Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Verse 32 of the 37 Bodhisattva Practices anchors this nearly 100-minute commentary by Geshe Pema Tsering, whose opening provocation is that even a cat might be a Buddha emanation — making judgment of any being’s outward behavior always risky. Working through the verse’s instruction to treat all beings, wise or novice, as teachers, Geshe-la draws on Longchenpa, Geshe Chekawa, and Śāntideva to argue against fault-finding: bodhicitta is invisible, and criticizing what we cannot understand harms only ourselves. He then extends this into a philosophical case against self-cherishing: our own body originated as our parents’ sperm and ovum — not “us” — and became precious only through habituation; the same process, he argues, could equally be applied to cherishing others. The commentary closes with Q&A on practical edge cases — when to intervene as a cat corners a mouse, and when pointing out someone’s faults is acceptable — with motivation, he insists, determining everything.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2008 07 20 37 PoB.mp3
UUID: b6fcfcd2-7043-45a3-80b4-f062f549f743
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: 37 practices of a Bodhisattva (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2008-07-20
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 99.1 minutes
Words: ~4,939
So it’s necessary that we begin by adjusting our motivation developing a positive motivation whereby I’m going to listen to this teaching on the mind training of the thirty seven practices of the Bodhisattva in order to attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. Then recite the Heart Sūtra. So do you does everybody have a copy? Heart Sūtra is on page two. Thus did I hear at one time the Bhagavan was dwelling in the mass of Vultures Mountain in Rajagriha together with a great community of monks and a great community of Bodhisattvas.
At that time, the Bhagavan was absorbed in the concentration of the categories of phenomenal profound perception. Also at that time, the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Ārya Avalokiteśvara looked upon the Then we recite the prayer on page four. I and all surrounding sentient beings go for refuge to the Buddha, go for refuge to the Dharma, go for refuge to the Sangha. We prostrate to the great mother Prajñāpāramitā, surrounded by all the children, by the assemblies of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the ten directions, by depending upon the prostrations to all of you, may these words of truth be actualized. In the past, the great ones who practiced dispelled their mara by reflecting on the profound meaning of the wisdom gone beyond and reciting the profound words in daily recitation.
In that same way, I reflected upon the profound meaning of the great mother, Prajñāpāramitā, and recite the profound words in daily recitation. May all diseases, spirit, possessions, bad conditions, all the negative directions that which happen due to past karma and immediate conditions, may all this be dispelled. May it become nonexistent. May it be pacified. May all sentient beings have happiness in the cause of happiness.
May all sentient beings be freed from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all sentient beings be inseparable, and happiness is free from suffering. May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment for friends and hatred for enemies. So we’ll continue with the thirty seven practices of the bodhisattva. And we’re looking at verse thirty two, where it’s it’s, Atisha is being quoted, and the verse which is is is as follows.
The individual who already possesses the eye of Dharma and the sentient being who is a mere beginner in the Dharma, you should have the notion of both these being your teacher. When looking at sentient beings, see them as your parents or your children. So in discussing this this particular verse, Geshe-la mentions that, here it mentions someone who possesses the eye of Dharma, that is, say, someone who understands and practices the Dharma, a sentient being who is a beginner, one who has just commenced in their practice and really doesn’t understand the Dharma well. That is to say, this is to take in all sentient beings, in fact. We are to take all of these sentient beings as your teacher.
Our principal teacher is Śākyamūni Buddha. Śākyamūni Buddha has eliminated all the various faults and brought to consummation all his excellent qualities. So how are we to take all sentient beings as our teacher? We are not to look to their faults, but on the contrary, we are trying to pay attention to all their their excellent qualities, and not to look to their faults. Looking at every sentient being in this way, we should look upon them as if they were our parents.
We naturally have a liking toward our parents and are kindly predisposed to them. We should look upon all sentient beings as if they were parents and develop a liking and seek to benefit them. Quotation which follows which is by Jangchub Drampa, and he it reads as follows that leave others faults alone. This then is virtue. So we are to overlook, not to pay attention to others faults, various mistakes that they flaws that they have in their character and so forth and that this in itself is a virtuous conduct.
And then a verse by Geshe Potawa where he says, all sentient beings possess faults. Do not pay attention to nor think about any of their faults. So it is the case that that sentient that the ordinary sentient beings have faults, but though they possess faults, we are not to pay attention to them or to think about them, to to reflect, to ruminate on them. Then there follows a verse: In general, accumulating evil in relation to somebody exceedingly excellent, such as a bodhisattva will be the broom that sweeps away all one’s virtue. In particular, this will fling bodhicitta far away.
We can never be sure who is a bodhisattva and who is not. So a bodhisattva is someone who developed the awakened heart, bodhicitta, and this is looked upon as an excellent being, someone who we are to hold in high regard. If on the contrary we were to look upon them in a negative fashion and to dwell upon their faults, then that very dwelling upon their faults would be like a broom which sweeps away all one’s own virtue that one has created. We don’t know who Bodhisattva is. We can’t tell from the outside.
The bodhicitta is an inner quality. Not knowing their inner qualities, therefore we should treat all sentient beings as if they were a bodhisattva. That is to say most generally even we should respect all living beings even animals upward. And there follows the quotation, hence do not examine the faults of any being, and especially do not look for faults in your master. So in general, we are not to examine or try to inspect for faults either of sentient beings, but this is especially true of our spiritual teacher.
If you look for faults you’ll find them. If you look for excellent qualities you’ll find those. So we are looking toward the excellent qualities of all sentient beings. The next verse is by Master Karak Gomchung who says, The outer behavior of Master who teaches the great vehicle might not be beautiful, but since you do not know his inner realization, do not conceive of the faults in the Master. So again, but especially with regard to those who teach us the great vehicle, the Mahāyāna masters.
They have various outward appearances and various activities which they demonstrate to ourselves. But there might be these distinctions in the way they appear outwardly, which we can see, we can’t see their inward qualities. Not being able to see their inner realizations, we should not look to their faults. So in summary, can’t tell who a bodhisattva is. A bodhisattva is inner realization, the development of the awakened heart or bodhicitta.
And bodhisattva involves themselves in a variety of activities, but they’re all for the benefit of sentient beings. They’re all motivated by altruism, the awakened heart, the bodhicitta, and great compassion. But nonetheless, though they may have this inner motivation, they may express themselves in a variety of outward ways, and this even might involve killing and stealing. So if we were to judge simply by the outward appearance, we might be taken back by this activity. But not knowing what the inner motivation is, if we were to look to their faults and criticize them, then this would only harm ourselves.
We may see an individual who’s committing an act which we might take to be strange, and we might think it to be wrong in some way, but we don’t know whether that individual is a bodhisattva or not and moreover what is the motivation behind what they’re doing. This is especially true of our spiritual teacher, our lama. We cannot fathom their actions. Not being able to understand what motivation of an individual is, no matter what the outward activity may be, it’s in our best interest to have a sense of equanimity with regard to what they’re doing. Only a Buddha can really know what’s behind a sentient being’s activities, what their motivation is.
For us, if we maintain a sense of equanimity, an equanimous attitude without judging them, without criticizing them, without scolding them, then there’s very little danger that we will bring harm ourselves. On the contrary, we will only profit from this. So there’s a great danger in our sitting in judgment on a higher being and simply being able to fathom their activities and what it is they’re doing, not understanding what the motivation is behind their activities. Even something like a cat. A cat could be an emanation of a Buddha, it could be an emanation of a Bodhisattva superior and so forth.
Though it appears just to be a cat and it’s doing all of these, it could be these activities could appear very harmful, but in fact if it is an emanation of a Buddha or emanation of a Bodhisattva superior, you can be assured that that activity of that cat is only beneficial. That’s the reason it was emanated and therefore, should maintain a sense of equanimity even toward the activities of cat. So there’s great danger in sitting in judgment on others in this way. There’s only benefit. There’s great profit to be gained through maintaining equanimity.
And on the contrary, in looking for faults and through criticism and so forth, one only harms oneself. And then there now follows a quote by Longchenpa where he says: belittle anyone. So we really don’t know what others are capable of. Here, this word capacity could be translated as we cannot understand the measure of another individual, where it is they’re coming from and what they do. And if we sit in judgment on them and seek to find fault, that finding fault in itself is creating negativity for ourselves.
Then, Geshe Chekawa, there’s a verse, there’s a quote by him in which he says, Do not point out anyone’s handicap. And he continues, Just mind your own business. So by handicap here, could be a physical handicap, but it’s any type of flaw that a person might have some fault, both physical and mental, which they might possess. And we are not to speak of them. It’s not our affair.
And then in commenting on this, Ngulchu Togme, the commentary says, says, In this way they taught that it is not right to speak of the faults of others, saying that someone has deranged discipline and so forth. By deranged discipline, it simply means some kind of unethical conduct or immoral conduct and so forth. Without a beneficial intention, it’s not of any use to talk about someone else’s drawback, some fault. And even with the beneficial intention we’re not sure if it’s going to be useful. So therefore it’s best if we simply maintain equanimity.
The commentary continues, it is in general inappropriate to think about the faults of any sentient beings and in particular to think about the faults of someone who enters the door of dharma. And then the author, Gyalsé Togme, says as follows: In general, chatter is pointless. By chatter here, it means saying something is the case which isn’t or something isn’t the case when it In general, chatter is pointless. Non virtue increases and in particular through despising others one will be brought down and become stained by flaws. Sometimes it appears that by saying harsh words and so forth, we hurt others.
But in fact, words in themselves only hurt ourselves. They don’t bring harm to the other person. And we ourselves are lessened by having done that. Then the quote goes on to say, Attachment and aversion will increase, so through our judging others, we take a particular position for or against, and out of that arises when the position is for, attachment or desires will grow, and when it’s against, aversion and anger will grow toward that individual. And in particular, person in the Dharma will separate, therefore be terrified about despising others.
We look to other people and, you know, are they practicing the Dharma or this person’s practicing well and this person’s not practicing well, and we make we make these judgments about others. And other people are doing the same to us. Some people look we might think we practice in Dharma, but in fact, others might looking upon ourselves as not practicing Dharma. So we can’t be sure what other people think of ourselves. All we can do is take care of how we consider others.
We only create negativities by falling to some kind of bias with regard to others in judgment on others. It’s best to maintain a sense of equanimity toward others. And then the text goes on to say, When due to jealousy I despise the dharma in the individual, my virtue decreases and others’ minds become disturbed. Therefore, except when it is for the definite benefit of others, do not express others’ harm others’ faults. So, you know, we when we when we express words out of jealousy, we can be sure that our motivation is negative.
We become jealous because we cannot bear the excellent possessions or qualities of another individual, something that they have which we desire and we cannot bear that they have it. So we seek to, in some way, lessen whatever that quality, whatever their possession, saying something about them or something about their possession and so forth. And this expression, whatever it is that’s said, it comes from a place of non virtue and it only brings increase creates non virtue for ourselves and increases the non virtue that we already have. And moreover, those words once heard by others disturbs their mind. So it harms both so expressing words motivated by jealousy, harms ourselves and others.
So we since it harms both ourselves and others, it’s best if we remain equanimous. So whatever we do through our body and speech and mind, it should be done to benefit. In order to benefit oneself, to ensure that we don’t harm neither oneself or others, it’s best in those cases where we see some kind of fault or something which we see is wrong to remain equanimous. So people do what they do in order to derive benefit for themselves. Everyone’s trying to help themselves in whatever ways they can, even if we see faults in what they’re doing.
If we if what we do brings them harm, then then this is this is this way of acting is contrary to benefiting them and only causes further harm to themselves and our and to one not only further harm to themselves, which they may already be doing, but also harms oneself. So everyone holds themselves as being the most precious, included. We hold ourselves as most precious others as being lesser than ourselves. But this is not in accord with the actual nature of things. There’s a source verse for this understanding comes from Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra and the Bodhisattva’s way of life where he says, All the sufferings in this world come about through cherishing myself.
What use is this great demon to myself? So this demon of self-cherishing or self centeredness is the source of our suffering and has origins in ignorance itself. It is a wrong consciousness. So the mind which holds oneself precious is in fact a wrong consciousness and is not the consciousness which we are to follow in terms of our conduct. So in the same vein, quoting again from Śāntideva’s Śāntideva’s Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, where he says, therefore, understanding the great benefits of cherishing others and the great faults of cherishing only myself, I shall exchange self for others.
Others are an ocean of excellence, and thereby abandon holding myself as more precious than others and abandoning all my self, I will attain all excellence. But on the contrary, we hold the opposite position. We hold ourselves as being most important and others as if they were of no value to ourselves, as if they were no value. So these are these are wrong ways of thinking. To to hold one to hold which is most to hold that which is least precious as the most precious and to that which is most precious as the least precious are all contrary to the nature of things.
This is simply a matter of habit. Due to the force of familiarization that is to accustom ourselves to the sense of I we habitually hold this sense of I that which is seen as this I as being most important. On the other hand, if we were to have from beginningless time as we have with our eye, have held others as precious then we would have been habituated to holding others as precious, and this would arise automatically at present. So, again, there’s an example we can use of in questioning what we have become habituated to. We received in dependence upon the sperm and ovum of our parents, which in no way was ourselves.
We have habituated ourselves to thinking I. So in dependence upon something which was originally not ourselves, that is say the sperm and ovum of our parents, we have come to hold that I as most precious in terms of we hold our body precious, we hold it as I. Through habituation we hold as precious as ourselves this body of ours which in fact at one time was not ourselves which was something which belonged to our parents, the sperm and ovum which came from them. Originally, there was simply this sperm and ovum of our parents, which in no way contained an I, a self, but over time, that we, in dependence upon what was others, we identified it as mine, my body. And then we’ve gone on to think when we eat food, when this body is taking in food, we say I’m eating.
When this body is walking around, we say I’m walking. So we’ve come to identify our self, which was originally not our self which came from our parents and this is simply through the force of habituation. So what was previously not I, the sperm and ovum which originated from our parents has through habituation been identified as I and we go on to hold this I as being very precious and hold this embodiment which I identified with as being extremely precious. But there’s no reason why this process cannot be reversed, not reversed, cannot be done with the same process, cannot be engaged in with respect to others. For example, there’s someone else by the name of Tashi, or John or Mary.
in dependence upon their parents’ sperm and ovum, Tashi or John and Mary identified themselves with that union of sperm and ovum, and that became their body, and they hold that embodiment precious. They identify with that body. in dependence upon this, what originated sperm and ovum, was not us, we identify with it and it has become precious and we call it I, I and my body. And this holds very precious. If, on the contrary, what was not I, that is say the sperm and ovum of our parents, can be identified as I, why can’t what came from the sperm of others, other, of others, parents be identified in the same way as I.
It’s simply a matter of habituation. So there’s no reason why can’t generate this way of looking at others as we have done to ourselves since the process whereby we’ve come to identify ourselves as precious can be applied equally to others. There’s no reason why we can’t accustom ourselves to hold others precious just as we now hold ourselves as precious. So there’s no real basis for distinguishing, identifying with with with, this body and mind and and not others’ body and mind. There’s no real basis for not identifying with this embodiment and not identifying with this embodiment in terms of holding it precious.
It’s it’s not there’s no sufficient reason we can state why this is done. It’s it’s unreasonable why it is is not appropriate. There’s no we cannot establish a valid reason why this is done cannot be done this is done with oneself and not to other and not with and cannot be done with regard to others. So do we only make this distinction between the I of this self, the I in terms of this embodiment, embodiment and the I of the embodiment others, due to a wrong consciousness. That is to say the innate conception of which conceives of I in a wrong manner.
It is only depends upon that. In fact, there is a conventionally existent I, but is no, is no, we cannot make a distinction between the conventionally existent I of oneself and the conventionally existent I of others in terms of the fact that they are equal in wanting to be happy and they equally do not want to suffer. It is only dependent upon the wrong consciousness misconceiving this I and dependence upon this embodiment that we make a distinction in terms of which one is more precious, simply simply through habituation, holding this particular eye as more precious and that eye of other as less precious. So both both both the the eye of So on the basis of wrong consciousness, the innate conception misconceiving the I, we go on to hold that this this eye, in dependence upon this embodiment, is most precious and hold others as less precious than ourselves. We generate, self centeredness, and we we bring, we involve ourselves in various activities.
We generate out of out of out of the afflictions of attachment and hatred causing negativities and call and bringing ourselves suffering. But there is an I a conventionally existent I, which is identified with this embodiment, and on the basis of this conventionally existent I, we can go beyond our own self centeredness, we can can go on to, generate other centeredness. We can generate all of the various stages, and grounds and paths. We can we can, in holding we can identify through accustoming ourselves with holding others precious on the basis of this conventional existing eye, holding others as more precious than ourselves. We we can we can, seek to make them happy, and and by means of that, we ourselves will be brought happiness.
On the contrary, when on the basis of the misconceived I, holding that I as most precious, generating, motivated by, afflictive emotions such as attachment and hatred, involve ourselves in in non virtuous actions, we we, we though we seek happiness, we cause ourselves more suffering. So on the basis of the misconceived eye, we continue, which holds ourselves as most precious, we we continue our suffering within cyclic existence. But on the basis of a conventionally existing eye, which is, accords with reality, we can develop all excellent qualities. So on the basis of self centeredness we cause ourselves all harm, on the basis of other we cause ourselves all benefit. We have struggled from beginningless time to seek happiness but it is due to our habituation to our self centeredness misconceiving the nature of the I that we continue to suffer.
So we have from beginningless time desired happiness but we don’t know what in fact happiness is. Though wanting And as a means of finding happiness we’ve employed the methods of attachment and aversion. And through these means we experience some sort of, from time to time we experience some type of happiness but in fact this is without any essence. In fact it’s not really happiness. It is simply a lessening of suffering within cyclic existence.
Without knowing the actual nature of happiness it’s difficult for us to understand what liberation is, what omniscience is. So though wanting happiness we’ve never really been able to achieve it because we really don’t know what actual happiness is. And therefore, not knowing what actual happiness is, we’re not motivated to create the causes of that actual, what is in fact happiness. What we see as happiness are the happiness that we see about us as human beings, but also maybe the happiness of the gods. But this is, in fact, is not happiness.
This isn’t the happiness of this is just a lessening of suffering and what we call happiness. And these are the kinds of causes that we create just to simply create less suffering for ourselves. So it is only when we talk about what is real happiness, we’re talking about happiness achieved by a foe destroyer or an arhat. But I mean this is also true of anyone who’s achieved a true cessation, for example, even a bodhisattva superior who achieves a true cessation. For most of us is what we this is when we talk about what is real happiness we’re talking about we’re taking this as what we mean by real happiness, that of a foe destroyer.
When we see others who are tortured and suffering in some way, we see the poor, we see the sick, we say, Oh, that’s a pity. The words come to our mouth. And we think, There develops an attitude, I I I don’t want that. But I I I don’t want that. I wish that they weren’t experiencing that.
But we we when we see others going through great difficulty, should at that time, it should occur to us that we have created the causes for that same type of suffering, that we have the karmic seeds within our mind from beginningless time having created those actions, which in fact will bring about those sufferings and worse. Even within ourselves, we see others and we don’t recognize that we have those same cause of suffering inside of ourselves and we don’t create any fear of those sufferings, this potential which already exists in ourselves. Moreover, our compassion is merely from the mouth. So if you have some questions. Lindsay?
So you should interfere. You have to you should interfere. So the mouse can be free. That’s virtuous. Whether the cat ends up eating the mouse or not, we don’t know, but you created virtue.
So it’s in the interim. The cat may or may not eat the mouse mouse in the future. That’s what cats do, they eat mice. We don’t know what the cat’s going to experience but the person who interferes and frees the mouse outside of what the cat may experience or the mouse might experience in the future has created virtue for themselves. So The mouse has no control..
Cat has control. Moreover, we don’t know how they’re going to interact. Over we don’t even know whether it’s in fact a mouse or a cat. We think, ah, there’s a cat, there’s a mouse, but really we have no valid cognition that is in fact a cat and that is in fact a mouse. It could be an emanation.
We know what we are. We know we’re not an emanation. So on that basis, on that understanding, then we should take the opportunity to create virtue. So we’re continually thinking in a wrong way even with regard to ourselves as an I. We hold I as being inherently existent and so forth.
And this is a wrong consciousness and we hold everything else to exist as inherently existent and so forth. This is all arising out of ignorance. So things are quite we can’t be sure about a great deal about what we experience since a great deal of what we come to know is our own mental fabrication. For example, we see a flower. Somebody might say, Oh, that’s a beautiful flower.
But somebody else said, that’s not a flower, that’s a fruit. Somebody might say that. And then that other person might convince be able to convince us even though you thought it was a beautiful flower and in fact it’s not a flower and you become to doubt your own previous understanding and you begin to change your mind well maybe it’s not a flower. That’s a sign that there’s no stability in our ways of thinking and our understanding. So we can hold the position, holding that this is a flower, but if enough people come along and tell us it’s not a flower, slowly we will evolve the thought, oh, I was wrong, it was not really a flower.
So one can show up it’s allowable to show up the faults of another. For example, in this case, when someone’s, your employee and so forth and they’re making some mistakes. It all depends upon your motivation. Here in terms of, today’s teaching, it was in terms of, the motivation negative in order to, in some way, lessen. It causes harm to the other person in some way.
If you have a beneficial motivation, then it’s quite acceptable to point out someone’s fault. It would be the case where if you saw someone who wasn’t doing some type of work well and you pointed out their faults, what they were doing wrongly simply as a way of either lessening them in some way or promoting your self, then this would not be acceptable. On the other hand, if you saw someone who wasn’t working, making some mistakes in what they were doing, and out of a positive motivation that perhaps they weren’t up to the work, that in order to help them, in order to correct what they were doing, then this would be acceptable. No questions? Prayers on page seven.