Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A listener’s question about Tibetan translation — what is the difference between guarding the mind and training the mind? — opens this 12-minute Q&A from Geshe Pema Tsering’s commentary on Śāntideva’s Bodhisattva Way of Life. The answer: the two are inseparable; one trains the mind in the act of guarding it, and guarding must happen in every activity, not only in formal meditation. He connects this to the six perfections, noting that guarding the mind means watching for opposing impulses — miserliness in the case of generosity. He then offers two concrete analogies: an unguarded mind produces burnt or undersalted food; and the untamed mind, like Śāntideva’s wild elephant, causes more harm than any real elephant. The session closes with a wry example — burning your mouth on scalding water rather than waste it.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2006 03 14Q Bodhisattvas Way of Life.mp3
UUID: 8e860889-7cab-48fa-be56-b9a63eb6f768
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Way of Life 2005 Mar -2007 (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2006-03-14
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 12.0 minutes
Words: ~814
Okay. Okay. Oh, yeah. So can I say, please do guard your mind well. Okay.
I don’t know if you have questions. Yes? So I said, yes. For example, if if you sit like he was listening, you sit like this in meditation and and you’re thinking, ‘Oh, I want a lot of money,’ just as people were — many people were killed and like — too many people were — you know, this is very good.
And if you think like that, and then get the point. So then, Geshe-la says, the main thing the main thing is the mind. The body and the speech, our our physical actions and speech, speech, they are like the servants of the mind. So they they follow the mind. So then Geshe-la says it is very important then that we must guard the mind — the main thing is guarding the mind.
It’s very important to guard the mind. So if we if we do do not guard the mind, if some bad thought comes about, then we will engage in negative deeds of body and speech. We’ll do do something bad. We’ll say something bad. And if we if we are guarding our minds and some good thought comes about, we will do something good or we will say something good.
You wanted to I just I just wouldn’t know how to put it in Tibetan without using the same word in Tibetan. I the the as far as I can see, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t know. So there is a bit of a complication here. So I asked him I used two words that I know of. So the word for guarding, the mind is a word that the text had been used in Tibetan.
And then I use another word for for which sometimes is used as discipline. But discipline, the noun in the sense of training, which is to train, which it refers back to mind training. Then you got a sense. So so yeah. There is a yes.
There is there a difference between these two, guarding the mind and training the mind, disciplining the mind. He says, yeah. Well, you you you train the mind. You do mind training while you are guarding the mind. So then the the refers to to guarding the mind at all times, not only when when one is meditating.
When one is meditating also, but in every other activity, one has to investigate one’s mind before engaging in any activity. And one one has to see what what it what it is that is occurring in one’s mind, what what is coming about in one’s mind. So then, I said, so in the in the context of this text, which is saying, so in order to guard the training, one must guard the mind. So which is referring to the trainings of of the six perfections. So in the case, for example, of the perfection of generosity, the perfection of giving, then one guards one’s mind against that which is the opposite of of giving, which is miserliness.
But generally speaking, the analogies are more broad in context. When we’re talking about guarding the mind, we’re talking about investigating our thoughts before engaging in any in any activity and then seeing if if if what is what will follow is good or bad. Okay. Look at our minds before engaging in activity. And if it is good or bad.
Okay? So then Geshe-la gives an example. So for example, if we are cooking, then we have to guard our minds also when we are cooking. Because if we do not guard our minds well when we are cooking, then we will not have we cannot have we not cook good tasting food. So if if we if we are not guarding our minds, then maybe the food will be uncooked or maybe it will be overcooked or maybe it won’t have enough salt.
But if we guard our minds well, then we’ll have food that is tasty, you know, ready to eat. You know? Okay. Mad elephant. Yes.
He’s giving an you say an analogy? Analogy. So first, he says our mind is like an elephant like an elephant, which causes a lot of harm. But then it refers that the the elephant, which is our mind, is much more harmful than an ordinary elephant, a real elephant. An ordinary elephant cannot cause as much harm as the elephant of the mind.
Okay? Okay? Maybe one last question. No? The hot water.
Yeah. Because because of our miserliness, you know, I was saying we we take the hot water, and it’s too hard to drink. So we do not throw it away. But because of our miserliness, we go on to drink it and burn ourselves. Like, greedy, over greedy.
Okay? Yes. Yes. Yeah.