Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Lama Tsongkhapa’s teaching that rejoicing is “the utmost” among all merit collections anchors this 46-minute session, in which Geshe Pema Tsering opens Chapter 3 of Śāntideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. He briefly covers the remaining four of eight preliminary practices — rejoicing, requesting the teaching of Dharma, requesting teachers not to pass away, and dedicating merit — then devotes most of the talk to unpacking rejoicing. Its three divisions are examined in turn: for the causes of higher rebirth, for Hīnayāna liberation (three trainings and four noble truths), and for Mahāyāna results and causes (the four Buddha bodies, ten bodhisattva grounds, five paths). He closes with a precise doctrinal distinction: the six practices become the six perfections only when upheld by bodhicitta, and according to Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka, the perfections exist fully only at Buddhahood.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 18 BD 2002 03 21.mp3
UUID: 58dc7d6a-af3a-4a71-b50f-7a066150e36f
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Deeds (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-03-21
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.4 minutes
Words: ~2,644
Oh, So the lord Buddha Śākyamūni has stated that should recognize all the sufferings and abandon all the origin of the suffering, meditate on the path, and actualize the cessation or attain the cessation mode. It is very important for oneself to understand or recognize all the sufferings because because if one doesn’t, then due to this, one cultivates numbers of actions under the influence of disturbing emotions. So, therefore, you know, you should not cultivate any actions under the influence of disturbing emotions. So in order to avoid that, as once you recognize what are the sufferings, and by knowing so, the one will one understand or yeah. One understand that both self and others do not wish to suffer or do not wish sufferings.
And in order to avoid that, then yeah. But by developing unwanted or not wish wishing unhappy unhappiness or suffering, then one will develop a mind wishing to abandon the suffering. So and but by having developed such a mind wishing to abandon all the sufferings, and what are the sufferings? What first for to in in order to do so, one needs to abandon the the cause causes of the sufferings, which are the actions and and disturbing emotions. So so she abandoned those, yeah, the causes of the causes of the suffering and and to origin of the suffering.
And there are true origin of the suffering, so called the suffering or the origin of the sufferings and the and and the the the origin of the action. And to to abandon those two or the sources of these two causes of the suffering, one needs to meditate on the path. Yep. So and yeah. So one should meditate on the path.
And what are the paths? According to the the the lesser vehicle, then the one meditates on the path on the selflessness of the person and the selflessness of phenomena. And according to the Mahāyāna path, then additional to those two, one meditates on six perfections, path of six perfections, bodhicitta, and the wisdom realizing emptiness. Yeah. And by through meditation on those parts, then one one one attains or one one, yeah, one attains or actualize the the cessation which is free of all free free free of sufferings, which is free of sufferings.
So therefore, the main source, the main beginning of the practice is to recognize all the sufferings. And in order to to know the sufferings, it’s important for examine on oneself and and especially on those happiness one which one thinks that those are happiness, but if one go through the through great details, even one’s happiness or the suffering. So by knowing that oneself is going through huge suffering, then then the they direct one’s mind towards the sentient beings and should also recognize that not only oneself, the other motherly sentient beings are also going through huge sufferings. So by seeing all these motherly sentient beings undergoes through huge suffering and develop the wish to free all those motherly sentient beings from this from what from sufferings and and to, yeah, to train or to train or meditate on such such a wish or such a thought. And through this, one goes through step by step through the seven-point cause and effect instructions, which begin with recognizing sentient beings as one’s mother, repaying their kind kindness and so forth. And you should develop a courage within oneself that one will take entire responsibility to bring all these motherly sentient beings free from all sufferings and bring them to the ultimate state of happiness. And so, taking all the entire responsibility to bring sentient beings free from sufferings is called the special intention. And by by having developed such a special intention, then every kind of each and every actions or positive actions what one have cultivated dedicate and dedicate all these virtues towards the attainment of enlightenment for the sake of motherly sentient beings.
And on such mind, one should meditate. So now we are today, we’re beginning the third chapter, which is awakening the mind. So now for the first one, it has many divisions. The yep.
The first the third chapter as the actual teaching and the division and yeah. And it has the two, the preparatory and the preliminary or the preparatory teachings and actual pledge and and then for the first one, for the preparatory, it has So and for the first one, the preliminary or a preparatory practice, it has two divisions, which is the first one is called the engaging or the yep. The subject is the way to cultivate the merit. Has the four preliminary sorry, it has the way to cultivate the the cultivate the merit to in order to attain bodhicitta within oneself. And the second and the number two is the training or cultivating the actual course to develop a bodhicitta.
And the first one for the four subdivisions of the division. The first one, the way of cultivating the merit, it has eight parts. And out of eight, we have finished the four parts, which is making offerings, prostrations, refuge and purification. So out of those eight, we have finished the four. We we finished four, which are making offerings, prostrations, refuge, and purification.
Now the rest of the four are rejoicing, requesting to turn the wheel of Dharma, requesting not to enter parinirvana, and dedicating all the merits for the attainment of enlightenment. And now we are on to the the the the first one. So first of the four, which is rejoice so, yeah, rejoicing now. So So as for the rejoicing part, there are two subdivisions. One is for rejoicing for the attainment of the the higher rebirth.
So we have a yeah. Higher rebirth. And second one is called the nirvana. And the first four verses, numbers one, two, three, four, explain the first one, which is the attainment of higher rebirth.
So, yeah, the first one, as we said, rejoicing towards the the the higher rebirths or rebirths of humans and the gods. Why what the reason why one rejoice for the for the human and the god rebirth is because one goes through huge sufferings and so forth. And then and there are worse suffering than the human rebirth and the the the god. And when one attain the god and human rebirth, there is a suffering, but it’s not as bad as the lower one. It’s it’s kind of like a place where one takes bit of a rest.
So where one rejoice here is rejoice here for the course, which which give rebirth towards the human and the god. God human and the god rebirth. So to all the positive actions or the causes, the actions which give to rebirth of human and the gods, the way one rejoice because because those the causes gives the contaminated happiness of contaminated happiness of human and the god rebirths. So briefly speaking, then all these positive actions, those have cultivated, which the positive actions which project the human and the god and higher rebirth, yep, and the higher rebirth are the one here, the the great master. Yeah.
Make rejoice. So the reason why one here rejoices because all these actions so all these results are the half contaminated happiness that human and the god undergoes through. Even though even though they are contaminated happiness, but it’s still the result of the positive actions. So this is the reason why one make rejoice towards those causes. So the the great master Śāntideva has rejoiced for those causes which gives the happen the contaminated happiness of the human and the gods.
And and the reason why he rejoices because they are the result of the positive actions. So so because the great master, he himself rejoice for those causes, so we here should try to get to to to rejoice towards those positive actions like the great master did. And the practice of rejoicing is very, very effective practice, and and in it’s very helpful and quite easy to perform so. And and it’s also the best one of the best method one can cultivate numbers of numbers of merits. And even the great master Lama Tsongkhapa has stated that among the collections of merit, the rejoicing is the utmost.
Because because because if say, when one rejoice for the positive action of somebody, if the person is equal has equal realization with you, then you can one receives the same amount of merit the person has cultivated. If person has a higher realization, then one at least gets half the merit. And as for the the second now we’re on to the second division which is rejoicing towards the nirvana or liberation. And for that one, it has two parts. The rejoicing towards the nirvana of lower vehicle, that’s a lower vehicle and the the Mahāyāna vehicle, Hīnayāna and the Mahāyāna.
And, yep, rejoicing towards the liberation or the nirvana of the lesser vehicle. And those the next four verses from the fifth till the eighth shows the how where or how one rejoice towards the attainment towards the nirvana of Hīnayāna according to Hīnayāna schools. And here the Hīnayāna, they are the liberation or nirvana of śrāvakas and the solitary realizers. And likewise, one here, great master, one here rejoices for the causes of the of the, you know, the nirvana, the the liberation, the causes of the nirvana of the lower vehicle. And and, for example, like, to attain nirvana according to the Hīnayāna schools, what are the causes?
Causes like one is to have the training of the three yep. Training the three trainings and and and four noble truths. So because one one one needs to attain those nirvana through training in the three trainings, like training in ethical discipline, concentration or yeah. Concentration or contemplation, the wisdom. And So one needs to train in the training of three in the three trainings.
For example, like training the ethical training in the ethical discipline, one needs to train in the abandonment of ten non-virtues and the concentration is like meditate all the practices of meditation. And for the wisdom, according to the the person of the first stage, which we say, or the first stage, one needs to be trained in the wisdom of wisdom realizing impermanence from from the from wisdom realizing impermanence till wisdom realizing selflessness of the person. So as for the four noble truths, there are two types of four noble truths. Says that the common Four Noble Truths and the uncommon one. So so called the common and the uncommon Four Noble Truths.
So the Four Noble actual Four Noble Truths are the same, the suffering, origin of the suffering, path, and cessation, but it has been classified into two, the coarse and the subtle ones. And and the subtle the subtle ones comes in from the the point of view of the consequentialist or a person, the the Consequentialist Madhyamaka school, they talked about the. So which is the uncommon Four Noble Truths that come through the Consequentialist Madhyamaka system Yes. Where one here rejoices is just towards the causes which give birth to liberation or the nirvana or the Hīnayāna schools.
So when we say here the Hīnayāna Hīnayāna schools, one rejoices towards the causes of attainment of nirvana, both the śrāvakas and the solitary realizer schools. So so this is that one is so here concludes this the first subdivision of Right. So which which is we’re rejoicing towards the Hīnayāna liberation. Yes. And now towards the towards the rejoicing towards the attainment of Mahāyāna liberation.
And for this, it has two divisions. They’re saying the divisions. They’re rejoicing towards the results and rejoicing towards the causes. So yeah. And the the next two verses shows rejoicing towards the result of the Mahāyāna now, which is Yeah.
Nine and ten. So we are on to the first division, which is re rejoicing towards the results. So as for the results, there are many results like the for like Buddha himself. The result enlightenment. So enlightenment, the Buddha.
And and towards the results like Buddha, the great compassion, and omniscience, and the four kayas, like the four bodies, so forth, four bodies of the Buddhas. These are the results and where one will rejoice. And the rejoicing second one, the rejoicing towards the the cause. And so the causes are the ten grounds and the five paths of the bodhisattvas. Not of the Buddhas — the ten grounds and the five paths of the great vehicle are the causes. Right. So the next four verses actually are starting from the verse.
So I’m not reading. I’m just showing the numbers. Right? From verse eleven. Mhmm.
The from eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen are the part where one rejoices towards the causes. The the the summary meaning of all those four lines and four verses are like one rejoicing towards the causes and what what are the causes to attain all this enlightenment and the four bodies of the Buddhas and so forth — all these are the virtuous actions one cultivated from the beginning, from meditating on equanimity up till the attainment of bodhicitta. And and one rejoice towards all the actions as well as the person who have people who have meditated on those paths as well as those who have cultivated by meditation by by med by meditation on those path. So we those are the the causes where one rejoices. So the all the actions of the bodhisattvas are the causes to attain enlightenment and their and their practices like in the six perfections and are the one there are also the one which leads one towards the enlightenment.
So these are all these positive actions which are the causes which are the causes to attain enlightenment, where one rejoices. So there’s a very the tricky part here to say is that the practice of generosity and so forth, six, is one way of saying. And other one is called the practice of the perfection of generosity and so forth, six. There is a difference between those two. When when we say the the practices of six practices of generosity and so forth, six, that leads the six practices, generosity and so forth, and that can be done or that those practice can be done and also available for the lower vehicles like as well as those persons like us, for ordinary beings.
So the practices which we do, like, from generosity till the sixth, generosity. All this this generosity, maintaining ethical discipline, patience, concentration, so forth, which we do. We practice. So those are the six practices, but those are not six perfections. But if if those six practices, the practice of generosity, ethical discipline, patience, concentration, enthusiastic effort,
The enthusiastic effort and the wisdom. If those practices are performed or practices are uphold by the bodhicitta or or altruistic intention, then those six practices becomes the six perfections. And as for the six perfections, there are many ways of of of interpretation. For example, like, according to the the consequentialist Madhyamaka, the Prāsaṇgika school, they they stated that the the the practices of six perfections are available or are there in the bodhisattvas, but the six perfections are not there because the six perfections are all only available or or only in the state of Buddhahood, not in the paths yet — bodhisattvas on the path and so forth. So bodhisattvas on the path have a practice of the six perfections, but they don’t have the six perfections because those are only in Buddhahood.