Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Atisha’s image of “protecting the five doors” — guarding the senses through mindfulness — opens this 73-minute session with Geshe Pema Tsering. He explores two dimensions of mindfulness: awareness of one’s actions, speech, and thoughts, and recollection of karma and impermanence. He then tackles a common hazard — the mind growing rigid and “boxed in” under the effort of self-discipline — and explains how alternating between the faults of saṃsāra and the positive vision of Buddhahood keeps practice broad and flexible. The session then turns to bodhicitta as the most powerful motivation before moving into a careful reading of chapter two of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, working verse by verse through the offerings section of the seven-branch prayer: flowers, incense, food, lamps, a jewelled palace, parasols, and music offered to the Three Jewels. Practical advice on meditating while falling asleep closes the session.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2005 07 12 Bodhisattvas Way of Life.mp3
UUID: 4efd4cab-eed1-46de-a957-edd1a99862c9
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Way of Life 2005 Mar -2007 (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-07-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 73.8 minutes
Words: ~6,541
I’m Okay. Atisha was an Indian teacher who specialized in one of the things he specialized in was mind training or adapting positive attitudes and teaching people how to do this. In one of his texts about mind training, his of this text, he said that it is only through conscientiousness, introspection and mindfulness that one is able to protect the five doors. What these five doors that he’s talking about is the five gateways by which we experience things from the external world. So, that is our five senses, our five faculties.
So, that is the things that we taste, the things that we see, the things that we smell, the things that we hear. I missed one now. Sorry? Did I not say that? Oh, no.
Touch. Okay. Yeah. So touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. Those five things.
And if we want to train our mind, if we want to be aware of what it is that we are thinking, and in doing so, be able to develop positive qualities and be able to curtail negative states of mind that we may find ourselves in or we can find ourselves developing, then the way to do that is by protecting these five doors protecting ourselves or being aware experiences that we have, that come to us through our senses. And if we have mindfulness, if we have introspection and we have conscientiousness about the experiences we have, then we’re going to be able to protect our mind. If we just let ourselves to respond to the sensual stimuli that we experience, then we are not going to be able to protect our minds. Yeah. Yeah.
I’m I was just having a really little pause for reflection on how to translate this because there’s an expression that’s not quite a swear word in Tibetan, but it comes across that way if you translate it directly. So I’m like, do I say that or not? Anyway, Geshe-la said, Just say whatever. The first thing then that we need to focus on is mindfulness. Mindfulness means being aware of what we are thinking, what we are saying, and what we’re doing.
If we’re not aware of what we’re thinking, saying, and doing, then we can do all sorts of things without even realizing we’re doing it. So mindfulness is very important if we’re trying to train our minds, we’re trying to develop our minds, if we’re trying to get ourselves to focus on positive things, to have positive attitudes, then it’s very important that we become aware of our minds, aware of what we’re doing, what we’re thinking and what we’re saying. Because if we start to pay attention to ourselves and start to pay attention to the way we think, way we do things and the way we speak, we’ll come to recognize that we haven’t been doing that. We may think we know what we’re doing. We may think that we know what we’re saying or thinking, but we don’t really pay attention to it very often.
So mindfulness has these two aspects to it. The first is to remember to be aware of what we’re doing, to have awareness of our physical, verbal and mental actions. If we don’t practice mindfulness, we tend to just follow after physically follow after all of our desires. And if we don’t practice mindfulness, we tend to speak a lot of crap. And if we don’t practice mindfulness, we tend to have all sorts of thoughts that can be very very negative and can be very spiteful is the best way to say it, think spiteful thoughts.
So we need to be aware, we need be mindful of what we’re thinking, what we’re saying, and what we’re doing if we really want to train ourselves to be better people, to be people who do more positive things, think more positive things, say more positive things, do more positive things. There’s another aspect to mindfulness as well which is being aware of certain truths. So, need to be aware of impermanence. We need to be aware or we need to be mindful or remember, that we’re going to die. That there’s nothing lasts forever.
That every positive action has a positive repercussion and every negative action has a negative repercussion. And if we remember these things, if we are mindful of these things, then that will have a positive effect on the way that we behave as well. So there’s these two aspects to it. It is being mindful of what we’re doing and the other part is being mindful of cause and effect, of being mindful of karma, being mindful of of impermanence. Okay.
The problem with when we start to practice mindfulness, when we start to try and change the way we think, is that being aware and being mindful of everything that we do because that is a very different thing to what we usually do. We don’t usually pay much attention to what we think. We don’t usually pay much attention to what we say or what we physically do. Usually just It’s very easy for us to not pay attention. It’s much easier to do what we want, say what we want, think what we want.
Alright? To follow after our desires and trying find freedom from the things that we don’t don’t want. That’s much easier for us to just go with the flow and do whatever our mind wants us to do. Yeah? Much easier than actually trying to practice mindfulness.
Alright? And because it’s much easy much easier for us to do this, what sometimes happens is that when we start practicing mindfulness it becomes very hard, it becomes a very big undertaking to remember what you’re thinking, to remember what you’re saying, to remember what you’re doing is big. Alright? It’s a bit it’s very difficult. It’s battle in it’s process in which we’re going against our natural instincts.
Our natural instincts are to do what we want, say what we want, think what we want. Alright? And in this case, we’re trying to go against that. Yeah, we’re trying to go against what we naturally do. We’re trying to train our minds to behave in a different way, train our speech in a different way, train ourselves physically in a different way.
So what can then happen is that because this is a difficult process, because we are dealing with something different, different to what we’re used to and we have to put in so much energy into doing it, our mind becomes really small and tight and we become a bit wound up. It’s the only way I can think of to describe it. They have this word in Tibetan which means boxed, your mind’s boxed in, blinked. Yeah? Closed in.
There’s a word that means fast and there’s a word that means boxed in. So because we’re focusing on changing our thoughts and speech, and actions, our mind becomes very tight and closed in. So if our mind is fixed and tight in this way, then we’re not actually able to practice Dharma properly. So, what we need to do is to have mindfulness and practice mindfulness and be prepared for hard work without our mind reacting to that hard work by becoming stiff and inflexible and closed down. If we can, we have to keep reminding ourselves if No, sorry.
And one way to do that is to keep reminding ourselves that the situation we’re in at the moment isn’t that great. Right? We may think it’s fun to follow after everything we wanna do. We may think it’s fun to indulge in all our desires and act out all our aggression, but it isn’t actually helping us. It isn’t actually benefiting us in any way.
It’s just perpetuating Samsāra. And if we look at Samsāra, there isn’t anything in Samsāra that’s worth fighting for, that’s worth working towards. There is not a single positive quality in Samsāra. Even the things that look to us as being positive are actually causes for suffering. So if we can remember, if we remember, if we’re mindful about that, if we remind ourselves about the faults of Samsāra and how much more positive it is to work towards nirvana, to work towards Buddhahood, to develop compassion and these kind of things, then our mind isn’t going to resist as much this process of change and we’re going to be able to have a much broader view of the process of change that’s going on in our mind than if we just think I have to do this, I have to do this, and don’t let ourselves know why or remind ourselves why we’re doing it.
If our mind is becoming inflexible and rigid and boxed in, blinked I guess is the best way I can think of, then we need to remind ourselves of what it is that we’re working toward. Remind ourselves of why we’re doing this. Remind ourselves of all the positive qualities of attaining nirvana, of being able to help others, of having a clear mind, of having a peaceful mind. If we remind ourselves of that, then that stops the tightness in our mind. Because the problem with having a mind where we’re fixated on things and we’re focusing very hard on what it is that we shouldn’t do is that perpetuates itself and we become more fixated and more fixated and more fixated.
So we need to, if we find ourselves doing that, if we find ourselves fixating on things, it’s a good idea to shift our focus to what it is that we’re actually trying to achieve. And this will make our minds wider if we can it lifts our mind when we think of all the positive things that we can do. Ways that we would be able to help people if we can learn to control our mind, control our actions and our speech, how much more beneficial we will be to other people. So if we focus in that way, then that lifts us up and it also gives us an inspiration to keep going. And then if we find ourselves getting a little bit too relaxed, we can remind ourselves of what the problems with Samsāra is and that can propel us along as well.
So these two parts to it, the positive things that we can get from working towards Buddhahood and nirvana, they can remind us to practice Dharma, change it, to work to change our minds, and the negative things about Samsāra that can also inspire us to try and get out of the situation that we’re in. There’s one thing I forgot. So what this means then is that we’re able to keep our minds wide and open and flexible and practice the Buddhist path in that way, with a wide, flexible, open mind. But perhaps one of the major thing the most important thing that we need to be mindful of is our motivation for doing things. And we need to be aware of why we’re doing things.
And if we can keep reminding ourselves to have the motivation of bodhicitta, then that’s the most beneficial thing that we can do with our minds. So, bodhicitta is basically all about happiness. It’s about creating a state of happiness for ourselves and for other beings, for all other beings without exception. So, what we’re doing by developing the motivation of bodhicitta or the mind of enlightenment is developing this attitude or this way of thinking where, whatever it is we’re doing, we’re doing it so that we can become enlightened and lead all sentient beings out of suffering. So, we’re doing whatever it is we’re doing so that all beings, without exception can experience true happiness and without any suffering.
Because every single being is just like us. They really are just like us. They don’t have any, there’s no difference that we can say, oh, that person is, or that being isn’t, doesn’t want to be happy. There’s no instance where we can say that all beings want to be happy, all beings, don’t want to experience suffering. No being wants to experience suffering.
And just like us, they’re not quite sure the way to go about that. They’re not quite sure, how to create the causes for experiencing happiness and how to stop creating the causes for experiencing suffering. And in their desire to be happy, they tend to create the causes for suffering. So this is what other beings do, this is what we do ourselves and in order for us to get ourselves and everyone else out of that situation, the best possible thing for us to do is to become a Buddha, so that we can we know how to lead beings out of suffering. So this motivation, this idea, is the the most positive thing that we can the most positive motivation we can have.
So if we can add whatever we do, if we do it with this motivation, then the strength, positive potential that comes from the positive from the things that we do is is that much stronger. We should develop this motivation if we are doing something where we’re helping someone in just a worldly sense or a normal sense, or if we’re trying to meditate, or we’re trying to say prayers, or if we’re coming to a teaching and listening to a teaching. Anything we do, we should try and do it with this motivation. And it’s really one of the reasons it’s really important for us to try and remember this is that we sometimes tend to have a pretty good idea of ourselves. We can think, well, know, I’m a Buddhist, I’m a good person.
I try and help people and I think of others. But if we actually sit down and we had a timer and we timed how much we think about others in a day and we timed how much we think about ourselves, and we think about our own desires and our own wants and what we are working towards, then Geshe said he thinks because there’s if there’s twenty four hours in a day that if we’re lucky on a good day, we spend three hours thinking of others. Right? If we’re lucky, most of the time we don’t even do that much. So if we can if given that this is the case, we really want to make the time that we spend thinking of others, the time that we spend focusing on where we’re going to end up in our next life and creating positive potential, positive karma.
And we want that to have as big as impact as it can. And because all of the actions that we perform are either strong or weak depending on the motivation with which we do them, that acts as the exponential force, that affects our actions, then we want to do something with the biggest, effect. Alright? So the biggest the motivation that we can develop that has the biggest effect in terms of creating positive potential is bodhicitta. Because we’re not just focused on ourselves, we’re not just focused on relieving our suffering, and we’re not even focused just on our friends suffering or the people we know suffering.
We’re focusing on relieving the suffering of every sentient being, every every being that has a mind. So if you develop that for a motivation and then you do something, even if it’s just saying one one Mani, one Om Mani Padme Hum. Alright? Then that has a very powerful potential. Just one one mantra said with the with that motivation, acts as a cause for people to attain enlightenment.
We really need to if we are going to do something positive, it’s really up to us to try and make sure that we have the best motivation possible for doing it. Tonight we’re going to look at a text called Bodhicaryāvatāra. So then, because we’re looking at this text and that’s a positive thing to do, try and think that by looking at this listening to a teaching on this text, may I develop understanding of what it says and may I be able to put that understanding into practice and by putting it into practice, become, a Buddha and lead all sentient beings that are suffering. And if we can just meditate on that idea for a couple of minutes. Oh, yeah.
Okay. So the bit that we’re up to in the Way of the Bodhisattva, or the Bodhicaryāvatāra, is in the second chapter. And the second chapter is basically made up of a a seven branch prayer where you start by making offerings, and go on to make a and to confess negative actions and so on. So we’re up to the sorry. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I figured it out. Sorry, here.
We get we’re up to the bit where we’re making offerings. Right? So you there’s this big elaborate process where you’re making offerings to the Buddha, and we’ve gone through some of them. We’ve gone through giving offering a bath and offering clothes, and we’re up to and ornaments and offering scent scents, as in smelly things, and we’re up to flowers. Okay?
Offering the to the flowers to the Buddha. So the verse, that we are looking at is verse fifteen from chapter two of the guides Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, which says, I will place before the Buddha who is the perfect object of my worship, flowers like the lotus and the mandarava, Utpala and other scented blossoms, worked and twined in lovely scented garlands. Garlands. Okay. So the the the word that they’ve used in in Tibetan to that they’ve translated here as Buddha is It’s so much fun when they explain words in Tibetan, then you look at the English and it disappears.
Okay. So they have so they have all these different epithets that they have for the Buddha in Sanskrit and Tibetan. Right? So they always just say the Buddha, the Buddha, the Buddha. They’ll say, you know, the the the Muni of the Shakya clan and the the most powerful one and the knower of everything and, you know, there’s all sorts of different ways.
Right? And the word that they used in this the word that they’ve used in the translation of this verse, the the first syllable of it is tuk, which means Muni mooni in Sanskrit or Hindi, and it means power. It’s it’s a word that means power. So so it’s showing that the that the Buddha has the has has developed some kind of personal power. And what it’s talking about here in terms of personal power is that they have the ability to cleanse their minds of negative states.
So when we if we experience different types of negative states, the Buddha doesn’t do that. They don’t any jealousy or any, attachment or anything like that. They just they’re in control of their mind. They don’t have any of these thoughts come up. So it’s saying as the Buddha is this type of being, as the Buddhas have managed to subdue their mind streams and only experience positive states of mind and are only working to help others, then that makes them it says here a perfect object of worship, which is again problematic because the word that it’s translating is a perfect object to make offerings to.
Alright? So if you’re trying to if you’re trying to develop so if you’re trying to develop positive potential, to create good karma, it’s a good idea to give to beings who deserve it, so the Buddha deserves it, so it’s a good idea to offer things to the Buddha. Alright? So it’s saying the Buddha, because they’ve sorted out their mind, is a good being to offer things to. Alright.
Okay. I don’t know where they got the word worship from, but anyway, there’s what it’s talking about is that there’s different types of giving that we can engage in. We can give up, we can give across, and we can give down. So, if we are giving to beggars or to people who are desperately in need, this is called generosity, the practice of generosity and it’s a very beneficial practice. Beneficial practice.
There’s also the act of giving to ordained people which is said to be an act of giving that supports the Dharma. If you’re giving to monks and nuns, that’s the act that supports the Dharma. And if you’re giving up, if you’re giving to people who have more qualities than you, so to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and everything, it’s called making offerings. So they talk about there being the right place to make offerings, the right place to support the Dharma and the right place to practice generosity. So it’s saying that you can’t get a better place to make offerings to than Buddhas because Buddhas have all of the qualities that make them deserving of offerings.
So because the Buddhas are so deserving of offerings, then we wanna give them nice things. Right? So the things that you wanna give them, in this instance, because we’ve been going through the different things you can give them, are flowers, and especially flowers like a lotus and a mandarava and a Utpala plants. I’ve seen lotuses here. Sorry.
Okay. So Geshe-la said he’s seen something that’s like an uttapala flower somewhere just outside the door of Buddha house in the and there’s pots and they have little red flowers. Right? And he said they’re like those little red flowers, but they’re blue. Alright?
So apparently, you get them in everywhere in India, these little blue flowers. So that’s what Utapala is. And so basically, you’re offering scented blossoms and the when they say scented blossoms, you’re offering them in kind of a bunch of them, not like on trees. Yeah. So you’re to concentrate the idea of offering flowers and not necessarily whole bush whole bushes.
You’re trying to offer the smell as well as the the flowers in this visualizations. And then also these are garlands of flowers. So if you can imagine flowers wound together so that people could wear them as a as a garland or as a showing how they are. It’s it’s interesting because it’s the same word as they use for this it is mala. Yeah?
So I was going as a mala, but then most people think of malas as being wooden. So, anyway, they can hang around them. Okay. So the next thing that that you go through in offering the Buddha’s is incense. So the type of incense that you want to offer the Buddha’s is explained in the first two lines of verse number sixteen where it says, I will offer swelling clouds of incense whose ambient perfume ravishes the mind.
So you’re trying to you’re you’re doing this visualization at this point where you’re offering everything that’s really good to the Buddhist and it says the best type of incense to offer is the one that captivates the mind and it is the incense that’s that pervades the ten directions and comes from the Akaru plant. Right. Now, apparently there’s lots of Akaru plants in Southern India and they even make tables out of them. So basically, Geshe-la said they’re like sandalwood but they’re a bigger tree, so you can get more from them and they actually smell better than sandalwood. I think it’s actually a form of what we call sandalwood, but it’s a taller tree than the normal type of sandalwood.
This is said to be really one of the nicest, most healing scents, so it’s a good idea to offer this. Okay. Alright. The next thing that you visualize yourself offering is food. Food and drink.
This is the seventh thing that you you go through offering. And now the reason that that sorry. You offer food and drink. The type of food and drink you offer, sorry, is described in the last two lines of verse sixteen where it says, and various foods in every kind of drink or delicacies worthy of the gods. But actually, Geshe-la reckons that they said all delicacies and then worthy of the gods.
And he said that there’s actually a fruit called god worthy. Does that make sense? So so there’s a particular fruit that that you can get in India and in parts of Tibetan and stuff. He said, It’s a type of fruit that was so good, they said, Oh, this fruit’s worthy of the gods, and kind of named it fruit worthy of the gods, as opposed to gods No. He he said it’s not it it it’s a fruit that is soft enough to not hurt the teeth.
Alright? So he said there’s a problem with some fruit that it may taste good and it may be good for you, but when you eat it, if you have bad teeth, go, ow. Right? So there’s a particular type of fruit that you can eat that it just melts in your mouth. Yeah?
And this fruit was so good for people with sore teeth that they called it fruit worthy of the gods. Right? So so this type of fruit is said to be really good to make offerings with cause it doesn’t hurt anyone. And also, there’s so so you you the it says to focus on things that are going to be beneficial, pleasant to taste, smell good, and things that you would like that you would like to eat. Yeah?
So things that you enjoy yourself. If you’re offering things that you enjoy yourself, then this is a a good a good thing to do a good thing to be visualizing yourself doing. Yeah. Alright. So the next thing that we’re offering is illumination, as in lights or candles and stuff.
So the next two lines from the this chapter talk about that. They say, I will offer precious lamps, all perfectly contrived as golden lotuses. So is the nicest possible lamps that you come up with. It’s talking about a lamps made from pure gold that are excellently crafted and look like lotuses. And they’re in jeweled lamps with made from the finest products.
So, we’re basically talking about a tradition of visualizing offerings that comes from ancient India. Yeah. And so Geshe-la said, so back then they didn’t have electricity, obviously. So, the idea of offering lamps in that period of time was actually much more profound than it is now because we just turn on a light and it’s like, okay, I’ve got light. But for them to actually have a lamp and to use a lamp was a luxury.
So, something that they’re offering is luxurious as a luxury. But Geshe-la says for us, it’s really easy. We just flick a light. So we could be more creative and decide that we’re going to offer some kind of electrical thing. Alright?
But if we’re going to do that, we should try and imagine that it’s like the best quality. Alright? Still that we imagine that it has we’re visualizing ourselves making offerings that may of some kind of light that has that is very well crafted and it performs a very is very illuminating. It lights up everywhere around it. But as you said, sometimes the idea of offering a lamp can actually be better because then you can concentrate on what sort of oil is in it and things like that.
So, you know, the old lamps they have were oil lamps, so you can think of it as being, like, beautiful, easy burning, smelly oils and stuff. Okay. The next thing that we offer in visualization is palace. That’s a palace that you can’t measure. It for because of its wealth its wealth and the luxury that we are visualizing ourselves offering.
So this is summed up in the last two lines of verse seventeen and and verse eighteen. A bed of flowers flower petals scattered upon the level incense sprinkled ground. So, this is the land that you imagine the palace that you’re offering being based on. And then, the palace itself is said to be immense and resonant with song. So, the song that’s sung here is supposed to imagine as being sung by goddesses and gods.
So that it is incredibly beautiful sounds. And then it’s said to be bedecked with precious pearls and pendant gems. So we imagine an inlay of pearls and gems in the walls of the palace so that the light reflects everywhere. And gleaming treasures fit to ornament amplitude of space. All this I offer to the loving Bodhisattvas.
So the idea is that because you’re visualizing something, can visualize what you want. It’s not gonna cost you anything. So you can visualize things as big as space and as luxurious as you possibly can. So when it says that amplitude of space, means it fills space and we try and stretch our imagination because it’s actually we’re trying to offer something that’s beyond the imagination. Alright?
So we’re stretching our imagination for, what it is that we’re offering by trying to make it as, as ornate and as beautiful as we can possibly come up as as ornate and as beautiful a palace as we can possibly come up with and as big. Okay. Alright. The next thing that we’re offering is parasols. I guess I said, alright.
So you may not offer many parasols in Australia these days. And even I said, I think they used to have them. They to have parasols. I’ve seen people pictures with people walking in parasols. Geshe-la said, But they probably didn’t go offering them to each other.
And he said, actually, you Australians are all supposed to be on the same level, aren’t you? So you probably don’t make offerings to anyone. Because it’s all egalitarian. But he said, but anyway, the idea is that in ancient India, they offered parasols. It was a sign of respect.
So the verse says, verse says, precious parasols adorned with golden shafts and bordered all around with jeweled fringes, upright, well proportioned, pleasing to the eye. Again, all this I give to all the Buddhists. So the parasol or the umbrella was a sign of respect in ancient India. Making an offering of a or an umbrella is a sign of of respect. This one.
Alright. So the next, the next offering that we look at is actually song. It’s offering song, but it includes, like, miscellaneous section of offerings. So the verse says, may a multitude of other offerings accompanied by music sweet to hear be made in a great successive in great successive clouds to soothe the sufferings of living beings. And so the idea is that the song that you’re offering, the song that you visualize yourself offering is so pleasant that when people hear it, their mind is uplifted and they feel they are able to alleviate their suffering by listening to that song.
It’s a song that alleviates suffering. While you’re visualizing yourself or making this offering, you also imagine a stream of offerings coming down that soothes the suffering of beings. Oh, sorry. I forgot something. I thought that sounded short.
There there’s different instruments that you can also imagine, playing spontaneously or having people play them, that create this song. You can imagine small drums or lutes or any instrument you want and you visualize the music coming from the instruments and people being made happy by the music. The last of this section of the offerings then is the unbroken continuum of blessings in the form of offerings. So the verse that refers to this says, may rains of flowers precious thing fall down in an unceasing stream upon the jewels of sacred Dharma, the triple gem, and all supports for offering. So, the jewels refers to the Three Jewels, the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha.
So, the sacred jewels is another way of saying the sacred jewels is another way of saying the Dharma jewel and this refers to the speech of the Buddha which has the twelve excellent characteristics and represents the cessation, the true paths and cessation. So that’s what the Dharma jewel is. Let’s get that. And, so that represents the speech of the Buddha. So, all of the things that represent the speech of the Buddha, what you imagine them actually representing is this pleasant or this really, really nice sounding speech or song that is representation of the Dharma jewel.
So the actual Dharma jewel is the true paths and true cessation and what your your the true paths and true cessation is in the continuums of Arian beings. So what you’re doing is imagining that realization takes the form of this beautiful sound and that you imagine that you’re making offerings to that beautiful sound that is representing the dharma. And then the next thing that it has it says, at the end of it, it says, all supports for offering. So a support for offering is actually a same word as a stupa. So a stupa is called a Chörten, which is a support for offering.
Alright? So the stupas And then Oh, yeah. So where it says the upon the jewel It is the the beginning part. So you have the sacred Dharma is the is the is this is the speech of the Buddha, the the realizations of the Buddha that manifests the speech. The mind of a Buddha takes is represented in icon in icons by the the stupas and the physical body of a physical body of a Buddha is represented by all of the pictures, all of the statues, all of the carved statues, all of the molded statues, all of the thangkas, all of the drawings.
Drawings, they’re all representations of the Buddha’s body. So what you’re imagining then is an uninterrupted stream of offerings. All of the things that we talked about before, all of the perfume, all of the food, all of the clothes, and everything like that, you imagine an uninterrupted stream of these luxurious, lush things being offered to these three different aspects of the Buddha, three different representations of the Buddha. Okay. So we only have one more offering to go through which we’ll do next week.
I guess I said there are a lot of offerings, aren’t there? So the reason that they go into such detail about offerings here is that we don’t necessarily need to get into that much detail when we’re we’re we’re we’re meditating, but it’s a good idea to set your motivation and then make an offering if you’re going to start doing a meditation session. So when you’re doing it, you’d be just visualizing all these things offering very, you know, almost very quickly if you’d like to the the Buddhas, and you’re thinking, I’m doing this so I can create merit. It’s a good idea to give things to Buddhas. May this be a cause for me attaining Buddhahood.
I’m offering this and this and this this and this. Yeah? So you do it so we’re going into detail here about a part of a meditation session that wouldn’t last that long. So said, you could actually go into a lot of detail if you were sitting there and you had a lot of time to meditate, but as most people are more likely thinking, I need to get this meditation done because I have to go to work. Mhmm.
That is probably a good idea to try and have remind yourself occasionally of what it is that you offer and get through this part fairly quickly. Yeah. As long as you’re not he said, as long as you’re not thinking, I don’t even have enough time to meditate today. I’ll do it tomorrow. Is if you think, I have to meditate, I have to sit down, I have to be in a certain position, and I have to meditate like that, and I have to do it every day, then it can become a burden.
It can become a something that you’re not happy about. Right? So you don’t have to be sitting in a certain position to let your mind focus on these things. Right? If you can just keep reminding yourself of this, if you’re just doing something else and you think, oh, it’d be nice if I could make an offering to the Buddha, you don’t have to be doing it in a fixated way every day because people have very busy lives, and it can actually disturb them if they try and force themselves into doing that.
If you have time, that’s great. If you don’t have time, then try and keep reminding yourself of things and don’t you don’t if you force yourself and you’re finding it agitating you, then don’t worry too much. So Geshe said, if you have no other time, he thinks the easiest, most relaxed, less annoying, most because he said it we our minds find it difficult to want to meditate, right? So we almost have to trick them into wanting to do it. So he said, at some stage, all of us have to sleep, right?
And we have to lie down to go to sleep. And you’re not gonna actually you have to on the just before you fall asleep, have to think of something. Alright? So you have to fight you have to think of something. So if you can sit there and think about making an offering or thinking about, purifying negativities, then you’re thinking of something, you’re not putting yourself out too much because you had to lie there thinking of something, and at least you’re doing something positive even if it’s only them.
He thinks that’s a good idea. So he said he thinks this is a really good idea because it’s a spare time. No one really has much to do when they’re lying in bed going to sleep. Right? It’s not like they can be very busy when they’re lying in bed going to sleep.
So no one’s gonna think I have to give up my time to, you know, to think about the Dhamma or something because you’re going to sleep. What else are you gonna be doing? And he said, it’s not hard. It’s not you have to get yourself into a weird position. You’re lying in bed.
Alright? So it’s comfortable. You’ve got spare time. And the other thing is, if you manage to keep positive thoughts while you go to sleep, it turns your whole sleep into a virtuous action, a positive action. If you go to sleep with good thoughts, your whole sleep becomes a time when you’re creating positive karma.
So he thinks it’s probably a good idea. Oh, yeah.