Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 19-minute Q&A session, Geshe Pema Tsering explores what thought at the moment of death steers the next rebirth — whether a dying person thinks of birds, of God, or of becoming a Buddha. He explains the ongoing feedback loop between karma and afflictive emotions that keeps beings cycling through saṃsāra, and why cultivating thoughts of the Three Jewels or of becoming a Buddha for all sentient beings is the most powerful intention one can hold at that moment. A striking exchange follows on whether Christians dying with thoughts of God or Jesus achieve a good rebirth — Geshe-la says yes, grounding his answer in the power of sincere faith. The session then turns to whether any intelligence operates behind karma, concluding that we alone create it, before closing on realizing emptiness as the direct antidote to negative emotions, with residual karma still working through even after that realization. Suited to practitioners already familiar with basic rebirth cosmology.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 11 MP 2003 05 27.mp3
UUID: 195f1aab-bf29-4fcd-bd7f-8b908dd126d2
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB Mind and its potential (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-05-27
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 19.4 minutes
Words: ~1,514
Okay, so we have this karma now from what we’ve done in the past life, and because we have afflictive thoughts now we develop more karma for the future. So what happens at the time of death, whatever thought we’re having at the time of death is the cause for our next rebirth. So if we have at the time of death we think, oh, I want to go to a very beautiful blissful place, then that can go become a cause for being born in the God Realms. If at the time of death we think of an animal and think, oh, I think birds are beautiful or something, then that can become a cause for us to be born as an animal. So we have this continual interaction between karma and afflictive emotions or afflictive thoughts in that one causes the other and so on and so and then at the time of death these two things come into play and whatever we think of and that’s where we go in the next life.
What what do you mean? The the process human rebirth real or saṃsāra is real? Yes. But both are real. That both are real.
The way is to because we know these things, if we look at things, if we examine things, then we see that it works this way. If we look at things and examine them, we see that if you do something good, something good comes out of it, and if something negative happens, then something negative has to come out of it. So by using our analysis, then we come to see these things. Cool. Yeah.
They’re they’re they’re the same thing because if we have karma and deluded thought, then we don’t have control, and we have to experience the results of our previous karma, and we’re continually making new karma because of our delusive thought. Therefore we’re continually in the cycle of existence and that’s saṃsāra and from the other point of view having karma and deluded thought is what is all-pervasive suffering where that is therefore you have all pervasive suffering. A being of saṃsāra and a being that has all pervasive suffering are the same thing. That means you would be forever in that realm because there’s no way you can just halt it. Uh-huh.
Uh-huh. Khen Rinpoche. Okay. Okay. So if you’re born into a a lower realm, how do you get out of it?
Because what you’re gonna do down there is bad because that’s what your nature is. So how do you get the karma to get out of there? I have I have to repeat it for the tape. It’s very difficult. It’s very difficult to get out of the lower realms, but it is possible.
When people go down to the lower realms, then they already have in their continuum some amounts of virtue. Nobody has no virtue. So when the throwing karma that sent them there has run out, if at the time of that death they actually have a good thought about humans or there’s some kindness or something that comes into their mind, then this can be a cause for them to take rebirth as a human. So it is possible, but it’s very difficult. Yeah.
Okay. So if at death you thought I wanna be a Buddha, what happened? Okay. If you have that thought at the time of death, then you end up with a very precious human rebirth. Yep.
Do they have connections and stuff? Do they have a common experience with other beings? Uh-huh. Okay. So the beings in other in other realms have shared experiences with other beings in that same realm.
He’s all excited about your thing about wanting to become a Buddha at death. So we should we should try and really think it was just I didn’t get the question out. But anyway, we we should try and really think about what happens at the time of death because if we have this idea that I wish to become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings and that’s the very best thought we can have at the time of death and if not if we have a sense of refuge of taking refuge in the Three Jewels then that’s a very powerful thought to have at the time of death And it’s a very, very powerful thing to think at that time, and it ensures coming back in a good rebirth. Okay. Now, balance.
So if you go you go to a if you’re reborn into a situation and you end up with the people that are the beings that are reborn into that situation as well. So if you get reborn as a fish, you hang out with fish. If you get reborn as a horse, you you spend your time with horses. If you get reborn in hell, you you you you spend your time with hell beings. So if people have good clairvoyance, then they can remember what they were in a past life.
If they don’t, then they forget. Yep. So if you’re not on the Buddhist path, let’s say you’re following a Christian path, you believe in God, believe in angels or you believe in whatever, and a moment of your death, you think that you want to be aligned with God Mhmm. Where do you end up? Where you go.
Okay. And and does that lead to a Christian rebirth? Uh-huh. If you’re okay. So the question is if you’re doing if you’re if you’re Christian or have a different faith and at the time of death, you think about God or angels, then what happens to you?
He thinks that that would lead to a very good rebirth because if someone actually really believes in God, then that means in their reality, there is a God. So that that that will be something they could would use as a basis. And if they believe if they thought about Jesus, then that would be a very good state for a very good rebirth because it’s showing faith in having in faith in something that was good. Okay. So Okay.
So Geshe-la said that I’ve got to get this right. From a Buddhist perspective, karma is what creates things. Now if someone wants to believe that that karma that creates things is a being, right, then that’s what they believe. Geshe-la says he has doubts as to whether it’s a being or not. He doesn’t think so, and he finds it difficult to find a logical reasoning for it to being a being.
But if someone believes that, then that that’s that’s their belief. Yeah. He thinks it’s hard to prove logically that one being would create everything. Uh-huh. Is there some intelligence behind operation of karma?
Couldn’t remember the Okay. So he said that he can’t if okay. So in each moment, it’s like we’re making our own karma. There’s no intelligence behind the karma. We make it ourselves.
And so to say that there is a creator makes sense because we create our own destiny and we create our own karma. If someone else was doing it, that would be hard for him to to to, like, get at. Yeah. But, in terms of is there something happening behind karma, no. We have the positive karma for something good to happen to us, but it’s not an intelligence happening behind the karma.
Yeah. You can get rid of karma by relying on the antidote to negative karma. Oh, by relying on the antidote to negative karma, but it’s very hard for us to not rely on the antidote to negative karma because we are used to not relying on them. So we are used to having negative habits. I don’t have to yell anymore do I?
We’re used to having negative habits. We’re not used to relying on the antidotes to negative karma. So you can get rid of it, but it’s difficult for us to do. Yeah. Yeah.
Once you if you’re relying well on the antidotes, that’s the same thing as having reached liberation because in order to be to be able to rely on the antidotes really well, you have to be liberated. Okay. The the direct antidote is seeing emptiness directly. So if you have right. So if you have if you see emptiness directly, that means that you’ve completely gotten rid of all your negative karma.
No. Hang on. I keep translating and thinking, wait a minute. Okay. Sorry.
So if you’ve realized emptiness is the direct antidote to realizing emptiness is a direct antidote to to negative emotions, but then you still have karma left over, and then that karma gets worked through after you’ve realized emptiness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Anyway, can you wait till next week? Is it because I think we’re, like, half an hour over time. Or is yeah. Is that cool, or is it really important? It’s not I mean, it probably is.
This is awesome.