generosity, ordinary ethics, and so forth — no matter how altruistic the motivation behind those activities, those practices might be. So talking about the six perfections. You know, these are what you know — this is the actual training, the primary training of a bodhisattva — in trying to become a Buddha, what they actually involve themselves in in a very specific manner. The first of these six perfections, or transcendental practices, is generosity or giving. But, you know, what do we mean by that?
You know, the practice of generosity is not simply a matter of becoming increasingly charitable, handing over more and more of what it is that we have. In practice it may come down to that. The giving of various forms of generosity — for example, the forms of giving of money, of giving materials, of giving time, giving energy. That’s an area of giving. There’s generosity of protection from fear.
Giving security and safety to someone or something or an animal. There’s the generosity of giving the Dharma — giving attention. That’s another type of generosity. So it is that we do, whatever it is that may be needed — giving that. But it may come down to all of that.
But the emphasis in the practice of generosity is in our willingness to give. It’s not so much what we give but the emphasis in our capacity — developing the capacity to give — in terms of giving up mine. My possessions, my territory, my privacy, my security, my knowledge. And being able to let go of all that. In other words, the practice of generosity lies not so much in the actual giving as it does in the letting go of attachment.
It lies in non-attachment. It’s letting go of the need to hold on to ourselves and to whatever it is that we identify ourselves with. You know, giving up a decentralized approach to our relationship. Generosity of communicating and participating in the world of others — a kind of spontaneous, non-objectifying, environmental generosity, responding to whatever needs arise. Okay? So just the first of these six perfections.
And the way that we can begin to orientate ourselves, areas that we can begin to concentrate in terms of our practice — generosity, in terms of ethics and what they really might mean for us and how they are relevant to us in our practice, and the very fact that they are needed. You know, in terms of dismantling the world of ego which is normally the basis from which we operate. The way that we can dismantle it in a very nonviolent manner, in a very systematic — we identify more than not just something manifesting out of our own self-cherishing — and be able to help ourselves in a very realistic fashion to be able to get along better with others, have better relationships. Things will go smoother. So involving ourselves in this practice — for the bodhisattva, you know, where an individual whose primary inner focus is the attainment of Buddhahood — and this becomes primary to their life.
However, you know, we might look at what we mean by a Buddha, you know, for ourselves as ordinary individuals. You know, someone — To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of the Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings.
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma. May I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. Reverently, I pay homage with my body, speech, mind, and present clouds of every type of offering that is actual and imagined. I disclose all my destructive acts accumulated since time without beginning. And rejoice in the skillful actions of holy and ordinary beings.
Please remain until cyclic existence has ended and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. I dedicate the skillful actions of myself and others to the great awakening. If you would like to stand for a moment, stretch your legs. We’re going to be meditating on the death process. And we’re going to do as we usually do in terms of adjusting our motivation — development of love and compassion.
We’ll do the nine-round breathing meditation. Then we’ll do mindfulness of breathing, and then we’ll go through the different process. And I’ll lead imaginatively. Okay? I don’t want anybody dying on me.
I’ll lead you through. And the only reason I’m giving you a heads up is that maybe you might like this particular evening to lie down. You know, don’t feel in any way obligated or self-conscious about either lying down or not — just to be able to become more involved in this death process meditation. So by all means — the only — yeah. I don’t know if some of you are aware that in the Eastern traditions — and I realize this is not necessarily the western custom.
So you might not be aware of it, and you might not feel that it’s necessary to follow it because we are in the West — but it’s out of respect for our teachers and the Tibetan tradition that it’s considered bad-mannered, disrespectful to point your feet — the soles of your feet — at a respected teacher or a holy object such as, you know, images or paintings, things of this nature. So if you’d like to do that, what I went into all that for is that if you want to lie down, point your head this way. Okay? But anyway, you’re welcome to lie down and just, you know, just put your hands to your side, palms up, and just let yourself go into this meditation. You know?
Maybe so I won’t disturb you — I’ll just talk just a few words about what we’re going to do in terms of this. You know, we talked a great deal about the death process, about the way the domino dissolving, about the collapsing of the gross elements of earth, water, fire, and wind energy. And there are specific external signs and there’s a specific internal experience and vision that the dying person goes through. And, you know, I’m going to run through these.
But in the course of these, you know, we’re doing this in order to take the mystery — you know — out of it, and therefore the fear surrounding what might happen at the actual time of our death. And we try to follow this process as vividly as possible. Understand that everything that you’re experiencing — that you’re going to go through — is all coming from your own mind. There’s nothing to be afraid of. You know?
Sometimes people become afraid or sometimes people experience strange sensations or have very bewildering thoughts. I mean, images float up in their mind — or maybe even wonderful feelings, blissful feelings might come to mind. One part of this training is to simply become aware that this is only part of my mind. It’s only arising out of my mind just like dream images. They only arise out of factors within your own mind.
So one needn’t give them any reality divorced from that — the thinking that they exist out there independent of my mind. We can simply note them as thinking or feeling and then come back to the meditation which is being described. So don’t get hum up with anything along the way, whether it’s desirable or undesirable. It’s all just the play of the mind. Don’t become preoccupied with whatever comes up.
Don’t become lost in it. You know? Come back to the imaginative experience of the meditation. That’s what we’re trying to explore. This serial dissolution of these elements of the gross body, the subtle body, and coming down to the most subtle consciousness.
Yeah. So this is kind of just to put this in some kind of context because some people do have unusual experiences when they go through — and by all means, be open to that, but don’t become overwhelmed by them. Don’t become preoccupied. Don’t become distracted by them. Simply note them and come back to, you know, what is the process which is being described.
So one can relax. There’s nothing to be afraid of in the entire process. Okay? So if you’d like to lie down, go ahead. Go ahead.
Yeah. Don’t feel self-conscious. If you want to, you’re quite welcome to sit either in a chair or on the floor. So just, you know, just a comfortable posture where you won’t have to move around. You won’t have to disturb your body.
You can become completely engrossed in the activities of your mental — the body — as we use the term of noticing any tensions or any tightness within the body. Yeah. It’s said that the clear light experiences are the final state. Okay. This thing — I mean, if we can — it’s most — it’s often enough to disturb the body, to allow this process to occur naturally, to allow the consciousness. You know, when we use the term clear light of death in terms of ourselves as ordinary people, the clear light — merely — the drops will continue their journey.
And the red drops will eventually — it is said that there will be a drop of red substance. This substance will emerge from the nostril, and a white drop will emerge from the genital area. And that’s a technical case that might not occur. But so best if we cannot — if we cannot disturb the body — best to touch it first at the crown of the head.
And, you know, you can actually, you know, like pull a hair from the body’s crown. That is said that the consciousness will be attracted in that direction. And there is a tradition of thinking which says that if the consciousness emerges through the crown opening — there’s an opening in the crown of the head — this will be