Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute closing session of a Calm Abiding Retreat, Geshe Pema Tsering turns a live question — does developing bodhicitta require calm abiding first? — into a guided meditation for the group. His answer: no; bodhicitta grows through analytical steps — recognizing one’s own suffering, extending it to all beings, moving through the three types of suffering (suffering of suffering, suffering of change, all-pervasive suffering), and arriving at the resolve to achieve Buddhahood for every being. He then guides the group in holding that resolve as a calm abiding object, watching for excitement and dullness, and using renewed reflection on suffering to recover the object when the mind wanders. The session closes with practical advice for practitioners returning home — keep meditating daily, use breath as a warm-up when the mind is scattered — and a dedication prayer unpacked line by line.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 CAR 2002 10 08.mp3
UUID: eb561cc1-1276-448b-a5ad-7c76cbd97a92
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Calm Abiding Retreat (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-10-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~2,046
He said the it’s it’s good for us to do this meditation, but if if you’re if we’re beginners like us, he said, that probably the best thing to do is after you’ve concentrated on your on your breath and you’ve because if your thoughts are scattered, if you concentrate on your breath, it becomes a good preparation for any type of meditation practice. But perhaps the most beneficial practices for us to do is on the refuge or bodhicitta, because they strengthen the mind and develop merit. So if we’re concentrating on them, then we should be trying to do that as much as we can. But if we can do that in retreat, then that’s best. And if we can do calm abiding practice in retreat, then that’s best.
But if we try and put aside fifteen-twenty minutes every day to do a meditation practice, then that can be of enormous benefit as well. Just, again, using mind as object concentration. Uh-huh. The mind He said it’s a similar thing to if you’re trying to meditate on bodhicitta. You don’t just have a general idea of bodhicitta, you meditate and meditate until you get a real understanding of bodhicitta, and then you meditate on that fixed idea.
So you have to get an understanding of it before you can concentrate on it. He said, it’s not the actual changing that you’re meditating on, it’s the fixed idea that you come to at the end. To get a fixed understanding of mind, do you need to have calm abiding? Is that what you mean? Yes.
He said, no, you don’t have to have calm abiding in order to even develop bodhicitta. So what happens is we have to think about it is like an analytical we can say, I have suffering, I understand my suffering. And then other people have suffering, and want myself and them to be happy. I don’t want us to suffer. And then once we’ve decided that we don’t want them to suffer, then we have to think that I’ll do it myself.
And then once we’ve thought this, then the thought comes up in my head, I will attain Buddhahood in order to save all sentient beings from suffering. And then once this thought starts arriving spontaneously in our minds and continues in our minds, then that’s actually development of bodhicitta, and that doesn’t have to be based on calm abiding. And he says all the time when he gives teachings, he always starts with a oh, man. Mental going. She says.
Oh. So she’s. Yeah. So he’s Okay. So sorry.
He he said that when we are doing the motivation at the beginnings of teachings, and we go through the process of how to develop bodhicitta, and then we’re supposed to sit there, and he said, that’s meditating on bodhicitta. And he also said that we’re supposed to do a meditation after this, a samadhi meditation. And then if you like it, we can go through how to do it on bodhicitta. Is that Yeah. Because he said he was gonna do a samadhi.
So he said if we could do the samadhi thing, we can do it on how to meditate on bodhicitta in samadhi. So, I mean, it’s about you have to think about this. You have to think about, I’m suffering. I have so much suffering. And then if I’m not the only one who’s suffering, everybody’s suffering.
They all have this this all this pain. So I have to try and help them with their pain. And in order to do this, the only thing I can do is to achieve Buddhahood. So we have to start thinking about this now, I said. I say, so we have to start meditating on this and that.
Is that okay? Well, you don’t have to, but, you know So we have to think really deeply about the three different types of suffering, how there’s a suffering of suffering, the suffering of change, and the all pervasive suffering. So then we have to think about the torment that all sentient beings are going through because they’re at the mercy of these three different types of suffering and how that they’re no different from ourselves. So that we also have to think that there is no sentient being who isn’t suffering. There’s no person or being that can live outside of suffering.
We’re all abiding with suffering. And the only way that they can escape from this suffering is for me to achieve Buddhahood and show them how not to suffer. So if we think really deeply and hard about what this suffering actually is and how different people and different beings in the world are in in existence are suffering and we think really hard about this suffering, then the thought should come up, how do I help them be free from this suffering? Is it there? Have you got the thought that you want all beings to be free from suffering?
So just in the same way that we can see the suffering and suffering, and we have a reference point of being able to see how people suffer when they have the suffering is suffering. We have to extend that view out and see that if people even when they think that they are happy, this is actually the suffering of change, and it is not in its essence happiness, and that every single being in saṃsāra has an all pervasive suffering about them. So we have to see that all beings in saṃsāra are suffering. So we have to think that if anything that I do that isn’t helping these sentient beings is wasted, I have to devote all my efforts and energy to trying to help these beings be free from suffering. So the only way that I can help them is to quickly, quickly achieve enlightenment.
The only way that I can make sure that they don’t suffer is for me to achieve Buddhahood by myself and to be able to help them from from that understanding. So therefore, I have to achieve Buddhahood very quickly. So now we have to sit and think about this to try and generate the thought that we will achieve Buddhahood to separate all beings from suffering. We have to think about their suffering and and then think about how we can help them, and we have to really concentrate on the best way to help them. And then from that, we should try and concentrate on developing the bodhicitta motivation.
So if we have this thought in our mind that we have to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, if we can see this thought in our mind, then we should try to concentrate on this thought and place our attention on this thought. So in the same that we way that we place our attention on this thought at the beginning, then if our mind has wandered, we have to replace our attention back on the object, which is bodhicitta. Mindset? Don’t let the mind wander. So there there is a danger that the excitement and dullness may come into our mind, so we have to keep our eye out for these enemies.
In the way that we were thinking before when we got a sense of bodhicitta, we have to put our minds in on the same place. So now I have to achieve enlightenment in order to separate all beings from suffering. Think this way. Is your mind going to the to the noise of the wind? Don’t lose the thought that you’re concentrating on.
So is this thought that I will achieve enlightenment in order to separate all sentient beings from their suffering and bring them happiness, is it there? Don’t lose this thought. So this is how we do meditations on taking bodhicitta as the object of concentration when we’re doing calm abiding meditations. And what we should be doing is every couple of minutes or however long we are we can handle it, keep reminding ourselves to come back to the to the object. So when we lose the object, we can go to thinking about the the sufferings of all sentient beings and how the only way we can save them from this suffering is to achieve Buddhahood, and then in that way bring our mind back to the object again.
And then it also becomes something that it creates great merit. If you have any more questions, Yeah. He said that the it looks like the weather’s broken a little bit. He’s just teasing me. Said, yeah.
Really. Okay. Which one? What one? It’s one that’s not in there.
Just to praise. Sorry. Day. So if we’ve been doing meditations on karma or bodhicitta, he said we should do that first. Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, I thought the photo you meant, the photo after. So Geshe says when we get back to the mainland that if everyone can try and keep meditating, he said, please keep trying to meditate a little bit. And if you don’t remember everything that went on in the retreat, everything that you learned, look at the notes that you have, and or if you don’t have notes, try and because he saw people taking notes. And if you don’t have notes, then try and remember what was said.
Try not to forget what what you learned and try and keep meditating even if it’s for a few minutes. He said, So he says, remember when we’re trying to do these meditations that if our mind is all distracted at the start, to start by focusing on the breath and use that as a preliminary to our other meditations. And he says the best thing he thinks the best thing for us to focus on in our meditation would be bodhicitta. And if we absolutely have to focus on some kind of object, then the best thing would be to focus on the statue of the Buddha, Śākyamūni. Okay.
If you’ve got some spare time, then please meditate. And apart from that, doesn’t have anything to say. He said, ‘Now we’re going to do a dedication prayer.’ The reason we’re going to do this dedication prayer is that our meditation days have actually been something that’s very virtuous. Each and every single person’s meditations, even if they couldn’t hold their object of meditation for very long, was a virtuous thing to do. So therefore, because we have this virtue, we should dedicate it to something.
And he said the best thing to dedicate to is, you know, that all beings be free from suffering. And then in order to achieve this aim of all beings, be free from suffering, may I attain Buddhahood. So if you’re getting a bit overwhelmed, he said if it’s getting a bit uncomfortable that you’re always saying the sake of all sentient beings, then maybe you can change it a little bit and say, So if you think like this, that’s also beneficial. Okay. So the the first line of the prayer that we’re going to say is our dedication for all that merit we’ve gained, is the word that he keeps saying, which is, actually means this this virtue.
And translated as this virtue. So he says this this virtue, and then the next part says, may this virtue be dedicated towards the benefit of attaining enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. And it says that it’s dedicated towards the highest enlightenment. And why is it the highest enlightenment? Because it’s the enlightenment that’s seeking to liberate all beings from suffering.
Oh, yeah. So So when we’re thinking so we gotta think like this way and about the good things we’ve done and how they could be dedicated to the achieving of Buddhahood. And and with these thoughts in mind, then we should say the prayer.