Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 16-minute talk, Geshe Pema Tsering opens by unpacking the word paramita as literally meaning that which has gone to the other side — of saṃsāra, or of the two obscurations — rather than simply perfection, before moving into a detailed treatment of generosity as the first of the six transcendences. He traces the practice from small, easy gifts (his concrete example: a candy) through progressively harder offerings until miserliness fades entirely. The right motivation, he explains, is not meeting a perceived need but offering whatever one gives as a cause for attaining Buddhahood. A Q&A exchange closes with questions about giving to the wealthy and what makes a valid recipient.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 BV 2005 02 20.mp3
UUID: 56a3b166-34e7-439f-9419-08fd84889cbd
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva vows (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-02-20
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 16.4 minutes
Words: ~1,333
Related and perfecting one affects the other. So if you perfect if you finish the practice of the perfection and end up Buddha, right, then obviously your ethics and and your everything else is going to be perfect perfect as well. Yeah. So it this word means to that which has gone to the other side. That which has gone to nirvana, a paramita, that which has gone to the other side.
So if you talk other side of Samsāra, you can use a paramita of nirvana. nirvana is a paramita, right? Liberation is a paramita because it is that which has gone to the other side of Samsāra, right? Buddhahood is a paramita because it is that which has gone to the other side of what are called the two obscurations. The obscurations of negative emotions and the obscurations to knowledge.
Right? So these things are all that’s gone to the other side. Right? So it’s not literally six perfections. They’re called six perfections because it’s easier to say than the six dash which has gone to the other side is don’t know how to translate it.
The six sometimes I’ve seen it translated as six transcendences. So can you come up with something better for me? Yes. You got something better? Like giving your body away?
Okay, he said that this is the practice we’re giving you. First of all, you start by giving things away that you aren’t going to develop regret for, like, say, a lolly. If you give someone a lolly, you’re not thinking, re not thinking, it s not that taxing on you. You re not as likely to develop miserliness or regret for having given it. The practice of generosity is to start by giving things that you can give easily, and then you work up to being able to give more and more more things away, and your miserliness decreases.
The stages that you go through are the practice of generosity. It starts off small and it gets bigger bigger and bigger until eventually beings are even able to give away their bodies without thinking about it, without regretting it. Does that mean the stages of first of you start with a lolly and you end up giving your body away? It said anything that’s easy. Alright?
So you start with something that’s easy, and then you gradually get through things that are more difficult, until your ability to give away more difficult things. Yeah. Okay. So Geshe-la said, you don’t give with either of those necessarily either of those motivations. You give with the idea that giving is a way to attain Buddhahood, and as Buddhahood you can really help them.
By giving them material objects, you’re not really totally helping them. You’re only temporarily helping them, or giving them knowledge, you’re only temporarily helping them. The idea is, whatever you give, may this be a cause for me to attain Buddhahood. The idea is on the focus on generosity. I said, but there s some people that actually seem to really need things and others that don’t really need things.
He said, That’s a distinction that you really can’t make. You don’t know who really needs things and who doesn’t really need things. If someone isn’t there, they can’t receive things from you, then you have no one to give to. These aren’t just physical things either, it’s mental things as well. If they’re not there, then there’s no way they can take from you, so you can’t give.
The prerequisites for generosity to take place is if there is someone to receive, or someone to receive the generosity. It’s not whether they need it, whether you can tell whether they need it or not. Now, Geshe-la said that if we were trying to give something to Johnny Howard or George Bush, right, they’re not here, so we can’t give to them. We can’t practice generosity with them if they aren’t either going to receive he said they’re not going to take it from us, they’re not going to be able to receive it because they have lots more than we do, all right? So if there’s nothing no one to receive, there’s no you can’t practice generosity, all right?
But if there is someone to receive, you can. Geshe-la said that he can’t think of any instance. He said I said they don’t have anyone to give to, he said, of course, have someone to give to. They have all sentient beings to give to. So they would be practicing saying, anything that I do, may this be of benefit to sentient beings.
That’s practicing generosity. Every time that they would take something, they offer it to all sentient beings. They don’t have to be in the cave. So to give away to be thinking of sharing your stores of virtue or your stores of positive actions with others, they don’t need to be there. So you so every time that we practice do any kind of practice, we usually finish it with a dedication.
That dedication is generosity. And also, when you develop your motivation, your motivation is to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. It’s not to attain enlightenment for the benefit of yourself. And so that’s generosity. That’s precious generosity.
When you’re giving to others, when you’re doing something for others, that’s generosity. So generosity isn’t just giving physical things. It’s like giving of your time, your body, your physical things, as well as your virtue, your knowledge. All of those things are generosity. It doesn’t necessarily just make you different things.
Okay. So you said, for example, if because you’re talking about you said that might contradict what was beforehand, right? So having this idea of someone needing something or there being something that you can give to. Yeah. So I said, so I guess the so if you had a very rich person and you’re gonna give the mandala, right?
Would that be a valid form of generosity? And he said, they’re probably not likely to take it for you because they may be affronted that you would think that they need that money and it may be insulting to them. So you would think that’s not a valid form of generosity because they don’t want it. And I said, yes, but maybe they’re like, this is how I got rich, thanks for the dollar. And he said, yes, well, in that case, it’s a valid form of generosity, yes.
So because if there’s a recipient, if there’s someone who’s going to take what you have to give, yes, then that is a form of generosity. I said, but then what about if you’re trying to comfort someone who’s very rich but very sad? And he said that’s also generosity. So you look at what is appropriate to give in certain instances and whether and if there is an appropriate recipient, then you can give in that instance. Okay.
So he said we can’t know from like exactly what they can need, right? But if we think about it, and we are working on the premise that all sentient beings want to be happy and don’t want to experience suffering. So if we can do anything to alleviate their suffering, then we should try and do that in that form of generosity. So anything that we can give to alleviate suffering, that would be a form of generosity. Okay.
So we don’t know exactly what people want, but we can have a general idea, and they may even ask us for it. So if they ask for something, then that’s always a good sign. Okay? So then He’s saying Geshe said that doesn’t mean he’s not saying if someone comes up to you and says, I need I need your brand new car that you have to give it to them. Yeah.
You think that many people may come up and say that. Okay.