Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 17-minute Q&A closing a session on the Bodhisattva Way of Life, Geshe Pema Tsering opens with a blunt remark: knowing virtue from negativity yet doing nothing about it is, in his words, “really stupid.” A student question then draws him into a compact exposition of Buddhist epistemology — using a flower as illustration, he distinguishes three types of subjects (sound, consciousness, and person) in relation to an object, and connects this to the mind that realizes emptiness. The session closes on a practical note: a question about confession practices beyond the Thirty-Five Buddhas prompts him to clarify that any practice — the hundred-syllable mantra or others — will serve, provided it rests on the four powers: recognition of past negativity, regret, resolution not to repeat it, and virtuous engagement.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2005 11 22Q Bodhisattvas Way of Life.mp3
UUID: 69ee6f40-25dd-4d19-b6a2-a0a189448a8b
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Way of Life 2005 Mar -2007 (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-11-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 17.2 minutes
Words: ~939
So then can I say that it is if if we do not act carefully, knowing everything that we know, you know, we know about virtues and virtues, negativities, and so forth? If we do not act carefully, then we are going to end up experiencing what is being described to us. So this there is this danger that we might end up experiencing, what has been described to us. Now we know we we know that the virtues that we have to accomplish. We know we know the negativities that we have to abandon.
Now if we just if we do not practice accordingly, then if we just keep on maybe accumulating small and not accomplishing any virtue, and if we just stay like this, knowing knowing that this is happening, we just stay and doing nothing, then then, yeah, this is then you get what it’s like it’s like really how do you say? The word that they said, it’s like it’s like turning our our minds into nothing, but it’s like, we’re simply it’s really stupid. Oh, yeah. That’s why, Jerry. You have a Yeah.
It’s subject identifies object. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. Oh, you know, it’s the identification between subject or.
You were reading that all the time? You were reading that all the time? All the time. Yeah. No.
No. You were reading that? I did. You were reading that? No.
No. No. Just because I got an idea. You got an idea? So what what is the I don’t don’t I I understand.
I I know the words in Tibetan and everything. This if we get into this topic, in Tibetan, this is very technical, and it’s gonna take ages, which is objects and subjects. We start talking about subjects and objects. It’s gonna take ages. Yeah.
You understand? I I understand. It’s it’s a it’s a logical topic that all every Geshe studies, and they know, like, better than the back of their hands. But it’s extremely complicated. Okay.
Lovely. So you don’t you think you are No. So then, for example, so let’s take the the flower as as an illustration of object. Mhmm. Okay?
So the the flower is the object. Now in relation to that flower, you can have you can you have a you have this have subjects. Now the the the category subjects is is divided in three. Okay? So the first one is sound.
The second one is mind or consciousness or awareness or awareness. They are all the same. And the and the third one is person. Person. Person.
Person or no. No. Or a being. A being a being Person. Okay.
Person. The first one is sight or sound. Sound. Sound. First one is sound.
The second one is mind, and the third one is person. Yeah. This usually the the first one usually as person. So how is how is the relationship which one of them? So sound.
So then so then sound. So the sound, the word flower flower is so the flower there, that flower there is the object. And the word flower is the subject in this subdivision of sound. So the word flower is this is this is the subject. Now in the subdivision of mind or consciousness, so there is, for example, an eye consciousness that perceives the flower and the color of the flower and everything.
So that eye consciousness perceiving that flower is is the subject. The flower, and the eye consciousness perceiving the flower is the subject. And, again, now in the third subdivision, the person so so every any any one of us here who is looking to that flower and perceiving it, then every one of us is a subject in relation to that flower, the object. Mhmm. So core consciousness.
That’s it. And the consciousness also, we have a a eye Oh, so okay. So so then there is one one thing is is the known, the object which is known, that which is known is the object, and that which the knower the knower that which knows is the subject. So this is, yes, there is still subject and object. And that’s because that mind that realizes emptiness, that mind is is is a subject.
And then you you that mind is what you have to make it better and better and better. Last question? If there is another one besides that or if Okay. So he says that, well, there are many there are many confession practices besides the thirty five Buddhas that is the the hundred syllable mantra and and other ones. But you can use you can use any of them.
Even the hundred syllable mantra, you can use. The important thing is the four powers. He was saying, so the important thing is to recognize that you have done negativities in the past, then to generate regret, and then to to generate the resolution not to commit them again in the future, and then engage in a virtuous practice, which could be recitation to purify — be it the hundred syllable mantra. Could be this mantra or that mantra.
But that that’s important thing. So there are many ways you can do in many different ways. Important thing is the four powers. So he says, yes, the main thing is going forward. You have to regret and generate the resolution not to commit them again, then engage in a virtuous practice like going for a confession and so forth.
Yes. Okay. Shall we? [Closing prayer in Tibetan.] Right?
Yeah. Okay. Sure.