Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. “Discouragement is a form of laziness” — that reframe drives this 37-minute commentary as Geshe Pema Tsering works through verses 17 to 31 of the Bodhisattva Deeds. After framing the bodhisattva path as overcoming two obscurations through mindfulness and effort, he tackles the deflating thought “I can’t attain Buddhahood — it requires too much.” His counter draws on Buddha’s infallibility: even worms and bees can achieve enlightenment through enthusiastic effort, so a human with a precious rebirth has no excuse. He then addresses fear of giving up one’s body for the path, countering it with the image of heads cut countless times in hell realms for nothing — meaning a finger offered for enlightenment should feel like a bargain. A Q&A rounds out the session, covering when bodhisattvas actually give body parts and the distinction between root and cooperative causes.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 10 BD 2002 08 29.mp3
UUID: 76d17fc0-7388-492b-95fb-919e55648466
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB Bodhisattva Deeds (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-08-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 37.0 minutes
Words: ~2,673
And and yep. So for example, the the king, the, you know, the the king king will the king yep. For example, the king, yeah, the king will the king will try to defeat the enemy. And to defeat the enemy, it depends on what the king’s, the strength of the soldiers or, you know, and and as well as the weapons. So likewise, the bodhisattvas will so bodhisattva bodhisattva will fight against the obscurations towards omniscience and obstruction towards the disturbing emotions.
And and how they fight or defeat the two obscurations is the the yeah. From the very beginning that they will defeat they will defeat the laziness. And having having having it yeah. Having abandoned or get rid of the laziness, then they engage in the practices of of collecting the the two. Right?
Collecting the two collections, which are collections of virtues and collection of merit and collection of wisdom. And in order to cultivate this, so during the actual practice, they will with a huge mindfulness and enthusiastic effort, and they cultivate those two and perfect oneself. And through this, and having ignored having obtained those mindfulness and so forth, then they will engage in the practices of mind training of exchanging self and equalizing self and others, which is equalizing that both self and others are same, wishing happiness, and do not want suffering. And through this, and they would yeah. And then they exchange the self and others, which is exchange the self-cherishing attitude and the cherishing other.
So they take this cherishing others and get an exchange and get rid of the self-cherishing attitude. And through such practices, they finally defeat the enemy or which has overcome the both the obscurations of obscuration towards nirvana and towards enlightenment and and attained the final goal, which is Buddhahood. So so Geshe-la said that looks like this is the way what how what we should practice. And now to the third one, which is the the laziness, which applying the antidote to real laziness, you know, not being act active or alert. And that has been explained.
But the next fifteen verses starting from seventeen till Thirty one. Yeah. Yep. So the meaning is that that, you know, should not think that way that, yeah, it is very good to attain the enlightenment, the Buddhahood. And because yeah.
But yeah. Buddha but and to under also understand that, yeah, the ultimate happiness, there is a great joy in happiness by attaining Buddhahood. But but I can’t, you know, just feeling disheartened or losing one’s courage and thinking that it is good, you know, there’s huge benefits of attaining the Buddhahood, but I can’t I can’t, yep, I can’t because because, you know, it’s not that easy to obtain that, you know, it needs lots of requirements to attend to Buddhahood. And and one has to perfect both the collections of both the collections collection of merit and virtue, the wisdom and have to cultivate and develop a wisdom, realizing emptiness, wisdom, and develop a bodhicitta, etcetera, and too much work, and I can’t do that, you know. So then so you should not feel that way.
It is also laziness. Right? So yep. And Geshe-la said that when he think of enlightenment and lie down and and think about practices and, yeah, it is very good to, you know, achieve the Buddhahood. But looking into myself, you know, it’s not that easy.
I don’t think I can attain that sometimes feeling that way. But do you you guys think use guys to think that way? And yeah. So it is possible for one to think, develop such a thought, but should not be like that, should not think that because because the reason because should not think because the Lord Buddha Śākyamūni always speak the truth. And there is no mistake or lie in Buddha’s speech.
And the The Buddha has set forth that that even even the little insects, like little insects or, you know, or the the organisms or, you know, the little worms in the meat as well as bees and so forth. Even those creatures or sentient beings, if they cultivate with a great enthusiastic effort, they can achieve the Buddhahood. So this is what the Buddha speaks the truth, always speak truth. And he said that even those sentient beings can achieve the Buddhahood if they apply the enthusiastic effort.
And The sūtra requested by Drimé Künga. You know? No. No. And and also here said for the sūtra requested by.
Anyway, the sūtra requested by Drimé Künga said that even the enlightenment can be obtained by those the sentient beings like okay. I’ll go through the names now. The lion, tiger, dog, wolf, water, crane, crow, owl. Okay. Shall I?
Yeah. Okay. The bees and and and the little ones in on in the meat, etcetera. And if so even those sentient being if even, you know, even if those sentient beings, you know, attain the enlightenment by applying the enthusiastic effort, then I am a human, and and and I should I should attain enlightenment. Therefore, you know, I must or I should develop an enthusiastic effort.
Even at the cost of my life. Got it. Got it. And also in the sūtra called the Drum sūtra. The dream sūtra that if if the one with the if the one with the very less intelligent or less knowledge applies the enthusiastic effort or a special insight, they can attain the enlightenment.
So therefore, one should not think and be very disheartened or discouraged, but thinking I can’t enlightenment. Because one can attain enlightenment or Buddhahood and because one has all the causes and conditions, all these conducive conditions to achieve the enlightenment or Buddhahood because because one has it is it is one’s own laziness of not practicing because one has all the requirements to practice. One understands, one knows that one has not been born as an animal, born as a human, not just a human, one with the precious human rebirth with the eighteen qualities, the eight leisures and ten endowments, as well as one understands the practices of giving, sorry, the taking and abandonment, which means what to be taken and what to be abandoned. So so one knows how to practice the positive actions to be cultivated and negative action to be abandoned. By knowing this, if one bring all of one’s knowledge or understanding into practice, one should one will and one should attain enlightenment or Buddhahood.
Because because by knowing this and putting and bring all the practice understanding into practice, and if one does not attain to the enlightenment, it’s very strange or funny. So therefore, it’s the one’s practice is like one should practice. If one practice, one should and one will attain enlightenment. Okay. If one thinks that, yeah, if I apply such a great enthusiastic effort, huge effort, there is a possibility and one can attain enlightenment.
But achieving the enlightenment is not a very easy thing to do because there are whole lot of work that, you know, it’s not an easy thing to do, you know. One has to give even one’s head or a hand or feet to cut and give and all these actions are involved to enlightenment. And I I have a huge fear towards, you know, cutting my legs or losing my wealth and so forth. If one thinks like that. It is wrong.
Do you think that way? No. Have to do that. Well, you do now. I’m sorry.
If one think such way or develop a fear that I now have to do all the practices of, you know, giving and giving up, cutting my head or hands so forth, and I can’t do that, whoever, you know, one who feels fear in those actions is the sign or a mistake or it’s a sign that one has not see the gist or the have have one has not a proper understanding of the practices of taking and abandoning. So she should not feel afraid and scared of giving up one’s yeah, one’s body or head or have to cut one’s limbs of the body like hands so forth for the sake of enlightenment. Because we have taken a rebirth from the beginningness of the saṃsāra and have taken numbers of, countless numbers of rebirths. And during each and during those rebirths we have born in the hell realms for many many times. And in the hell realms, you know.
Our head has been cut many times and our lean hands and legs has been cut many, many times. And even if one were to pile up all the heads been cut for doing those rebirth, Australia is too small for the head to fit in. So therefore, so we have go through huge suffering in our hands and head so forth is cut million tons and but none of those, the actions of cutting and so forth, and never been a cause to that even a minute of enlightenment. Now, so now onward, and if I have to lose a finger of my hand and so forth, you know, for the course of enlightenment, And this is the chance I’ve ever got and I should do it, you know, very happily because I have done it many times and never been a cause to enlightenment. This time, I’ll do it.
If it’s if it’s for the cause of the enlightenment, I’m willingly to go through it. And that sort of courage one should develop. And, Geshe-la will take questions now for the rest of the yes. Could you give us an example of a situation I’d like to come Yeah. Where I would need to cut my head off.
Just go with the. Example of a situation Mhmm. That I’m likely to come across Mhmm. To cut my head off Okay. Or my hand or finger even for the sake of enlightenment.
Okay. Geshe-la said that it’s very easy. We can do it right now. Well, it is it’s not an easy thing to do and because to do so, such act activities or such actions are giving up one’s body or cutting one’s hand, so forth, you know. And probably from the great stage of the path of accumulation onward and and and should have the should should develop a almost the emptiness, wisdom realizing emptiness.
And definitely one has to have a proper, the so called, the bodhicitta without effort, you know, always, having developed fully developed uncontrived bodhicitta and and should be able to perform whatever action one performs should be with the bodhicitta or should be yeah. Yeah. The bodhicitta with the bodhicitta. So the one those practitioners in the first ground or the supreme bodhisattvas. And they are happy to do it any time, you know, whenever If they were asked to give up their cut their any part of the bodies, you know, they’re very happy and willingly to do so.
And not just that, you know, even if they hear of somebody that somebody such and such practitioner has given up, you know, a part of the body or cut the hands to help somebody, they’re very pleased to hear such things. So those those Bodhisattvas, you know, are very happy. And, yeah, as stated in Candrakīrti’s Middle Way, the root text that, you know, those Bodhisattvas, you know, the supreme bodhisattvas, of course, they are very happy, willingly to give any part of their body for the practice of generosity, not just cutting them, just by hearing a word, begging, you know, somebody else, you know, just a word, may I have your da da da, and they just feel very happy just by mere word hearing. Yeah. I want to just ask a little bit about the topic, I was thinking about causes and conditions and conditions of the world a bit, it seems that maybe why is it not just all conditions?
What what makes a cause? Because doesn’t the actual cause have conditioned itself? So what what makes a cause a cause? We’re not just. Go through the monastic debate text.
There’s one session in the part we call particularly debate, like foundation debate comes from the cause and effect, you know. It’s very dot dot dot dot gross, you know. So anyway, in general speaking, it is true the cause and conditions are same in general. And in terms of the because the conditions are also the cause actually. And when we speak of the conditions, yeah, the conditions also the cause.
So what happens is in terms of cause there are many different types of causes. We have called the innate cause and the cooperative cause or the root cause. For example, like the when you sow a seed of a rice and the rice is the cause And this is the actual cause which gives rise to the sprout and then grows the rice. The conditions, conducive conditions are also course, which are called the fertilizers, manure and water and etcetera. Those are also causes for the rice to grow, but they are not the root cause.
So speaking of that, you know, and we say that conditions are also the cause, but they’re not the root cause. And in terms of speaking that because that particular cause can be a both cause to the to the particular result to give rise to. For example, the rice is a root cause for that, you know, body of the actual rice grows, but it can’t be a cooperative or a secondary cause for that. Can’t be both. So it can’t be both causes. We’re talking about when you speak about the causes and condition, speaking about the particular results and it has the two causes, which are the causes and conditions, speak of that.
In general speaking, then cause and conditions are both the same synonyms. So we call the the definition of the causes that something which give rise to something. And then the conditions are therefore which keep company to the root cause or root, yeah, root cause. So these are the two difference. We’re speaking about the particular results, causes and conditions, but not speaking of the general cause and conditions.
Because in general, cause and conditions are seen the same. What would be the root cause of the chariot? What is the root cause? Oh, the car. Yeah.
I know the chariot. The root cause for the chariot. Whichever goes through the chariot is made of wood, wood is the root cause of the chariot. For example, the chariot, the car or a chariot is made out of the wood, then wood is the root cause, which is which actually become in the form of Yes? Well, speaking of this, you know, that when Buddha set forth, Buddha speaks the truth, And it does not mean that those sentient beings develop an energetic effort within their rebirth and then yeah.
Within their rebirth and then attain enlightenment. Not speaking about that. Because those sentient beings have have the Buddha nature. And they they won’t be in that place as a rebirth like a yep. The dog is a dog forever.
They have to and the dog has to die and then take a rebirth and they will be born in the higher rebirth. And on the basis of higher rebirth, they have Buddha nature and they can develop an enthusiastic effort. It’s a long way to wait, but they can develop on the higher rebirth and attain enlightenment. Enthusiastic effort for that. Yes, in the West, because those sentient beings have to leave their rebirth and then take down at the rebirth, high rebirth and effort, apply the enthusiastic effort and attain enlightenment. Speaking of example is we don’t have to wait, can already do it straightforward. Okay.