Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. An archer who shoots without looking at the target is unlikely to hit it — Geshe Pema Tsering uses this image in this 46-minute session to argue that Bodhisattvas need precise, detailed knowledge of their training, not just a vague aspiration to help all beings. He then works through the six perfections (paramitas) as the complete structure of the Bodhisattva path, focusing on a key structural principle: each perfection fully contains the other five. Taking generosity as the demonstration, he unpacks each nested aspect — the giving of giving (dedicating accumulated merit), the ethics of non-miserliness, patience without regret, joyous effort, focused concentration on giver and recipient, and the wisdom of emptiness. A Q&A section covers practical methods for working with anger. He also clarifies why “perfection” inadequately translates paramita, which literally points to having crossed over into Buddhahood.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 BV 2005 02 20.mp3
UUID: 21f15f2e-05ed-4a9c-9456-fc9498d5d663
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva vows (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-02-20
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.7 minutes
Words: ~3,658
So all sentient beings don’t want to experience suffering and want to be happy. They’re just like us in this. So if we reflect on our own experience and think about how this doesn’t just relate to ourselves, but to all sentient beings, then we would develop a feeling that we want to do something about this, that we want to do something to alleviate the suffering of ourselves and other beings. So the only way that we can really alleviate the suffering of ourselves and all sentient beings is by becoming a Buddha, by getting rid of all our negative faults and encouraging or developing all positive qualities. As Buddhas we can lead other beings to a state beyond sorrow.
So in order to bring this about we need to be able to become Buddhas, need to be able to develop ourselves along the path to Buddhahood. In order to bring this about, need to learn. We should think then that this is our motivation for listening to these teachings today on the graduated path. By developing understanding of this path we can put it into practice and achieve the results of the path, that is to become a Buddha, and as Buddhas be able to benefit all sentient beings truly. I have a spot here somewhere, and I was looking at it not an hour ago.
Do you think I can find it? Right, so we were talking about the way to develop Bodhisattva and developing the mind of enlightenment. And after developing the mind of enlightenment, bodhisattvas, we need to engage in actions. Bodhisattvas need to perform activities or to train in certain ways that will lead them to Buddhahood. The training of a Bodhisattva, the activities or the practices of a Bodhisattva are said to be very vast and very numerous, but they can all be subsumed into, or they can all be categorized into, what are called the six perfections.
The six perfections or the six paramitas, the six practices that take the Bodhisattva to the other side, that is to Buddhahood. These six Paramitas, or these six Perfections, are described in many different texts in great detail. They are described first of all in the teachings of Maitreya, the five texts of Maitreya. In particular there was a text of Maitreya called the Mahāyāna Sutralamkara or the ornament to the sutras. In this text, Maitreya describes from both a definitive and an interpretive point of view how we can practice the six perfections.
There’s another way that we can look at the activities of as well. There’s other ways to look at the activities of Bodhisattvas as well. There’s other ways to look at the activities of Bodhisattvas, actually described by Śāntideva in his Guide to the Bodhisattvas’ Way of Life, or the entry into the activities of Bodhisattvas. He describes the things that Bodhisattvas need to do in four different groups of three. So that makes twelve. Four x three twelve.
That is, we can do actions with our body, actions with our belongings, and actions in order to generate merit with virtue. So we have our body, we have our possessions, and we have our positive actions that we’ve accumulated. With these three things we can practice in four different ways. We can give up or give away, we can protect, we can purify and we can proliferate. We can make it bigger and do it in different ways.
We can do things that involve giving, that involve protecting, that involve purifying and that making things grander and doing them in bigger ways. But this description of the things that bodhisattvas do doesn’t contradict the idea that they practice the Six Perfections. It’s just another way of describing the same activities, the same things that they involve themselves in. In this way, we can actually understand what a bodhisattva needs to do by studying the Six Perfections or looking at the Six Perfections. All of the trainings that we are striving for, all of the things that we need to remember in order to attain Buddhahood after we’ve developed a bodhicitta are contained within these six practices.
These are six behaviours that will take us to Buddhahood. That’s literally what Paramita means or perfection means. This one. See, it’s not literally what perfection means, but it’s literally what Paramita means, and that’s translated as perfection. The practice of the six perfections, the practice of the six Paramitas is said to be the essence of the Mahāyāna path.
It’s what leads all beings to Buddhahood. If we want actually become Buddhas, we need to understand these perfections. We need to have gone through them one by one in our head until we’re thoroughly familiar with them and then we can put them into practice. It’s not enough to have a rough understanding of the six perfections we need to have incorporated them into the way we behave, incorporated them into the way that we look at the world. In order to do this we need to keep going through them again and again and to look at them in detail.
Now if we don’t do this and if we just think, Yes, yes, I’m going to become a Buddha, going to be a Mahāyāna practitioner and I’m going to benefit all beings and just have a vague idea of what it is that we should be doing in order to bring this about, we’re a bit like an archer trying to hit a target without looking at the target, without paying any attention to what they’re doing. If an archer either has their eyes closed or is concentrating on something else, the likelihood of them hitting the target is very slim. So they need to be focused on the target and if they do that and they are aware of what they are doing then they are much more likely of actually hitting the target. So the practice of Bodhisattvas, we need to look at it the same way. If we don’t understand what it is that we’re doing and we’re not focused on that, then it’s unlikely that we can attain Buddhahood just by a general idea or a general urge to attain it in the same way as unlikely you’ll hit the target by just flinging an arrow at it.
The other thing to remember is that each of the six perfections encapsulates the other five. That is to say that if we are practising one of the perfections one of the paramita properly, then we’re practising all of them properly. So for example, if we’re practicing the first of the perfections, the first of the six practices of giving, generosity properly, then we’re also practicing ethics because we’re behaving in an ethical way by considering others and giving within the scope of our individual vows or individual ethical constraints. And also we’re practising wisdom because we’re recognising the lack of inherent existence of the giver, the giving, and the given. So this is another way of looking at this practice that each of these different of the different perfections encapsulates the others.
Now we can actually give. We can practice generosity just to without the other involving the other five perfections, but it doesn’t make it the perfection of generosity. We have to do we have to make a distinction between practice of generosity and the practice of perfection of generosity. So the practice of the perfection of generosity is motivated by bodhicitta, understands the emptiness of the objects that are being given and is performed within ethics, is performed with joy, which is another perfection. So that it has to have all of these other aspects to it in order to become the perfection or practice of the perfection of generosity as opposed to just generosity.
So I have to think about how to translate this. And now the word The word for what is usually translated in English as a perfection in Tibetan is what’s called a pharol chinpa or a phar chin for short. And in Sanskrit it’s called a paramita. Now, Perfection is a pretty dodgy translation if we think about it too much, but it’s just a general one, so I was just going with that. That’s what people use the translators.
It literally means I’m trying to and if I’ve gotten this wrong, please forgive me because I’ve noticed I don’t know Sanskrit very well at all. Okay? But paramita. Now para means the other side. Alright?
It means to to travel. Yeah? And the mita indicates the end of something, the the the bound boundary of something. And the tah is a Sanskrit syllable that always indicates that which is, alright, shunyata, and it’s in a lot of these different words. It means that which is.
Yeah? So means the being-ness of having crossed over. Right? That doesn’t make any sense, but it means the the essence of having been to the other side. Now the boundary that they’re talking about here is the boundary of being either a Buddha or being a sentient being, being a sentient being or becoming a Buddha.
So once you cross, you are one who has crossed over that boundary, that you have completed the Paramita. You are one who has crossed over. Until you cross over, it’s not a Paramita. So what you’re doing is practicing in order to reach that state, that which leads to the crossing-over-ness. This is why they translate it as perfection, because crossing overness sounds weird.
It’s this state of having gone to the other side, as the Heart Sūtra mantra says, having gone to the other side, the state of having gone to the other side. Each of these perfections then encapsulates everything that you need to go to the other side. So of the paramita of giving, or the perfection of giving, encapsulates all of the practices you need to attain Buddhahood. Therefore, you don’t only have the giving of giving, the act of giving, but also within the practice of perfection of giving, also have the ethics of giving, you have the patience of giving, you have the diligence or the joy of giving, you have the meditation of giving, the concentration of giving, and you have the wisdom of giving. Right?
So all of the other five perfections are included within this act of giving. Okay. So when we talk about we talked about the giving of giving. Right? Now this may sound a bit strange if we’re thinking about the giving aspect of giving or the the givingness of giving within this practice.
Now what this means is that giving is a general action that we perform. The giving part of the perfection of giving though isn’t just this idea of giving something away, practicing generosity. It is thinking that this activity that I’m doing, may the virtue from that benefit all sentient beings. So this is why it’s called the giving of giving. Alright?
So it’s not just the act of having this idea that the way Geshe-la put directly was that the the mind wishing to give things away is defined as giving. Right? If on top of that, then we think giving I’m going to give away the merit I accumulated from having that mind that wanted to give. That’s the giving of giving. Okay?
So that the this is the the first part of the practice of the perfection of giving. It’s not just the act of giving, but it’s the act of giving away the virtue you accumulate from giving towards sentient beings. Now the ethics of giving. What are the ethics of giving? Well, giving is, again, this mind that wants the thought to give things away, to give away our objects, our physical being, what we know, what we can share with people.
Giving away in this way is again giving. In general, when we talk about ethics, we’re talking about that which purifies or that which protects. There’s one word in Tibetan that has these two different meanings to it purify and protect. In this instance, in giving we are protecting from miserliness and we are purifying miserliness. So the ethics of giving, the ethical aspect of giving is that you are protecting yourself from the downfall or the negative state of miserliness and you are purifying Okay.
So the next one is the perfection of patience. Is the patience of generosity. This word is sometimes translated as patience and sometimes translated as forbearance. It literally means for the mind not to be disturbed. When we are angry, when we experience miserliness or clinging, our mind is disturbed, our mind is agitated.
If we practice forbearance against that agitation or patience with that agitation that leads to a calm mind. The opposite of an agitated mind is a calm mind. This is forbearance, this is patience. Not getting agitated, keeping the mind calm. So, if we’re giving, then we could develop this miserliness, we could develop regret for having given or grasping onto that which we’re giving, and some sort of resistance to giving away what it is that we’re giving away.
This agitated state of mind, that confusion of mind, is what we need to practice forbearance against or with. If we practice calmness with the act of giving, then this is the act of patience. So the next perfection is sometimes translated as joyous effort or diligence. Its definition or its characteristic is that it is a mind taking joy in virtue. This means that perfecting diligence effort within the act of giving would be to be very happy about doing it, to feel a gladness and a positive state about giving.
So being happy about giving is the perfection of diligence or the perfection of joy. Okay. So the next thing to look at then is the practice of meditative concentration within giving. Now Right. So, this word that’s, again, translated as meditative concentration is the Sanskrit equivalent of it is dhyana or dhyana.
Alright? And it means con it it it means being able to concentrate on one thing. Now, in general, when we talk about the perfection of meditative concentration or the perfection of dhyana, you’re talking about the developing a tranquility meditation or a calmly abiding mind that can work on being pointedly Okay. On any object. But this isn’t the only form of diano, the only form of concentration that we have.
In order for us to perform any action, we can either do it in one of two states. We can do it in a distracted state or in an attentive state. If we are doing something in an attentive state. Then the part of our mind that is paying attention to the thing that we’re doing is called mental factor, an aspect of the mind, which is also called dhyana, or is also called concentration. Concentration has these two aspects: It is something that’s usually in our mental continuum anyway when we’re paying attention or concentrating on anything that we’re doing. It’s also something that we can develop to very high levels in terms of developing the ability to single pointedly meditate on anything we wish.
So it’s something we develop through meditation, it’s something that’s an aspect of our mind as well. Now, in the context of practicing meditative concentration in terms of our perfection of generosity practice, it means paying attention to what you’re doing. It means focusing with a stable mind on the object that you’re giving towards, the object that is being given, so the recipient, the object that you’re giving, and the giver being yourself. So you have a a stable concentrated mind that focuses on all three of these. So the next one is the wisdom of giving.
Now what this refers to specifically is developing an understanding that neither the recipient, the action, or the person giving, the giver, are inherently existent or in or intrinsically or naturally existent. So If, of course, the bodhisattva has a realization of emptiness, then they’re going to perform any action of generosity based on that understanding or that realization. If they don’t have this understanding and if we want to practice to develop towards practicing the perfection of generosity, then we need to try and remember or focus on the fact that the object, the self, and the person who is receiving the object, none of them exist inherently. None of them are inherently autonomously established things. That they are mutually dependent or interdependently originated objects.
If this isn’t possible, we can’t think of that whole process in that way. If we just focus on the selflessness of the person giving, then this can be a start for developing this practice. So in this way, in the same way that these six different aspects can be related to the perfection of giving, they can also be related to the other perfections. So therefore, in ethics there is giving, in ethics there is ethics, in ethics there is wisdom, In In ethics is is wisdom. Ethics In ethics there is giving and so on.
So when we are focusing on these different perfections or these different paramita and trying to develop understanding of them, then we need to be to adopt this approach where in each of the six perfections, there are the other five perfect there are six perfections. No way. This way then we develop a more thorough understanding of them. We’re just finding out where we’re up to so we don’t get lost next time. Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, oh, the next time, I’m not gonna get lost. Alright. Okay. So if you have any questions on that.
Yeah. Yeah. Practice patient. Okay. So there’s many things that can disturb our mind, and there’s many things that so so there’s many things that can disturb our mind.
There’s many ways that we can get agitated about things. So that means there s many ways that we can deal with this. There s many, many different things that you could describe. For each time you experience this agitation or this confusion of mind, you need to apply a different strategy to overcome it. Sometimes that means just not doing anything, just letting the mind disappear, and sometimes it actually means applying a direct antidote to that thought.
For example, if someone makes you angry, and you can’t just let the anger subside, you just don’t think anger is pointless and it doesn’t just subside, then you need to apply antidotes to anger. The antidote, guess the best or the easiest antidote to anger is perhaps to try and figure out what it is you’re angry at. Are you angry at a person? Are you angry at something that they did? If you start doing this, then the thing that you’re angry at tends to disappear.
Right? So if you’re angry at a person and think why am I angry at this person? Whatever they did to me, they did because they want to be happy. They don’t know how to be happy, they still want to be happy, they have all these mistaken ways of trying to make themselves happy, so in that they’re exactly the same as me, so there’s really no reason for me to get angry at them. This is one way, one process we can go through in order to get rid of that confused state, agitated state of being angry.
But there’s many different ways to deal with things, and it depends on the individual situation. I I I’ve got the wrong part of the Yes. I was saying the wrong part of the prayer, and he’s going, that’s not so. No. That’s not sock.
It’s sock. I’m like, no. That’s putting up with so. Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. It says yeah. It’s talking about the other five perfections. Yeah. Mhmm.
Yeah. Actually like a literary convention in Tibetan text that instead of listing whole groups of things, they’ll say the first one and then say etcetera. So it’s it’s like it’s not that the others don’t mean anything. It’s just that the first one is is generosity, so they say generosity, etcetera. And and it’s first it’s another way of saying the six perfections.
Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. It’s easy in English. It doesn’t get you.
Like, what are you talking about? It’s impossible thing to translate. Okay. Yes. Is it is it the problem is that you’re using the the word perfection doesn’t translate into Tibetan very well.
Right? Because it means the word that’s translated as perfection is this word that literally means gone to the other side. So I was like, if if ethics has gone to the other side, does the others go to the other side? And Geshe-la was like, what are you talking about? You know?
So and I was like, alright. So if we perfect the perfection of ethics and he said, but the perfection of ethics is a perfection. Alright? Anyway, so So the reason that the reason that these things are called see, this is perfection is just a weird it it I can’t think of anything better, so, you know, keep using it, whatever, but it doesn’t work, really. So these things are called the six paramita because they’re the six things that lead to Buddhahood.
Alright? The six things that make you go to the other side. Alright? So you they’re they’re based on the development of bodhicitta. They’re based on the idea of working towards enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings.
So they’re based on this motivation to go to the other side. And so they are that which carries the bodhicitta to the other side. So anything that you do that’s perfection incorporates the other five. Alright? So anytime that you may you are motivate