Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A student’s challenge — “If the Buddha was already enlightened before coming to earth, wasn’t he unlike us?” — frames the sharpest section of this 43-minute talk by Geshe Pema Tsering. He opens with a plain narrative of the Buddha’s biography: the five conditions sought before taking rebirth, a seer’s twofold prophecy (world-ruler or fully realized being), six years of self-mortification, and the vigil under the Bodhi Tree at Bodh Gaya. He then traces the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma — suffering at Sarnath, emptiness at Vulture’s Peak, and the mind-only school at Shravasti. A lively Q&A follows, examining where enlightenment actually occurs across Hīnayāna, sūtra, and tantric accounts and whether the earthly Buddha genuinely experienced suffering. Accessible to newcomers to Buddhist history.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 PP 2003 07 01.mp3
UUID: 587851b5-8130-4ec1-a4ff-404d5e768224
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB Presenting the path (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-07-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 43.4 minutes
Words: ~2,867
Okay. So at this stage, the Buddha looked out on earth and he saw that on earth that there was someone who had there was a couple that had the five right conditions to give birth to a Buddha. Now the five things that he was looking for in his parents was the right place, that they were living in the right place, that the mother and the father were both suitable beings to look after the Buddha, that the time was right, that he would be of most benefit to all beings on earth, and that the people in the area, the people that were going to be associated with him would have the opportunity to come to his his teachings and so forth. So he saw that this existed on earth and then decided to take rebirth. He came into the the womb of his mother whose name was Māyādevī.
Okay. So at this time, his mother, Māyādevī, conceived the Buddha. And then when she’d been pregnant for coming up to ten months, then she went to a place called Lumbini, which is in southern Nepal. And she was walking back from Lumbini and she started to give birth to the Buddha under a tree. And she was holding on to the branches of the tree.
The tree was supporting her as she gave birth. So she gave birth and then the Buddha was able to walk as soon as he was born and he took seven steps in each of the four directions and every time he took a step a lotus flower is said to have come up in his footprint so in each of the four directions took seven steps just after being born and the lotus flower came up So the father, having seen this child walk in four directions and bring lotuses out of the ground after in his footsteps, then said to the child, that that in this lifetime, you will be someone great amongst those who walk on two legs. The fact that you’ve been able to do this shows that you’re a great being and that you’ll achieve great things in this life, and because of this, I prostrate to you. So after this, the, father, being so impressed by the child, brought a, seer or a wise man in to come to see what would become of the child, because there was lots of these people floating around or walking around India at this stage. People who were, could read the future, who could read the stars and so forth.
And this man came along and he said to the Buddha’s father that this baby was, incredibly impressive and that if if he was to become a ruler, then he would become the ruler of the entire earth. And even he so he become like a let’s call it a wheel turning king or someone who had complete control over an entire earth or or planet. And if he was to become a renunciant, if he was if he was to leave the householder’s life and go off and live the life of an ascetic, then he would become completely realized and become the become of the most benefit to all beings on earth. But in the seer or the yes. Seer.
In the seer’s opinion, then he was definitely going to leave the life of a householder and go off and become a a mendicant. Okay. So after this, it all happened, the Buddha’s mother actually passed away. She died after this prediction was made. And after this time, then some, the Buddha’s father appointed another woman to act as a a surrogate mother or a adoptive mother to the Buddha.
And I’m trying desperately to remember what her name is in Sanskrit. I’m pretty sure it’s Mahaprajapati or something like that. Yeah. Mahaprajapati Gautami, something like that.
And as he acted as the Buddha’s substitute mother for the the remainder of his childhood. So from the time of seven, the Buddha started his studies and whatever he was studying, he became an expert at. He studied what’s called the five major and five minor sciences, but they included things like dancing and astronomy and some sport where he was on the back of an elephant and he had to do different feats. There was singing, dancing, sports, astronomy, the textual studies, and he studied all these different things and became an expert at most of them sorry, at all of them. And after he become an expert in all these things, he then became married to a woman called Yashodara.
And Yashodara and the Buddha, or Gautama at this stage, gave birth — she gave birth to his son who was called Rahula. Okay. So at the age of twenty nine, after you’ve done So then at the age of twenty nine, the Buddha left his palace, went outside of his palace, and he saw someone who was sick and someone who was dying. And from the sights of these things, he decided to become an ascetic and left the life of a householder and wandered into past a river into a forest to live the life of a mendicant or a wanderer. Then for six years in the forest, he did self mortification.
He did different types of practices of an aesthetic, the different types of practices of an aesthetic that included a lot of starving and treating self mortifying the body So at this stage, after he had done six years of this self-mortification, the practice of self-mortification, Buddha’s body had become incredibly weak. And at this stage, because his body was incredibly weak, he saw a girl next to a river and he went up to the girl had some food and she offered the food to the Buddha. And his food was some kind of curd or strong milk with honey in it. Because these things both had such nourishing qualities and would strengthen the body, took those when he’d eaten those, he could feel his strength coming back to him and that he was as strong as he was before he’d done the mortification practices. So after this, after he received his milk and the milk and honey, he went to a place called Bodh Gaya in India and sat under a tree there and made a solemn vow that he was not going to get up from underneath that tree until he understood the true nature of reality.
Okay. So during this night, as the Buddha sat under the tree for for for weeks. And at the end, on the last day that he sat under the tree before he achieved enlightenment, during the night, many demons like mental projections, things like that attacked him because when people are in meditative equipoise, then all these kinds of beings that want to harm them to stop them from realizing things their own projections they tend to try and harm the person in meditative equipoise so many things tried to attack Buddha during this night and none of them succeeded. And then with the first flash of the morning, he actually achieved a complete enlightenment under the tree. Peaceful, giving and separated from desire.
He’d realized the clear light nature and the non fabricated of the non-fabricated truly existent — no, that’s not the right word — the non-fabricated truth of existence. At this stage though, he did not go in and start teaching instantly. He sat under the Bodhi Tree in Bodh Gaya for seven days without doing anything because he didn’t think that anybody would understand his realization.
So after seven days, the two greatest gods of the pantheon are Brahma and Shiva apparently came down to see Buddha and said please teach people what you have realized. And in order to get him to teach, they made offerings to him and begged him to share his understandings of what he’d gained in his meditation practice. Okay. So after this, because the gods had come down and requested him to teach, then he decided that he would go to Varanasi Okay, so in Varanasi, in a place called Sarnath, the Deer Park in Sarnath, and Buddha turned what’s called the first wheel of Dharma or gave his first teaching. That first teaching is called turning the first wheel of Dharma.
The first wheel of Dharma dealt with the Hīnayāna path and the understanding of suffering, so he did that in Varanasi later on after that he went to a place called Vulture’s Peak in the same area of India on Vulture’s Peak he turned the second wheel of Dharma or gave the second set of teachings that he gave in his lifetime now these were on emptiness what’s presented through the Prāsaṇgika or the Mādhyamika schools, the middle way schools, the understanding of emptiness taught those from Vulture’s Peak. After that he went to a place called Shravasti. In Shravasti he taught the third turning of the wheel which is included within the mind only schools understanding of emptiness that is the non distinction between subject and object so he taught that there and then from there he went to all different other places he went to he taught tantra to a king in India and he went all over the place teaching different teachings to different people of, different dispensations, the teachings that would, best suit the different peoples that he, met on his journeys. And then if we stop here. Did that make sense?
Did you understand that? Oh, yeah. If someone’s got their hand up, can you speak? I just can’t see you. Uh-huh.
So before Buddha came to earth, was he completely enlightened? Yeah. He was a completely enlightened Buddha. He was a a Buddha when he was there. The person that’s the king of that pure realm is said to be the being that comes down to earth to manifest the twelve acts of a Buddha to show people what they should practice.
The person that’s in charge now is Maitreya because he’s supposed to be the Buddha of the future. So when Mara and his sons were passing under the tree Yeah. That was That wasn’t him achieving enlightenment. Okay. So then what happened under the tree, basically?
He did all this because he wanted to show us what you have to do to become a Buddha. So his whole life was a teaching in terms of how we are supposed to practice and what we are supposed to abandon. So by doing this, and he first of all showed us through his mortification practices for six years, he showed us the hardships that you need to go through in order to get to garner an understanding. By staying under the tree in meditation for as long as he did, he showed us how we had to focus in our meditation. And so and then by going through the process of showing us how to achieve enlightenment, that and then that was a teaching in itself as well.
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve seen a little bit of confusion there. If the Buddha was already a Buddha, onto the earth, and the life has been —
Yeah. Then he wasn’t exactly like us. And if okay. So if Buddha came to Earth as a Buddha, then he wasn’t like us. Alright.
So I’m saying Mhmm. So just saying that he wasn’t a Buddha when he came down in that lifetime to show us the twelve acts of a Buddha and show us how a Buddha how to become Buddhas, didn’t mean that he wasn’t like us. He was like us. It was just many lifetimes before him. He started off exactly like us, and then he found a teacher.
His teacher was actually Mañjuśrī. Mañjuśrī showed the Buddha the path to enlightenment, and he showed him how to understand emptiness, and he showed him what to practice and what to abandon. By relying on this teacher and practicing with him and then subsequently practicing Tantric practices as well, he achieved complete enlightenment. After he’d achieved complete enlightenment, he became the head of Tuśita. And then from there, he decided he was going to take rebirth on Earth, manifest on Earth in order to to show human beings on Earth how to attain enlightenment and to show them his teachings.
Became a Buddha on earth, did he actually suffer? When he became a Buddha on earth, when he in the lifetime he became a Buddha, did he suffer? Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Back in the day. Yeah. So did he did he experience karmas Sure. And and in KNA get a to the body on earth in his journey? Okay.
So at some stage, was he a human being in Earth who experienced suffering and then started working towards Buddhahood? Is that what you’re saying or no? No. Oh. In the birth that he was in in the lifetime that we know in the story.
Right? Yeah. Well, my understanding is what you said was that he he checked he achieved a life in another realm, and then he incarnated with you Yeah. To Yeah. How they become a Buddha.
I experience So when Buddha was incarnated on earth, he experienced suffering. K. By the definition of suffering, he didn’t know because he given. Because Buddhas are able to cope with more than we are, so they have the ability not to suffer in the same circumstances. But from the way that we would have looked at him, it would have looked like he was experiencing suffering because he was manifesting everything like a human, but he actually wasn’t mentally experiencing any suffering in terms of feeling it.
The way we experience suffering, no, he didn’t experience suffering because he was already a Buddha. So he didn’t he understood the true nature nature of reality. If you understand that, then you don’t experience suffering because there’s nothing to suffer. He went through the motions of being a human being, so his experiences would have looked our experience. Yeah?
So where did the initial enlightenment of the Buddha occur, under the tuition of Mañjuśrī? Okay. So Okay. So Buddha is said to have achieved enlightenment in a pure realm called Akanishtha. So Buddhahood is said to be achieved.
Now the way that you end up in this pure land is by doing practice and getting rid of negativities and by praying. And so by doing these practices, then you end up in this pure land where Buddhahood is attained. Oh, man. Okay. So where someone achieves enlightenment is dependent on which which Buddhist philosophical school you hear the story from.
So according to the Sūtra schools, which is where the story of the Buddha comes from, yeah, then you can only achieve Buddhahood in the highest pure realm, which is this Akanishtha pure realm. So you work towards becoming enlightened and before when you’re on the path of meditation, which is the after you’ve understood emptiness, you work towards achieving enlightenment, and then at the end, take rebirth in this pure land, and you achieve Buddhahood there. That’s where you achieve Buddhahood. That’s if you’re hearing the story from the Sūtra point of view. There’s different Sūtra schools as well.
According to the Vaibhāṣika school or Hīnayāna, one of the Hīnayāna schools, Buddhahood can only be achieved under the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya in India. That’s their point of view. They say he achieved enlightenment there. According to the tantra presentation, enlightenment can take place on earth having depended on a teacher. So for example, there’s a story of a Tibetan saint who achieved enlightenment called Milarepa and according to the tantric version of his story achieved enlightenment on earth.
According to the sūtra version of his life, sorry, he achieved it in this, pure realm called non higher. It depends on who who’s telling the story. Yeah. I’m not worried. Pardon?
You believe the Sūtra version. Which one? The other thing sorry. There was one more thing. But because the Buddhist story is told from the point of view of the, the highest sūtra schools, that’s why they say he took his re his enlightenment takes place in his pure land.
That’s why we say that he takes his enlightenment takes place there. Yeah. I’ll do this one. I’ll do this one. Is that okay?
Is there any more? Unrelated to anything that’s happened so far. Yeah. That’s fine. When an animal dies, how long does it take their consciousness to leave their body? Uh-huh.
Do they have the same and how long does their consciousness take to leave? Okay. So when an animal dies, how long does it take their consciousness to leave their body, and how long do they spend in the bardo? He hasn’t seen it written in any text about how long their spirit their consciousness stays in their body after they die.
He’s never seen it in a text, so he doesn’t know. But they spend the same time in the Bardo as every other being. Okay.