Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 15-minute Q&A session, Geshe Pema Tsering opens with a playful riff on counting sheep to fall asleep — and turns it on the spot into instruction for contemplating saṃsāra, feeling compassion for suffering animals, and recognising their kindness. A follow-up question on nightmares draws a brief teaching that dream experiences, like waking life, arise from karma. Two further exchanges deepen the practical content: first, on the practice of seeing everyone as a Buddha and how doing so draws genuine inspiration from every person you encounter; then a clear explanation of karma as every action of body, speech, and mind, illustrated through the positive merit of mental offerings and the vivid karmic fruits they yield in future lives. Accessible to newcomers and general practitioners alike.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2005 07 12Q Bodhisattvas Way of Life.mp3
UUID: 519dcc40-a0a9-43d4-8391-33d9dd4a6656
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: 14.8 minutes
Words: ~945
You might as well ask a question because Geshe-la’s got tea. Said you just hope no one has questions. I don’t mind if people have questions. Translating the question bit is the easy bit. Come on.
Now there’s a surprise. Yes. Uh-huh. Not the sheep again. Said he thinks counting sheep is meditating on sheep.
So he said if you could instead of meditating on sheep, if you think, Samsāra is not very nice, people are suffering in Samsāra, if they can get out of Samsāra, that would be good. Maybe I should become a Buddhist because then I can be out of Samsāra and get everyone else out of Samsāra. If you keep going over that again and again and substitute it for the sheep, it should have the same effect. He doesn’t he’s not sure that meditating on sheep is very helpful. Alright.
If you wanna think about sheep, then think don’t just think the sheep jumping the fence, think, Oh, the poor sheep. It can only do so many things. It’s suffering. It’s in Samsāra. Can’t get itself out of Samsāra.
Poor sheep. What do wild sheep have? They don’t get to eat much. They have a horrible life. Poor sheep.
Right? And if you do that, then you’re meditating on compassion for the sheep and you’ve still got your sheep jumping a fence. Or you can think, oh, They’re so kind to me. If it wasn’t for sheep, I wouldn’t have woolly jumpers. If it wasn’t for sheep, I wouldn’t be able to eat lamb.
If it wasn’t for sheep, I wouldn’t be able to eat sheep’s milk or drink sheep’s milk or eat sheep’s cheese. Sheep is so kind to me. Really should do something to try and help the sheep. Alright? He said sheep really are very kind to us.
Dream. Mhmm. A result of negative. When you say bad dream, do you mean a dream that we do bad things in or a nightmare? A nightmare.
Okay. Okay. Okay. In the same way that our life is dreamlike and we experience suffering and we experience happiness, then our dreams are definitely dreamlike and we experience suffering and happiness in them as a result of things that we’ve done. More sheep?
No? Okay. Very simple. Mhmm. It’s very, very simple way.
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That’s that’s easy. Uh-huh. You know, treat other one?
You know? So badly Okay. They are good. Okay. Especially people who keeps us, you know, in a hard time.
Yeah. They’re just teaching. Playing. Uh-huh. Manifesting?
Role role playing role playing. I think you came up with it. No. I think the Buddha did. No.
It’s it’s basically like a lot of tantric practices say that. Yeah? And Yeah. They say to see everybody as Buddha. Yeah.
And Geshe-la said it’s really good because what it not only does it enable you to be mindful and respectful to other people, but if you can truly see someone as a Buddha, then you will get the blessings of a Buddha from them. You’ll get inspiration of a Buddha from them. More than a blessing. Inspiration of a Buddha from them. Yeah.
So you’re being inspired by Buddhas all the the whole time if you see everyone as a Buddha. Yeah. Sorry? No. If you can, it’s very good.
Mhmm. Yeah. Okay. Alright. So the word karma means action.
So every action we perform of body, speech, mind is creating karma, is performing karma. Alright? So every time we do something mentally, every time we do something with every time we say something, and every time we do something we’re creating karma or that is karma. That’s what karma is. All of our actions of body, speech and mind.
So, if we’re doing something with our mind, and what we’re doing is imagining something beautiful, and imagining that we’re giving that away, then that is creating karma. That is karma. That action is karma. Alright? And if we’re doing something with our mind, we’re mentally giving and we’re mentally making something to give away, then that’s going to be positive karma because it’s a mental action of giving.
If we have this attitude that we created something beautiful in order to give it away, then we’re creating it to give it away so the act of creating it is positive and the giving is positive. So anytime that we do anything positive with our mind, our speech, or our body, the results of that are positive experiences. So, if we do something where we’re giving, then we get. That’s the result of giving. It may not necessarily happen tomorrow though.
Most of the things when they talk about doing visual mental offerings, when you imagine something and then offer it, it says that most of the karma that you the results of that karma come about in your next life. So you experience the results of mentally offering in your next life. And it’s said that if you offer lots of flowers in your next life, you end up pretty. And if you end up or good looking. And if you offer lots of incense, you smell good.
Alright? And so on. It’s supposed to be like a It’s not why you do it, but it’s supposed to be the karmic repercussions of performing these actions even though they are only mental. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah.
Wants to know if you’re making your eyes really big because you have something to say. He said, her she’s making your eyes big. Do have something to say? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Oh. Please. Is everyone okay? You said finish? Yeah.