Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Pema Tsering opens this 47-minute session by distinguishing aspirational from engaged bodhicitta, then lists the eighteen root downfalls of the engaged vow. A lively exchange follows: is crushing an anthill self-cherishing? The story of Jangkya Rinpoche — who chose death over killing the bug boring into his nose — sharpens the point. Geshe-la then offers practical grounding: since we still have strong self-cherishing, keep cleaning your teeth rather than imitating advanced bodhisattvas. Q&A covers the difference between nirvana and Buddhahood, why bodhicitta must extend to all sentient beings and not just those we feel connected to, and what Buddhist meditation actually means, illustrated with a car-attachment example. The session closes with a poisoned-food analogy for renunciation: recognising saṃsāra’s real faults is what turns the mind away, not suppressing pleasure by force.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2005 04 26b Bodhisattvas Way of Life.mp3
UUID: 71c6ec7d-d2ed-46e1-bbbf-3793858d4d4d
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Way of Life 2005 Mar -2007 (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-04-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.9 minutes
Words: ~3,507
No. Said, there are vows that are engaged. I was like, yes. Okay. So there’s two different types of bodhicitta vows of bodhicitta or vows of bodhicitta.
There is the aspirational vow. That is to try and develop the idea of attaining enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. There’s also other vows you can take the engaged Bodhisattva vows which are is is actually one vow with eighteen different parts and if you lose any of them, any of the eighteen parts you lose the vows, right? And that says to be a negativity. But considering the positive merit that you accumulate by keeping these vows for even a second, it’s said to be good to take it and keep trying, keep taking and keep trying cause it’s very difficult to keep.
Okay. So the first thing that you have to abandon is praising yourself and belittling others. Alright. If you do that once, you lose a vow. Okay.
Even not giving material aid even though you’re able to. Holding a grudge and not accepting others apologies, that’s number three. Abandoning the Mahāyāna teachings by saying that some of the teachings aren’t great, some of the baskets aren’t that great. Taking back offerings from the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha. Criticizing the scriptures of the lower vehicles.
Yeah? Oh, sorry. Any of the three vehicles, Shravakas, Pratyekabuddha or Bodhisattvas. Harming an ordained person by inflicting violence on them, stealing their robes or causing them to lose their vows. Committing any of the five heinous acts such as killing your mother, your father, an arhat, causing disunity among the Sangha or wounding a Buddha, cultivating and holding wrong views such as sectarianism, denying the existence of the Three Jewels and the law of cause and effect, destroying any towns or cities by firebombs, pollution, black magic, and so forth.
So teaching voidness or teaching emptiness to those who aren’t ready to understand it, turning someone away from working towards enlightenment, encouraging others to abandon their vows, causing others to hold incorrect views, proclaiming false realizations of emptiness, accepting gifts as gifts material you know has been stolen or embezzled from the Three Jewels, taking material from someone who is meditating on calm abiding and giving it to someone who merely recites texts,, abandoning bodhicitta by thinking, I cannot I cannot help sentient beings or I do not want to help that particular sentient being. So as you can see, that’s pretty hard to keep those. Geshe-la said that he thinks that all of those are very, very difficult to keep. So, there’s something that we need to keep training in and trying to develop. They’re not some things that we should take as easy.
And I said, well, Geshe-la, haven’t destroyed any cities lately. He said, really? You’ve never destroyed an anthill? What’s that? Geshe-la said, yeah, that’d be an example of self-cherishing.
We consider our teeth to be more important than, the bugs that live in our mouth. And that’s if we think about it, then our teeth really aren’t as important as other beings, but we can still because we have self-cherishing, that’s why we look at it. So I guess I heard of a there was a — okay. Alright. So there was a man from Purchok whose name was Jangkya Rinpoche, who was doing retreat outside of Lhasa, and he had a bug had bit bored into his nose somehow.
And the doctor said, if you don’t kill the bug, you’re going to die. And he said, so be it. I’m not killing the bug. And he died.
Yep. That’s okay. I’m yep. Does it involve light beings from outer space?
No. Okay. Then we’re right. Geshe-la was talking about You know, Uh-oh. Uh-oh.
Okay. So Geshe-la said though, if we have bodhicitta, that losing our teeth to plaque wouldn’t be a problem for us. We shouldn’t be trying to do things that we don’t have the ability to do yet. Alright, so he said for Bodhisattvas, they’re not going to be having any regret about losing their teeth to the plaque. Alright, so for them it would be a great opportunity to do something to benefit sentient beings and they’d be very happy about it.
So if you’re not happy about losing your teeth to plaque, don’t worry about it for now, he said. Okay. What we’re dealing with is trying to what we’re dealing with is trying to develop the ability to not to be able to give our life even for others and that because we don’t have the ability to do that, we’re going to keep cleaning our teeth. Alright. Okay.
Yeah. Okay. And I’m not retranslating. I’m not saying that again for the tape. I was trying to think of how to say it’s written.
Uh-uh. Uh-uh. So Geshe said that he yes. There would be many many different minds or different mental factors that would accompany even just the one thought of I wanna go across the room. So there’s what are called the four ever present mental factors.
They’re going to accompany that. There would also be the so the the idea I’m going to cross the room is a mental consciousness. So it’s a my a main mind, but you would have accompanying that in a perhaps a feeling, a discrimination, and other types of mental factors. You’d have taking into consideration what needs to be done in order to get to the other side of the room. And then you would have also the visual and other experiences of the other senses.
You would have minds experience minds that relate to those senses. So, for example, if you were deciding you were gonna go somewhere, while you were deciding you were gonna go somewhere, you may see something across the room. So, there’s all of these other things that that have come along with it. So, you never just have one single intention to do something. Alright?
There’s he said also, if we’re talking about how this works in conjunction with bodhicitta, you would have the idea of what you’re doing is virtuous or not. That may come into it. Is this is is going across the room beneficial or not? Alright? So there’s all of these different processes where they can be very subtle and can be it can may not necessarily be noticed.
Yeah. Well, I would use that Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
So in the idea of having the idea to go somewhere doesn’t isn’t the analogy here that’s used to to distinguish engaged bodhicitta from aspiring bodhicitta says that when those thoughts aren’t accompanied by a physical action or a mental mental, verbal, or physical action, they are aspirational bodhicitta. When they are accompanied by a mental, physical, or aspirate you know, the three of them, then they are engaged bodhicitta. But, guess, I’ll say the other thing is too that you need to take into consideration this physical sensation is considered a mind in Tibetan Buddhism. So, the idea of your leg stretching out and everything like that is also considered a thought. The feeling of your leg stretching out, it is also Yeah.
Called quality. It’s called what? Quality. Can you translate that one? Feeling.
Feeling. Okay. Yeah. That doesn’t even work. Yeah.
Hang on. Heather’s waiting if she’s still got a question. Yes, what’s the difference between nirvana and enlightenment? Question was, what’s the difference between nirvana and enlightenment? Okay.
The difference between the nirvana of an arhat, right? Yeah? And the Buddha Buddhahood of a fully enlightened Buddha, right? Is that the nirvana of an arhat consists of the extinguishing of the negative emotions, the kleshas, right? And Buddhahood is not only the extinguishing of the kleshas but the getting rid of what are called the obscurations to omniscience or the obscurations to knowledge.
So nirvana only happens to our hearts and then The nirvana of an arhat only happens to arhats. Yeah. Because you can also talk about the nirvana of a Buddha. Yeah. Hang on.
I didn’t finish what you were saying because a Buddha by definition in Tibetan is one who has gotten rid of all faults and accomplished all positive qualities. Right? And you can’t say the same thing about an arhat because they still have obscurations to knowledge. Mhmm. Oh, yeah.
Yes, Joe? Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Guess what things that most of mostly everything we do is only for our own benefit. Alright. Even though we think that it’s for the benefit of others, mostly everything that we do is for our own benefit. And this is why when we’re trying to develop bodhicitta, we don’t try and develop bodhicitta or working for others benefit based on one or two other people. We develop it and develop it based on the vastest of ideas which is the idea of all sentient beings.
Because as long as we are thinking of doing something for others benefit and we’re thinking of doing it for one other person’s benefit or people we know’s benefit or the people of earth’s benefit or people that we have some kind of connection with, yeah, then it’s still they’re still grasping involved with that. There’s still people that we have some kind of that we feel will give us something back in return. So this is why the idea of bodhicitta is, it talks so much about developing, compassion for all sentient beings, doing something for the benefit of all beings, not just the ones that we may know, not just the ones that we may get something back from. Alright? Because if we don’t have that idea, everything we’re doing will still be tainted with what am I going to get out of this?
Alright? And because we have so habituated ourselves to, thinking of ourselves since beginningless time, right, since forever we’re constantly thinking of ourselves. It hasn’t helped us much but that’s what we’ve been doing. It does springs up naturally and in order to get rid of that thinking of self, we need something a very kind of, a very and very vast antidote. The idea of thinking of ourselves is very small.
The idea of thinking of all other beings is very vast. So this is why I keep talking about thinking of all other beings. So that our mind won’t become fixated on those that are actually going to help us and those that aren’t. Alright. So this is what we need to train in and this is what the idea of working for all other beings and what we’re trying to get rid of is the idea of working for ourselves and that’s something that keeps coming up very naturally for us.
And if we keep thinking I’m doing something for those beings I know, someone I can I feel like I can relate to, someone that’s on the eyes on the earth at the same time as me, then we’re still very limited in the way we’re thinking. Yep. Yep. Yep. I’ve had a lot of Christian friends on, like, on that.
Uh-huh. Any type of meditation? Uh-huh. That’s really interesting that they say any type of meditation. Alright.
That’s a bit different to meditation. Yep. And they don’t think Jesus meditated. Okay. Okay.
I’d say Gesso said that he would think that what they’re talking about is that from their perspective, they would see meditation as changing the way that we think, changing the way that we are perceiving things and that if they may he said he doesn’t know that much about their philosophy or their way of or their theology, but he would think that perhaps they are saying they would think that because, they believe in a creator God and the creator God is in control of all beings, that if you were trying to, if you were meditating on something, then that may be going against what God wanted you to do. Right? He said that that perhaps that that’s what they would be thinking. He doesn’t know because he said he doesn’t he hasn’t studied Christian theology, but he would he thought that they that might be why they were saying that, that they may see it like that. Right?
He said, obviously, that’s not the case from a Buddhist point of view because from a Buddhist point of view, you’re trying to turn yourself into a to transform your mind and make you a more kind compassionate person. Yeah. So, it’s not the say it’s not what they were saying from a Buddhist point of view but he said, maybe that’s why they would say that. Yeah. Because I was thinking that’s why I was getting confused with the what you were saying before because I think there may be some kind of misunderstanding about what this word meditation means.
Yeah. Very evil. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So Geshe-la said that he thinks there also might be this misunderstanding of what meditation is.
Because the word meditation literally means to habituate yourself to something. And so, if you’re trying to habituate yourself to compassion or you’re trying to habituate yourself to to Jesus and belief in Jesus, then that’s what we would still consider meditation. Okay. So he would say for example, an idea of Buddhist meditation would be to to explain to you, that from Buddhist perspective, to be too attached to material objects, right? Like for example, a new car, yeah, is not helpful because it creates suffering.
Being thinking of material objects as being very important creates suffering. So the way you would meditate on this is like if you feel yourself being attached to a car really desiring a car, right? Then you’d look at what it is that you’re desiring and the faults of what it is that you’re looking at. So you would think, I really want this car, but in ten years it’s going to be old, you know? It’s not going to be it’s not gonna function properly.
It’s gonna cost a lot of money. Alright? And by looking at the faults of a car, you get a more realistic perspective of the car and you’re not just following your desires or your the the things you’re attached to without yeah, without without any control over what you’re doing. So, the Buddhist a form of Buddhist meditation would be to every time that you experience this, I’ve got to buy a new car, is to think, wait a minute, what am I doing? Is this important?
And examine it. So that would be a form of Buddhist meditation. So he thinks that meditation basically means watching what you’re thinking, you know, as opposed to trying to put yourself into transcendent state. So he think that there may be some confusion with that idea of what it is. Two is your answer.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Your last one. Yeah?
Yeah. I do. Okay. Okay. So, Geshe-la said, in some ways, you’re right.
Right? Because usually when we talk about aversion, we’re talking about a state of mind where we have ascribed qualities to someone or something that they don’t have and then have a repulsion from them because of those qualities we’ve ascribed to them that they don’t have. Right? And so, difference when we approach Samsāra is it’s something that we don’t see as having faults that we need to start seeing as having faults, right? So what we’ve actually ascribed to Samsāra is positive qualities that it doesn’t have, yeah?
And if we’re taking this super the things that we superimpose off Samsāra, then our natural reaction to that will be to not want anything to do with it, to want to get out of that. Now Geshe-la said he probably wouldn’t use the it’s it’s not something that he would call if you if you think that the word aversion has these connotations of ascribing negative qualities to something that it doesn’t have, then don’t use the word aversion. But it there is this sense of not wanting anything anything to do with it because it is completely faulty and it is not experience, nothing but suffering there. Right? But usually the idea of aversion is that you’re putting superimposing negative qualities on something that doesn’t that aren’t there.
But in Samsāra, there are negative qualities there that we usually superimpose good qualities on. What? Literally, it makes turn away from. Aversion. Yeah.
Yeah. So, yeah, to turn away. But I think it’s because yeah. Because because it’s you could try to there’s very all these specific words in Tibetan, and you’re trying to, like, squeeze them into English and it’s a bit. Yeah.
See, it because the the the the problems that come up so much in Tibetan because you know how we have this word renunciation and turning know, turning your back on and working towards, liberation. So in Tibetan, they distinguish that with, you know, a lot more specific words from this idea of superimposing negative qualities on something that it doesn’t have. But it becomes difficult in English because we don’t have those very specific definitions for these words and everything. So, yes. So, the words are pedantic.
You can be pedantic. No, that was me. So I guess, let’s say, he’s talking about when developing renunciation from saṃsāra and turning away from saṃsāra is that if, for example, you had really nice food in front of you, yeah, but this really nice food in front of you had poison in it that was gonna cause you to be get really sick in, fifteen years, and he said come out in all these boils and die. Right? And you didn’t know that the poison was in the food and the food was really tasty, you would start eating it.
Yeah? You’d be very happy about eating it. Right? But if someone came up to you and said, don’t eat that food. It’s got poison in it.
In fifteen years, it’s gonna kill you. Yeah? You wouldn’t no matter how tasty it was, you wouldn’t wanna eat it. And this is the right understanding we’re trying to develop about Samsāra. At the moment, it tastes really good and we don’t understand the consequences of engaging in the like the desires and the pleasures of Samsāra.
Once we develop an understanding of what the results of that are, we’re not going to want anything to do with it. So that’s what he’s talking about when he said, you know, aversion or renunciation from saṃsāra. He’s recognizing it for what it is. So I guess I said, no, we can’t. No, we can’t.
The way that we react to sensual pleasures is by becoming attached to them. Right? It’s a while we hold onto this idea of me and my pleasures or my happy like my, yeah, sensual pleasures, then, we’re always going to be attached to them. Yeah. So the idea is, to recognize that attachment to those things isn’t actually happiness, although we may perceive it as happiness, it’s a cause for suffering because anytime that we’re acting out of attachment or, desire or this, the mind that wants to cling to things, right, we’re going to experience suffering because those things don’t last.
Any of the sensual pleasures don’t last. So the more that we try and hold on to them, the more that we try and grasp at them, the more suffering we’re going to experience because they don’t keep going. Alright? So if we really wanna get out of Samsāra, have to recognize that. We have to recognize that being attached to the pleasures of the senses as we are is the reason that we’re stuck in Samsāra and the reason we can’t get out of it.
Yeah? And this attachment, this grasping is our problem. Yeah? So if we can recognize that, that means that when we experience these things, we can use that experience in a positive way and that experience can become a like a positive thing that’s gonna have positive results as opposed to an attached thing that’s going to have negative results. So and I said and then Geshe-la said something about, like, Ārya beings.
People have realized emptiness. They’re able to perceive these things and recognize them for what they are so they can then transform those experiences. But there’s no point talking about them because we’re not them, is what he said. And we do experience attachment to the senses and that’s what we need to work with. This is the reason that we experience so much suffering because we don’t get what we want and that our attachment to these things enforces habits enforces habits that perpetuate our grasping and perpetuate the results of grasping which is suffering when we don’t get what we want.
He thinks so, probably. Yeah. Turn this. Finish? Finish.
Oh. Oh, I know.