Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. What separates Nyingma and Gelug views on emptiness? That student question drives the longest exchange in this 35-minute question-and-answer session with Geshe Pema Tsering, part of a series on Śāntideva’s Bodhisattva Way of Life. Before reaching it, he unpacks verse 34’s warning: disrespecting a bodhisattva is more serious than ordinary rudeness because it also dismisses the qualities of bodhicitta, making those qualities harder to cultivate in oneself. A question about giving money to beggars produces a brief exchange on motivation versus condescension. The emptiness discussion covers nihilism, eternalism, and Lama Tsongkhapa’s reading of Candrakīrti, before landing on a practical summary: investigate any object and its essence vanishes; stop and you still experience it. Things appear but nothing is inherently findable — and that, Geshe says, is all emptiness means.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2005 05 17Bodhisattva Way Of Life B.mp3
UUID: 60784def-99b7-4f6e-945d-d29445502d19
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Way of Life 2005 Mar -2007 (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-05-17
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 35.1 minutes
Words: ~2,604
Sorry. Okay. So the first of these three sections then was the reason it is unreasonable to belittle a Bodhisattva in even the slightest way. Okay. And that is described in the next verse, which is verse thirty four and says, and those who harbor evil in their minds against such lords of generosity, the Buddha’s heirs, he’s talking about bodhisattvas, will stay in hell, the mighty one has said, so that is the Buddha, the Buddha has said, for ages equal to the moments of their malice.
We will explain that in a week because time’s up. And he said, I also have to tell you that I told you time’s up and I’m tired. Okay. So that it’s not him that wants to stop, it’s me. Yeah, yeah.
Sorry. But you can ask questions. But you’re allowed to ask questions. Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.
You’re talking about, you know, if someone disrespect to Buddha. Uh-huh. Bodhisattva. Yeah. Yeah.
Everybody hear that? Okay. So how’s it in this verse it said if you’re disrespectful to a Buddha or a Bodhisattva, right? And here I was asking how are the implications of that different to whether to when you’re disrespectful to just another Being. Another Alright.
So there is a difference. There’s a difference between being rude to normal beings and being rude to or disrespectful or harming Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. It’s not to say that being rude to ordinary beings, being disrespectful or harming them is okay because it’s not. Still a negative action that has negative consequences and is a bad karma. Alright?
Always bad karma to be rude. Yeah? But it’s more so when you’re dealing with a bodhisattva or a Buddha because you’re not just being rude to person, but you’re being rude to that person’s qualities. So, means you’re being disrespectful towards the mind of enlightenment if you’re rude to a Bodhisattva. Alright?
And, you’re being disrespectful to the state of Buddhahood if you’re rude to a Buddha or you’re harming harming a Buddha. So it’s not just the person that you’re being rude to that you have the negative results of that action but also the you have the negative results of a disrespect towards those qualities. So that would mean for example that it would be if you disrespected something like Buddhahood or a bodhisattva, it’s gonna be harder for you to develop those qualities yourself. So that’s a different issue, isn’t it? If you’re if you’re disrespectful to Geshe-la, if we’re disrespectful to you and we’re rude to you, we’re not just rude to you, but we’re rude to all your positive qualities as well.
All of mine. Yeah, all of yours. Alright? We’re dis we’re dis dismissing your positive qualities as well. Yeah.
Going back to when Geshe-la said about giving money to beggars. Mhmm. I think about if you give money to a beggar and they go and use it, for instance, they go along with a lot of people, and a lot of people give and say, dollars, and they collect all this money up to go and buy alcohol and get drunk and harm someone. He was talking about beggars in India who aren’t gonna be going to buy alcohol. Well, not always.
Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. Alright. So should I just dismiss that question?
Maybe. No. No. That’s fine. I’m just yeah.
Hang on. It’s just Geshe-la’s experience with beggars is gonna be very different to yours. Yeah. That’s all. But yeah.
And you still get figures here. I mean, you still get a whole approach and say, oh, if you got some money, can I have some money? You know what I mean? He’s every time you say to him, you know, if you don’t have a job, the government gives you money, you’re like Okay. Alright.
So Geshe said that giving is always a good action. Right? You’re not it depends on what your motivation is. So if you’re thinking if you’re thinking, I’m not I am going to give to this person because it’s good to try and help something someone out. Right?
Then that’s one thing. If you’re thinking, I’m not going to give to this person because they could go out and buy alcohol with it then that would be, he said patronizing or condescending, alright? I’m better than them, I know what’s better for them than they do, I’m not giving them money, alright? But at the same time if you know that they’re going to use what you give them to harm themselves then you have a responsibility not to do it. Right?
So giving is always good. Yeah? But sometimes you need to be a little bit intelligent about it as well. So basically you can give to them and it’s their responsibility to do whatever. I guess it’s their responsibility.
And I just told him, I was just saying, there’s a lady in the markets and she was going around going, can you spare a dollar? Can you spare a dollar to everyone, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, I’m not giving you money, you’re gonna buy alcohol.
Right. That’s what I thought. And then I saw her ten minutes later and she’d wanted change because she was giving all these kids rides on the little toy cars. And I was like, oops. Anyway, yeah.
Alright, so yes, that would be one of the ways that they would do, that was one of the things that they would do. Through their perception they’re able to see what is best for people and what’s going to harm them, for beings and what’s going to harm them. And guess I said not just people, they’d also be trying to help ants out and anything that they can do to alleviate suffering and lead beings out of saṃsāra. But they can only do what they can because whether we go what experiences that we have is because of our ignorance. Alright?
So they so it said that the Buddha’s wisdom is like the sun. It’s always shining, but whether we see it or not depends on our our perception, our ability. Yep. Alright. So they not only have the ability to see what’s gonna happen, but they also have the ability to know whether they’re able to do something to be of benefit to us or not.
And if they are able to be of benefit to us then they will do it. If they’re not able to be of benefit then there’s no point doing it. So they’re constantly acting in order to benefit others. And I was just saying to you guys, it’s a bit difficult because they’re from, you know, from a in a Christian culture. We have to get our heads around that because the Christian God is said to be omnipotent as well as omniscient and the Buddhas aren’t omnipotent.
Right? So they’re omniscient but not omnipotent. Yeah? So the the only beings who have the power to get rid of our suffering are ourselves. Yeah?
They can lead us to that state and show us how to get there but we’re the only ones who can actually do it. So they don’t have the power to get rid of our negative karma, we do. So the Buddha’s wisdom and the Buddha’s blessings or inspiration, this word blessing could also mean inspiration that can inspire us to want to get out of saṃsāra, inspire us to want to achieve things. It’s likened to a hook and our faith or our open ness to that is likened to a ring, right? But in order to get out of Samsāra, you need both, right?
In order for a Sorry. In order to be hooked up, in order to be taken up by a hook, you need a ring, yeah? So we need to have the faith and the openness to the inspiration of the Buddhas to get taken out of Samsāra. It’s the two things together that get us out of Samsāra. The Buddha’s wisdom, the Buddha’s path and the instructions and so on, and our openness and our faith in that path.
Then two of them need to be there together. So they know who’s going to develop faith or openness or be inspired or whatever it is to get out of saṃsāra, sorry they know that. But we don’t always have the capacity to develop that faith or inspiration. So, you know, you’re in hell, then if you’re in a hell state then the idea of having faith in a Buddha and getting out — just when they hear about compassion in hell beings get frightened because it’s so unusual for them. And also, if you’re in a hungry ghost realm or in spirit realm, you’re so consumed with needing sustenance or needing needing things that you you don’t notice it.
And many times in the human realm, we’re so distracted that we don’t notice it. So there’s there’s always things that can interrupt that. That makes it difficult for us to develop that openness or the openness to inspiration perhaps. You’ve asked one. Man, Peter had his hand up too.
See, it’s just being a Bodhisattva. That’s not fair, no. Giving is positive. The idea of being superior to someone else is negative. So you have a it’s it’s both.
Does that make it neutral? It makes it both. Yeah. It’s not neutral. It’s both.
I wanted to ask, does the Nyingma lineage or tradition Mhmm. Hold a different view of emptiness to the Gelug tradition? Mhmm. Did everyone hear that? So there’s four different traditions in Tibetan Buddhism and two of them are Nyingma and the Gelug schools and she asked if they have a different view of emptiness.
Okay. They don’t have a different view of emptiness because they both have this idea of emptiness being the lack of inherent existence but have a slightly different view about the wisdom perceiving emptiness. So No, sorry. I’ve read recently a statement that said to be cultivating in a bodhicitta view As opposed to out of bodhicitta, which would be what? Yeah.
That’s you should remember three times three times a night, in your mind that although the mind fixates on objects that nothing actually exists. And I thought, isn’t this a bit nihilistic? No. No. No.
No. It’s just Geshe-la and I are having this discussion because they’ve like, the view that I tend to agree with and practice is that one and his is not. So we’re having a discussion. I’ll translate it. Okay.
First of all, Geshe-la said he hasn’t studied the Nyingma teachings. Right? And he said, but it would seem to him if you’re saying nothing at all exists, that that would be the extreme of nihilism. Right? And I said, yes, Geshe-la, but you guys saying something would exist means that the Nyingma guys say the Gelugpas have fallen into the extreme of eternalism.
Right? So these these two extremes. So it’s just polemics. So Geshe-la hasn’t studied the Nyingma tradition, he said. Right?
He’s had teachings on it from the Dalai Lama, but he hasn’t done enough of the training to make a comparison, right? So then he said, he reckons if you say nothing exists at all that you have fallen into nihilism and then I said, yeah, but Geshe-la the Nyingma tradition says that the Gelugpas have fallen into eternalism because they say something exists. Right? And then he says, so what do they say then? Right?
And I said, well, I think it’s that they say that the emptiness or suchness or whatever you wanna call it is beyond expression and as soon as you say it’s this or it’s that, it exists or it doesn’t exist, it’s not it. Alright? And he said, oh, that’s the same as rabbit’s horns. Alright? And I said, no, because rabbit’s horns are nonexistent and this is not saying it’s an existent or a nonexistent.
And he said, that doesn’t make any sense and I said, yeah, but I’m probably not arguing it properly because I’m not a Geshe. And then and he said, he doesn’t know about it. This And then the thing to remember is that there’s just different positions on and different positions on this and they’re very they’re arguing over very fine details whether something appears or whether it exists conventionally. Yeah. Right?
That’s a very fine distinction. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s not that much of a problem. So one side says they appear and then the like Nyingma Kagyu side says they are that phenomenon appear but they don’t exist.
Yeah? And then the Gelugpa side says that they appear no, sorry, that they exist conventionally. Distinction. Alright? So it doesn’t matter that much.
Alright? And then he said, but we follow what Geshe-la said, but we in the Gelugpa tradition follow what Candrakīrti said. And I was like, yeah, but they say that you don’t follow what Candrakīrti said. And he goes, but we do. And then and then, specifically the way that Lama Tsongkhapa interpreted Candrakīrti’s teachings and then that was passed down through his students.
So there’s there’s different, like, very, very slight differences in the different traditions. When you think about emptiness, and you’ve got all these kind of things that come into it, you just think, oh my god, this is just an enigma that I feel like I’m never gonna actually figure out. Okay. Okay. So Geshe said, you can get confused with details.
You don’t have to worry about details. Just think, if you look for things, you can’t find them. They disappear. Alright. So when we look Okay.
So when we look for things, we can’t find them. We can’t find the the essence of a an object that makes it it. If we take it apart, it disappears. Disappears. With our investigative mind, we don’t see anything.
But then when we’re not investigating, we experience things. In this way, we think is it inherently existing, then we start investigating and it doesn’t inherently exist, things don’t solely exist by themselves. But then we experience them so we can’t say that it’s nihilistic either. So whether they appear or whether we experience them as conventions doesn’t matter, alright? The idea is whether you’re able to find something inherently, yeah, which you aren’t, and whether you experience something, which you do.
Alright? So, in this way, things exist, they just don’t exist the way they appear to us as existing. So emptiness is in one way is very simple because all you’re saying is things appear to be solidly existent. When you start looking for them, you can’t find them. And because you can’t find them, you have to say they don’t inherently exist and that’s emptiness.
Yeah. As I was about to say before, it seems more simple than the way we actually make it. Because as I said, even though it may seem simple, it’s still very difficult because actually believing that and actually seeing things that way is very hard and it’s by not seeing these things that way that we live in Samsāra. So to perceive these things directly, not only need that wisdom, we also need to have the positive merit to be able to perceive things directly through developing bodhicitta and everything. One more.
One more. I think everyone else is gonna shoot you. Keep it for next week. It’s ten to nine. Yeah.
If if you get desperate, can ask him after.