Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 65-minute session, Geshe Pema Tsering unpacks a striking paradox: bodhicitta, the most precious mental state in Mahāyāna Buddhism, grows only in afflicted minds — like a lotus that cannot sprout in a clean room but needs muck. He uses this image to explain why beings still trapped in saṃsāra are better placed to develop compassion than arhats resting in the bliss of nirvana, who have so little experience of suffering that empathy for others barely arises. Along the way he traces the three Indian lineage masters behind the Seven-Point Mind Training — Dharmarakshita, Maitri Yogi, and Serlingpa — paying particular attention to Serlingpa’s counterintuitive method: rather than abandoning self-cherishing, redirect it outward to generate cherishing for others. A Q&A closes the session with practical guidance on helping people in distress use their own suffering as the basis for tonglen-style practice, including how to approach those with no Buddhist background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 7P 2005 05 22.mp3
UUID: 58cc749f-10b3-45a4-8209-295283f828f3
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: 7 Point mind training (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-05-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 65.4 minutes
Words: ~4,552
So Before you listen to the teachings, please check your motivation and make sure that you have the right motivation. That is, that in order to lead all sentient beings out of suffering, in order to show them how to completely rid themselves of suffering, then you first need to become a Buddha yourselves. And then in order to do that, we first need to train our mind train our mind in cherishing others and getting rid of self-cherishing or self grasping grasping onto our sense of self. So please check to see that this is that you have this motivation, and concentrate on this idea or remind yourself of this idea while you’re listening to the teaching. The line we’re up to in his commentary says, if you do this, if you know this, you won’t make a mistake.
And what it’s talking about is developing an understanding that it is through abandoning self-cherishing, abandoning self grasping you into a personal identity, and taking up the cause of others, focusing on other beings, developing love and kindness and compassion for other beings, that is the practice the Buddha described in his teachings. So he taught many different things, but the main purpose of all of the things that he taught was that we need to practice this idea or train our minds in thinking of others, and we need to get rid of our self-cherishing, get rid of our holding onto a sense of a solid identity. It’s these two things that if we focus on, we won’t make a mistake, or if we understand, we won’t make a mistake. These two things, the development of the mind cherishing others and the abandoning of the mind holding onto a personal identity and the development no. The abandoning of a mind holding onto a personal identity and self-cherishing are the meaning of the Buddha’s thought.
They are the intention with which the Buddha taught the Dharma. This may be so, but if we start looking at Buddhist texts, if we start looking into Buddhist philosophies, then there’s a lot to it. There are so many texts and there are so many different types of teachings. There’s sūtra teachings, tantra teachings, hinayana teachings, Mahāyāna teachings so many different teachings that if we start trying to figure that out ourselves, we’re going to get it wrong. We’re going to get confused.
This is why a teacher is considered so important. There isn’t said to be a higher teaching in all of Buddhist texts, in all of the lineages of the instructions. It says, If you think there may be something better than mind training, then don’t worry, there isn’t. It’s just that if we go searching for it, we’re going to get very confused. There is so much there, it’s so vast.
You need to be so skilled in order to wade your way through it that it’s much more intelligent to rely on the instructions of a qualified teacher. It’s said that these are the instructions of a qualified teacher there. The seven points of mind training are the instructions of a qualified teacher. It’s a good thing to rely on them. Okay.
So it’s also said to be a teaching that is unique to or confined to the teachings of the Mahāyāna because although the in general, the Buddha’s teachings talk about abandoning self-cherishing or abandoning this hold that we have on a personal identity, this grasping of personal identity, and working for the benefit of others, learning to do things for others. This idea of doing things for all sentient beings and using the motivation of working for all sentient beings in order to attain enlightenment is a trait that is unique to the Mahāyāna. So while all of the Buddhist teachings focus on this idea of abandoning the idea of a self and working for the benefit of others. The idea of working for the benefit of all sentient beings and working to attain Buddhahood is something unique to Mahāyāna. And so it’s said that considering that there are so many teachings and that we need the teachings of a we need to be instructed by a teacher on what’s beneficial for us and what’s gonna help us.
And then it said also that these seven points of mind training is a personal instruction from a guru for the development of bodhicitta. But it’s actually the personal instruction of three different gurus, and therefore, it’s said to be even more beneficial. The first guru, Indian guru, that was said to have delivered this teaching was Dharmarakshita. And Dharmarakshita said he followed by following these teachings, by following the seven points of mind training, even though he had he was a proponent of a philosophical system that was aligned with the Hīnayāna schools. So that is one that only had the idea of selflessness.
He still managed to attain the Mahāmudrā, which is a realization is is a is of Buddhahood. So it’s saying that this text, this type of training, training the mind in this way, is said to be powerful enough that even if your views aren’t as developed as they could be or as precise as they could be, it still enables you to attain Buddhahood. Dharmarakshita based his teachings on the sutras that tell the stories of the previous lives of the Buddha. There’s a whole series of teachings that describe what Śākyamūni Buddha did in his previous lives. Through these teachings, he describes practices that the Buddha did in those past lives, and he describes them in a text that’s called the wait a sec.
Okay. The garlands. Okay. The text is called the garland of the Oh, of course. The text the the garland of the three the Garland of the Three Chuckings.
That means, like, as she said, you know, they had this expression in Tibetan that when you wanna get rid of something, you say, Chuck it. So it’s like or if you say if people wanna say forget about it, you’ll also say, Chuck it. And so it’s a bit difficult to translate, but it has this idea of the three throwing away things, I guess, or the three chucking things. But it’s talking about the three ways to get rid of self-cherishing. No.
And this was based on a based on a story from the Jātaka tales or the previous life stories of the Buddha, which is called the tale or the wisdom of the the Wisdom of the Sweet-Talking Horse. Alright. The second lama that is second guru that is said to hang on one sec. Sorry. Alright.
The second of the gurus to have passed on this teaching was another Indian an Indian meditation master called either Maitri Yogi or the small Kusuli. He was Maitri Yogi means yogi is meditator, and Metri is love and kindness. So he was called the Metri yogi because he he meditated on love and kindness. That was his main meditation, focusing on love and kindness, and he spent many many years focusing in meditation on love and kindness. He was also called the Kusuli Chemu or Kusuli, the small Kusuli.
Kusuli is a meditation master who isn’t a scholar. There’s some people who become masters of texts and so on, and there’s others that don’t, and focus solely on meditation with very good instruction and achieve realisations that way. He said to because he was like this, he was called the small kusuli. There’s big kusulis and small kusulis, and it doesn’t mean or great kusulis and lesser kusulis, and it depends on their realisation what you’re talking about, which one they get called. Now, his view was said to be aligned with this great Indian pundit called Master Shāntarakshita.
His view was said to be much more advanced than the view of the other guy. His main focus, though, wasn’t on developing the view of meditation or the philosophical view. It was on practising meditation on love and kindness, because he thought that this was the way to attain Buddhahood. His teachings were based on a sūtra of the Buddha’s that’s called the essence of the sky. Right.
Okay. I was just making sure I didn’t make a mistake because it sounds strange. The third of the teachers that taught this idea of mind training was a man from Indonesia called Serlingpa. He had this idea, which was very revolutionary, that instead of abandoning self-cherishing, instead of abandoning this idea of grasping onto self, that we should use it to develop bodhicitta. Usually, talk about abandoning self-cherishing and then developing this idea of working for others.
But what he said was, it’s really difficult for us to abandon self-cherishing. It’s very difficult for us to develop an understanding of selflessness or identitylessness. So what would be more intelligent would be to use the natural or spontaneous sense we have of cherishing ourselves to develop the idea of cherishing for others. If we start developing the idea of cherishing for others, then we will go on to develop our bodhicitta. Said, First of all, you abandon self-cherishing, self grasping, and then you develop compassion for others, he said, Okay, take the idea or the feeling of self-cherishing that we have, and if we find some way that around, instead of working to abandon it, if we find some way to turn that around, then that can be a very powerful force for developing, cherishing others.
So he based his teaching on a sūtra of the Buddha’s that’s called the sūtra that is famously not spoilt or famously pure. And he followed the lineage. There’s a lineage passed down from the Buddha that is called the the paths no. Hang on. I’ll get it right.
By text, his description here followed this sūtra that was called Famously Not Spoiled, and by reasoning, he followed the exposition of reality, the explanation of reality, that was put forward in Asaṇga’s text, which was called The Stages of the Bodhisattvas. This means that he was a follower of follower of the doctrine or the position on reality put forward by Maitreya, the Buddha Maitreya, or the Aryan Maitreya, it says here. This one? Mhmm. This one.
Mhmm. There’s these three different teachers that have had an input or have given similar instructions to these seven points of mind training, but the actual teaching itself is mainly based on the teachings of Serlingpa and this idea of using the self-cherishing that we have to develop cherishing for others by exchanging self and others. This was passed down from Serlingpa down from teacher to student, teacher to student. Okay. Sūtra that Serlingpa quotes and says that this teaching comes from is, again, called the Famously Not Spoiled sūtra.
In this, the Buddha says, the view of the transitory collection is the planting place or the the sprouting place for Buddhas. And what this means is that the trans the view of the transitory collection is the idea that we have that this group of things, the the aggregates, the bits of stuff that make us up, is actually a solid individual entity, and that we hold on to that collection of things as being me or I. And then once we’ve do collect hold hold on to that idea of this group of this transitory collection of things as being I, we then start having this idea of mine. Alright? So as soon as we have I, we have mine.
And it’s from this idea of I and mine that all of our suffering comes from. So we have I, then we have my house, my body, my car, my things, my life, my my close ones, it’s all through this idea of I and mine that create all our problems. The Buddha is saying here that it’s based on this idea of I and mine that you actually become a Buddha. So it’s a bit of a paradox. Alright.
So the reason it’s saying this is because and it’s saying it it ex explains this by way of analogy. So if you have a lotus, right, and the lotus is the petals haven’t opened. I’m not quite sure how the analogy works. Sorry. The trick is In the same way as a lotus doesn’t grow in a clean spot, bodhicitta isn’t developed in the minds of arhats.
What this means is that if you have purified your sense of self, if you’ve gotten rid of that idea of a personal identity, and there’s no afflictive emotions left in your mind stream, if you have no ignorance, no attachment, no anger, any of these things, then that’s not the spot from which you develop bodhicitta. That’s the spot where you develop the idea of getting out of saṃsāra for yourself. It’s only based on an understanding of the afflictive emotions that we can develop enough compassion for other beings to want to get everybody out of saṃsāra by becoming a Buddha. It’s saying that it’s only through developing bodhicitta an afflicted state with afflicted emotions sorry, saying that bodhicitta only develops in afflicted minds. Alright?
So it’s very difficult for beings who have attained attained these very clear realisations for personal reasons to get out of saṃsāra themselves to develop this idea of bodhicitta because they’re close to getting out of saṃsāra themselves, and they have less empathy for other beings who are experiencing those afflicted states. In this way, it’s said to be much easier for beings who have afflicted states of mind, for beings who have confusion and hold on to their sense of self and are trapped by this idea of the transitory collection of things being their real self. It’s said to be easier for them to develop bodhicitta than it is for those who have gotten rid of that idea, who have developed an understanding of selflessness. So that means it’s easy for us well, at least it’s easy for us if we put in the effort. So the beings who have gotten out of the beings who are either on the way to or getting out of saṃsāra for their own reasons, for personal motivation.
So that is we’re talking about here are arhats and solitary realisers — solitary realisers, arhats, right, they don’t experience any suffering. They don’t experience any instance of suffering because they’ve attained nirvana and they’ve gotten rid of all the causes for suffering. But through not experiencing suffering, there’s not much compelling them to want to work for all sentient beings for all time and to start integrating suffering, to start being able to deal with suffering. They have no experience of it, and they’ve gotten rid of it. They don’t tend towards developing bodhicitta because they don’t suffer enough — they don’t experience suffering, and therefore, don’t develop as much empathy for others who are experiencing this state.
Those who are still in saṃsāra, however, if they develop a better way of looking at things, if they develop a more intelligent way of looking at things, realise that they are constantly experiencing suffering. And not only are they constantly experiencing suffering, but this is the same state that all other beings are in, so they should work for a way to get rid of that suffering. And when they do experience what’s called contaminated happiness, which we experience relatively rarely in saṃsāra, that is a time or a lifetime where we have a limited enough experience of suffering to be able to practise towards attaining Buddhahood, then we really need to take that opportunity. in dependence on this idea of self, on this idea of a personal identity, we are able to start practicing the exchange of self and others, the exchange of the cherishing we have for ourselves with the cherishing for others. And it’s through this practice that we can get out of saṃsāra and attain Buddhahood.
Alright. We have different text formats, so both have different formats, so I have to make a mark because usually I go, Geshe-la, fourth line, page fifty two. This time, it didn’t work. I got a bit confused. Oh, yeah.
Do you have a? So if anyone has any questions? Harry. In a single point of concentration, in the bliss of nirvana, so they’re not thinking about any even such subtle concepts as before and after. Okay.
They’ve done something for their own benefit, but they haven’t done something for their own benefit based on self grasping onto the idea of self. Yeah? So they did something to liberate themselves from saṃsāra, and that isn’t based on the idea that they exist as a solidly or singular identifiable object, as a self. They’ve gotten rid of self grasping, holding onto this idea of self. But they haven’t developed other cherishing.
You can’t say it’s the same as before because they’ve gotten rid of afflictive emotions in terms of anything that’s going to cause them suffering, but their motivation wasn’t to be of benefit to others as well. Very happy. They’re very happy, and they’re not in a state of thinking about others because they’re very happy. Yes. Yes.
Thank you. So they spend a long, long, long time in the bliss of nirvana until they into a Buddha who says, what on earth are you doing? And he says, you know, these other beings suffering, why don’t you think of them? You’re supposed to snap them out of their like, their their bliss state and and start teach them to start focusing on others. That’s that’s you have to be willing to forego.
Yes. I actually yes. Because it’s not good enough just to have one person in that state. We need to work for the benefit of all beings so that all beings can get rid of suffering, not just one person. Yeah.
So by that self awareness and then becoming sort of sacrifice for that happiness to understand, Not really. So we focus on others. We sacrifice that happiness. By becoming aware of our own suffering. Suffering, yeah.
Becoming somewhat self motivated that way. We then develop the understanding of how others and what you said would be the empathy. And that then frees us Okay. So the thing with karma is that we can’t give it to anyone else. Right?
We can’t give our positive karma to someone else. It’s a the law of cause and effect doesn’t work that way. Anything that a person being the mental continuum contains the potential for, we have to experience. We can’t transfer our karma to anyone else. It’s not as if, by working for others, we benefit them in the same way as quickly as we would if we were giving them money or giving them things.
If we give someone something or we give them instantly, we can see what we’re doing for them. Working for others from the perspective of developing bodhicitta is a much more long term goal. By giving them money, you think, ‘May I by giving this money, may that merit go towards me becoming a Buddha. So you’re constantly dedicating everything you do, or directing the positive energy from everything you do to becoming a Buddha the positive potential, sorry, from everything that you do to becoming a Buddha. So as a Buddha, then you have the ability to lead those beings out of suffering.
Right? But you can’t, before you get there, take give them your positive karma. The only thing you can do is become a Buddha and then show them how to get out of saṃsāra themselves. Okay. So lotuses only grow when there’s there’s muck around.
Yeah? So if we tried to grow a lotus on the table, it wouldn’t work. And if we tried to grow a lotus in this room because it’s very clean, it wouldn’t work. Alright? In order for a lotus to grow, you need muck.
Alright? So the lotus itself is always very pure and clean, but it has to come from muck. And and it says that a bodhicitta is the same. Without the the muck of the negative emotions, the bodhicitta doesn’t grow. I don’t know how to say filter in Tibetan.
Matter of the lotus being able to use the situation it’s in to transform to to create something very beautiful. So a lotus is is is clean. A lotus’ smell is nice. It it it is a very beautiful flower, but it needs the the muck and this the dirty water in order for for it to grow. So it’s able to transform it’s able to grow it’s able to generate something beautiful out of beautiful and and beneficial in that it smells nice out of a very mucky situation.
Okay, so in the same way as this lotus comes about, then the bodhicitta much easier for a bodhicitta to arise in the in the mental continuum, of a being who has the experience of all of this suffering, who has negative emotions, who has these things. It means means that they have more of an awareness of suffering, and they have more of an awareness of the suffering of others as well as themselves. Then based on this awareness, based on this understanding, then they’re able to develop something as precious and as beautiful as the bodhicitta. The bodhicitta’s results are Buddhahood, and there is no higher result. It’s said that bodhicitta is better than a wish fulfilling jewel.
For it to come about, though, you need these yucky conditions. It’s not to say that it’s not possible for beings who have attained nirvana to develop bodhicitta. It is possible. It’s just something that is very difficult. There has to be a Buddha spending a lot of time with them convincing them to think about the previous things and to remind them constantly of past things and what could happen, what has happened, to generate the bodhicitta.
It’s a lot harder for them. It is still possible, but it’s a lot harder. Is is it is there a skill skillful way to help someone to an understanding of using their current suffering as the part? Did everyone hear that? No?
Is there a skillful way to help someone to develop an understanding of how to use their present suffering as the path? Alright. So whether they’re a Buddhist or not, they probably still have this idea of being happy and what it takes to be happy, wanting to be a good person. If you can get them to try it, if they try doing the practices that is explained in the seven points of Mind Training, this idea of seeing your suffering as being taking on the suffering of others, feeling that any suffering you have, may that be eliminating the suffering from other beings and that send out any happiness that they can have to other beings. You can get them to try that, and then they can start seeing how that works, how they can use their suffering as a way to help others.
Yeah? So if they’re not a Buddhist, if they have this idea of working towards happiness, becoming happy is something that you can only do with focusing on others, then that can lead them to learn how to transform their suffering. Hang on a second. For someone who is experiencing suffering and isn’t dealing with it very well, then the best thing to explain to them is to try and get them out of thinking about themselves solely. If you say to them, You’re experiencing suffering at the moment, it’s very difficult.
But if you concentrate on the suffering that you’re experiencing, then that just compounds the suffering. You’re experiencing suffering because of your suffering. You’re compounding the suffering. If you can get them to think that it’s not only them that’s experiencing suffering, but there isn’t any single being that doesn’t experience suffering, you can get them to start thinking about other beings, not only you experience suffering. Not only that, but suffering isn’t permanent.
It has a cause. If you to remember that it isn’t permanent, then that can be something as a solace as well. It’s also good then if you can try and explain to them that because it’s not permanent, it doesn’t last forever. That means that there’s causes for it. If you want to create the causes for happiness instead of suffering, then the way to do that is to give, to be a kinder person, to focus on others.
In that case, then you can say, Okay, if you use your suffering that you experience at the moment and think that you’re taking on the sufferings of others, then that’s a way to use your present situation in order to create a positive situation for the future.’ in the same way that if we have any mental or physical suffering that we can fix with medicine, then we should take the medicine. We should look at what our mind’s doing when we’re experiencing suffering and try and do what we can with our minds to eliminate suffering. If we had a mental or physical illness and there was a pill we could take to cure ourselves, then we really should take it. It’s the same thing with the way we’re mentally dealing with an illness. If there’s something we can do to make that better, to make that a more positive situation, then we should do that.
Okay. But if you there’s people that you can only pray for because they have, like, obscurations to being able to understand things, so that’s gonna happen too. But the thing is, there’s some situations that you can’t do anything about. Whether it’s either you trying to do something for them, even though there’s a karmic blockage there, or if you can convince them that if there’s nothing that they can do about their situation, that they’re going to experience suffering and they’ve done all they can to stop that suffering but it still isn’t working, that the only positive thing left to do with that suffering then is to meditate on it becoming the suffering of all sentient beings, taking the suffering of all sentient beings away. If there’s nothing else to do, then you can either do that or you can get the person who’s if if they’re open to that, to do that for themselves.
So it’s worth trying to do that even if it’s for yourself or for them, because if they are able to do that themselves, then that means if they’re able to transform their suffering into that kind of meditation, it means that their suffering has become they’ve made virtue out of their suffering. And if you are able to do it towards them, because they are unable to see that, then you’ve made a virtue out of your approach to them. I think the time yeah. The times I I said, I guess I think time’s up. I think time’s up was was up ten minutes ago, he goes, three people just put their hands up as a joke.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, so then we go to the dedication prayer section.