Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 37-minute commentary, Geshe Pema Tsering opens with a striking image: the bodhisattva as a king whose soldiers are mindfulness and whose weapons defeat the two obscurations — disturbing emotions and veils to omniscience. The session turns to verses 17–31 of the Bodhisattva Deeds, targeting a specific form of laziness: the discouragement of thinking enlightenment is simply too hard. Geshe Pema cites sūtra passages listing unlikely candidates — lions, wolves, crows, worms in meat — who can attain Buddhahood through enthusiastic effort, then counters the fear of difficult practices with the argument that we have already lost our heads countless times in past rebirths without it ever advancing us an inch toward liberation. A Q&A addresses when extreme acts of generosity actually apply, and closes on the distinction between root causes and cooperative conditions.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 64 BD 2002 08 29.mp3
UUID: 1214e6b3-5e3c-44c1-bbff-0e05c8eababf
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Deeds (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-08-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 37.0 minutes
Words: ~2,585
And and yep. So for example, the the king, the, you know, the the king king will the king yep. For example, the king, yeah, the king will the king will try to defeat the enemy. And to defeat the enemy, it depends on what the king’s, the strength of the soldiers or, you know, and and as well as the weapons. So likewise, the bodhisattvas will fight against the obscurations towards omniscience and the obscuration of the disturbing emotions.
And and how they fight or defeat the two obscurations is the the yeah. From the very beginning that they will defeat they will defeat the laziness. And having having having it yeah. Having abandoned or gotten rid of the laziness, then they engage in the practices of collecting the two collections — the collection of merit and collection of wisdom. And in order to cultivate these, during the actual practice, they with huge mindfulness and enthusiastic effort cultivate those two and perfect oneself. And through this, having obtained that mindfulness and so forth, they engage in the practices of mind training of exchanging self and others and equalizing self and others, which is equalizing that both self and others are the same, wishing happiness, and not wanting suffering. And through this, and they would yeah. And then they change the the the self and others, which is change the self-cherishing attitude and the cherishing other.
So they take this cherishing others and get an exchange and get rid of the self-cherishing attitude. And through such practices, they finally defeat the enemy or which has overcome the both the obscurations of obscuration of nirvana and the the enlightenment and and attained the final goal, which is Buddhahood. So so Geshe-la said that looks like this is the way what how what we should practice. And now to the third one, which is the the laziness, which applying a laziness to real laziness, you know, not being act active or alert. And that has been explained.
But the next fifteen verses starting from seventeen till Thirty one. Yeah. Yep. So the meaning is that that, you know, should not think that way that, yeah, it is very good to attain the enlightenment, the Buddhahood. And because yeah.
But yeah. Buddha but and to under also understand that, yeah, the ultimate happiness, there is a great joy in happiness by attaining Buddhahood. But but I can’t, you know, just feeling disheartened or losing one’s courage and thinking that it is good, you know, there’s huge benefits of attaining the Buddhahood, but I can’t I can’t, yep, I can’t because because, you know, it’s not that easy to obtain that, you know, it needs lots of requirements to attain Buddhahood. And and one has to perfect both the collections of both the collections collection of merit and virtue, the wisdom and have to cultivate and develop a wisdom, realizing emptiness, wisdom, and develop a bodhicitta, etcetera, and too much work, and I can’t do that, you know. So then so you should not feel that way.
It is also laziness. Right? So yep. And Geshe-la said that when he think of enlightenment and lie down and and think about practices and, yeah, it is very good to, you know, achieve the Buddhahood. But looking into myself, you know, it’s not that easy.
I don’t think I can attain that sometimes feeling that way. But do you guys think that way? And yeah. So it is possible for one to think, develop such a thought, but should not be like that, should not think that because because the reason because should not think because the Lord Buddha Śākyamūni always speak the truth. And there is no mistake or lie in Buddha’s speech.
And the Buddha has said forth. The Buddha has said forth that even even the little insects, like little insects or, you know, or the the organisms or, you know, the little worms in the meat as well as bees and so forth. Even those creatures or sentient beings, if they cultivate with a great enthusiastic effort, they can achieve the Buddhahood. So this is what the Buddha speaks the truth, always speak truth. And he said that even those sentient beings can achieve the Buddhahood if they apply the enthusiastic effort.
And The Sūtra Requested by the Naga King said that even the enlightenment can be obtained by those sentient beings — let me go through the names now: The lion, tiger, dog, wolf, vulture, crane, crow, owl. Okay. Shall I?
Yeah. Okay. The bees and and and the little ones in on in the meat, etcetera. And if so even those sentient being if even, you know, even if those sentient beings, you know, attain the enlightenment by applying the enthusiastic effort, then I am a human, and and and I should attain enlightenment. Therefore, I must develop enthusiastic effort even at the cost of my life. Got it. Got it. And also in the sūtra called the Dream Sūtra, that if the one with very less intelligence or less knowledge applies the enthusiastic effort or a special insight, they can attain the enlightenment.
So therefore, one should not be very disheartened or discouraged thinking I can’t attain enlightenment. Because one can attain enlightenment or Buddhahood — one has all the causes and conditions, all these conducive conditions to achieve the enlightenment or Buddhahood because because one has it is it is one’s own laziness of not practicing because one has all the requirements to practice. One understands, one knows that one has not born as the animal, born as a human, not just a human, one with the precious human rebirth with the eighteen qualities, the eight leisures and ten endowments, as well as one understands the practices of giving, sorry, the taking and abandonment, which means what to be taken and what to be abandoned. So so one knows how to practice the positive actions to be cultivated and negative action to be abandoned. By knowing this, if one bring all the one one’s knowledge or understanding into practice, one should one will and one should attain enlightenment or Buddhahood.
Because because by knowing this and putting and bring all the practice understanding into practice, and if one does not attain enlightenment, it’s very strange or funny. So therefore, it’s the one’s practice is like one should practice. If one practice, one should and one will. Okay. If one thinks that, yeah, if I apply such a great, enthusiastic effort, huge effort, there is a possible and one, I can attain enlightenment.
But achieving the enlightenment is not a very easy thing to do because there are whole lot of work that, you know, it’s not an easy thing to do, you know. One has to give even one’s head or a hand or feet to cut and give and all these actions are involved to attain enlightenment. And I I have a huge fear towards, you know, cutting my legs or losing my wealth and so forth. If one thinks like that. It is wrong.
Do you that way? No. Have to do that. Well, you do now. I’m sorry.
If one think such way or develop a fear that I now have to do all the practices of, you know, giving and giving up, cutting my head or hands so forth, and I can’t do that, whoever, you know, one who feels fear in those actions is the sign or a mistake or it’s a sign that one has not see the gist or the have have one has not a proper understanding of the practices of taking and abandoning. So one should not feel afraid and scared of giving up one’s yeah, one’s body or head or have to cut one’s limbs of the body like hands so forth for the sake of enlightenment. Because we have taken a rebirth from the beginning of saṃsāra and have taken numbers of, countless numbers of rebirths. And during each and during those rebirths we have born in the hell realms for many many times. And in the hell realms, you know.
Our head has been cut many times and our our hands and legs has been cut many, many times. And even if one were to pile up all the heads been cut for doing those rebirth, Australia is too small for the head to fit in. So therefore, so we have go through huge suffering in our hands and head so forth is cut million tons and but none of those, the actions of cutting and so forth, and never been a cause to even an inch of enlightenment. Now, so now onward, and if I have to lose a giving of my hand and so forth, you know, for the cause of enlightenment, And this is the chance I’ve ever got and I should do it, you know, very happily because I have done it many times and never been a cause to enlightenment. This time, I’ll do it.
If it’s if it’s cause of the enlightenment, I’m willingly to go through it. And that sort of courage one should develop. And, Geshe-la said, we’ll take questions now for the rest of the yes. Could you give us an example of a situation I’d like to come Yeah. Where I would need to cut my head off.
Just go with the. Example of a situation Mhmm. That I’m likely to come across Mhmm. To cut my head off Okay. Or my hand or finger even for the cause of this one.
Okay. Geshe-la said that it’s very easy. We can do it right now. Well, it is it’s not an easy thing to do and because to do so, such act activities or such actions are giving up one’s body or cutting on hand, so forth, you know. And probably from the great path of accumulation onward and and and should develop the wisdom realizing emptiness.
And definitely one has to have a proper, the so called, the bodhicitta without effort, you know, always without any effort, have developed fully developed uncontrived bodhicitta and and should be able to perform whatever action one performs should be with the bodhicitta or should be yeah. Yeah. The bodhicitta with the bodhicitta. So the one those practitioners in the first ground or above, the supreme bodhisattvas. And they are happy to do it any times, you know, whenever If they were asked to give up their cut their any part of the bodies, you know, they’re very happy and willingly to do so.
And not just that, you know, even if they hear of somebody that somebody such and such practitioner has given up, you know, a part of the body or cut the hands to help somebody, they’re very pleased to hear such things. So those Bodhisattvas, you know, are very happy. And, yeah, stated in the Candrakīrti’s middle way, the root text that, you know, those Bodhisattvas, you know, the supreme bodhisattvas, of course, they are very happy, willingly to give any part of their body for the practice of generosity, not just cutting them, just by hearing a word, begging, you know, somebody else, you know, just a word, may I have your da da da, and they just feel very happy just by mere word hearing. Yeah. I was just thinking about causes and conditions of the world a bit. Why is it not just all conditions?
What what makes a cause? Because doesn’t the actual cause have conditioned itself? So what what makes a cause a cause? We’re not just. Go through the monastic debate text.
There’s one session in the part we call particularly debate, like foundation debate comes from the cause and effect, you know. It’s very dot dot dot dot gross, you know. So anyway, in general speaking, it is true the cause and conditions are same in general. And in terms of the because the conditions are also the cause actually. And when we speak of the conditions, yeah, the conditions also the cause.
So what happens is in terms of cause there are many different types of causes. We have what is called the substantial cause and the cooperative cause or the root cause. For example, when you sow a seed of rice, the rice is the cause, and this is the actual cause which gives rise to the sprout and then grows into rice. The conducive conditions are also causes, which are called the fertilizers — manure and water and so forth. Those are also the cause for the rice to give rise, but they are not the root cause.
So speaking of that, you know, and we say that conditions are also the cause, but they’re not the root cause. And in terms of speaking of that, that particular cause can be both a cause for the particular result to give rise to. For example, the rice seed is a root cause for the actual rice that grows, but it can’t be a secondary or supporting cause — it can only be the root cause. We’re talking about when you speak about the causes and condition, speaking about the particular results and it has the two causes, which are the causes and conditions, speak of that.
In general speaking, then cause and conditions are both the same synonyms. So we call the the definition of the causes that something which give rise to something. And the conditions are those which accompany the root cause. So these are the two difference. We’re speaking about the particular results, causes and conditions, but not speaking of the general cause and conditions.
Because in general, cause and conditions are seen as the same. What would be the root cause of the chariot? What is the root cause? Oh, the car. Yeah.
I know the chariot. The root cause for the chariot. Whatever constitutes the actual form of the chariot is the root cause of the chariot. For example, the chariot — a car or a chariot — is made out of wood. Then wood is the root cause, which is what actually becomes the form of Yes? Well, speaking of this, you know, that when Buddha set forth, Buddha speaks the truth, And it does not mean that those sentient beings develop an energetic effort within their rebirth and then yeah.
Within their current rebirth and then attain enlightenment. Not speaking about that. Because those sentient beings have have the Buddha nature. And they they won’t be in that place as a rebirth like a yep. The dog is a dog forever.
They have to and the dog has to die and then take a rebirth and they will be born in the higher rebirth. And on the basis of that higher rebirth, because they have Buddha nature, they can develop enthusiastic effort. It’s a long way to wait, but they can develop through the higher rebirth and attain enlightenment through enthusiastic effort. So the point is those sentient beings have to leave their current rebirth, take a higher rebirth, apply enthusiastic effort, and attain enlightenment. Speaking of example is we don’t have to wait, can already do it straightforward. Okay.