Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Pema Tsering opens this 50-minute session by tracing the Seven Points of Mind Training from Serlingpa in Indonesia through Atisha and into Tibet via a line of Kadampa teachers — including one nicknamed “the heavy meditator” for his vajra-like concentration. He then turns to the first of the seven points, “train in the preliminaries,” unpacking it as a survey of the graduated path: the lesser being who practices ethics to avoid a bad rebirth, the middling being who seeks liberation through the three higher trainings and the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths, and the greater being who generates bodhicitta and practices the six perfections for all beings. A Q&A covers the ten non-virtuous actions; Geshe singles out pointless chatter — any talk driven by negative emotion — as the hardest of all to give up.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 7P 2005 05 29.mp3
UUID: 1958f6fc-8034-4e16-9431-ff6994c2fe93
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: 7 Point mind training (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-05-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 49.6 minutes
Words: ~3,894
All right. So please take a moment to look at your motivation for listening to this teaching this morning and Try and guide your motivation to be that in order for sentient beings to be freed from suffering, they need someone who can show them how to do that. In order to bring this about, may we ourselves become Buddhas as quickly as possible and be able to lead sentient beings out of suffering. In order for us to become Buddhas, we need to be able to develop the mind of bodhicitta. This teaching, the mind training, focuses on the development of the mind of bodhicitta and is therefore essential on the path to enlightenment.
Please have this idea that you’re listening to this teaching in order to develop your mind, in order to train your mind, in order to become a Buddha. Jess said, where are we up to? I said, have a different text, Geshe-la. It’s the same a different format. And I gave you a pen last week and said, we have a different text.
Please mark where you’re up to. All right. So we’re talking about the lineage of this teaching, where it came from. And we talked about how the lamas, the guru from Indonesia, Serlingpa, had developed this teaching and had used it a lot in order to develop bodhicitta. He taught many different students who became teachers.
From amongst these he said a teacher who is also called Dromtönpa, he was the most revered or there was no equal in quality amongst his other students who became teachers. Atisha was highly praised by Serlingpa. When Serlingpa was talking about who it was that should be respected as the holder of the teachings that he had passed down as the essence of his heart instructions, then he said it should be Atisha. Likewise, Atisha said about these teachings, the teachings on transforming the mind, and his guru, Serlingpa, having a good mind, having a clear mind the hang on, going to try and do it again. Atisha said, the fact that I have a clear mind, the fact that I have a good mind is only because of the kindness of my teacher Serlingpa, he said.
And so I’m able to pass on these teachings because of the blessing inspiration of the lineage from teacher to student that has been passed to me. Another time, Atisha said that the vehicles of the perfections and the vehicles of the tantras have no effect if they’re not accompanied by bodhicitta. He said that you’re not actually using the tantric practices or the practices of the sutras or the perfections properly or using them as an antidote to afflicted states of mind unless you have done this training, unless you have started to focus on others and not on yourself. Right. So after Atisha took these teachings, he had these teachings from Serlingpa, and he travelled back to India, then he went on to Tibet.
And when he was in Tibet, he taught his pith heart instructions. Pith heart instructions. Doesn’t make sense. There were his personal instructions that he gave to students in order for them to transform their mind. The first person he gave these instructions to was a called.
Yeah? Uh-huh. Okay. And so he he was a teacher. His name was.
He was a teacher who had many students. And among those, it said that there were, three special students, of his that he trusted the most. And he gave he made one of these students whose name was Alright. And then he passed it on to another teacher whose name was Shengawa or Chingawa, means five eyes. I don’t know what that means.
Anyway, his name, Mr. Five Eyes, then he was passed on to Okay, it wasn’t five eyes. It was eyes to the past, the person with eyes to the past. It’s a different spelling. Alright.
And then he passed it on to another man whose name was Gyalwa Gompa. Now Gompa means meditator and Gyalwa means heavy, so he was the heavy meditator. And the reason he’s called heavy is because it’s another way of saying that he developed the adamantine calm abiding, which means the vajra like calm abiding. Because vajras or diamonds are supposed to be so heavy, that’s why it’s called the heavy meditator. But it means that he had this ability to concentrate on whatever he wanted to.
He passed it on to another teacher, another Kadampa teacher called Lama Chengawa Tsultrim Bar, which means yogi that meditates on compassion that we talked about last week. Then he passed it on to another teacher Alright, sorry. Geshe Potowa wasn’t in that lineage. Was just on end and I got confused. He’s mentioned in his text because he said of this teaching, the Seven Points of Mind Training, that he’d been given many instructions.
He’d been taught the whole of the Buddha’s Dharma. But he considered, in terms of the kindness of the teachings that had been given, that Serlingpa’s contribution was the greatest. This teaching on mind training was the greatest teaching that he’d encountered in all that he’d studied. So Geshe Potowa was a student of Dromtönpa, who was the main student of Atisha when he was in Tibet. So He’s very highly regarded, and for him to have praised these teachings in this way shows how important they’re supposed to be.
Geshe Potawa was highly regarded as was said and because of this, many times these teachings are said to be teachings that came from him because he was so regarded as a student of Dromtönpa, and he also emphasized these teachings to his students privately. This is the tradition. This is where these teachings came from, from Indonesia to India to Tibet. An overview of exactly what they entail is given in the next section, says, The seven points are. It’s called the seven points of mind training.
This is where they came from. We’ve just gone through. And now the seven points themselves are the preliminaries basis for all Dharmas is the first point. The second point is training in the two Bodhicittas. The third point is transforming difficulties into the path.
The fourth point is the practice that encompasses a whole life. The fifth point is the limits or advances made in mind training. The sixth point is words to be to be trained in or phrases to train in. Phrases to train in. And then seven seventh is the oh, hang on.
I’ll try that again. Yeah. No. Six is words to train in, and the seventh is things to train in or teachings to train in. So they’re very similar to the last two.
Words to training and then teachings to training. The first of these, then, is the section that says: The basis for all dharmas is training in the preliminaries. With reference to that, the first line of the Seven Points of Mind Training says: At first, train well in the preliminaries. What this is talking about has been elaborated on by many different teachers and most specifically by Atisha who came up with the idea of presenting the path to enlightenment by way of the three different beings or the three different motivations or the three different stages of the path. So the parts of that path that come before development of bodhicitta, which is actually the beginning of the third stage, beginning of the greater capacity or the greater motivation, are all considered here to be preliminaries, are considered to be things that you do before you start developing bodhicitta.
So before you get up to the stage of developing the aspiration of bodhicitta, developing the wish to attain enlightenment for benefit of all sentient beings, then anything preceding that is considered to be the preliminaries. So these preliminaries aren’t something that can brush over or something that we consider to be easy. They’re very difficult. Difficult for us to develop a mind that is in line with these preliminaries, so it’s something that we shouldn’t just jump over. It doesn’t mean that we necessarily have to achieve all the realizations of the stages of the path up until this point, but we have to know what they are.
We have to have an understanding of the context in which the mind training comes in terms of the path to enlightenment. You have to understand what precedes this idea or where this idea of reaching enlightenment to the benefit of all sentient beings comes from in order to be able to practice mind training properly. Otherwise, we’re doing it within a vacuum, without reference points. What we need to become aware of is what these three stages are in the graduated path to enlightenment. So it’s talked about in terms of three different beings.
Sorry. Hang on one In the graduated path, it’s called the graduated path of the three beings. I think when they translate it into English, they mostly say the three different capacities or the three different, motivations. And in Tibetan, it says three beings. And said to Geshe, you know, if there’s there seems to be a reluctance.
Can you say that? In wanting to say the word, wanting to say three beings because it’s like you’re saying, that a being is stuck in one place, but that doesn’t that’s not what it means. It means that there is one type of being who is motivated by this idea, which is the first of the three types of beings, to stay out of the lower realms. Right? And this is the first stage that we need to go through, the first type of being that we need to become in progressing along the graduated path.
Recognizing that just stay out of the lower realms is a good thing, is the basis for all all other Dharma practices. What this entails is developing ethics because the idea of staying out of the lower realms means having good karma. It means having created the causes for a good rebirth as opposed to creating the causes for a negative rebirth. The essence of the practice of the first type of being is practicing ethics, abandoning the ten non virtuous actions and trying to practice the ten virtuous actions. Actions.
This is the first stage of the path and that’s the basis for the other two stages. And then the second type of being’s motivation is developed from the first type of being. So the but the first type of being can become the second type of being. Right? Same same being, different motivation.
And, they develop their motivation that they’re not just trying to get out of the lower realms, they’re trying to get out of saṃsāra and attain liberation. And then the third type of being isn’t only doing that for themselves, but they’ve turned that idea of getting out of saṃsāra for themselves around, and they’re working to get all sentient beings out of saṃsāra instead of themselves. So those beings who are focused on attaining a good rebirth, who are living ethical lives, working within the bounds of morality to attain a good rebirth as a god or a human and to stay out of the lower realms. That kind of being, a person with that type of motivation is called the lowest or the smallest of the three capacities of being. So, the way that Geshe speaks is usually very compacted and uses a lot of very clipped phrases that mean a lot that I have to kind of unpack, and he just shortened one that was already short, even and I was like, what?
Okay. So this means that for the beings of the lesser capacity, are working towards, their aim is to attain a good rebirth. Their practice is ethics. Their practice is abandoning the ten non virtuous actions and taking up the ten virtuous actions. That’s their practice.
The goal, a good rebirth, the practice ethics. For those of the middling capacity, their goal is to get out of Samsāra completely. They haven’t just abandoned the wish to be reborn in the lower realms. They’ve abandoned the wish to be reborn in saṃsāra completely. Their goal is to get out of saṃsāra.
Their practice is what are called the three higher trainings. That is the training in ethics again, then the training in meditation, meditation and the training in wisdom. The wisdom perceiving selflessness or wisdom perceiving the lack of identity. That’s part of their training. The other part of their training, which Geshe-la said, what was it?
Impermanence, etcetera. What that refers to is the sixteen aspects of the four Sorry, I was having trouble. Sixteen aspects of the four noble truths, Which means that they focus on each of the four noble truths, understanding the four noble truths by way of each of the four noble truths, four characteristics. Yes? The first characteristic of the first The first truth is the truth of suffering.
Its first characteristic is that suffering is impermanent. The experiences are impermanent or compounded phenomena are impermanent. Second characteristic is that it is by nature suffering. Misery is experienced in Samsāra. Its third characteristic is that it is empty of a self or a personal entity and then it’s also said to be selfless in that there is no substantial self that one can cling to that acts as a base to experience of suffering and this experience of impermanence.
The next noble truth is the truth of the origin of suffering, where suffering comes from. And its first characteristic: Right. Okay, this is all from three words, but you have to extrapolate. The four characteristics of the second noble truth, the truth of the origin of suffering, is that there is a cause for suffering, There is a is a cause for suffering. There is a source of that cause.
There is conditions that make suffering come into being even that have to come along with the cause, and the last one is what’s called intense production, which doesn’t make any sense. What do get them off? Just one. Marty? Sorry.
You translate them straight, they just don’t make any sense, do they? Intense production, what does that mean? It means that things actually come into being. It’s the moment where they actually are. You’re talking about you have causes for things, have the source of these things, you have the conditions that all come together to bring this experience of suffering and then you have the actual moments where these things have come together and created suffering.
These are the four characteristics of the origin of suffering. Then you have the four characteristics of the truth of cessation. Alright, so the four characteristics of the truth of cessation, which is the third of the noble truths, is that suffering can have a cessation, the afflictive emotions can be thoroughly pacified. That this is a good thing is the third one. You could probably literally translate as excellent.
The fourth one is thing called definite emergence which is also sometimes translated as renunciation which means that a being definitely emerges from suffering. Okay, and the four characteristics of the truth of the path are that there is a path, that’s the first characteristic, that there is a way you can go, that there is accomplishment on that path, that this is used by the development of wisdom. The development of wisdom is the path. And the third one is the process that leads to definite emergence. Alright, so in the first section we had this, in the truth of cessation you had this idea that you have definitely gotten out of suffering, alright?
And then in the four characteristics of the path, they use the present tense of that verb, turns it into that which is happening, the the coming out. Alright? As opposed to the having come out. Does that make sense? Developing an understanding of these four noble truths and the individual characteristics of these four noble truths is how being of the middling capacity gets out of saṃsāra, in combination with the three higher trainings in meditation, in ethics, meditation and wisdom.
Capacity practices these things. They practice ethics and they practice developing an understanding and using the four noble truths or the four truths of the nobles to get out of Samsāra and the three higher trainings. But, they also develop this mind wishing to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings and then practice the six perfections. The six the four noble activities in order to attain Buddhahood, in order to benefit all sentient beings. So, it’s not as if when develop the practices of a middling capacity being that you stop practicing ethics.
You don’t. You take the practice of ethics with you and you incorporate it into the practices of a being of the middle scope. And when you develop bodhicitta, it’s not as if you stop practicing ethics meditation and you stop developing an understanding of the sixteen points, the sixteen characteristics of the four noble truths. You don’t. You continue on with those.
But the practices that are said to be unique to the practice of the greater capacity being are these practice of the six perfections and the motivation to attain enlightenment to benefit all sentient beings. So this path, this process by which you get out of saṃsāra and you attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings is something that you need to understand as a preliminary to practicing mind training. If you don’t practice mind training within the that’s this framework, within an understanding of what you’re actually doing, it’s gonna have very limited benefits. So this is a rough overview, a very rough overview of the path to enlightenment. You start with this idea of not wanting to be born in the lower realms and practicing ethics.
Then you develop the idea that being reborn in the higher realms isn’t such a good thing either. You develop the wish to get out of saṃsāra and then get out of saṃsāra by developing an understanding and putting into practice the Four Noble Truths and the three higher trainings in ethics, meditation and wisdom. Then you realize that not only yourself but other beings are also suffering. Want to do something that’s going to lead them out of suffering. Develop this idea of bodhicitta attaining enlightenment for the benefit of other beings and practice the six perfections in order to get out of Samsāra in order to become a Buddha.
So this is a general overview of the path and we need to thoroughly familiarize ourselves with that idea as a preliminary to practicing mind training. Right, so this means then, knowing this overview of what the three stages of the path are, that everything up to the point where we start the greater beings or the greater motivations practices. Everything up to the point where we start looking at others suffering and developing the wish to get out of and lead other beings out of saṃsāra together, those two ideas together, attaining enlightenment for ourselves and others is the preliminaries to the practice that we’re doing now. So this fits in the beginning of the greater motivation or the greater being’s practices. So anything up until that point is a preliminary to this practice.
Is that okay? Oh. Oh, yeah. Sorry. No.
No. Oh, yeah. That’s okay. I think everybody can empathize. So if you have any questions hang on, Peter.
I have to give Carly a break because I cut her off twice. I didn’t stop. No. That’s why she put her hand up at the end. I’m like, no.
Time’s up, Carly. Alright. So she’s got her hand up first now, so I have to give her a go. Oh, yes. Could you just please Impermanence, suffering or misery, manifest suffering.
Emptiness, but the emptiness of it’s there specifically the emptiness of a gross personal self. Not emptiness as in the other type emptiness. And the last one is selflessness or identitylessness. Yes? The ten you said ten ways of Non virtuous actions.
Okay. Alright. So there are ten actions that we need to abandon, you know, in order to practice ethics. Three of body, which are killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct. Alright.
Three of body. And then there’s four of speech. There is divisive speech, slander. No. Sorry.
Okay. Divisive, pleads, and slander is one, I think. Yes? No. It’s not.
What am I talking about? Okay. There’s harsh speech, lies, divisive speech, and slander is one, is number three, and the fourth one is, speaking rubbish. You know, yeah. Meaningless meaningless chatter.
That’s no. That’s seven. Three and four seven. And then there’s three of mind, three mental activities that we need to abandon and they are having a malicious mind, having a covetous mind, covetous grasping, wanting other people’s stuff. Yeah?
And the third one is wrong views. He reckons it’s easy. Okay. No one’s gonna kill it. Yeah.
He says it’s it’s Okay. Said he reckons no one’s gonna it’s it’s easy to be he said it’s easy to be to not it’s easy not to practice sexual misconduct because there’s a lot of things that have to lead up to it before you get there. Yeah? And there there has to be a whole process before you get there, so it’s easy not to do that. He said, but the one that’s like speaking rubbish, just chattering, pointless chatter, and he said, that’s hard.
That just happens before you know it’s happened. Yeah. He thinks that it’s the pointless chatter that’s the most difficult. So anytime that we’re talking and we’re talking about things that we’re talking because of our desires or our anger or our any of those things, that’s all said to be pointless chatter. Anytime we talk out of our negative emotions, that’s pointless chatter.
So he said he’d think that’s the most difficult. That’s really hard, he said. If you can get rid of that one, you you sort it, he said. Good answer. Yeah.
Yeah. When we review our day and Uh-huh. Regret Mhmm. Our wrongdoing. Alright.
So the fact that you don’t think that you you could stop doing it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t make the idea that you’re gonna stop doing it. Alright? So the you develop this idea in your head, at some stage, I’m gonna stop doing this. Yeah? Or I’ve gotta stop doing that.
Yeah? Then that acts that’s really beneficial to the mind because it sets a habit of wanting to get to the stage where you don’t where you’re not engaging in pointless chatter. So it’s good to have that idea it’s not gonna happen even if you know it’s not. Even if you know it is. Sorry.
It’s saying mean things about other people. Right? So it doesn’t necessarily mean disagreeing with others because you may not necessarily be disagreeing with others for your own benefit. But, if you’re trying to put other people down with words and say things, harsh things, to make yourself feel better or to harm them, then that’s harsh speech. Okay.
No more hands. So