Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A cup of tea becomes the pivot point of this 6-minute talk by Geshe Pema Tsering on recognizing the kindness of sentient beings. He builds the case through ordinary objects — food, houses, beds — showing that nothing we enjoy arrived without others’ effort. The tea example is the most detailed: from insects killed to protect the crop, through harvesting, drying, packaging, and shipping, to the final purchase, many lives and labors converged in a single cup. The practical takeaway is motivational: once we feel this dependence concretely rather than abstractly, the Tonglen practice of taking on others’ suffering and giving them our happiness becomes genuinely accessible rather than a mental exercise.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 BV 2005 02 13.mp3
UUID: 9c7250d9-593f-43c2-8277-49ba3d786379
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva vows (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-02-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 6.6 minutes
Words: ~652
Food, it’s because in some way or another, someone has harvested it, someone has prepared it, someone has packaged it, someone has brought it to us, in order for us to be able to eat. So every mouthful of food that we take, it depends on the kindness of other beings, depends on other beings doing things for us. The houses that we live in were built by others. We didn’t build the houses by ourselves. And even if we did build the houses by ourselves, then we had to get the materials from that for the house from someone else.
So all of the all of our comfortable house, our beds, everything that we have depends on other people’s work, depends on other people giving. So Geshe-la said that if he takes himself, for example, and if he counted up every being that has benefited him in since he was a child until now, there would be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of different beings who have helped him in some way or another, just in this one lifetime. So even if we can’t focus on the idea of past lives, even if we just focus on the idea of this life, then we’ve been benefited by many by many beings even existing this life. Geshe-la, let’s say, take, for example, his cup of tea now. In order for him to have his cup of tea here in front of him, a whole process of and hundreds of people have worked hard to bring this about.
Said for starters, the tea didn’t just appear in a container. It came from a field. And in order to get the tea from the field, bugs were killed in order to stop them eating all the tea. Then there were beings who actually lost their lives to bring this tea. Then there were those who worked really hard to harvest the tea because a tea doesn’t find its way into factories, it has to be harvested.
And then those beings that were going to dry it and sort it in the factories had to work very hard. Then they had to package it and then people had to send it here. And then someone had to buy it. And in order to buy it, they had to accumulate the money to buy the tea. So then it had to be made, and then it shows up in a cup of tea in front of him.
So if he thinks about the tea, there’s been many, many beings who have contributed to him getting the tea, and that’s just one instance. That’s just one thing that’s happened to him that’s be that’s come from the kindness of sentient beings. He he said that now he has to try and remember that when he drinks tea because our natural tendency is to go, it’s my tea. I’m drinking it. And not to to reflect on how how many people helped us get that cup of tea, how many beings contributed to the cup of tea.
So we try and think about that in every instant, then beings are so kind to us in so many different ways. So if we do so if we have if we first of all, about the think about beings all wanting to experience happiness and experiencing suffering, and then think about the kindness of all those beings that they’re experiencing suffering. They wanna experience happiness. And not only that, but they have done something for us at some stage, even in this lifetime, then the idea of taking on their suffering and giving them our happiness, which is the practice of Tonglen visualizing this, will come about easier. Okay?
Oh, yeah. So unless we even spot any other pressing questions we can push? Alright. So I think it’s page thank you.
Twenty six in the morning prayer section.