Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 61-minute commentary, Geshe Pema Tsering opens with a practical daily framework: set a bodhicitta motivation first thing each morning — before self-cherishing “has had enough time to kick in” — then close the evening by “meditating on happiness,” rejoicing in good actions to strengthen their positive potential and developing regret for negative ones. He explains three tiers of valid motivation for Dharma study (Buddhahood, liberation, or at minimum a good rebirth) and argues that striving for this-life happiness alone produces the weakest karmic results. The class then works through verse 26 of Śāntideva’s Guide, covering the mechanics of refuge: causal versus resultant Three Jewels, a Tsongkhapa-school point that realized bodhisattvas’ understanding of emptiness constitutes the Dharma jewel, and the clarification that refuge is a state of mind rather than the objects themselves. The session closes with an introduction to purifying negative karma through the four opponent powers.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2005 08 02 Bodhisattvas Way of Life.mp3
UUID: c6d06ecd-d362-4fac-b10f-807d40cbe004
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Way of Life 2005 Mar -2007 (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-08-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 61.2 minutes
Words: ~4,961
And this is also an important thing for us to do. Oh, sorry. And we we should also try and focus in in the morning as well. What we try and focus on in the morning is our motivation. So trying to focus on our motivation is actually a very important part of practicing, a very important part of trying to train our minds.
Because if we don’t focus on our motivation, what we tend to usually be motivated by are the three poisons is attachment, anger, and ignorance. And if we’re focused, we focus our attention on our motivation, then we can we can do things with the idea of being able to benefit others, being able to attain Buddhahood and lead sentient beings out of suffering. So this means that it’s a good idea when we wake up in the morning to think, whatever I do today, may I I’m going to try and do it with the, attitude of bodhicitta, and may I take every opportunity to focus on others to eliminate self-cherishing and try and develop an idea of, compassion and loving kindness for all other beings. So if we’ve started the day like this, if we’ve started the day focused on developing bodhicitta, on spending, our time getting rid of self-cherishing. Mhmm.
Oops. If we spent, if if we’ve spent the morning or if if we focus in the morning, on developing the right motivation and we’ve spent the day and we’ve, trying to do good things, trying to focus on others, trying to eliminate self-cherishing, then when we get to the end of the day, it’s also a good idea to, review our day, to, look at what we’ve done during the day. And if we’ve done something good, if we’ve done something where we were motivated, by a positive thought and we’ve done something to help others or we’ve something positive, then we should be happy about that. We should think that we’ve done now we should be They have an expression in Tibetan which is literally translated as meditating on happiness. That sounds weird, doesn’t it?
We should be meditating on happiness. Mhmm. Mhmm. Okay. So the idea behind So the idea behind this meditating on happiness about the good things that we’ve done is that if we are happy about what we’ve done, if we rejoice in what we’ve done, then that expands the potential or the positive potential from our positive actions.
And if we regret something we’ve done that was good, that means that we, reduce the positive potential from that action. So what we’re trying to do then is spend a little bit of time focusing on happiness, meditating on happiness or meditating on being happy about the good things that we’ve done. And then if we can need to spend a little bit of time also thinking about the things that we we’ve done that weren’t so good, and, thinking, well, you know, it wasn’t a very good idea to do that. Now I’ve gotta try not to do that and, develop a sense of regret for the things that we’ve done, the negative things we’ve done. So the idea of doing this is that we start to, undermine our self-cherishing, undermine our self grasping.
If we don’t focus on developing the right motivation, in the morning, hopefully first thing, then our self-cherishing and our self grasping, will be very quick, to take the place of that motivation. It’s very easy for us to do something motivated by one of the three poisons. It’s really easy for us to do something motivated by self-cherishing. But we actually have to put a little bit of effort in if we’re trying to do something with a positive motivation. So it’s a really good idea to to try and remember first thing in the morning before your self-cherishing hasn’t had enough time to kick in, that you should be, that we should be trying to work towards enlightenment.
So it’s not just in general during the day, in the beginning of the day and the evening. We should also try and remind ourselves, to work towards enlightenment, that to or to motivate ourselves by, the thought of enlightenment, when we’re going to do anything else. And and this is a very good example of something that is a good idea to to it’s a good idea to do motivated by bodhicitta. The text that we’re looking at this evening, A Guide to the bodhisattva’s Way of Life is a Mahāyāna text. It’s a text that describes the way beings can follow the bodhisattva path and become Buddhas.
If we want to develop an understanding of this, then it’s a good idea that our motivation for looking at the text accords with, the meaning of the text. So that is if we wanna practice, if we wanna study a Mahāyāna text, we wanna follow Mahāyāna activities, we should have a Mahāyāna motivation. So if you’re struggling that with that for some reason this evening, if you’re having trouble focusing on others and, you are feeling overwhelmed by self-cherishing, then it’s a good you it’s the second option is then to focus on your own happiness. But we don’t want to just focus on what we see as being happiness that isn’t really happiness that is the suffering saṃsāra that we mistake for happiness. If we really want ourselves to be happy, if we really wanted to make ourselves experience happiness that doesn’t change, then we need to work towards nirvana.
So if we’re feeling overwhelmed by self-cherishing, we need to be intelligent about what we’re going to do with that then and focus it on, true happiness, on working towards true happiness for ourselves and remind ourselves that true happiness isn’t the happiness that we think exists in saṃsāra, that it is the peace of nirvana. And even if if even that is too hard, we can’t come up with this idea of nirvana because it’s just too obscure and we don’t know what it is. So how are we supposed to focus on something we don’t know? If we can’t come up those kind of mental blocks, then at least we should be focusing on finding happiness in our next lifetime, finding samsaric happiness in our next lifetime. If we’re not focused on at least that, then listening to the teachings on the path of the Bodhisattva, the way of the Bodhisattva, won’t become Dharma.
It’ll just be another worldly exercise. So best choice, work for Buddhahood. Next best choice, work for nirvana, and at least, focus on the next lifetime. So the problem with being motivated by something other than these three motivations, the problem with, that is the problem with focusing on, how we can get something, a positive return from this action of learning about a dharma text that’s going to help us in this life is that it is actually very difficult to get a positive result when we’re motivated by attaining happiness in this lifetime. Now, the reason for this is that in order for us to actually experience happiness in this lifetime, we have to do something with an intensely positive motivation.
We have to do something that is very selfless, that is very concentrated on others in order for us to really start experiencing the results of that in this lifetime. And it’s very difficult for us to do anything like that. It’s very difficult for us to, do something, totally focused on others and not be focusing on ourselves. So if we don’t have the ability to do something in a totally selfless way, what we can do is focus on things that are, grander, more vast. That is a good rebirth rather than this life and liberation rather than a good rebirth and Buddhahood rather than liberation.
And therefore, by being motivated by these things, even the littlest positive merits or positive potential that we can So we need to really focus on motivation. It’s an important factor in making sure that we get the best from our practice, whatever it is that we do, positive thing that we want to engage in. If we had do it with the right motivation, it’s going to have the strongest results. If we don’t do something, with that kind of motivation and we don’t have, we we won’t have experienced the results of it in any significant way. Even if we did manage to do something that was a strong enough positive action to experience the results of it in this lifetime, we only live for at most a hundred years, so that positive result will be used up pretty quickly and then, we won’t get anything more out of it.
So what we really need to keep doing is focusing on our mind, focusing on what we’re thinking, paying attention to the way, that our minds drift because it’s really difficult for us, to maintain a focus on, these kind of motivations or maintain this kind of motivation. It’s very easy for us to slip into thinking about ourselves, following our emotions, following our self-cherishing attitudes. Now, our minds are very fickle. If we don’t pay attention to them, they’ll run after whatever they want pretty quickly. And most of us can experience this, in a day to day way.
Without paying close attention to our mind, they run after things that are, and not necessarily helpful to them. Mhmm. So the thing is the this by focusing on on our next lifetime or even better focusing on individual liberation or even better focusing on Buddhahood, we don’t lose out in this lifetime. If we’re able to develop this motivation motivation for doing whatever it is we’re going to do, whether it’s meditation or listening to teachings or whatever it is we’re going to do, then that has a very strong impact on on our mind stream. The positive potential accumulated when we do something like that doesn’t run out, doesn’t finish until we complete the goal that we had dedicated it towards or that we have motivated ourselves towards achieving.
So, this means that if we are motivated to attain Buddhahood, then the results of the positive action that we accumulated don’t run out until we become a Buddha. And the other thing is too, even in a very, temporary worldly way, If we’re a good person and we work really hard to be a good person, then people appreciate that and they try and help us and they, speak of us well, they help us out. So we get things that we need even in this lifetime. Even the things that we felt like we had to individually strive for come to us if we’re actually focused on trying to be a good person, trying to help others. On the other hand, if we become incredibly selfish and we do everything for our own benefit and we work really hard to make ourselves happy, not giving not caring what happens to others, then this isn’t gonna set us up very well.
We may think that we are going to end up feeling good about that, but if we’re mean to everyone else and we think about ourselves all the time, then no one’s gonna stand around saying, they’re such a great guy, I wanna help them. Instead, they’re going to say, I don’t like that person. They’re selfish. They hurt they hurt people, and I don’t wanna help them at all. So in fact, by trying to, do things for ourselves, we don’t get much of what we want.
In the end, because, nobody likes us, we don’t get much help. The motivation that is probably the best motivation for us to develop is this motivation of bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment. And this is in its conventional form, the idea of working towards enlightenment in order to lead all sentient beings out of suffering. And this is essentially by its nature a self a selfless attitude. Selfless in that you are focused on others and not on yourself.
And, we know from our experience that if someone is completely selfless, they are respected, they are respected, are well liked, they are they are revered and they and anyone who want who wants to help them can. So the irony of the of this situation is that when we try and work for ourselves, we harm ourselves and when we try and work for others, we help ourselves. When we try and work for others, and then we get benefits back from others. When we try and work for ourselves, we may have a small small reward but ultimately we are harming ourselves. So we make this big mistake in thinking that in order to make ourselves happy, we have to work for ourselves.
Have to, do everything in order to, achieve that happiness for ourselves. But that’s what that’s what we’ve been doing since the beginningless time. We’ve been working really hard to make ourselves happy and all of that work that we ‘ve done is karma and it’s that karma that’s kept us in saṃsāra. It’s that karma that’s kept us experiencing suffering. So if we really want to be happy, then we have to work for others.
It’s only through working for others that we can truly make ourselves happy. Okay. Quite apart from that, there is only one us and there’s many others. So because of this, it makes more sense to, pay more attention to consider others to be more important than ourselves because there’s less of us than there is of them. There’s only one us, there’s many others.
So because this is the case, because ultimately we can’t make ourselves ourselves happy by, trying to make our make ourselves happy by by following our self-cherishing and because, others, have shown us great kindness, then, what we really need to concentrate on is the vastest mind, that we can, the most beneficial mind we can, the mind of enlightenment. So this means, to try and develop the idea of all sentient beings, without exception, without leaving a single being out, without without partiality and thinking that in order to help all beings without exception, I’m going to attain Buddhahood and lead them out of suffering. And with that thought in mind, plea Well, please meditate on that thought for a few minutes. Alright. So we’re up to the section that’s dealing with refuge.
Oh, really? Yeah. Mhmm. Mhmm. We’re up to the section that’s dealing with results and refuge.
And in the text, goes on to give a brief advice, a brief piece of advice describing the practice of refuge. And in this, it says that in developing refuge, refuge we need to understand two things. We need to understand the cause for refuge and the cause for refuge being the suffering of saṃsāra and the place of refuge. And place of refuge being that which has the qualities to act as a refuge. So we need to understand that the Three Jewels, whether they are the resultant Three Jewels or the temporary Three Jewels, the causal causal, jewels have the qualities to act as place of refuge, but they also we also need to understand the difference between the Three Jewels.
So we need to understand what the Buddha jewel is, what the Dharma jewel is, and what the Sangha jewel is. So having understood that, then we make a commitment to ourselves and we don’t necessarily need to tell anyone else. The idea of going for refuge is something that comes from inside your mind and is a state of mind as opposed to something that you necessarily need to say or explain. Alright. So then this commentary that we’re working from is a commentary to the guide to the Buddhist way of life was written by Lama Tsongkhapa’s student whose name was Gyaltsab Je.
And in here then, Gyaltsab Je says, if you wanna know more, go and look in the Lamrim Chenmo because my teacher wrote that and he knows more than me. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Alright. Oh, dear. The okay. So then it says that explained explained the process of going for refuge in in the Lamrim Chenmo very clearly, the great explanation of the path very clearly. So if you have any questions, he said to go and look in that text because it explains it better than he did, then he could, then Gyaltsab Je himself could.
And then it says there is one point that he wanted to make and that is that he has heard that there are some people saying that the true paths, which is the realization of emptiness in the continuum of ārya beings, that is ārya bodhisattva, people realized emptiness and are on the path of seeing and above, that their realizations of emptiness are not the Dharma jewel. So according to Lama Tsongkhapa and according to his student, obviously, Gyaltsab Je, then the realization of emptiness in the continuum of Araya Bodhisattvas are the Dharma jewel. Right? So the realization of emptiness, it’s and they’re true cessation. So you have true paths and true cessation.
True path is the realization of emptiness. A true cessation is the cessation of gripping or grasping at inherent existence. So according to Tsongkhapa and his students, this realization is the Dharma jewel. The truth or the ultimate Dharma jewel, which then manifest through the teachings and so on. Okay.
So there were some that argued with this and said that the bodhisattvas who have realized emptiness haven’t finished the path. They’re not fully enlightened Buddhas. So how can any realization that they have be an ultimate realization, an ultimate jewel? And the the argument that came back from Lama Tsongkhapa and his students was that the realization of emptiness is the realization of emptiness. The realization of emptiness of a an ārya being is is is still the same realization as Buddhas have.
That this is not necessarily completely developed. And so he said that it’s be to be very careful, that you don’t just just think of the that you don’t don’t just think of the realizations of emptiness in the mind stream of Buddhas as being the Dharma jewel, but that when you have this idea of going for refuge, that you’re also going for refuge to the realizations of emptiness in the mind stream of Bodhisattvas. It’s not just the wisdom, truth body of the Buddhas. It’s not just the Dharmakāya of the Buddhas. It’s also the realizations of emptiness within the continuums of ārya beings, of of bodhisattva aryas.
And then I say, Geshe-la said, do you know who was putting forward this idea? And that’s when he — he keeps teasing me about not being a Gelugpa. He goes, it was a Gelugpa. And then he said, I don’t know really. I’m just teasing you.
I was on. Uh-uh. Oh, dearly. Yeah. Actually up to the next verse then, which is verse twenty six.
Yeah? No. No. I’m up to twenty six. Twenty six.
Alright. Which says, until the essence of enlightenment is reached, I go for refuge to the Buddhas. Also, take refuge in the doctrine and all the host of bodhisattvas. So this is basically the refuge prayer. The first line is saying until when it’s describing the time frame for when you’re taking enlightenment.
And then the next three lines have the three objects of refuge, the Buddha’s, the doctrine or the Dharma, and the host of bodhisattvas. So that is the way of another way of saying the Sangha. Yeah. The other the other translation I have here says Dharma instead of doctrine because I think perhaps doctrine could give you a strange idea of what it is you take your refuge in. Alright.
And then this process, how we actually visualize or generate an idea of this process is by thinking that we are dealing with a whole host of support. First of all, we, visualize or have an idea of the Buddha Śākyamūni who’s the Buddha of this age, the person who turned the wheel of Dharma and and gave us access, to the teachings, the way to get out of saṃsāra. And then we think of all the beings that Buddha led to enlightenment, all of the people who became arhats, of the Bodhisattvas that that he he led to enlightenment. And then, we have the idea of the realizations that are in their mind stream. And the true paths and true in in all of their mind streams.
And then, we also need to take into account the Buddha that will be us in the future. By following the path of Buddha of the Buddhas, we get rid of all of the obscurations that we have and we develop all positive qualities and we will become a Buddha ourselves. And then, our Buddha the being that is our future Buddha is also something to take refuge in. And the realizations in our mind stream at that stage are the Dharma jewel that we can take refuge in and the, the fact that we would have become an Ārya Sangha is also something to take refuge in. So we think of something that is an amalgam of both the causal refuge, which is the reason that we, can take refuge and the resultant refuge, which is ourselves having realized Buddhahood.
So something that’s a combination of both of those things. And then the idea that we’re developing when we develop refuge is that we are saying, I take I’m I’m handing I’m handing my power over to you so that I can follow what you’re saying instead of following my deluded thoughts. Alright. So we’re handing ourselves over to our our future Buddha. We’re handing ourselves over to the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas saying, I’m going to try and follow you instead of following what my mind usually wants to do.
So in that sense, in that in that idea of saying, please, I’m asking for protection, I’m asking for guidance because I don’t have the power to do this myself. We’re saying please protect me. There’s a similar feeling to the way that a child will run to their parents when they’re in danger. That sense that they’re looking to them for protection because they know that they can’t protect themselves. Alright?
So that’s the attitude of refuge. We have this combination of these different aspects of causal and resultant refuge in the three aspects or the three different bits that make up the Three Jewels. And then we’re saying, okay, I can’t do this myself. I’m looking to you for safe direction. Mhmm.
Sorry. I left some bit off. And that was it. Then the that we’re going for refuge to, this is the attitude we have. And then we think then we have this idea, I go for refuge until, the end of this life or until I become enlightened, to the Buddha.
And then we so we have a clear idea of what the Buddha is, and then to the Dharma, and then who to the Buddha who is, it says, supreme amongst people who walk, to the to the Dharma which is supreme amongst realizations or is the jewel of realizations and is the the true paths and true cessation, and then to the Sangha, which is supreme amongst communities. Yeah. Okay. Okay. You have to be very specific when you ask us the questions.
So the process of refuge is that we start with someone who’s teaching them Dharma. Right? This is where it starts. It starts with someone, an external figure who’s teaching us the Dharma. Whether it’s Buddha Śākyamūni or other or other Buddhists.
Yeah. There’s someone teaching the Dharma. And then the process or the the the refuge Oh, sorry. The Dharma jewel is a process of the development of realizations. So it comes from other people are able to teach from their realizations and we go on to develop realizations in our mind.
So that process is the Dharma jewel. Alright? And that said to be our actual refuge. If there’s a thing that can stop us from suffering, it’s the practice of the Dharma. Yeah?
So then we also have people that help us with that. Now the people who are best us for that are the realized beings, the aryas. They’re the best people to help us to to practice. So that’s why they’re called the the the Sanga jewel or the the jewel of the community to help us. So this is the bit that I came unstuck with.
What we need to be specific about though is those beings are not our refuge. Right? They’re the objects of our refuge. The refuge is the state of mind. State of mind.
Yeah? So the objects that we take refuge in are the Buddha that teaches and then the Buddha that we will become. The process of developing realization is the Dharma jewel and that’s said to be the actual refuge. And then then there is the the the realized beings who can help us on that path. But they are the things that we take refuge in.
Refuge is a state of mind. Yeah? Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Alright. So that’s actually the end of the bit on refuge, and the next thing that we start looking at is the section about confessing negativities by means of completing the four powers. Alright. So this it gets a bit confusing when we’re talking about this because this word that they have in Tibetan, which is in case anyone’s interested, doesn’t really have a word in English that can match up with it. Yeah?
Alright. So it’s a it’s a word that covers the whole process of of what do you call it when you take the it’s a word that means that you can make something so it can’t produce. Sterilizing. Yes.
Got it. Alright. It’s a it’s a it covers the whole process of sterilizing negative potential. Yeah. So when we’ve done something that’s a negative action, we have a potential for the experience of suffering in our mental continuum.
And I’m sure we have the the we’ve done something that’s negative karma and we have to well, we if we don’t do something about it, we experience the results of that negative karma. So they have this word in Tibetan that covers the whole process of recognizing, what is it? Relying on something in order to recognize, in order to, apply a remedy and there’s one I’ve missed out. Anyway, there’s these four r’s that you we will go through it. Trust me.
The the whole process is described by one word in Tibetan. So when it says confession, it’s not necessarily just confessing. It’s going through process, well, when you say confessing that does mean confessing, but it’s a bit more it doesn’t just mean confessing. It means going through the whole process by which you recognize, confess, purify, and commit to not doing it again. Alright?
So that’s the section that we’re dealing with at the moment. Henceforth, it shall be referred to as confessing. Alright. Because it’s too long to say the whole thing. So when we talk about this, the process by which we we confess and purify our negative deeds is the four what are called the four opponent powers or the four powers.
And we’re going to go through a general explanation of those which isn’t actually in the, root text but is given by, Gyaltsab Je in the commentary we have here. And then we go into, great detail about the things that you need to confess, along with, according to, Śāntideva explanation in the root text. So what we’re what we’re dealing with here here is a way to purify negative actions that can even happen when we’re trying really hard to be good. Right? Because we have afflicted states of mind, because we have we don’t have complete complete mindfulness, then we can do things without even realizing that we’ve done them even when we’re trying really hard to be good.
So, the word that we need to the the word that describes the process by which we stop ourselves doing negative things is conscientiousness or awareness. And and without that, we’re always going to need without perfect conscientiousness, we’re always going to need to purify. Okay. Mhmm.
Mhmm. And the Buddha, Śākyamūni, actually gave a very precise description for how to purify negative actions. Sterilize is probably a better word than purify because you can’t purify them completely till you’ve realized emptiness, but you can sterilize them. Alright? So he did this in a text that’s called the Showing the Four Dharmas.
Now, Gyaltsab Je says that this description of the purification practice based on the four dharmas is a general one that doesn’t focus on the idea of purifying vows. So when people hold vows and then there’s another process of purification which we’re not going to go into here but he just wanted to make sure that he wasn’t talking about purifying vows in this description. Mhmm. Mhmm. So in this text called the four dharmas, the Buddha replies to a question from the bodhisattva Maitreya by saying, Maitreya, bodhisattvas even though accumulate negative karma, can purify or or can can purify this karma so that it doesn’t hurt them.
Also, doesn’t interfere with their practice, their their meditation. So we can stop there for tonight. Okay.