Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A student’s question about the three world spheres — every realm of rebirth, from underground to sky — opens this 21-minute Q&A from Geshe Pema Tsering’s Bodhisattva Way of Life series, before turning to a more pointed challenge: why, if Buddhas perfected generosity, does poverty still exist? Geshe Pema Tsering answers that poverty’s causes lie in beings’ own karma, and that completing the perfection of generosity leads to enlightenment, equipping a Buddha to guide every being exactly as needed. A second exchange uses the China-Tibet conflict to illustrate karma and afflictive emotions concretely: anger is the affliction, war the karma, and causes chain forward across many lives. The session closes with the three types of generosity — material, protection, and Dharma-giving (ranked highest) — and a quick exchange distinguishing virtuous, non-virtuous, and neutral phenomena.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2006 04 04Q Bodhisattvas Way of Life.mp3
UUID: 31e1e420-a905-453c-bafe-9136f3a326e5
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Way of Life 2005 Mar -2007 (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2006-04-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 21.3 minutes
Words: ~1,120
Now if you have any questions? Yes? Yes. So then can I use Sanskrit? So then this three what is in in the in the text of Stephen Batchelor?
It was was translated as the three word spheres. Some other people translate as the three universes or there are so many different translations for that. But briefly, Geshe-la says that it is any place where there are ordinary beings or beings that were impelled to rebirth by karma and afflictive emotions. So then it could be be other beings or or ordinary beings or or non-ordinary beings. It could be learners or nonlearners, Geshe-la says.
And then as for and then all these places as for these places, they could be underground, they could be on on the ground, or they could be in the between, Geshe-la says. Those are it’s it’s a it’s a general division. And under these three divisions, you have every place, every possible place of rebirth of ordinary beings. Okay? And on the matter of therefore, we shouldn’t try?
Good question. That’s a good question. So then Geshe-la is saying that Geshe-la is saying that it is it is it is very difficult to accomplish the perfection of of generosity. But even though even though previous Buddhas were not able to to eradicate all poverty in the world, they were able to complete the perfection of generosity in the sense that they were able to completely familiarize themselves with the mind that wishes to give, and they have accomplished Buddhahood in that way. But for there being so many so much poverty in the world is because all those other sentient beings who are poor, they have accumulated causes, the causes for their their experience in poverty now.
Now Geshe-la says that if one can accomplish, let’s say, bring to completion the perfection of generosity, and if one can then through that accomplish enlightenment, Buddhahood, then one will be able to to contribute to the elimination of to the actual elimination of poverty because one would then be able to to know exactly what actions are harmful, what actions are beneficial, and one will be able to give teachings and and act as a guide and so forth. So then, Geshe-la says, if if we bring to completion the perfection of generosity, then we will be able to accomplish enlightenment. If we are enlightened, if we are fully enlightened Buddha, we’ll be able to know everything that is going on on every sentient beings’ minds. And we will be able to determine exactly beneficial, what actions are going to be harmful, and we’ll be able then to teach them the Dharma according to their needs. And it’s because, for example, of of the Buddha, Śākyamūni, having completed the perfection of generosity, having then attained full enlightenment that he came to us and taught us about virtues, the laws of karma, cause and effect that if we give, we will, obviously, reap this and that fruit.
If we if if we protect, how do you say, if we practice morality, then we will we will reap that and that fruit, the results, and so forth. And in this way, he contributes to to to the eradication of all poverty, suffering, misery. So have to have to think think really big. You have to think in terms of a very, very long period of time. Cannot think terms of you cannot think small.
We cannot think in terms of small periods of time. You have to think in terms of thousands and thousands of years, Geshe-la says. Okay. One more question maybe. You want you want to ask something?
So then if if we think I’m going to explain to you what is happening here, okay, is that is we have two words that come together when we’re talking about karma and afflictive emotions. That was the usual translation of karma and afflictive emotions. We’re talking about the word karma is just means action or activity, right? So it’s two words in Tibetan is le, which is karma, which is action and nyon mong, which is afflictive emotions, which is referring in this case, for example, to anger. And I was asking the case of of the war between China and Tibet, it came only out of anger or it came out of karma and afflictive emotions.
Well, the afflictive emotion, Geshe-la says, is anger. And the karma is the act of war itself. Do you understand? So the answer is that, Geshe-la says very, very briefly, Geshe-la is saying that, yes, it definitely came from previous lives. It came because in previous lives, the Chinese have they have acted out of out of anger, for example, and they have they have, how to say, engaged in war.
And those are the causes that led led to them experiencing that again, anger and war. But Geshe-la is saying that it is there’s so much to to say about karma cause and effect in this respect. That’s just one very every one little thing leads to another one in a very long chain of cause and effect. And I say, It’s very difficult to put everything now to put forth everything here now. Is is is that again?
I’m sorry. It’s not clear that? It’s not clear that, you know, regarding practice generosity. Yes. Is that giving to people?
Important? Important giving. So then Geshe-la says the effect of generosity, there is there are three types generosity.
There is the generosity of material things. There is a generosity that protects giving protection from harm. And then there is giving Dharma. And of these three types of generosity, the best one of them is giving Dharma. So that giving Dharma is one of them?
The best one. Yeah? Okay. Buddhadharma. Yeah.
Yeah? Okay. You’re gonna like this one. So then there is one word which is which has very many different translations in English. Okay?
So the word the one word in Tibetan that I translate as Dharma or as as the teachings, it also means phenomena, which is which refers to every phenomena that exists, everything that exists. Now all existing phenomena can be subsumed under three headings. Under three they can be divided in three, virtuous, non virtuous and neutral. So when we’re talking when and then I ask Geshe-la, but when we’re talking about giving dharma, what were we talking about? And this is Geshe-la says, and we are talking about giving virtue.
Neutral. Neutral. What’s neutral? Which is neither virtuous nor non virtuous. Doing nothing.
Yeah. So eighty percent neutral. No gear. No gear. No gear.
Neither good nor bad. Okay? Shall shall we finish? This?