Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A teacher who admits to catching himself fantasizing about wealth makes this session distinctive: Geshe Pema Tsering describes, in this 68-minute commentary, how even he must interrupt such daydreams and ask what he is actually trying to achieve. This moment frames an examination of renunciation anchored in Lama Tsongkhapa’s verse on the rarity and brevity of precious human rebirth. He explains why even securing a good future rebirth misses the point, maps the three types of samsaric suffering — including why the suffering of change is so hard to see because we mistake it for happiness — and traces the chain from ignorance to karma to rebirth, presenting wisdom perceiving emptiness as the antidote. The session then turns to Chapter One of Śāntideva’s Bodhisattva Way of Life, comparing ordinary giving with bodhisattvas who work selflessly for all beings without limit in time, scope, or purity of motivation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2005 05 17Bodhisattva Way Of Life.mp3
UUID: da1dbb5c-5bf1-4fd7-ac47-4e908e3c1670
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: 68.3 minutes
Words: ~7,076
Alright, and then there’s a text or a prayer that was written by Lama Tsongkhapa that’s called The Three Principal Aspects of the Path and in the section that deals with renunciation, so I’m guessing that’s one of the three aspects, it says, This life with leisure and endowment is difficult to find and brief. By familiarizing the mind with it, we stop the allure of this life. If we frequently contemplate the cause and effect are non-deceptive and the sufferings of Samsāra, we stop the allure of future lives. So what this is talking about is that we tend not to think about the precariousness situation at the moment in that we have somehow managed to get a really good rebirth. Are in a lifetime at the moment where we have what’s called leisure and opportunity and leisure in that we have spare time.
We are not constantly tormented by suffering and we are able to do things, we are able to get things done. An opportunity in that we have the opportunity to practice Dharma and to put the Buddhist teachings into practice and find a way out of Samsāra. We have this opportunity but it’s a rare thing that we have now so we need to remind ourselves of just how precious it is and just how infrequently a lifetime like this comes around and we need to keep going over this again and again in our heads. And we also need to remember how brief this life is. We don’t tend to think about the fact that we’re going to die at some point but if we keep reminding ourselves of that and we keep reminding ourselves of the unique or the very rare opportunity that we have at the moment, then that’s going to stop us from focusing on the things that we usually consider to be important in this lifetime, material things, temporary things.
So by reminding ourselves of the rare opportunity we have, the fragility of that opportunity and the short time that we have this life for, then that will inspire us to want to make the most of it to try and get the best from this opportunity that we have. So to think on it again and again is very helpful for us. We don’t tend to think about this or reflect on how precious our life is. We tend to be dismissive of our experiences or we tend to be caught up in other things so we don’t we don’t notice just how precious the opportunity that we have at the moment is. We don’t tend to notice how precious the opportunity we have at the moment is.
We don’t tend to also notice how quickly that opportunity could leave us. The body that we have at the moment is impermanent and at some stage we will die. We don’t tend to remember that. And we also tend to remember how difficult it is to get an opportunity like this. Not only have we managed to achieve a human rebirth, but there are many different situations that we can be brought in as humans that aren’t very pleasant.
And the situation that we have at the moment when we’re in a we have leisure time, where we have the opportunity to focus on other things apart from the necessities of life, the things that we need to keep ourselves alive. The fact that we have the opportunity to focus on things other than that and the fact that we have the opportunity to do things like to meditate, to practice Dharma is a very rare opportunity. So we should be we need to remember that not only have we got a human rebirth which is a good thing, it’s better than having other types of rebirths, but we also have a very special human rebirth because we have these qualities to our life at the moment. We don’t tend to remember this and if we do remember this, then that will inspire us practice. Now, there’s one thing in there that may not seem clear and that is why it is so rare for us to get a human rebirth and especially a human rebirth that has all of these qualities, so many qualities that we would call it precious.
So the reason that it’s so rare that we get a human rebirth like this is because you need a whole bunch of causes and conditions to come together, karmic causes and karmic conditions to come together in order for us to achieve or to get a rebirth or a life like we have at the moment. And it’s very difficult to accumulate those especially if you are reborn as an animal or something. So in order to accumulate all those positive things, you need to be you have to sorry, it’s very rare to accumulate these things. It’s very rare to have pure ethics. It’s very rare to make prayers.
It’s very rare to practice generosity in those things, especially if you’re reborn as an animal and so So this is the first quality of a human rebirth, the fact that it’s difficult to find. That is, it’s difficult to create all of the conditions in order to achieve it or to bring it about. So it’s difficult to be in a situation where you practice ethics. It’s difficult to be reborn in a situation where you can practice generosity and so on. So that’s the first quality of a precious human rebirth.
The second one is that it is easily destroyed. Yeah, that just got brief here. It’s easy. It can be We can lose our life pretty easily. So we may not like to think about this, but if we breathe in, no, hang on.
If we breathe out and then we don’t breathe back in, we die. It’s that simple. It’s not that hard to die. You just don’t breathe back in. Yeah, so there may be many different circumstances that can cause us not to breathe back in but basically whether you live or not depends on whether you keep breathing in and out.
May think that it’s we may be have this idea that it’s very difficult for us to lose this lifetime but it’s not. You just don’t breathe back in and you’re dead. It’s that simple. That’s what we call gross impermanence. Our physical body is changing in every second.
That’s called subtle impermanence in every moment it’s changing but we don’t notice that. It’s very difficult for us to develop an understanding of subtle impermanence because it means noticing the very, very subtle changes that happen in our body constantly. But it is easy enough for us to think about gross impermanence, it is easy enough for us to get an idea of the fact that at some point we’re not gonna breathe back in and we’re gonna die, right? It’s easy enough for us to think about that. And having thought about that, that leads us to the idea of, all right, so I’m not going to live forever.
What should I be doing with my time in this lifetime? So if we think on these two things, if we think on the idea that we have a very rare opportunity that’s difficult to get all the causes together for and then the fact that it isn’t gonna last forever, that it is a brief lifetime that we are experiencing, then this shows us that chasing after the things that can only make us happy in this lifetime, chasing after things that are only gonna make us happy for very short amounts of time in this lifetime aren’t really worth it. If we keep reminding ourselves that our life is brief and if we keep reminding ourselves that it’s a rare opportunity, then we’re not going to be focused on things that are superficial, temporary wishes in this lifetime. We’re going to start focusing on practicing Dharma and things that are actually going to help us beyond that. Okay.
So, the second half of this verse then said, if we frequently contemplate that cause and result are non deceptive and the sufferings of Samsāra, we stop the allure of future lives. So what this is talking about is that even if we stop focusing on this life, even if we stop focusing on the temporary pleasures that we may experience now and trying to achieve them and we start focusing on future lives, we’re not going to get ourselves completely out of trouble or out of suffering. Because even if if we manage to attain a human rebirth in the next lifetime and that’s not something that we can be certain about because we don’t know because we have to create the causes for doing that. But even if we do manage to attain a human rebirth in the next life, it’s not as if we can stop ourselves from dying in the next life either. It’s not as if we can say, okay, I’ve achieved a good human rebirth, it’s gonna stop here, I’m gonna have a good pleasant experience for me here on.
It doesn’t work that way. In the same way that we experience the results of good and bad karma in this lifetime, we would again in a future lifetime as a human if we manage to attain the human rebirth. Experience happiness and we experience suffering. So if we kept being reborn as a human again and again and again and thereby missing out on the suffering of the lower realms, we still wouldn’t be continually, we still wouldn’t be completely out of suffering. We still would be experiencing suffering, we’d still be experiencing the results of the karma that we have accumulated.
And it says that cause and effect are non deceptive. So what this means is that you can’t get out of it easily. You can’t get out of your the results of your karmic actions easily. If you do something, you have to experience the results of it. So you can’t think, okay, I’ll get a good human rebirth.
I don’t have to worry anymore. karma keeps following us from lifetime to lifetime. So there’s the reason it says that karma is non deceptive, it means this, it’s what it’s talking about, is it doesn’t forget. It’s not like a consciousness that forgets, it’s a law of cause and effect. If we have a cause then we have an effect and that we have to experience that in different lifetimes.
Given that this is the case, given no matter how much we work, we’re still experience suffering in Samsāra, then that leads us to not just looking at getting a good rebirth next time around, it leads us to want to get out of Samsāra, to want to attain nirvana. If we look at not only how this life we can’t be happy without eliminating our destructive emotions, that’s one thing. But then we need to take it further and see that we are going to still be plagued by those in future lifetimes, experience their results which are the results of karma. So we should be trying to get completely out of the whole cycle. But it’s very difficult for us to develop this idea that we want to get out of Samsāra, that we want to achieve nirvana.
And the reason that it’s difficult for us to develop that idea is because it’s difficult for us to see Samsāra for what it is. Difficult for us to recognize Samsāra as an experience of nothing but suffering. So if we could recognize Samsāra for what it is, for a continuation of suffering, a continual experience of suffering, then we’d want to get out of it. But it’s difficult for us to think of this because some of the things that are actually by their nature’s suffering, we experience as being pleasant. There’s three different types of suffering in Samsāra.
There’s what’s called the suffering of suffering and then there’s also the suffering of change and then there’s what’s called pervasive suffering. So the suffering of suffering is something or manifest suffering is something that we can easily recognize as suffering. It’s something that we don’t want to experience and we very clearly understand is not a pleasurable thing. It’s not going to help us. But the other types of suffering, the suffering of change and pervasive suffering are not only something that we don’t recognize as suffering but they are experiences that we usually hold onto as being happiness, as being and we hold onto them as if they are what makes us happy.
So having holding onto these experiences as being happiness means that it’s very hard for us to recognize what they’re actually doing to us and wanna give them up. It’s very hard for us to renounce those aspects of saṃsāra. And the way that we have habituated ourself is that we are so familiar with them. We are so immersed. It’s two different ways to say habituated, isn’t it?
We’re habituated and we’re habituated. Anyway, we’re we’re so yeah. Maybe I can say immersed. We’re so habituated and we’re so immersed in Samsāra that we cling to the pleasant the glimpses of pleasant experience that we have in Samsāra as being true happiness even though they’re not. If they were true happiness, they wouldn’t they wouldn’t change.
If if their nature wasn’t suffering, we could that we could rely on them to be an experience of happiness that lasts forever. But we we don’t they’re not like that and we don’t recognize them as being not like that. So we grasp onto them and despite the fact that they are actually causes for us to perpetuate saṃsāra. So by holding onto or looking by reaching out for or working towards the positive aspects of Samsāra, all we’re doing is perpetuating Samsāra. If we’re working with this idea of attaining something in Samsāra in mind, we will attain it.
But what we’re we’re we’re attaining in that instance is Samsāra, we’re perpetuating our suffering. So most of the things that we do, if we look at the way that that we think, then most of the things that we do, even if they’re positive, even if we’re trying to do something selfless or concentrated on other people, most of the time our motivation is to get something out of it, all right? To make ourselves happy, to get some kind of respect or some something out of it. There’s some reason behind it. And because that’s most most of our motivation, what we are actually doing is creating the causes to experience more and more Samsāra.
Right? And in order for us to break that cycle, we have to look at it again and again and again and put in a lot of effort to investigate the stop it. I’m gonna sit on my hand. To break the cycle that we’re in, to break the habit that we’ve established of perpetuating saṃsāra, the cycle that is saṃsāra. So Geshe-la said at least this is the experience he has that it’s difficult to break that cycle.
He’s thinking that if he has it, then maybe other people do too. He can’t say for certain but he thinks that you probably may have a similar experience. And that is that unless you think about it a lot, unless you go through and think, okay, what’s the consequences of that? What’s that experience like? That it’s very easy to start thinking, oh, if I was just reborn in like a in heaven or if I was just reborn as a person with everything they needed, then I’ll be fine.
You know? It’s easy to it’s easy it’s easy to start thinking like that, To start thinking, Samsāra’s okay, I’ll be fine. Alright? So I just need to be reborn in a good spot. Alright?
So it’s easy to fall into thinking that. And the only way that Geshe-la said he can stop himself is to keep going, wait a minute, what am I doing? Why am I thinking like this? What am I actually trying to achieve? What are the faults of thinking like that?
And to go over it again and again and keep reminding himself of what it is that he’s actually thinking, alright, rather than just letting himself think that without analyzing it. Mhmm. That he said, I do think that. Yes. Yeah.
The mental fault or he has a fault in the way he looks at things because he doesn’t investigate enough or he doesn’t he said he he he finds himself drifting off into fantasies about being like rich or whatever and not reminding himself enough of what, you know, he doesn’t think properly enough is what he said. He doesn’t think well enough. Alright? So he has to keep reminding himself. And he says, so the way he remind himself is that, okay, so that person, you know, they’re really really wealthy and they may have everything going for them but I bet if I sat down and talked to them for more than three minutes, they’d start complaining.
Mhmm. I bet if I sat down and started talking to them and for a little bit time they start going, you know, I’m not really happy. I’ve got this experience and I’ve got this but you know, I’m still not happy. And then if you kept talking to them enough, come to the understanding that their experience is still, you know, a one of suffering, that they’re still experiencing suffering. So, with all those things that we think make us happy, they’re still not, they still wouldn’t be happy.
Alright, so if he keeps reminding himself of this, then it stops him wanting to go after all those things. And not only that, but even if you did happen to run into someone who was experiencing a very good period of happiness, happiness, alright? If they had everything they wanted and they were incredibly happy, even if you ran into someone like that, it wouldn’t last, alright? At some point, they’re going to die and they’re going to get sick and they’re going to lose their wealth. None of the happiness that we can attain in Samsāra is stable and this is why it’s called the suffering of change because it changes.
If it was true happiness, it wouldn’t change but because it changes, we can’t rely on it, It’s called the suffering of change. So they may start off life rich, end up poor, they may start off life healthy, end up sick, they may be rich, healthy and happy for the whole of one lifetime and end up a slave in the next, None of it is certain. In Samsāra, everything that we experience is a result of our actions, is a result of our karma, the causes we’ve accumulated. So there’s no stability there. And because there’s absolutely no stability there, because we are perpetually under the influence of the karma that we’ve created, what we constantly experience is the suffering of change.
This is the kind of thing that we need to contemplate, we need to go over again and again in their mind because our habits of grasping onto these things as being true causes of happiness is so strong. We need to put in a lot of effort to break those habits, to break those ways of thinking. So we need to go over and over again in our head, the experience of saṃsāra isn’t happiness. Being reborn as a human or in a in a heaven isn’t happiness. It’s just a reprieve from manifest suffering.
It’s still got the suffering of change. Anytime that we’re reborn in saṃsāra means that we’re born because of our karma and when we’re reborn because of our karma, we can’t say what’s gonna happen to us. We can’t choose what experiences we’re going to have. We can’t say how long our life is going to be. So the reason that we’re born in Samsāra is because of karma and delusions.
The delusive states of mind we have cause us to create karma that causes us to be reborn in Samsāra. And as long as that’s the cause for us to be born somewhere, we’re never truly going to be happy. We’re always going to experience either manifest suffering or the suffering of change or this idea of things not lasting, happiness not lasting. So given that this is the state of Samsāra, Samsāra isn’t a very nice place to be. It’s not it’s it’s it sucks.
Yeah. And I can’t think of any other way to say it. It’s really not very good. And to because of that then, when we come to that conclusion and when we have like gone over it again and again in our head and we’ve broken the habit that we have of clinging to the the some parts of Samsāra as being true happiness and then that’s when we develop renunciation and it’s through this idea, through this mind of renunciation or through this idea of wanting to get out of Samsāra that we’re able to achieve nirvana, that we’re able to achieve Liberation. So then we come to the conclusion after we’ve gone through all this process of figuring out what Samsāra is that we don’t wanna be here, that we don’t wanna be reborn through the power of karma and delusion.
Right? And we wanna get out of here. We wanna attain nirvana. We want to have control over our experiences and experience true happiness. Then we have to think, okay, how do I do that?
Alright? How do I bring that about? And if we look at what the problem is, the problem that we experience in Samsāra is that that all of our or the problem we face in Samsāra is that all of experiences are a result of the karma that we have accumulated because we have delusive states of mind or mental afflictions. Now the cause for those mental afflictions is ignorance. Mental afflictions destructive emotions are incorrect perceptions.
Alright? Looking at things incorrectly. And the main cause and that sorry, the root cause of all of those incorrect perceptions that we have about things, all of these destructive emotions is a grasping it a true self and the duality and turning things into subject and object. So that means creating a situation where we have a me who wants or something out there or doesn’t like something out there and therefore we have desire or attachment to some things and we have a aversion or anger towards others. So it’s when we’ve developed that duality of self and other of I and mine, then we these destructive emotions proliferate.
We act based on those the motivation of those destructive emotions and that creates a karma that we then experience results of our Samsāra. The basis for all of these emotions or destructive emotions, again, is ignorance. Now, the type of ignorance that is a problem is the ignorance that perceives the inherent existence of phenomena. So when we’ve misperceived, when we’ve made fundamental mistake like that, that we start thinking things exist in a solid independent autonomous singular way, unconnected way, then we start relating to them as if we are that as well, as if we are a solid in a solidly constructed autonomous individual individual, that’s not the way I’m showing it, singular permanent identity. That’s the way we start viewing ourselves.
So what we need to do to get rid of that misperception that’s causing the destructive emotions, that’s causing the karma, that’s causing the saṃsāra is to apply an antidote. And the antidote to the ignorance that holds onto phenomena as being truly existent is the wisdom that perceives emptiness, the wisdom that perceives suchness. So by developing that wisdom, we develop the antidote to our clinging at true existence, our clinging at the unconnected, non-interconnectedness of things and this acts as an antidote to all the causes of saṃsāra. So therefore no. I didn’t mean to say that.
I said to Geshe-la, I said, so therefore and I didn’t mean to say so therefore and he goes, but you’re not hurting anyone by saying so therefore. So yeah. Anyway, by working on this wisdom, working on developing this wisdom, we become to grasp less and less. By by working on this wisdom, we come to grasp less and less at the objects that we had been grasping at which had been causing us to create afflicted states of mind.
And eventually, we develop the ability to perceive perceive the lack of inherent existence of phenomena directly, to perceive emptiness or Śūnyatā directly. We are Once we develop that perception and we stop clinging onto this idea of self, a self that needs to perpetuate itself, then we stop creating the causes for being reborn in Samsāra. There’s a type of karma that’s called throwing karma which is the karma that propels you, that you create, that propels you from lifetime to lifetime, all right? So if you stop holding onto this idea of I, then there’s nothing that needs to be reborn. Alright?
So you stop creating a cause for being reborn in Samsāra. Then after you’ve developed that perception, every positive action that you do acts as a cause for you direct cause for to get out of Samsāra and every and as you don’t do any negative actions, you stop having having to experience the results of those. So you don’t act from an afflictive state and you’re constantly purifying all the negative things that you’ve done in the past. So this leads to liberation from Samsāra. So, if you go through this process and develop understanding and a clear perception of all of these points along the path, this is the way out of Samsāra.
This is the way to achieve nirvana or the way to achieve a personal liberation. So it’s as simple as developing an understanding and moving from one point to the next to the next and then you end up liberated from saṃsāra. Alright. The next thing to do then after that, after you’ve got this idea that you that that you need to understand suffering in order to want to get rid of suffering, that the way out of suffering is by realizing selflessness. By realizing selflessness, then you’ll to be able to create the causes to attain nirvana.
Right? The next thing after figuring all that process out is that is to remember that everybody else is exactly the same as you. That no other being wants to experience suffering. All other beings wanna experience happiness and they’re in exactly the same state. They are experiencing suffering because of karma and delusion.
They don’t know how to get out of that state and they keep perpetuating it by holding on to the things that they think are the causes of happiness that aren’t really. Right? So if all other sentient beings are in that state, then it’s not good enough for us to just try and find our own way out of suffering. We have to try and find a way to help other sentient beings. Help other beings who are experiencing suffering stop experiencing suffering.
So if we think about it in this way then we need to do something or become something that can lead them out of that state, that has the ability to show them a path away from the experiences of suffering that they have at the moment. And the only beings who really have that ability are Buddhas. The only beings who have the ability to show all sentient beings how to get out of suffering are Buddhas. And the only beings that have the capacity to keep working at that, to keep working at getting sentient beings out of saṃsāra in manifold ways are Buddhas. So given that this is the only way we can really help all beings, we we need to become a Buddha.
Alright? So then we think, ah, hang on. We’ve already got to the bit where we think. So if we’ve gone through all this in our head then we think, oh, I need to become a Buddha, alright? And the reason I need to become a Buddha is so I can be of benefit to all sentient beings, so I can lead them all out of suffering.
So we need to then start thinking about that idea again and again and again and meditating on that idea again and again and again until it becomes something that occurs in our mental continuum spontaneously. So because that was me that time. Because because we need to do that, because we need to get out of saṃsāra and to become a Buddha so we can lead other sentient beings out of Samsāra, we need to create the causes to bring that about. And the main cause for bringing that about is this this way of thinking that we were just talking about which was this idea of the wish or the aspiration to engage in whatever you need to engage in in order to attain enlightenment, in order to do that, in order to lead other sentient beings out of suffering. This is why you would study something like the Bodhicaryāvatāra because it tells you how to develop bodhicitta and it tells you it gives you the reasons why you develop bodhicitta, encourages you to develop it and talks about the path that Bodhisattvas take.
So this means that that we should try and think about it and and develop the motivation that we are looking at this text or studying this text in order to be able to develop understanding, in order to be able to put to practice the way of the Bodhisattva. So just let’s meditate on that for a couple of minutes. On that motivation. Mhmm. Okay, so we’re up to the section in the Bodhicaryāvatāra in chapter one which is called Praising Bodhisattvas Praising those who have Developed the Mind of Enlightenment.
And it has three different sections. The first one says it is, They are worthy of praise because even though they have not been entrusted with a specific task, by drawing upon great compassion they act to assist others. And the verse that this very long titled, sorry, the section with the long titled Heads is verse number thirty one, which says, If they who do some good in thanks for favours once received are praised, why need we speak of Bodhisattvas, those who freely benefit the world?? So what this is talking about is there’s some people who are in order to return a favor, do something for us and if someone returns a favor to us, like we’ve done something for them, they do something good back for us, we tend to consider them, we still tend to consider them to be good people. We still tend to praise their positive actions and think, that was really nice of them, but all they’re doing is returning a favor, right?
So they’re doing something to us that we’ve done to help them. Now, if those people deserve praise, then how much more so do the bodhisattvas who act for the benefit of all beings for no reason other than their great compassion deserve praise? So, can be many I’m sorry. I’m having one of those nights where nothing seems to come out right. Anyway, I’ll keep trying.
The most of the people that we praise for doing good things in the world, if we look into their motivation, if we look into the reasons they’re doing it, then they’re not always that clear or they’re not always that noble. People do things because they’re returning a favor, They do things because they’re asked to do things. They do do things for all sorts of reasons. So this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be praised shouldn’t praise people who do things with these motivations because if they’re working for others, it’s still good even if their motivation isn’t completely pure. It’s just that we need to recognize even more so the benefits or the positive actions of Bodhisattvas who do things out of great compassion and not because they were asked to do something, not because they’ll get good rewards for it, not to return a favor but just purely out of great compassion.
We should recognize when people do things in a worldly way when they try and help someone even though their motivation isn’t as pure as it could be. That is a good thing to do still. It’s just that we need to be even more respectful or more happy about actions of Bodhisattvas. Okay, so the second reason that, the second praise of a person who cultivates bodhicitta is that if someone who accomplishes the slightest of benefits is worthy of compliments, someone who accomplishes all benefits and bliss is worthy of the highest praise. This is looked at in the next verse which is verse number thirty two which says, those who scornfully with condescension give just once a single meal to others feeding them for only half a day are honored by the world as virtuous.
So what that’s talking about is if there’s someone who isn’t doing much to help others, they have some spare food so they decide that they’re going to donate that food to other beings. We still consider that to be very good and people will praise them for those actions. They’ll say, What a charitable person. Look how much they’re trying help others, right? Even if the way that they treat the people they’re giving their food to is really rude and they’re looking down on them and thinking that they’re lucky to be endowed with such such gifts from someone as important as themselves.
Alright? So even if that’s the way that they’re looking at them, then they’re still doing a positive action, right? So I guess I said it’s this it’s many times especially in India because he said, know, when you meet a beggar and I’m thinking, well, don’t know how many times these guys meet beggars every day. But in India, you meet beggars all the time. Right?
So most of most of the time, if you look at the way people act towards beggars, it’s very very looking down and very condescending. It’s like, here’s your money and you’re very lucky to have it. Alright? So so even if but even when people are doing that, like, they’ll be looked at and say, oh, isn’t that person generous? They’re giving money to beggars.
They’re they’re trying to help people. Right? So if we are if if we think about the way we are, we will see people doing that and think, oh, at least they’re giving money, that’s a good thing, they’re giving money and they’re helping people, right? So if that’s the case, then when we come into contact with Bodhisattvas or when we think about Bodhisattvas who will do the same thing out of the purest motivation that is not only do they want to give at that time when that person is experiencing that need but they want to give in order to create the merit for both beings to get out of saṃsāra completely. That is, they are trying to work not only to relieve the suffering in one instance but the suffering of all beings in all times in all situations.
If that’s their motivation and that’s the reason they’re doing it then it’s not saying we shouldn’t have respect for people who are giving in a condescending manner. It’s saying that we should be more respectful and be even more we should praise and be more complimentary to the bodhisattvas who are doing this out of a pure motivation? So, if this is the case that we are we may praise someone who’s giving in this manner who’s saying, Oh, I’m giving you a meal once but I’m gonna look down on you while I do it. Then, in the next verse, we can compare them to the Bodhisattvas and think how much more worthy of praise the Bodhisattvas are. Verse thirty three describes the Bodhisattvas by saying, What need is there to speak of those who constantly bestow on boundless multitudes the peerless joy of blissful Buddhahood, the ultimate fulfillment of their hopes.
The actions of someone who is giving and their motivation may not be pure are limited in a number of ways. The first way they’re limited limited is by the number of people they’re trying to help. They may be trying to help one person in one instance. The Bodhisattvas are trying to help or working to help all beings in all instances. And in terms of the amount of effort and the amount of time, effort they put into it and the amount of time they have this attitude for.
Most of the time, most of us if we want to help someone, we’ll have this urge to help someone for a day or a month maybe, yeah, but the Bodhisattvas are perpetually working to help all beings for all times. It’s not like they take up the idea of working for others for a month or a week or a year or two and then give it up because they’ve had enough, they just keep going and going and going and going and working for the benefit of all beings until all beings are out of saṃsāra. And not only are they working to bring that about, but the results, what they’re looking for, what they’re trying to lead sentient beings to is what’s called the Peerless Joy of Blissful Buddhahood. It’s not only the amount of beings they’re working for or the effort they put into it or the amount of time they do it for, but the results. They’re not just doing it to alleviate suffering temporarily or to help someone out a little bit, They’re working to alleviate, completely alleviate the suffering of these beings and lead them to a state or show them how to develop a state of mind where they experience bliss and happiness all the time.
So what we’re being asked to compare here is two different instances of someone giving or the activities of two different people. And one on the one hand, we have someone who may be praised from worldly people or beings even in a just people who aren’t interested in religion or a spiritual path and giving they’re giving to someone but they’re doing so with a condensation. Now I can’t think of how to say it. Condescension. Condescension and they aren’t doing it for a very long time and they’re not their motivation isn’t necessarily good, right?
That’s the focus on the one hand. But these people are still praised. We still look at them and think, okay, they’re doing a good job. They’re giving things away. On the other hand, have beings whose motivation is completely pure.
They’re working to eliminate all suffering from all beings selflessly putting themselves in difficult situations, whatever it takes to eliminate the sufferings of all sentient beings. From many different ankles when we compare these two types of beings or these two actions then we should be respectful to the people who are giving even in a limited way but we should be even more respectful. The level of respect and the deservingness of respect of the bodhisattvas is says incomprehensible. Given these positive qualities, we should try and develop an attitude of respect respect towards these beings. By developing an attitude of respect towards these beings, then we will come to consider their qualities to be most important and therefore wanted to develop these qualities.
Therefore it says given that respecting these qualities and other beings and respecting the beings who have these qualities means that that will lead us to want to develop these qualities. It then says Be respect or pay respect or have devotion to bodhisattvas with single pointed concentration without being distracted by other things. Okay, the third section of Śāntideva’s Praise to Bodhisattvas refers to the fact that they are worthy of praise because they are the supreme field. What this means is that Bodhisattvas that This section has three different sections. There’s subheadings and subheadings and subheadings in Tibetan text.
So the subheading that was that Bodhisattvas are worthy of praise because they are the supreme field has three different sections. The first of which is they’re the supreme field because it is unreasonable to belittle a Bodhisattva in even the slightest way and they had the supreme field because it is reasonable to cultivate faith in them and it’s the supreme field because it is befitting to pay homage to them and go for refuge to them Okay. So the reason they’re called a field, just to explain to you that maybe it seems a bit strange to call them a field from you guys’ perspective, Is that the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, all the beings that can be respected are referred to as a field because it’s through them that you can develop merit, right? And so in the same way that you can If you have a field, you can use it to grow things that are gonna help you or you can use it to grow poison. If you do things, if you’re respectful towards bodhisattvas and Buddhas and so on and you make offerings and so on, then that’s a way to create merit.
At the same time, if you are disrespectful and if you are harmful, then that’s a way to to create great negativities. Yeah. To to create full on negative karma. So that’s why they’re they’re they’re it’s like a metaphor. Right?
So the field is they’re they’re a field in that you can get a lot from them but what you reap is what you’ve sown.