Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The vivid image of a person carefully guarding a serious wound while pushing through a chaotic World Cup soccer crowd anchors Geshe Pema Tsering’s central argument in this 35-minute session: protecting the mind is the most important practice of all. He explains why bodhicitta — the altruistic intention — is what transforms ordinary virtuous activity into genuine perfection of the six perfections, and why one can afford to lose material comforts or even individual liberation vows but must never let bodhicitta slip. He then introduces verse 23 of Śāntideva’s text, framing mindful awareness of body, speech, and mind as the practical method of protection. A closing Q&A addresses defeating anger through patience, the necessity of wisdom realizing emptiness for liberation, and why morning meditation drowsiness varies by individual.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 18 Guide 2002 06 06.mp3
UUID: 3f2a486b-b30d-4cc4-b4a6-dc79320d42ba
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Way of Life (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-06-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 34.9 minutes
Words: ~2,122
One one will never be free from. So therefore the entire, the attainment of dependent or virtuous deeds comes through mind or from mind And and the yeah. bodhicitta is cultivated through one’s oh, yeah. Through one’s mind as well as perfection of the six perfections and attaining, completing, completion of the so called ten grounds and five paths are also true, are perfected or attained through one’s mind but through training one’s mind as well even for this the happiness in the next life or so called the higher rebirth in the next life. This also comes through protecting one’s mind.
So now here is a Okay. So there is two ways of saying the perfection yeah. The yep. The perfection of generosity and so forth six, which is perfection of generosity yeah. Ethical discipline so forth six perfection.
And there’s so called generosity and so forth. So there’s a difference of placing the perfection in the front. One one are with the perfection and one is without and the sixth are without the perfection. So the without perfection one can be complete or can be practiced or complete through practicing, yeah, without bodhicitta but in order to perfect the six perfection one has or one should perform the practice or those practice should be uphold by the the bodhicitta or altruistic intention. Without bodhicitta, one will not perfect the six perfections of wisdoms.
Sorry. Six perfections. But but but without bodhicitta yeah. Repeating here. Without bodhicitta, one can attain the generosity and so forth.
Six generosity, ethical discipline, effort, and so yep. Got it. So, therefore, though it is very important for one to protect one’s mind, and the way of protecting one’s mind has been explained in the next five verses, the way we stopped last one. So therefore, by saying all the reasons, now one should one should try to protect one’s mind. And the practice of protecting one’s mind is the best practice.
Otherwise, without protecting one’s mind, then the the practices of, you know, doing one’s sadhanas’ daily commitments and so forth are useless. So therefore, the one should yep. One should not let the yeah. That’s right. So out of the practice, the practice of practicing one’s mind is the ultimate practice one can do and without protecting those then then without protecting then there is not much use of having lots of commitments and so forth and if one protects the one’s mind all the time then then then then then the the practices like lots of commitment is not necessary.
So therefore therefore therefore should always guide one’s mind and be very careful with where one’s mind is directing either towards the positive or non virtuous actions. For example, one should yeah there is a bit of a correction here but I don’t think it’s necessary in English because the author here is explaining about the in the actual root text, particular one particular verse has had a couple of very ancient dialects and for that particular because it’s a Tibetan word and he’s saying that the prose was saying has seen different explanation by the different people but what it is, it is depends on you to examine. That’s what I said, but it’s already written in English translation. They’re talking about the Tibetan spelling here. Anyway, so and and at the end the author says, the briefly speaking then once what it means, the verse, is one should be very careful and be be very careful like a person who has a huge wound in his or her body somewhere other than the limbs and so forth.
And it happens to be in a very rush hour, lots of crowded and so forth. And Geshe-la here says this is World Cup soccer and it’s restless. People just run here and there. So and then you happen. The person happened to be in the crowd.
So the person will be very careful with his or her wound. They’re making sure nobody touch on this side and this side. So be very mindful. So likewise, always got one mind like that person and then making sure if, yeah, if through concentration, one finds one’s mind is after after the non virtuous, protect it, stop it, and not let go. It’s after the non virtuous, and then if it’s in the positive actions or positive thought, then try to maintain it as long as one can.
So through this way, one protects the mind. Yes. So if the person is very careful to protect the wound and be very mindful and protecting and not getting worse or harm to this wound And in reality we don’t really need to pay attention for that. It’s rather better to be very mindful towards one’s mind, protect it even more than the wound because the wound is just a wound. And and if it’s been touched or scratched, it it will harm a little bit, not much, and and also be harmed for a little while or temporarily harmed.
Whereas if one does not protect the mind and let it go after those non virtuous actions like three poisons, the attachment, desire attachment or hatred and anger. Hold on. Yeah? Anger. And as a result of this, one will take rebirth in a hell realm and goes through huge suffering for all the time.
And those sufferings are much more worse than just getting a scratch on one’s wound. And the sufferings in hell realms are like, you know, sometimes you’ve been you are being squeezed between two mountains in a moving, moving, moving and So by thinking all the disadvantages of all these sufferings in lower rebirths and by seeing this and then and protect one’s mind, making sure that one will not be born in those places. So therefore and so if one protects once the mind or through not by watching the three doors body, speech and mind by being very mindful as well as applying very cautious or conscientious, then if one does all this, then no matter where one stays, no matter how many matter how one stays in a rough area, violent area for example, one will not be harmed if one protects all the three doors, protect one’s mind and guide it through the three doors then how rough the place it is but one will not be harmed as well as where even if one lives in the place where all the objects of attractions or the desire or attachments are there, like if the male, yeah, being in a crowd, you know, with beautiful ladies or girls in a place or it’s a man, yeah, and if it’s a girl with a man, no matter how many attractions are there, if your mind has been protected through three doors and leading, preserving all those, so yeah.
All the individual liberation vows, then one will be well protected and don’t don’t need to be worried for the external attractions. So Geshe-la says he’s not saying easy things here. And the the what yeah. Therefore, you know, it’s important for one to protect one’s mind and uphold the bodhicitta. And it doesn’t matter if one loses all these conditions or facilities to sustain one’s life, like the food and shelter as well as like or talking about frustrations for the people hierarchies.
And being in a throne as well as you know, yep receiving gifts and invitations for teachings and offerings and so forth. If one loses all this doesn’t matter don’t worry as well as even if one lose all the virtuous one is cultivated for individual liberation, don’t worry. If they lose it, let let go of those. But in all the time, one should be very careful that one careful not to lose the altruistic intention or bodhicitta. That is very important.
That should be the one to protect. And if one by protecting those, if one loses others, like which we have mentioned, doesn’t matter at all. And now we have come to the second division. So we’ve lost a trend, don’t we? Anyway, it’s it’s it’s second yeah.
Probably sounds like the one of the main main divisions here. Second, now to yeah. Being conscientious as to protect the mind and also now and for the yeah. The second, how to protect the method of protecting the mind through being mindful. It has, like, a deep brief explanation and the details explanation.
So the the brief explanation was set for explained in the one the next single verse. So we lost track, didn’t we? Has anybody been following when we said nine verses and ten verses? Twenty three. Yeah.
Exactly. You are the one. And And yeah so yeah it was explained in verse twenty three which is right. Yeah, Oh you who wish to guide your mind. So saying that that the meaning of those is that one should be very mindful and always be alert that check once the actions of the three doors, body, speech and mind and examine, acknowledge it through the mental alertness where they are directing to the positive or or sort of virtuous or non virtuous action and and applying the great effort and being very, applying the true mental alertness, making sure the mind is or the three doors, body, speech and mind are into the virtuous actions and cultivate no matter how hard it is to protect the actions of the three doors.
So I will guide them even at the cost of my life or one’s life. And this is how the I, the great I, the Śāntideva, Zhiwa Lha in Tibetan, the Śāntideva has protected and requesting here by holding hands together and requesting us to guide the actions of the three doors. This is the one to do. And and here comes the second subdivision of that one division, which is the detailed explanation, which will start next week.
A couple of questions. Did you understand? Yes. If you defeat the anger, sorry for that, the internal the anger, by defeating anger, which means then you will never be angry again at all, by defeating or destroying that anger, the external harms or enemies will be automatically defeated, that one will not be harmed in all the time. Is that it?
Yes, please, gentlemen. It is done through not getting angry. Being patient, and for example, like, an ordinary enemy that if the person provokes you once or hits you once and be patient, twice patient, you know, gradually because you’re not responding for it and being patient inside, the person will automatically stop later on, who won’t retaliate or nothing’s going to happen. No. It is like in ourselves, for example, you know, to harm somebody, and you try it once, and you think you harmed the person but the person didn’t change it or neglect you your harm.
Do it second time somehow and later on you just give up, you know, instead feel embarrassed that you caused something but it’s not doing bad back to you. So this is how it goes in the same direction, other direction. I think we said that the to attain the nirvana or means mere liberation, which is free from cyclic existence, and the Buddhahood or enlightenment, enlightened state without So without wisdom realizing emptiness one will not attain those. So what Geshe-la meant was so one should try to generate the wisdom realizing emptiness through protecting one’s mind. Sorry about that.
I find myself very often sleeping in the morning meditation. It’s yep. It depends on persons, the so called elements, the the the yeah. Yeah. The meeting of the external and internal elements.
For example, like some people they say that their practices and so forth are better at the nighttime and evening than the morning, and some says in the morning is better than the evening. So it depends on the contact of personal internal elements and external elements. And we have, you know, when we were young in monastery and in the morning we memorized the text, some students said it is it is better for them not to have a cup of tea, go through and to memorize yeah, to memorize the text and one can it’s easier for them to memorize the text and and, you know, it comes very easily and then had a cup of tea. And some said, no, without a cup of tea in the morning, it’s not staying in. Know?
I can’t remember. So it depends on the individual. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
No. So what about you? Okey dokey.