Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. When Geshe Ben threw handfuls of dirt over his carefully arranged altar — to purge the pride he had felt setting it up to impress a visiting sponsor — a clairvoyant teacher declared it the finest offering in the land. Geshe Pema Tsering uses that story as the centrepiece of this 45-minute session on the six preparatory practices for establishing a daily meditation routine. He first surveys the three types of samsaric suffering, dwelling on the suffering of change as the most dangerous: we mistake it for happiness and spend our lives pursuing it, accumulating negative karma in the process. He then works through the first two practices — arranging a clean shrine, and making offerings that are honest both by substance and by motivation. A closing story of Atisha insisting on making his own water offerings in old age, rather than delegating to attendants, drives home why these acts must be performed personally.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 DP 2004 02 10.mp3
UUID: 4babaef9-4699-4075-9906-591299155383
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB Establishing a Daily Practice (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-02-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~4,046
And again, without any edge or end to the amount of times that we’ve been reborn in cyclic existence. And there hasn’t been a break in our experience of cyclic existence or Samsāra, it hasn’t been that we stopped being in Samsāra for a while and then came back into Samsāra. We have continually been in Samsāra without any kind of edge to that experience without any beginning to that experience. And since we are born in Samsāra, then we have to experience what are called the three different types of suffering, we’re constantly tormented by the three different types of suffering. The three different types of suffering being the suffering of suffering and the suffering of change in all pervasive suffering.
So all of our experiences in saṃsāra all of our experiences while we have a samsaric mind are by their nature one of these three different types of suffering. Now should be enough for us thinking about this should be enough for us to develop or to inspire us to develop the mind of enlightenment. Because when we look around at this situation then we will see that not only ourselves but all sentient beings are experiencing that kind of suffering and that we need to develop the supreme mind or the bodhicitta motivation in order to help them stop experiencing that kind of suffering. And what Je Rinpoche, what Lama Tsongkhapa said in his quote is exactly right. This is our experience.
Since beginningless time up until now that we have experienced nothing but suffering, we have been as samsaric beings under the control of these different types of sufferings. We’ve experienced the torment of these different kind of sufferings for since beginningless time, since time immemorial. Now, the amount of time that we’re talking about here is if we could count, if we could add up as many hundreds of thousands and tens of thousands as we could think of and add them all together, then the time we’ve been experiencing suffering is more than that. It’s an amazing amount of time that we’ve experienced suffering. We have been born in all these different types of existences.
We have experienced nothing but suffering, the suffering of the three kinds of suffering, but we’ve done this in different ways. We’ve been born in the hell realms. We’ve been born as hungry ghosts or spirits. We have been born as animals. We’ve been born as humans.
We’ve been born as gods. And we’ve been born in the pleasant realms. We’ve been born in the not so pleasant realms. But nothing that we’ve experienced has been truly qualified happiness. Nothing that we’ve experienced has been true happiness.
It’s always been something a saṃsāra happiness, which is fleeting and is suffering by its nature. So none of the experiences we’ve had are this. And until we get rid of our negative emotions and achieve liberation, none of the experiences we will have will be true happiness. Now, from amongst the three different types of suffering that we have experienced that we have continually experienced in Samsāra, we know about the suffering is suffering, manifest suffering, but the one that’s probably the most dangerous or the most problematic, worst of the different types of suffering is what’s called the suffering of change. Now, the reason that this is the most dangerous, the worst of these different types of suffering is we consider this suffering happiness.
We don’t understand what its real nature is. So we think that the suffering of change is actually happiness. We consider it a positive, something that we need to strive for. It’s the excellent aspect of saṃsāra. But by its nature, it’s not true happiness, it’s actually suffering.
Because we’re mistaken about this, we spend a lot of time striving for this type of suffering. We spend a lot of time trying to work towards achieving this type of suffering. We don’t recognize it as suffering, we think it’s happiness, so therefore we spend a lot of our energy, we invest a lot of time and effort into working towards achieving this type of suffering. And in the process of working towards achieving this type of suffering, not only do we experience that type of suffering, but we also create a lot of negative actions. We do a lot of negative actions and create a lot of negative karma that we have to experience the results of as more suffering.
So through this process of seeing the suffering of change as happiness, striving after this suffering of change, thinking that it’s happiness and therefore creating negative karma, then we’re forced to continue wandering in Samsāra. It acts as a cause for us to continue wandering in Samsāra and not actually be able to experience truly qualified happiness? Okay. Now, so that was what’s the called the suffering of change. Now, the suffering of suffering or manifest suffering is something that we know pretty easily.
It’s experiences of manifested uncomfortable experiences of either body or mind. So we’re talking about illnesses of the body which causes pain or discomfort. We’re talking about afflictive states that cause us to be agitated or make us sad, cause us to experience some kind of manifest suffering. And it doesn’t take much to figure out that this is a type of suffering and we don’t want to experience that. And we naturally recall from that kind of suffering.
We naturally try and find ways to not experience that kind of suffering, manifest suffering or the suffering of suffering. It doesn’t take much to figure it out and it doesn’t really help us much if we have figured it out. Cats can figure it out. Cats don’t wanna experience suffering. You see them trying to figure out ways not to experience suffering.
Any creature or any being tries to find ways not to experience manifest suffering and to experience comfort. Even ants have figured it out, but it hasn’t helped them very much. In the same way, it doesn’t help us very much to have figured it out where you can understand suffering of suffering and suffering. It’s just doesn’t this understanding doesn’t help us that much. The third type of suffering, what’s called all pervasive suffering, is actually a synonym for the five appropriated aggregates that we appropriate or get through our negative causes and conditions through our negative actions we’ve done in the past.
It’s a synonym of Samsāra. So, because this is a natural state of affairs of anyone with an afflictive mind, and then it’s something that we have experienced without break since time immemorial since beginningless time we’ve experienced this type of suffering or pervasive suffering. But it’s very difficult for us to figure out what all pervasive suffering is for in order for us to figure out all pervasive suffering we have to be able to recognise saṃsāra itself and in order for us to recognise saṃsāra we have to be able to understand the nature of our mind the nature of the way that our mind works. So, it’s a difficult thing for us to figure out, but it’s something that we’re continually experiencing. Okay.
So these experiences of suffering will continually we will continue to experience these type of sufferings as long as we have appropriated aggregates or aggregate or that means as long as we have taken on through the cause of our karma and afflictive emotions groups of either consciousness different types of consciousness, physical objects like body and so forth and different experiences of discrimination and so forth. Sometimes we have up to five of these different types of groups of different things we can have as a human being we have five of these different groups of consciousness, discrimination, form and so forth. But in some other realms when we are for example in a formless realm which is meditative concentration and rebirth in a form of meditative concentration you don’t have the grosser aspects of the these five appropriate appropriated aggregates and you exist as mere consciousness but because of that consciousness is still contaminated with ignorance and other afflictive emotions is still said to be Samsāra is still said to be an aggregate of conflicting or conflicted an aggregate coming into can — hang on, how do I put this — an aggregate that comes into existence because of negative thoughts or negative thought patterns or emotions.
So, what we need to do is get away from that situation get to a stage where we’re not experiencing suffering get to a stage where we have what’s called fully qualified happiness and not any trace of Samsāra or any of these three different types of sufferings. And so what the Buddha taught us is the way to do this. The Buddha said, okay, I got out of Samsāra, I managed to get rid of all of the causes for Samsāra, I got rid of the contaminated appropriated aggregates that cause suffering and the synonyms with saṃsāra and I’m now experiencing fully qualified happiness and I am telling you that people that other sentient beings the way for you also to get rid of the causes of suffering and experience happiness. So I’m showing you the what you need to practice in order to achieve this and what you need to abandon in order to achieve this. So the Buddha said if you want to become an Arhat, do this, don’t do this, and then you will experience this realization of Arhatship which is the complete and getting rid of all of the causes for suffering all of the things that are gonna cause suffering.
So he said, I’ve done it, and you’re able to do it, and you need to follow my advice in order to do it. So what we want to do is experience happiness, and what we don’t wanna do is experience suffering. The problem is that we don’t know properly or we don’t understand properly the causes for happiness and we don’t understand properly the causes for suffering. What we do know how to do is to cycle in Samsāra. We’ve been doing it for so long that we’ve gotten quite good at it and our mind naturally goes towards that.
We know how to create the causes for suffering. We know how to create the causes for saṃsāra. And so what happens then is that as Lama Tsongkhapa said that we are born in cyclic existence without any beginning to this. And when we are born, we are constantly tormented by the three sufferings. So, what we need to do is we need to understand or develop an understanding of how not to create the causes for suffering and how to create the causes for happiness.
And so what in order to do this we need to understand the Buddhist teachings and we need to develop the right motivation. So when we look around and see that it’s not only ourselves that don’t want to experience suffering but want to experience happiness. Then we we will seek to attain enlightenment so we can help all sentient beings experience happiness and liberate themselves from suffering. So because of this point of view, a lot of people think that Buddhism or Buddhist Dharma is like the Dharma of suffering, and it’s all about suffering, and that’s all that there is to it. So they’re like, I’m not interested in that.
I don’t wanna hear about suffering all the time. So once people have that view, then that actually becomes a cause for them to experience suffering. Right? Because if you’re just thinking, all Buddhism about is like different ways that we suffer, I don’t wanna hear about it. Then you’re not gonna be able to figure out ways to stop yourself suffering.
Because it’s not like saying I don’t wanna hear about it makes suffering go away. Yeah. So what we need to do is to develop understanding of what are the causes for suffering and what are the causes for happiness. And once we’ve developed that understanding, if we put it into practice, then we’re able to experience happiness and not experience suffering. But by just pretending the situation isn’t there, then that doesn’t stop us experiencing suffering.
So what we need to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to understand the situation that we are in and to try and create the causes for us to experience happiness instead of suffering. Now what this means is that we have to set a motivation that is working towards getting ourselves out of suffering instead of into more suffering. And the best motivation that we can develop in order to achieve this goal is the motivation seeking to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings not just ourselves. If we are going to consider ourselves to be not only Buddhist but Buddhist following the altruistic vehicle of the Mahāyāna then we need to develop this motivation. This is the best motivation for us to be able to develop.
And so, have to think whatever it is we do and as many different things as we can do that we can that will act as a cause for us to achieve this Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. Then we should do that we should do as much as we can to create as many causes as we can for us to become a fully enlightened being and be a benefit to all beings. So in this way, we should think that in order to establish all sentient beings in a state beyond sorrow, I’m going to establish myself as Buddha. And in order to do that, I am going to engage in this action of studying the Dharma. And may that virtuous action that I do be mixed with the positive actions of all of the five different types of beings and Buddhas and Arhats down to ordinary beings.
So may the positive actions of all of those be a cause for me to attain Buddhahood as quickly as possible and we should try and concentrate or meditate on that for a few minutes. Okay. So we’re going through the six preparatory practices. Right? So the six things we need to do on a daily basis to establish a practice properly.
And we went through the first one, which was cleaning up the room and arranging images of the deities or the Buddhas in a nice way. So we’ve done that. So we’ve gone through how you have to make everything clean and then you set up the images of the Buddhas, the speech and mind and so forth properly. Then after you’ve done that, the next thing to do is to make offerings to these representations of the Buddha. Now, when we’re talking about offerings, it says that offering should be obtained honestly and arranged beautifully.
Now with the first one when it says honestly, there’s two in two different ways and we should make offerings that are honest in two different ways. The first one refers to the actual substance of the offering and the second one is the motivation with which the offering is given. Now with reference to the first one, the actual substance of the offerings, this can be wrong in one of several different ways. It can be because by way of obtaining it that means for example, if we killed an animal, sold the animal, took the money from the animal and bought something as an offering, then that’s not a very good offering, right? That’s one way it can be negative.
We’ve profited from someone else’s suffering or another being suffering. The second way that these offerings can be negative by way of substance is that if we have stolen them in order to make an offering of them and that’s not a positive offering. The third way that they can be negative in terms of what we’re actually offering is if we are we’re playing the international monetary exchange to our own benefit. Yeah, so that means that for example something has a certain cost in India and has a certain cost in America or it has a certain cost in Australia and if we’re trying to play off the situations in these different country for our own benefit and getting a really big profit for ourselves at the detriment of other people then that’s a that’s a negative way to get something to make to make an offering with. So if we want to make an offering, then we have to have gained that offering in a good way.
So, there’s different ways that our offerings can be contaminated or can be not up to scratch and by way of attitude or motivation as well. So, for example, if we are making an offering without the idea of making an offering in order to accrue merit in order to progress along the path in order to be beneficial to us in terms of our spiritual progress. If that’s not our motivation for doing something and we’re doing it for other reasons then it means that the offering is contaminated by way of wrong motivation. So for example, if we are making an offering with the thought, well, if everyone sees me doing this, they’re gonna think I’m a really good person. Yeah.
So that’s like a negative reason for making an offering. If we’re making an offering thinking, by making this offering, I’m gonna get some kind of benefit in this life like lifetime like by thinking by making this offering I’m gonna get money back, by making this offering I’m going to get famous or respect any of these kinds of things or I’m going to get something back, then none of these are a good motivation for making the offering. So the offerings we make should be pure by way of motivation and by substance. So that is for example, for tonight, there’s lots of people at Buddha House. And so if we chose to for example tonight to show everybody else that we’re making good offerings, and we started going around to all the statues in front of everyone going, look at me, I’m making an offering to the Buddha’s and I’m good for making these offerings then that wouldn’t be a positive action.
If we’re thinking, oh, by doing this, everyone’s gonna think I’m really good. Yeah? Then that doesn’t become a positive action. It doesn’t become an action that’s in in accordance with Dharma. Okay.
So for instance, there’s a there’s a story about how there was a. Oh. There was a called, his name was, and he was meditating on he he was meditating in his room and then he thought that his sponsor, the person who was sponsoring him to meditate and do practice was coming the next day, right? And then because his sponsor who helped him out in terms of giving him money to meditate was coming the next day. He decided to make his room look really nice and he made all these offerings to the different Buddha images and everything.
Did all these really nice offerings and everything. And he sat down and started meditating again and he looked at the motivation with which he had made the offerings and realized that the reason he’d made the offering with that motivation was because he was trying to impress his sponsor. It wasn’t because he was making an offering in terms of creating merits to progress along a path. So having realized this, he got a whole bunch of dust and dirt and threw it all over the offerings. Yeah.
So that it looked really bad. So that there wasn’t any pride involved offering, that he could he wasn’t attached to what he’d been offering. And there was this other Kadampa Geshe called Sangye. Sangye. Yeah.
Who had clairvoyance and could actually had a vision of Geshe Ben doing this. And when he had the vision of Ben doing this, he said to the people that he was teaching at that stage, said, well, if you wanna know what the best offering in all the land is and isn’t any of these things that you that people are giving, it’s what Geshe Ben gave because the reason he threw the the dust all over his offerings was in order to achieve liberation and he did that with a pure motivation. And he did that with the motivation of getting rid of his pride, getting rid of his attachment and trying to achieve liberation. So that was the best offering that’s there that had been given in the in the in the whole country. So the other thing that we should be doing is once we’ve we have got an offering obtained in a good way, then we should arrange them beautifully or we should offer them beautifully.
We should try and make it look as nice as we can because we’re making offerings to the representations of the Buddha’s body, speech and mind. Now, we’re often new times you see very, very beautiful offerings that are made to the Buddhas and every time that we offer something, we should try and make it look as good as possible before we make it as an offering. Now, of the things that we tend to offer most however is water and why water is a good thing to offer is because it’s said to be pure. It’s said to have nothing in there that we’re going to regret giving, but see to be representation of purity at the same time. And I said even Adelaide water?
Geshe-la said, even Adelaide water Adelaide water is all right. And then he said and then I then anyway, we’re making these offerings of water because water symbolizes purity, right? So in this way we can make an offering of purity without having any regrets about having offered it. And anyway when we’re making the offering we shouldn’t be thinking I’m offering Adelaide water, we should be thinking we’re offering amrita or bliss nectar. Another thing is that we should try and make the offerings ourselves.
We should try and put the effort in to make the offerings ourselves because if we get someone else to do the offerings, then that’s not gonna benefit us as much as if we were doing the offerings. It will still benefit us in a small way because we’ve actually asked someone to do it for us. So therefore the motivation was there, but the actual act of performing offerings means that it will be more beneficial to us Then if we got someone else to do it, then it’s more beneficial to them. Another thing is the example of how this works is Atisha, Pandita Atisha. He kept making his own offerings of of water and so forth even when he was very, very old.
And And his attendants, he was very famous and very well respected and very loved by his students. And they all said to him, you’re so old, we can and it’s so painful for you to do this, we can make the offerings for you. And the teacher apparently turned around to his students and said, oh, and are you gonna eat my food as well. Will that benefit me if you eat my food? So, he was showing he was trying to show to them that it had to come from the person who’s actually doing it in order to create the most merit or get the most benefit from that.
There’s also tales of people in India, great kings, who were Buddhist kings who lived in India a millennium ago or centuries ago. And it is said that even though they had these huge courts and many servants that they would go out of their way to make their own offerings, they wouldn’t get their servants to make the offerings. They’d make the offerings themselves because it was beneficial to the individual who was actually making the offering.