Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Pema Tsering opens this 45-minute Lamrim commentary with Lama Tsongkhapa’s striking claim: a precious human rebirth outweighs even a wish-fulfilling jewel because it can carry us all the way to Buddhahood. Using George Bush as a contemporary illustration, he shows why worldly success — power, comfort, fame — does not constitute a precious human rebirth without faith and Dharma practice. He then defines what makes any action “Dharma” rather than a worldly activity: motivation must be directed at a future life, not merely this one. After introducing the three levels of practitioner motivation, he unpacks refuge for the lower scope — distinguishing common from unique refuge — and explains why genuine fear of lower-realm suffering, not merely reciting the words, is the essential cause of real going for refuge.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 PP 2004 08 05.mp3
UUID: 066d6e27-0002-4805-9563-a887a753f0c1
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB Presenting the path (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-08-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~3,841
So, Lama Tsongkhapa in his small Lamrim text or small graduated path text said that this base that we have now is more important or more powerful than a wish fulfilling jewel. If we only have it this one time, it is difficult to find, it is destroyed easily like a flash of lightning in the sky. Once you understand this pay no heed to the manifestations of worldly things for they are like the outside or the husk of wheat they are like the husk of wheat in the breeze work understanding work day and night to take the essence from this life. Milarepa the Yogi practiced like this, if you seek liberation, you will practice in the same way. Now, to start off with what he meant by the base that we have now that’s the precious human rebirth with the endowments and the freedoms so because we have the circumstances in this way then this life that we have at the moment is more important and more powerful than a wish fulfilling gem in that it can grant us more than just what we wish, it can grant us the ability to work towards Buddhahood but this opportunity we have, this precious human rebirth that we have now isn’t something that comes along very often it’s very rare and as well as this is not only is it rare but it’s difficult to find it’s difficult to find and easy to lose and so in this it’s likened to a flash of lightning in the sky now the thing about a flash of lightning in the sky is that if we don’t look intensely we’ll miss it, it instantly disappears so that’s the same way that we should look at this life that we have.
If we don’t make the most of it, then it will be gone very quickly. So once we’ve understood this then none of the things of this existence none of the things that we usually grasp at have any meaning they’re like the husk of wheat that we can’t eat so because we understand this then we should try and work day and night to achieve the essence or to take the essence from this life to make it the most meaningful we can and Je Rinpoche has practiced like that, and if we wanted to practice in the same way as him, then that’s what we have to do. So this base that we have right now, this base that we are working from, this precious human rebirth isn’t just any old rebirth, it isn’t even just any old human rebirth. In order for it to be a precious human rebirth, first of all, one has to be the being that has this rebirth has to be someone with refuge. If there is no refuge, there is no precious human rebirth.
Then, even amongst and then because someone with refuge is defined as a Buddhist, even amongst Buddhists, then there is some people who don’t have a precious human rebirth and that they don’t have any time. There are some people that may have the faith but they don’t have the time to put in to use to practice. So, for us to have all of these conditions, us to be born as a human, for us to be born with faith, faith, for us to be born with enough time to put into practice. To practice means that we have something very rare indeed and we need to make that as meaningful as we can. I said, I just got what you meant now.
Have to try and think how to say it in English. Okay. Now, keep thinking that this idea of a precious human rebirth is something that everybody has and is fairly easily there are a lot of people with a precious human rebirth. In fact, the precious human rebirth is incredibly rare. There are lot of things that we may say are considered to be very important in terms of rebirth, in terms of being comfortable, being healthy, being satisfied with what we’ve got, none of these things are actually what indicates whether someone has a precious human rebirth or not.
Take for example George Bush. George Bush has a lot of things that most people would consider to be good in a life. Everybody knows who he is. Everybody knows who he is. He’s got a lot of power.
He’s the president of America which means he’s got a lot of power. He doesn’t really have to want for any physical things. He has a family, all of these conditions he has in his life. But, George Bush doesn’t have a precious human rebirth because George Bush doesn’t have faith and George Bush doesn’t try and practice Dharma so therefore there is no precious human rebirth there. So when we’re talking about precious human rebirth, then we’re talking about beings who haven’t entered any of the parts like ordinary beings but there’s two different types of ordinary beings.
There’s ordinary beings as in non-Ārya beings and there’s ordinary beings as in those who haven’t entered any kind of path. So non-Bodhisattva ordinary beings and non-renunciate ordinary beings. Now amongst these people, there is very few people that actually have a precious human rebirth. So, what you need if you are going to be one of these very ordinary beings and have a precious human rebirth is not only the time and the ability but the will to practice Dharma focusing on your next life or liberation or achieving Buddhahood. That is what you need to have to have a precious human rebirth.
So, it’s not just a human rebirth with any kind of leisure and any kind of endowment or human rebirth with the things that from a worldly perspective we would consider important. It’s this precious human rebirth with the eight freedoms and the ten endowments. It has to have all of those. It has to be qualified by all those different freedoms and endowments in order to be a precious human rebirth. So it says that this precious human rebirth is greater or more important than a wish fulfilling jewel.
Now, we may wonder what a wish fulfilling jewel is because it’s said very often. So, what a wish fulfilling jewel is supposed to be is a jewel that whatever someone wishes for by the power of this jewel that they will get it. Whether it’s power or whether it’s money or whether it’s happiness all of these things will come about by the power of this wish fulfilling jewel. In a literal translation it would be a jewel that takes the shape of the mind so whatever the mind generates then the jewel takes the shape of that mind or becomes the shape of that mind. Any wish that we have granted by the wish fulfilling jewel but in fact and apparently, sorry, and apparently there used to be wish fulfilling jewels in India.
Apart from that, this precious human rebirth is said to be more important and greater than even this wish fulfilling jewel because it grants us more than just all that we wish for because it can grant us the opportunity to work for enlightenment and that’s beyond wishing. Now, so if we have to compare the life or the birth or the experience of George Bush with a wish fulfilling jewel, if someone said to you could be the George Bush or have a wish fulfilling jewel, then we’re most likely gonna go for the wish fulfilling jewel. That is working from the perspective that George Bush is in fact an ordinary being and not a Buddha manifesting as an American president. So, we’re working from the perspective that George Bush is in fact an ordinary being and hasn’t developed bodhicitta or isn’t on the path and isn’t manifesting as a American president. If he is an ordinary being, then we would much rather be much rather have a wish fulfilling jewel than we would be rather be George Bush because George Bush can’t even fulfill all his own wishes.
He can’t get things done without starting wars and so forth. So therefore, it’s it’s it’s be much better to have something that can fulfill your wishes straight away than to have George Bush’s life. But precious human rebirth is said to be even greater than the wish fulfilling jewel. In this quote, Lama Tsongkhapa is actually saying that this precious human rebirth with its endowments and leisures is actually more important, greater than this wish fulfilling jewel. Now why does he say that?
The main reason is that wish fulfilling jewel can only satisfy our needs in terms of this life. Nothing that it gives can be permanent but this precious human rebirth that we have is something that can take us all the way to Buddhahood. It is something that we can use as a base to work all the way to Buddhahood and the achievement of attaining Buddhahood isn’t something that integrates like all the wishes that we could have granted by the wish fulfilling jewel. The other thing is that in order for us to have obtained this precious human rebirth then we had to have done something amazing in terms of our ethical conduct and in terms of our giving and our generosity. We needed to have done and in terms of our aspiration order to have really true precious human rebirth then we had to have prayed and made so many aspirational prayers in order to have attained it and we had to have immaculate ethics in order to obtain it.
What we need to do with this precious human rebirth then when we understand how important it is, is to use it to work towards either Buddhahood or liberation or to work towards having a rebirth as a god or human in our next life. We can use this as a platform to work towards any of those three goals. That’s where the use of the precious human rebirth or the way that we can use it becomes important as well. Once we understand how important this precious human rebirth is, once we understand how rare and endowed with qualities it is, then we shouldn’t waste it. We should make every effort not to waste any of it.
Now, what this means is trying to practice Dharma, trying to practice Dharma with the intentions of one of these three goals that we mentioned earlier and trying to practice it as much as possible, not throwing effort after things that are only going to last for a limited period in this lifetime which is what we usually do. Not sleeping all the time, trying to sleep less so we can actually practice more. So, focusing and making every effort to focus as much as possible on being able to practice so we create the conditions to move towards one of these three goals. So, the other thing that Je Rinpoche talks about in this quote is that he says that this precious human rebirth is like a flash of lightning, a flash of lightning in the sky. Now, we don’t usually think about a flash of lightning as being like a flash of lightning because a flash of lightning is momentary.
It doesn’t it doesn’t abide for any length of time. It comes and it goes immediately. But we consider our lives to be quite long. That’s when we think about we think I’m going to live for up to a hundred years and that’s a really long time but in actual fact a hundred years is not that long and not many people live more than a hundred years if you live to a hundred and ten then you become famous worldwide and so it’s not that long a time and so a hundred and ten years if you take a hundred and ten years and put it into a context of a time immemorial at since beyond the concept of time since beginning this time up until now and the amount of time that we’ve been wandering in Samsāra, then even one hundred and ten years is not very long. It becomes like a flash of lightning in terms of our total existence.
Knowing this, then we need to try and make the most of this life and not waste any of this life. By making most of this life, means working towards our next life, towards liberation or towards Buddhahood, one of these things. We need to work at all the time. Once we understand how important and how fleeting this life is, then we won’t want to waste any of it. So this is the way that Je Rinpoche said that he did this and then we should try and practice like that if we want to achieve these goals.
The other thing is today we are going to be focusing on the small scope of the graduated path. Now, shouldn’t be just thinking I’m going to focus on the small scope or I’m just going to come to the teachings today. We should be thinking I’m coming to these teachings and focusing on the lower path in order that I may create the causes, in order to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. That should be the reason that we are doing it. We should make this as important as it can be.
With that thought in mind, if we are making this as important as we can be by using it as a cause to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, then we should meditate for a few minutes. Not moments. Tonight we’re going to talk about the lower scope. The lower scope or the lower capacity of being is the first motivation in terms of the three motivations that are presented in the Buddhist Graduated Path teachings. Now, what having the lower focus means is or the lowest type of motivation means is that we are practicing Dharma.
If we have this kind of motivation that is we are focusing on the next life then we are practicing Dharma. We talk a lot about practicing Dharma or having a Dharma practice or something becoming Dharma in the Buddhist tradition. What that actually means is that need to it depends on what our motivation is. We need to have a motivation that is focused on at least the next life. If we are focusing on the next life then whatever we do becomes Dharma or becomes Dharma practice.
If we are not focusing on the next life at least then whatever we do doesn’t become Dharma. Whatever we do is a worldly activity. Anything that is concerned with this life is a worldly activity. Now, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t depend on what we are doing whether something is a worldly activity or whether it’s a Dharma practice. It depends on our motivation for doing it.
So, it doesn’t matter if we are meditating if we are not meditating with this motivation, with one of these motivations. It doesn’t matter if we are prostrating and we’re not doing it with one of these motivations even if we’re looking at incredibly complicated Mahāyāna texts if we’re not doing it with one of these motivations then that action isn’t Dharma practice it isn’t anything It isn’t a cause for any kind of dharmic result. It’s a worldly activity. It’s something that we’re doing in order to benefit this life and therefore it has no greater purpose. Okay.
So we’re saying that the minimum the minimum level, the minimum mark off for first no, hang on the minimum mark for it to tell if someone is practicing Dharma or not is to see whether they’re focusing on the next life or not. Now, an example of someone who or people who aren’t focusing on the next life are the Chinese Communists. Now, the reason they’re not focusing on the next life is because they don’t accept the next life at all. They don’t accept any kind of religious religious or dharma or religion at all. So therefore they don’t accept the next life at all.
And therefore nothing that they do is focused on the next life. Now all the different types of religions whether it’s Christianity or Islam or Buddhism, they all accept some version of the next life. So, when people are following those religions, are working towards something beyond this life in some way or another. But because the communists don’t accept any of these and don’t accept the concept of the next life then they don’t do anything that’s going to make that next life more they don’t do anything to work for the benefit of that next life, not to establish their rebirth in a good place, not to establish their conditions in a good place, they just focus on this life. And on the one hand, they think that this is pretty good thing because it means they don’t have to work as hard because they’re only working for this life so there’s there’s not the added burden of wondering what’s gonna happen after you die.
They think this life is it therefore don’t worry about anything else and in that way we’re doing better now because we don’t have to work as hard. We’re just focused on the now and we don’t worry about what’s gonna happen after this life. So they get pretty happy about the fact that they have to do less work because they’re only worried about one life. Because we have this acceptance of the next life, then there ends up being a lot of different practices and a lot of different things that we have to do and in actual fact the way that it’s divided is into the three beings or the four beings in actual fact because the three beings are the beings with a different kind of motivation or that is the motivation to the next life, the motivation towards liberation or the motivation towards Buddhahood. Within the greatest motivation, within the Mahāyāna vehicle, there is also a distinction of two.
Those motivated towards great bliss through Tantra and those motivated towards Buddhahood through the Sūtra path. There are all these different practices that can do and they’re all based on the assumption that there is something after death. So even though there’s all these different practices and there’s these different paths that we can follow, actual fact all of these different paths are based on this motivation of the lower capacity, motivation of the lower being. If you don’t have that motivation, then you can’t do any of the other practices; the other practices don’t come. If there is no belief in the next life then you can’t have a thought to want to get out of Samsāra, you can’t have a thought towards Buddhahood.
So in order to do all the other practices then we need to have an understanding this lower motivation. Need to have incorporated this lower motivation. Now, we start off with the lower motivation. Once we’ve understood that and we have worked through that, then we would move up to the next middling motivation. After we have assimilated that, then we move up to the greatest motivation or the motivation towards Buddhahood and then after we have assimilated this, then we move on to the Tantric practices.
So, is different levels that we need to go through but in order to reach any of those levels then we need to enter at the point of the lowest motivation which is giving up focusing on this life and working towards the next. Their main focus is a practice focusing on the effects of karma, cause and effect, and also on refuge. These two are what is called the common facets of the lower scope. they are common in that they are not unique to the lower scope. All the other different scopes, the middle scope and the higher scope, both contain the ideas of karma and refuge as well.
Therefore, that is what they call the main aspects which are not unique or common but they are of the lower scope. They are included within the lower scope of focus and the lower scope of practices. Now, within these, there is refuge and there is the focus on karma or cause and effect. Now, within refuge, there is said to be the unique refuge and the common refuge as well. The common refuge for the lower scope is the refuge that is in common with the other different scopes.
That is the idea that going for refuge to the Three Jewels, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, in order to seek protection from the sufferings of the lower realms. That’s what’s called the common refuge. The uncommon refuge that’s associated with the lower scope is the idea of going for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha in order to achieve human or god or human rebirth in the next life. Now because the other scopes don’t have this motivation, then this refuge is what’s called the unique refuge of the lower scope. The first refuge that we talked about here, the refuge that is common to all the different scopes but is especially emphasized in the lower scope, is the refuge that seeks refuge or goes for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha because of fear, fear of the sufferings of the lower realms, fear of the sufferings of hell, fear of the sufferings of Preta or ghost realms, or spirit realms, fear of the suffering of the animal realms.
Now, because of this fear, then there is this need for refuge. The being with this this motivation would turn towards the Buddha and the Dharma and the Sangha in the same way as a child would turn towards their mother when they are afraid, in terms of looking for protection from a negative experience. It can’t just be about saying words. If it’s just saying I go for refuge to the Buddha, go for refuge to the Dharma, I go for refuge to the Sangha, then that’s not the refuge that we’re talking about here. It’s still beneficial to say it’s merely mouth words but it’s not what we’re talking about here, it’s not real refuge, it’s not the mind of refuge, it’s just the words of refuge.
So what we need in order to go for refuge properly is fear. Fear is really important in this case. The fear of the different type of sufferings that can be experienced needs to be cultivated and felt. If there is no feeling or if there is no thought of that, then there is no real going for refuge. So this fear is the essential cause of the refuge practice.