Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute session, Geshe Pema Tsering opens by unpacking a verse from The King of Prayers: wisdom realizing emptiness ends cyclic existence; bodhicitta ends the solitary peace of the mere arhat — both are indispensable on the path to enlightenment. He then moves into the core of his Bodhisattva Deeds commentary: the cost of lacking mental alertness, illustrated through a leaky vase that cannot hold water and a rich person whose savings are stolen overnight. He distinguishes mental alertness — a watchman scanning whether the mind moves toward virtue or non-virtue — from mindfulness, which holds it in place once pointed right. The session closes with practical methods for sustaining both: keeping good spiritual friends, recalling teachers’ instructions, valuing one’s vows, and living as though Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are watching at every moment.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 36 BD 2002 06 13.mp3
UUID: 6c952710-0268-4116-b973-cd3988b3362d
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Deeds (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-06-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~2,751
Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. The Lord Buddha in the the the king of the prayers stated that by training yeah, training in the wisdom and method, that wisdom wisdom wisdom realizing emptiness and the method, the bodhicitta altruistic intention. And through this, through the power through the power of practicing those two, the wisdom realizing emptiness and the bod altruistic intention, may I be able to purify all the negativities or non virtuous and obscurations? The reason why one wishes to the wishes to free or purify all the negativities and the obscuration is because if one if one completely abandons all the negativities and the obscurations, then one become enlightened.
So that prayer is is is wishing to attain enlightenment. Wishful prayer to attain enlightenment by saying through training in the six perfection here that’s meant the the wisdom the perfection of wisdom, which is wisdom realizing emptiness, and the bodhicitta altruistic intention. Because but but through this, through practicing the or cultivating the wisdom realizing emptiness, one ends the the the cyclic cyclic existence. And and through bodhicitta, one ends the so called solitary peace. So so that that passage or a verse is comes comes from the text called the king of the prayers, which we always recite.
And so, likewise, you know, we we it is important for us to to to, yep, practice in the practice of purification, which is purifying all the negativities and the obscurations. And so the purifying all the negativities is through training in the ethical of ten ethical discipline of not committing ten non virtuous ten non virtuous and the obscuration, which is as for the obscuration, there are obscurations of two, which are the obscuration towards omniscience and obscuration towards liberation or arhathood. And so in order to purify all these obscuration, one has one has to have a wisdom realizing emptiness because wisdom realizing realizing emptiness can can directly counteract those two obscurations and purify them. And in order to do so or in order to develop the wisdom realizing emptiness, we need numbers of collections of the virtues or merit. So in terms of merit, then the practicing the bodhicitta or altruistic intention is the best method of cultivating a huge amount of the virtues.
So, therefore, for us who who seeks liberation and enlightenment and and to in order to attain those two, the or liberation from cyclic existence and the attainment the enlightenment, the wisdom realizing emptiness and bodhicitta are inevitable. One has in order to attain this, those are required. And and therefore, it is very important to cultivate those two. The and and for emptiness, emptiness is a very subtle topic and and that it is eventually, it is very difficult to establish emptiness itself. It needs hundreds of hundreds of logical reason to have to establish or to attain have the proper understanding on the emptiness.
And so without having a great collections of virtues or merit, one the the wisdom realizing emptiness is very hard to attain. So so therefore, the so it is very subtle. And the bodhicitta is an bodhicitta is very important to have to collect the huge amount of virtues and merits. And and bodhicitta is is not like wisdom realizing emptiness. It is not that difficult.
And if we train or meditate on on bodhicitta, then it is it is not something like it’s not something like the emptiness that’s very hard to understand. It can be obtained as well as through our meditation and training. We can we can experience or or familiarize ourselves with, yeah, with with altruistic intention, So therefore so those two are very important. So so what we need to do here is all these motherly sentient beings are same as oneself. They’re wishing happiness and do not want suffering.
So because they are they are they are they are very kind to they have been they are very kind to us. It is our responsibility to to to to take that so called burden of freeing motherly sentient beings from the entire sufferings and bring them to the state of ultimate happiness or Buddhahood. So for that purpose, so one should one should hear and do a short meditation on altruistic intention, wishing then that that that in order to that our in order to I shall practice this in order to to to free all these motherly sentient beings from the suffering and bring them to the state of ultimate. And in to do to do so, one, the it is the only enlightened beings or in or yeah. It is the only enlightened beings can fulfill such wishes.
Therefore, I shall here attain enlightenment for the sake of motherly sentient beings on such mind or which is altruistic intention, we shall here do a short meditation. So so the last week, we we started a topic called the the the how to apply the mental alertness or or mindfulness. And for that, there’s two the the the disadvantage of yeah. It has explaining in brief explanation and explaining in details. So we finished the the first part.
Now onto the second one, which is and which is going the disadvantage of not having the mental alertness or or mindfulness. Sorry. It says the the explaining in details, it has two subdivisions, which is first one is the the disadvantage of not having mental alertness. And the second one is to and and the method of explaining how to apply the mental alertness or yeah. Mhmm.
And about the first one of the which which is the disadvantage of not having mental alertness has been explained in the next five verses. So I’m sure you know the text there. Yeah. We’ll stop last one. Yes.
Starting from twenty fourth. First twenty fourth. Two three four and five. Twenty eight. So the the the what it means is here that the person who is disturbed by the sufferings or illness, like like cancer or jaundice or so called in short, you know, yep.
And now those person who are disturbed with illness can’t can’t do the the the work like in like in a farmer or in the field and and cannot do the work, physical job because of being tortured by the diseases. So likewise, a person without the mental alertness and yeah. Mental alertness is very will not understand or The person without mental alertness, the practicing the virtuous, like, text and so forth will not be very effective. And and even for those who have cultivated numbers of courses for the Dharma or numbers of virtuous in the past and and and and without and by by not having mental alertness will gradually will be all the knowledge will be diminished or or we’ll lose knowledge because of because because because it is for example, it is like the the vase with the hole at the bottom that no matter how much water you pour in, and then later on, sooner or later, all the water be it will yeah. All the water will be released and be empty.
It will remain empty fast. So so not only that, those who have the great knowledge of of of hearing or listening, contemplation, and meditation. So no matter how much knowledge one has, and but but later on, without the mental with by by lacking mental alertness, later on, the person’s mind will be deluded by the disturbing emotions, and their mind become so called like filthy. And later on, due to as a result of those as a result of not having this all all this happens because of not having mental alertness. And and later on, as a result of this, one may be take one may be born in the lower realms.
What? Yeah. Because of mind being deluded by the disturbing emotions. So therefore, so the one should try very hard to cultivate the mental alertness, which is very important to in order to to to protect one’s virtues. So without so if one does not have the mental alertness, then what happens is no matter how much virtuous or collections of virtues or merit and listening and so forth one have yep.
No one have had in the past. And and later on, because of not having the mental proper mental alertness or mindfulness, then later on the person being subdued or influenced by the disturbing emotions like attachment, hatred, and anger, and so forth, deluded, and so forth. And and once one because of being under the influence of those disturbing emotions, one starts to cultivate the the non virtuous. And as a result of this, one will not one will not one will lose all the virtuous one have attained as well as in future, in future, one will not engage or one will not cultivate the virtuous because of being under the influence of non virtuous disturbing emotions. So it is like it is like a it’s a very rich person whose possessions or money from I’m guessing it’s about two hundred thousand.
A person has hundred thousand dollars. And then later on, you know, the somebody stole the stole the money, then the person is no longer rich but poor. So it will happen like that. So therefore, it is very important to to cultivate I mean, yeah, put enthusiastic efforts to cultivate the the mental alertness. So and it’s very difficult time here.
The and temple in Tibetan words, which are more or less similar, but the sharing here is mental alertness, which I’ve been telling here that yep. Using the terms mental alertness, which means that the mental alertness is the one that it’s a mind which is like a watchman, you know, keep checking all the time whether one’s mind is after whether it’s going after the non-virtuous part or yeah. Non virtuous or the virtuous part. So it is the mental alertness that examines or watches the mind all the time. And there is other word called which is called the recollection.
So it is very important to have mental alertness, which is like a watchman. And it and so if there is not a the guard here in the house, then the people the the thieves can break in and break through the house. So, likewise, the so the mental alertness is very important, It watches one’s mind all the time the way it is going. Either it’s on positive side or negative, or it is it it’s somebody stealing that the the the yeah. One’s mind, whether the thieves are coming, the thieves of disturbing emotions like attachment, anger, and so forth.
Right? If there comes and and and without sorry. With if one does not have the mental alertness, then one will not know when the attachment desire attachment, hatred, and so forth are coming. And as a once they come, then one’s mind being under the influence of those non-virtuous disturbing emotions, and one will collect the numbers of non-virtues that will destroy all the virtues one has accumulated and that will destroy one’s virtues. So, yeah, the mental alertness checks, examines one’s mind, guiding whether the disturbing emotions are coming or not, watching where one’s mind is after.
And and after having known that and so this is the it watches over time. And when the disturbing emotions and attachment and so forth are coming, then so called the recollection or mindfulness protects one’s mind from those disturbing emotions from coming into one’s mind. With with this, through this, like, alertness, watching, and the the recollection or the mindfulness, you know, protects one’s mind.
And then through this, once you train in the practices of so called taking virtue and abandoning non-virtue. So and now here, the second one is so called how to collect the method of of cultivating or applying mindfulness, which has been which is explained in the next five verse starting from twenty-nine, isn’t it, now? So the mindfulness is which is by that after having applied or or developed the the mental alertness, which which examines, which checking the where one’s mind is after. And then through this, once one mind is after positive actions or towards the virtuous part, then the mindfulness protect that mind and let it be with the virtuous learning. So therefore and by doing so, the applying this mental alertness and the mindfulness, protecting one’s mind and being letting it be with the virtuous side all the time.
And even one does so, but still the mind will scatter. It goes around. And and and and it happens. It will go. And whenever it such things happen, then the mindfulness and the mental alertness, you know, should recall the, you know, the the the the the sufferings, yep, of the lower rebirths and how the attachment attachment, hatred, and so forth, disturbing emotions will cause harm to oneself.
And by knowing this, then re recollect those that mind back into the positive thoughts. So the method of of applying our mindfulness is is is is yeah. It’s very important to to the one’s company is very important. For example, the being with one’s spiritual teachers, the proper friends or good friends or or especially the spiritual friends, And and and should also also recollect or recall the instructions of the the the yeah. The teachings given by one’s teachers and thinking about the results of the non virtuous actions that the the results that making knowing knowing that the the results of the non virtuous actions are are are are suffering.
And so by by doing so, as well as and should have great respect and faith in in in one’s the training precepts, which are like individual vows one have taken have have respect in one’s own the vows or valued one’s vows so that one can be very mindful to protect that vows and so forth. So by doing so, and the the people who does such things or like recall being with the good friends, recalling the teachings and so forth will always be mindful. And and and and those who are not with who those who are not with the the the proper proper friends or a company, then so called, you know, the non virtuous friends. And by dealing with those, it always hard to be very mindful. So yep.
And and also, one should remember that there are the numbers of Buddhas in the past and their numbers have been attained enlightenment or there are numbers of Buddhas of the ten directions as well as Bodhisattvas. The Buddhas are enlightened, and and they have completed entire perfected themselves and free from all the obscurations and and attained enlightenment. And one can have seen all the truths directly. So therefore, there is nothing which can’t be seen by Buddhas. So by knowing this, then all one should be aware that in all the time, in each and every action, whatever one do, there are Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who are always watching on you.
So therefore, it is but should apply all this mental alertness and the mindfulness by making sure that making sure that that Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are watching on you, that that you that that that you will not do anything which will make you feel embarrassed and and yeah. Embarrassed as well as So in terms of saying said Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have been watching you for whole twenty four hours. And and by knowing this, then make sure for one purpose that you should not be feel embarrassed that I’m doing it no matter whoever they who who who else is watching, but I don’t have to feel any embarrassment because I’m in the doing, you know, doing the right thing.
And and and in terms of others, that it’s still okay that I haven’t done anything to to cause harm to others. So by knowing this, applying being very mindful but thinking that everyone is watching you and and and and to this, you know, apply this mental alertness and the mindfulness, making sure that you are doing the right thing. Yep. Nice. So by doing so, then yeah.
By doing so. So by doing so, then gradually through the power of one’s practices of applying being very applying