Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The search for “Hero” — a student’s name turned live demonstration — anchors the Q&A at the heart of this 44-minute commentary by Geshe Pema Tsering on developing bodhichitta. He first lays the doctrinal groundwork: śamatha, or calm abiding, is not a goal in itself but the stable platform from which bodhichitta, emptiness, and selflessness become genuine realizations rather than fleeting concepts — illustrated by the image of a mind chasing impermanence like paper in the wind. The Q&A moves from why Buddhas cannot liberate beings against their karma, through a guided search for a findable self in body and mind, to the “far side of the street” as an analogy for dependent designation, and closes with a black folder used to distinguish conceptual understanding of impermanence from direct perception of it.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 20 D BC 2004 07 27.mp3
UUID: 91848da2-d5b7-4d62-abff-b7ece807bb41
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB How to Develop Bodhichitta (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-07-27
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.2 minutes
Words: ~4,255
So, basically, when we describe calm abiding or śamatha meditation, what it refers to is developing a level of concentration that means we don’t have any gross minds or gross ways of thinking pop up in our mind stream. This means that all of our other types, other things that we may be distracted by are completely under control and we can single pointedly concentrate on any object for as long as we want. Now, the development of this level of mind, of this subtlety means that the subtle state of that mind doesn’t necessarily reflect the external rebirth that we have taken in a desire realm which comes like an existence that we’ve come into now is based on desire. If you develop this level of mind, it means that your mental state is based on a level that doesn’t reflect the environment that we’re born into so the development of this concentrated ability usually starts with focusing on a given object and then continuing to bring the mind back back to that object until the mind is able to concentrate on that object without being distracted at all without any other thoughts coming up. Now the objects that are taken in order to develop this level of concentration depend on the person.
This śamatha meditation, calm abiding meditation isn’t something that’s unique to Buddhists. There’s many people in different religions and other traditions develop this level of concentration as well and they may take anything from if they’re interested in the natural world a rock or a stick or a tree or a cave or a mountain as their object object of focus or a statue of a deity they have faith in. May be anything do anything like that. Buddhist practitioners may also take an object of analysis, so for example selflessness or emptiness or impermanence as an object for them to concentrate on or they may take an image of the Buddha or they may also try and use something bigger or something, a mental image of some of a deity or anything else they wish to focus on. Developing this level of concentration and this subtle level of mind in the Buddhist tradition isn’t just to develop that level of mind itself.
So if you can develop this level of mind, it means that you can stop manifest desires, manifest confusions and things like that, and you can actually use that level of mind to be reborn into a concentrated state in a different realm where you don’t experience suffering until that karma is extinguished or runs out. But in the Buddhist tradition, this level of meditative concentration is only used as a base from which to develop other types understanding. So, you can start off with this level of concentration and develop subtler and subtler levels of concentration until you’re in a completely blissed out state. But in the Buddhist tradition, you’re supposed to use this level of concentration to develop your understanding of emptiness and your understanding of selflessness and so forth. Because the motivation for developing this level of concentration is supposed to be either to achieve personal liberation or nirvana or to achieve Buddhahood.
So Using this stable mind, this mind of calm abiding as a basis, you are then supposed to focus on, for example, bodhicitta, the development of bodhicitta. With this stable mind, you are able to actually achieve bodhicitta so that working towards Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings is in your mind stream naturally. Or you can use it to try and understand selflessness or to perceive emptiness, any of these things. Depending on what your motivation is, whether your motivation is for a śrāvaka’s personal liberation, then you use this level of concentration in order to progress towards that goal. So not having calm abiding, not having this level of concentration means it’s very difficult for us to do any of the practices we may want to do well.
So, for example, if we’re trying to meditate on emptiness or we’re trying to meditate on selflessness or impermanence, we may have the intention of trying to meditate on that, but we try and concentrate on that object and our mind goes either and thither and over there and thinks of something else. We keep bringing it back to the object, it runs away again, a bit like a piece of paper floating in the wind. Now, the reason that our mind is like this, it flies all over the place and we can’t concentrate on an object continually without being distracted, is because we don’t have calm abiding. If we had calm abiding and we wanted to place our mind concentrate on impermanence, we wouldn’t have to think about anything else for days apart from impermanence. So, for example, if we are trying to develop an understanding or a realization of impermanence, what we need to do in order to develop that understanding is to keep our mind singly placed on that concept so in every moment we can see change and we can understand the concept of change in every moment for as long as it takes for that idea to come about spontaneously in our mind.
Mind. What happens at the moment when we try and concentrate on impermanence is that our concentration is impermanent. We place our mind on the concept of impermanence but even if we’re able to maintain that idea for a couple of seconds our mind is distracted by something else a conceptual distraction or some other thought that may pop into our head and we can keep bringing our mind back to that idea but it’s difficult for us to maintain any kind of understanding of impermanence or concentrate on the concept of impermanence for any length of time. So with our mind so easily distracted and so like flapping, it’s very hard for us to develop any kind of realization of these things. We may get an idea of it and even a moment’s realization of it, but because of the way our mind works, we can’t maintain that realization until it becomes clear and direct.
So the idea of having calm abiding is that we can actually keep our mind concentrated on the momentary change of impermanence for as long as we want, right? So if we have calm abiding, can go, I am just going to concentrate on impermanence, the momentary change of objects, yeah, for two hours. And that’s all our mind would concentrate on. There would be not another thought come up in our mind for two hours if we have calm abiding that beings are able to do this. We may be able to think, Okay, I’m going to do this for an hour, and mine will be concentrated for an hour, and nothing else will come up in our mind stream for an hour.
Oh. So that’s what come by. That’s what Uh-uh. That is what you’re sitting. Uh-uh.
Uh-uh. So the way that we would do this, for example, with the development of the realization of impermanence is that we would analyze the concept of impermanence until we became to a very clear understanding of what impermanence was. And then, because of our mind being able to concentrate in such a way, we would be able to focus on that idea, the momentary change of all objects. We would be able to focus on that idea alone without having anything else come up in our heads until as long as we wanted to and we develop a very solid and clear and direct perception of the way that things work. So this is the way that we use the perfection of meditation.
Now, this is the practice of calm abiding. It’s based on that ability to single pointedly be able to concentrate on something without distraction for as long as we want, we then start to look at the nature of reality. We look at emptiness. We look at the lack of inherent existence of things. And we do this in a non-analytical way.
We’re able to place our mind on the nature, on emptiness and concentrate on that without distraction for as long as we want. Then that kind of meditation is the sixth perfection, the perfection of wisdom. It’s also called special insight. But we’re only able to do that after we’ve got a conceptual understanding of emptiness. We can only start to do that with a concept of emptiness, and then we concentrate single pointedly on that concept until that concept becomes a realization.
So a concept becomes a perception. So if we this is this is the only way that we can actually become Buddhas is by developing these things, by developing calm abiding, by developing single-pointed concentration. And then in dependence on that ability, being able to look at the lack of inherent existence of objects. So if we don’t have these two things, we don’t have calm abiding and special insight we can’t become Buddhas. We need both of those in order to become Buddhas but if we have both of those then we become a Buddha.
So it’s impossible for us to be able to develop a realization of something if we can’t even concentrate on it properly. And we also need to have an analytical understanding of emptiness in order to be able to concentrate on it. So as Śāntideva said, okay. Know that through special insight, having great calm abiding, you will destroy your delusions. Thus and he says, thus from the start, That’s it.
That’s the perfections. Geshe-la said, Do you have any questions? Know that, know that. It’s very biblical. Know that through special insight, having great mental quiescence or calm abiding, you will destroy your delusions.
Thus, from the start, seek calm abiding. Six hundred and forty-nine. But it’s also there’s a whole chapter in the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life on calm abiding.
Yes. Oh, I don’t know. It’s a fight between here and Chris. Okay. So Geshe-la said, they have achieved the benefit of others.
He said, because they have done everything that they can to benefit others. Alright? Situation that sentient beings are in is their karma. Alright? So Buddhas have developed everything they can in order to benefit sentient beings.
Then and the the everything else depends on what the sentient beings experience is. So every Buddha that has become a Buddha has helped liberate countless beings. Right? But every single being has to liberate themselves. So the Buddhas have completed others purpose by doing becoming all that they can to help others.
That you So he said that you just finished reading a sūtra a lot of times. And in that sūtra, how many worlds did it talk about? How many existences? How many dimensions? How many different places did it talk about?
Some of these are much bigger than Earth and that’s only talking about human realms. There is countless sentient beings. It’s it’s even unfathomable how many sentient beings there are. So Buddhas can only work with the restrictions of the other being’s karma that they’re trying to help. So they’ve they’ve done everything they can to make themselves be able to help others, but they it has to rely on the karma of the others as well.
So from the limited way that our mind can work because it’s restricted by our afflictive emotions and delusions, we can’t actually conceive at the moment how many sentient beings there are, how many different existences there can be. We can’t conceive of it, and we can’t conceive of the existences, let alone the beings in the existences. I’m sure that can be pluralized. And also, Buddha’s working for their benefit. We can’t even consider that.
So you’re doing it with that motivation. That’s your idea for doing it. Yeah. Because the wider that you can that you can expand your motivation, the more beneficial it is. If you have this idea of working for the benefit of all sentient beings, may continually work for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Whether you can actually liberate all of them or not is not the point it’s whether you are working towards that end whether it’s the point and that’s the motivation you have but it’s also dependent on your motivation not what is actually happening the same thing as you do the man that we do the mandala offering and you’re offering Mount Meru in the four continents yeah but your hands aren’t Mount Meru in the four continents yeah you’re visualizing it you’re imagining it and you’re making this offering as vast as you can but this isn’t four continents in a mountain. Yes? Yep. Mhmm. Okay.
Sure. If you go looking for yourself, in yourself, Geshe-la doesn’t think you’ll find yourself. Yeah? The reason that you won’t find yourself is because you don’t inherently exist. Right?
But even though you can’t find yourself in yourself like in a moment of your mind or in a piece of your body, yeah, there’s no thing that you can say itself, yeah? That doesn’t mean that you cease to exist because you go, okay, what what is me? And you look all through your body and all through your mind, you can’t find yourself, but you still exist, you’re still here, Right? So as you just because you don’t exist as some kind of solid lump, yeah, something, then inherently existent, truly existent thing doesn’t mean you cease to exist. It just means that you don’t exist as a inherently individually existent thing.
Alright? So there’s still a you. It’s just that you is selfless. That you doesn’t have an intrinsically existent part to it. Alright.
So if you’re able to realize this then you don’t hold anything to hold on to, so you don’t have anything to hold on to, so you improve, but you realize that selflessness and you don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Okay. Yes. Okay. Let’s just start with something simple.
Alright. He said try looking for yourself. What is it that you consider to be you? Yeah. So you say, am I my body?
You. You. What what do you consider to be you? Right? So then you say so so this thing that people call hero and then I call hero.
Hero. So If someone says hero and you go, ah, yeah. That’s me. Who’s that? Who is that person?
Right? Who is that person? So you think, okay. It’s hero in my legs. Am I in my name but if you didn’t have your legs, you’d still be hero.
Yeah? So it’s like your legs aren’t you. And then if you look inside your body at all your internal organs, if you didn’t have your internal organs, would are they do they make up here? Yeah? And then eventually you go, okay.
I can’t be my body because if I die, my body’s still there, but that’s not me. Yeah. So then you have to say, okay, am I my mind? Then it’s like which moments of your mind are you? Are you what you were a minute ago?
What you will be in the future? Or what you are right now that just left? So you can’t find yourself in your mind either. Right? So that means that selflessness, not being able to find something that intrinsically makes up you.
At the same time, can see yourself and you experience things and when people say hero, you turn around. So that means that you do exist. Yeah? You just don’t exist as a solid thing that you can find. So he said, just think about that for a while.
So you can’t find yourself as in a bit of a bit something that makes up the heroness. Yeah. And so you have to say that you don’t inherently exist. There’s nothing solid that makes you you. Yeah.
But at the same time, experience things. You create karma. You experience results of karma. There is a continuum that exists that you have memory of that passes on from lifetime to lifetime. So in this way that there is something there that exists.
Right? So it’s not saying you don’t exist and it’s not saying you exist as a solid individual entity. It’s a middle way between those two things. It’s not the extreme of inherent existence which is that we’re solid individual things, and it’s not the extreme of nihilism, which means that you don’t exist at all. Alright.
So it’s in between those two. So the emptiness refers to the fact that if you go looking for yourself, there’s nothing there. Alright. So if you go and try and find that where hero is in your body or your mind, you can’t find it. Alright.
So the lack of that intrinsic heroness, yeah, is emptiness. The lack of something. Then they also have this idea of there being a label. There’s a hero. There’s something that people consider to be hero.
You consider yourself to be hero. There’s a concept of hero. Yeah. And there’s a continuum that goes along with that concept of hero. Right?
So even though that continuum is just an idea as well. So the idea of hero is is what’s called the terminologically descriptive hero. Sure that one went down well. So it’s a it’s a it’s the idea of hero. Right?
That’s what you’re working with that means that you don’t not exist. Yeah. So the emptiness actually refers to the lack of inherent existence and the the conventional idea of hero that people have, yeah, shows that you do exist at the same time. So this suffering and happiness that we experience, kind of this is not a very good experience, that’s a good experience grasping a good experiences and trying to avoid negative experiences that is all based on a concept that there is a hero that there is a solidly existent thing called hero. Yeah.
Or you. He said he didn’t say necessarily. Sorry. You. Yeah.
So based on that without analyzing to see there is no you there, then we do perform all these things, but there is a being that experiences these, but it’s not experiencing them in a solid way — it experiences them based on causes and conditions and on the labels that we give them, on the names that we call them, then we experience things. Uh-huh. Now say when you’re a child, when you’re born, there was a a kid that was a combination of bones and mind and all these things all piled together, and your parents looked at him went, that’s hero. Yeah? From then on, you were labeled hero.
So your concept of self depends on this label. Your idea of self is is is linked with this label of hero. So people’s idea of you is linked to that label as well. Yeah. So before anyone first of all, they may have thought baby, then they change the label to hero.
Does that make sense? So that idea of hero is an idea people attach to the combination of things that you consider you. So it’s what your parents called you. If so the the everyone relates to you based on this label of he hero. Yeah?
And if one person had a misperception and they decided that they were gonna label you which I don’t even know what it means right and then and they yelled hey you’re not gonna turn around yeah because you’re not you’re that’s not the label that you were given right and so you relate to this idea of self based on this one label given to you of hero. Yeah. So it shows you that our identity is based on labels we give ourselves, not not an inherently existent hero thing. So another example that may be easier to deal with at the moment is the idea of the far side of the street and the near side of the street. So if you’re standing on one side of the street, yeah, and you point at the other, you go, that’s the far side of the street.
That’s the other side of the street. Right? And this is this side of the street. But if you walk to the other side of the street, then what was the other side of the street becomes this side of the street. So there is no inherent other side of the streetness in the other side of the street.
It just depends on the way that you’re looking at it. Yeah. It’s not an inherently existent thing. It’s a label that you’ve given it and your perception of that changes by the way you’re looking at it. Question answer.
Yeah. Last. Yeah. The difference between concept and perception? Yeah.
Uh-huh. Yeah. All right. A direct perception. Right.
Okay. Okay. In order for us to progress from a concept to a direct perception or a perception, then we need to use what’s called an inferential cognizer. So an inferential cognizer is, for example, if you see smoke, you know there’s a fire, right? So you know there’s a fire but you haven’t seen the fire directly, okay so this is this is reliance on a sign is what it’s called so the difference between a perception and a conception is that a conception is mixing what is called a generic image with a direct perception yeah and a direct perception doesn’t have any concept of a direct of a generic idea in it so if we’re dealing with a conceptualization of impermanence, we have an idea about that and that idea is mixed with a general idea about impermanence.
And then if we can move from that onto what’s called a subsequent cognizer. That means that we can use a sign, a logical sign and meditate constantly on the logical sign using calm abiding, right? Then that sign eventually gives way to a direct perception of impermanence now the difference in the processes that happen in our mind is that if we have a concept of impermanence it means that we have an idea about impermanence. We can think this isn’t going to exist forever. It’s based on this and that.
Therefore, it is impermanent. If we have a realization of impermanence, we look at something and understand that it’s impermanent directly. It’s not an idea we have. We look at something directly and we think that’s impermanent as a direct perception. The same way we can say that’s black.
I’m just looking at you like, it it it’s a Okay. So this is my black folder. Right? Yeah. I was just thinking I was asking Geshe-la for a clear way of describing it.
If I have an direct perception of impermanence in the same way that my eye can look at this and my eye consciousness recognizes black, my mental consciousness will look at my mental consciousness may say folder. Right? In the same way mental consciousness can say folder, it understands that it’s impermanent. There’s no thought processes there. It’s like the same way I look folder, it goes impermanent, changing in every moment.
Perception. So in the same way your eye consciousness can see black, your mental consciousness can see impermanent. So as soon as you and you relate to any object as if it’s changing in every moment without thought. So in the same way that we can perceive this as black without with as a direct perception, it’s not something that we have to process. Yeah.
Then if we’ve developed a realization of impermanence, we directly see that as impermanence, as changing. We see it changing in every moment. You don’t have to think. So you don’t even understand the concept of impermanence unless you think about it a lot but eventually and if you are if you perceive impermanence directly then in the same way you can perceive your eye consciousness can perceive black your mental consciousness can perceive impermanence Okay. Sorry, guys, if everyone’s yawning.
But the at the moment, we look at this, and we may think that is impermanent. That idea that is impermanent is what’s called a conceptual idea. No. Hang on. What could I say?
A generalized conception. Yeah? So we have a generalized conception about this being impermanent, but it’s an idea. It’s based on a sound. It’s based on a word impermanent.
Is based on a concept that’s attached to that word impermanence alright if we developed a direct perception of the impermanence of this object there would be no word attached there is no concept attached it’s just a direct perception in the same way that our eye consciousness can see black and it doesn’t have to have that’s the color that’s not white, blue, yellow, green, or red. It’s just black. There’s no processes. There’s no words that even need to be attached to the even blackness. He said, but it’s tough, so don’t worry.
I think you have. Is it? There’s a whole whole genre of text and study called mind and mental factors that helps you to understand the difference. There’s a whole genre of text and study called mind and mental factors. Yeah.