Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Fear of the lower realms — pictured as a snarling dog that sends a child bolting straight to its mother — opens this 45-minute commentary by Geshe Pema Tsering on lower-scope Lamrim. He argues that taking refuge requires more than reciting a prayer: genuine, instantaneous faith in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha is harder to generate than most practitioners assume, and he admits that even he must consciously recall the sufferings of the lower realms to produce it. He then walks through the ten non-virtues — killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct (body); lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, and meaningless talk (speech); covetousness, maliciousness, and wrong view (mind) — with attention to how easily they accumulate unnoticed. A Q&A covers whether cooking meat incurs negative karma, why eating rice also harms beings, and how collective karma amplifies the effect of shared practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 PP 2004 08 05.mp3
UUID: c0d5cce3-8ee4-4693-a8e1-eb6cd33cc7ef
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB Presenting the path (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-08-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~3,904
So this this refuge this sense of refuge that we’re talking about in this case is based on or has its cause in fear. We need to develop a fear of the lower realms. We need to look at the sufferings of the lower realms and decide that we will do anything in order to stop ourselves from experiencing those sufferings. We need to stop ourselves experiencing those sufferings by whatever means it is that we need to do. Now, because of this fear, then we need to turn to something or someone that can help us stop experiencing those negative experiences, the sufferings of the lower realms.
We need to have faith or belief in the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha, in that the teachings of the Buddha, the practice of the Dharma, the help of the Sangha can deliver us from those negative experiences. Can stop us from having to experience the suffering of lower realm, so that’s why we need to go from then to refuge. Now, the sensation or the metaphor that can be used in order to describe this is the same as when a young child of, say, three, four or five is in extreme danger, and they run to their parents because they believe that their parents can help them. They don’t just run to their parents because of familiarization they run to their parents with absolute belief that their parents will be able to save them or protect them from anything that was coming to harm them, especially if you see a young child who comes into contact with a dog snarling at them and their mother is on the other side of the path, then they’re going to run straight to their mother in order to get away from that snarling dog. It’s the same thing for us.
The sufferings of the lower realms are like the snarling dog, and if we have faith in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha that they can stop us from experiencing the sufferings of the lower realms, then we would be going for refuge to them just as a child will run to its mother in order to seek protection from snarling dog or any other thing that was going to harm the child. And Geshe-la said that this doesn’t sound that difficult because none of us really wants to experience the sufferings of the lower realm. But developing absolute faith or complete faith that the teachings of the Buddha, the practice of the Dharma, and so forth can deliver us or stop us from experiencing that suffering is actually very difficult. Or at least he said it is very difficult for him. He spends a lot of time saying the refuge prayer, and he thinks about the refuge prayer, then he thinks about reciting Om Mani Padme Hum and so forth, and thinking about refuge, but to have that instant feeling that a child has towards their mother in terms of trying to avoid suffering by going for refuge is something that he thinks is incredibly difficult, or at least it’s very difficult for him.
He doesn’t know about us, but he says it’s very difficult for him. If he sits there and thinks about it, he can generate the fear of the lower realms, and then his mind would go for refuge. But if he’s not thinking about it, if he’s not constantly thinking about the sufferings of the lower realms, then the that thought doesn’t come up as much. So I think it’s with that it’s something that we need to focus on because it’s not as easy to generate as we think. So this isn’t something that’s easy to develop.
It’s something that needs a lot of thought, it needs a lot of analysis, and it needs a lot of familiarisation in order for us to develop this thought. And it’s kind of important: if we don’t have this, we’re not a Buddhist. It’s that simple. We need to be able to have refuge in order to be a Buddhist. So this is one of the most important things that we need to focus on.
The other thing that we need to remember is that if we do have this thought, if we do have this sense of of refu going for refuge to the Buddha Dharma and the Sangha in the same way that a child would go for refuge to their parents, then we don’t have to worry about going to the lower realms. If we do have this belief that the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha can stop us from having to experience the lower realms, then we won’t go to the lower realms. It’s that simple. We don’t have to to worry then, and there’s no point we need to develop the fear, but there’s no point developing worry about the fear. So, yeah, so if we have ref if we have a sense of refuge, if we if we have faith in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha to show us the way not to experience the lower realms, then we won’t experience the lower realms.
We can feel comfortable with that knowledge. The other thing is there are benefits for this life as well with having refuge. If we have refuge, then any negative experiences that we have will seem less. We will experience less suffering we will experience less illness we will experience less loss. They will become less because of our refuge, and we will also have a much more steadiness of mind.
The other thing is that refuge is the base for all of the different vows. You can’t have any of the different vows if you don’t have refuge. You can’t have individual liberation vows, you can’t have bodhisattva vows, and you can’t have tantra vows. I just said, Geshe-la, wait a minute. You just said you didn’t have refuge when you’re a Gelong.
How does that work? He said, It’s very difficult. And so this is it is it is difficult. Yeah. We have to keep working on it.
Something we need to keep working on is refuge. It’s not like we have to think, Oh, I don’t have twenty minutes today. I can’t sit down and meditate on refuge. It shouldn’t be like that. Refuge is something that we can think about when we’re lying in bed.
It’s something we can think about when we’re going somewhere else. It’s something we can think about as much as possible in the during the day without specifically putting any time aside in order to try and generate refuge. It’s something that we should we just keep thinking about and trying to turn our mind towards. So the other practice that’s involved with the lower scope, the thing to do after we’ve developed the sense of refuge then is to focus on cause and effect. The main thing that is focused on in terms of cause and effect in the lower scope is the abandonment of the ten non virtues and the practice of the ten virtues.
The ten non virtues are abandoned with the thought that abandoning them and practicing ethics will act as a cause for beings to achieve a positive rebirth, a God or a human rebirth, in their next life. This concept of karma, cause and effect, as it is presented in the lower scope comes down to basically being the the focus on the ethics and more specifically the ten non virtues. So this is this is difficult as well. So where we need to start in order to be able to do these practices, is to know what the ten non virtues are. If we don’t know what the ten non virtues are, then we can’t abandon them.
The ten non virtues are said to be the three non virtues of body, the four non virtues of speech, and the three non virtues of mind. So the the three non virtues of body are killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct. Now the first of these, killing. Killing is referred to is talking about killing human beings, but in actual fact, it also refers to killing any type of animal or any kind of being. So any of these are non virtues.
And they are strong non virtues, and because they’re such strong non virtues, then their result or their effect is, in fact, going to the hell Sorry. It’s not just the the hell realm. Okay. So, yeah, it’s any of the three lower lower realms. If it’s a very strong non virtuous action, then it’s, of course, for going to the hell realms.
If it’s a middling nonvirtuous action, it’s, of course, we’re going to the hungry ghost or spirit realms. And if it’s a small nonvirtuous action, then it’s, of course, we’re going to the animal realms. So the the the for example, if we’re talking about the nonvirtue of killing a person, we accumulate the non virtue of killing a person, not even just by the action of killing a person. If we think, I’m going to kill that person, then we have accumulated the negativity killing a person, not as strong as if we had actually done it, but we have actually accumulated that negativity. So if we think about it in this way, it s actually quite easy to accumulate the non virtues.
Okay. So with reference to this, the first of the non virtues of killing, we’re not just talking about even killing. The strongest thing that we can do in terms is to kill a human being premeditatively. That s the strongest thing we can do in terms of the non virtue of killing. Also included within this, there are different levels of non virtues that are associated with that one action.
If we think about killing people, then that’s a non virtuous action. If we think about killing animals, that’s a non virtuous action. If we think about harming people, then that’s physically harming people, that’s a non virtuous action. If we think about harming animals, that’s a non virtuous action. And when we’re talking when we accidentally no.
When we kill animals in order to make ourselves more comfortable or in order to get things to eat, then that’s a non virtuous action. And if we think about it, there’s some people that actually have jobs where in their jobs, they kill animals, and they do this on a very regular basis. Some of them do it all day every day. So every single action, every single time that they’re killing an animal, then that’s a negativity. That’s a a non virtuous action.
Okay, so the next one of the non virtues is stealing. Now, stealing, there’s all different ways that we can steal as well. It’s actually literally translated as taking what is not given. Geshe-la was making a distinction between stealing and taking what is not given, because lots of times things that we consider not necessarily stealing may be taking what is not given. For example, if we go and really steal from someone, if we take something that’s not ours from a place, then that is obviously stealing.
But also, if we help someone else to steal, then that’s the non virtue of stealing as well. If we hide something so we think, Oh, I can come back and steal that later, then that’s also the non virtue of stealing. If we get on a bus, we’re going go into Adelaide, and we give less change than we were supposed to give, and we get away with it, and we don’t go back and say, then that’s stealing. If we’re supposed to give tax and we don’t give it, then that’s also stealing. So there’s many different ways to steal.
So there’s all these different ways of stealing, it’s actually really easy for us to steal without even thinking about it. It’s something that’s dangerous. We have to watch and careful to make sure that we don’t steal. It’s not as if we have to make an effort to steal we can just accidentally steal things fairly easily. The reason that we can steal things fairly easily is because we need things: need money, We need different objects.
And because we need those things, then we will try and deceive ourselves or deceive others in order to get something that is not necessarily ours in order to get what we think we need. So that so that’s the the third of the physical or bodily non virtues virtues is sexual misconduct, and there are also many different types of sexual misconduct that we can do without thinking too much about it. These are what they’re called the non virtues of body. So then there’s also after that comes the four non virtues of speech. Four non virtues of speech are lying, slander or divisive speech, harsh speech and speaking nonsense.
Now harsh speech is where we use aggravated words in order to harm someone. It s not necessarily something we do physically, but we re trying to harm them by using very pointed or harsh words. That s harsh speech. Speaking nonsense is speaking without a point. If there’s no point to something that we’re saying, if we’re just talking for the sake of talking, then that’s also a non virtue that’s called meaningless speech.
The other one is lying saying that something is when something isn’t. He also said that that doesn’t necessarily have to be a non virtue of speech. We can actually do that physically as well. We can let people think something is that it isn’t. And the the other non virtue of speech is slander or divisive speech.
That is when two people are friendly, saying things to each other that will make them not not as friendly to each other or not friends at all. So the three non virtues of mind are covetousness or wanting something we don’t have maliciousness and wrong view. Now covetousness or wanting something we don’t have is pretty easy for us to do. Every time we go somewhere, we usually see things that we want that we don’t have, so we tend have these thoughts fairly regularly. Maliciousness is the thought that we wish to harm another.
That’s a mind that’s based in anger. And wrong view is the thought that karma doesn’t exist, that the Three Jewels doesn’t exist, and wrong view is like this. So Geshe-la said from amongst these three negative minds or three non virtues of mind, then a covetousness or grasping mind is the easiest one and the one we don’t recognize the most. We tend to go places and instantly think, I want that, I want this, I want that, I want this, without realizing that it’s a negativity, this grasping isn’t going to bring us happiness. So because we don’t realize it and because we think it so often, then that’s probably the worst out of the three non virtuous mind mental actions that we do.
It’s very hard to stop. So these are the ten non virtues. These are the are the things that we need to get rid of. Now and the getting rid of those, the abandoning of the ten non virtues is actually what’s called the ten virtues. The stopping of the ten non virtues makes the ten virtues.
And this is a very hard thing to do. S very difficult to do, to abandon these non virtues. But abandoning these non virtues leads us to a good rebirth. It leads us to the rebirth of a human or a god. It leads us to samsaric happiness.
So we get samsaric happiness by abandoning the ten non virtues. So the thing is, if we don’t think about it, if we’re not aware of ourselves, then we’re not going to do much but create non virtuous karma. And with that is our natural dispensation is to go through one of these ten fairly regularly. So we need to really watch our minds, really watch what we’re thinking and try and be aware of what it is that we’re doing and thinking. So the reason that it’s so easy for us to do that is because we have self grasping, we have grasping at a sense of self.
And not only do we have grasping at a sense of self, but we’ve had grasping at a sense of self since beginningless time, since the time before memory. We’ve been grasping at a sense of ourselves so much that it’s become such a habit that it leads us to all these other different types of non virtuous actions. So this means that watching what we think, watching what we do, checking ourselves all the time is really a very valuable thing and something that we need to try and focus on. So that, in combination with the practice of refuge, is the two most important things to focus on in terms of the lower scope. Oh, yeah.
So then I can stop. I’ll try again. And if anyone has any questions. Yeah.
I haven’t killed the animal, but, gosh, if I wasn’t there cooking it, no one would have had to in the first place. Uh-huh. And I’m thinking, is that fair? Is that a non virtuous? Yeah.
And do I have to work to get rid of the karma that has accrued because of that? Okay. Did everybody hear that? Okay. So in Geshe-la’s opinion, then that doesn’t whatever you’re doing doesn’t count as a non virtue of killing.
It doesn’t count as contributing to the non virtue of killing because you are not killing the animal yourself, and he doesn’t think that you cooking the food would be a cause for the animal to be killed. If you went to the person and said, specifically kill that animal for me, would you? Then it would be a cause for the animal to be killed. But it depends on your motivation when you’re actually doing it. If you’re cooking the food with the motivation of I want to provide nourishing food for these people so they can protect protect their body and they can have healthy lives, then that’s not a negative action.
If you’re cooking the food with the idea of I really hope they got this animal when they killed it, then that’s a negative action. It depends on the motivation you have when you’re actually doing it. Pardon? Prefers to. There isn’t a being alive who doesn’t there’s no sentient being, that is like a non-ārya being or non-person on the path, whose life doesn’t harm other beings by just existing.
So we need to that’s the way that things are. But it depends on what our intention is, whether this becomes a negative action or not. Whether something’s negative or not depends on the intention. He said, yeah, if you drink water, if you eat rice, then all the time, then you’re killing things. So he said, there’s not much you can do, which you’re not collecting negative karma, but it’s very, very small.
He said in actual fact, the distinction isn’t between eating meat and vegetables, in his opinion, isn’t that great. Because if one cow gets killed, then that cow can feed fifty, sixty people. But in fact, if you start eating rice all the time, then the actual act of boiling rice can kill hundreds of microorganisms and different beings that are inside the rice. And then that’s not even taking into consideration the small animals that are killed in terms of harvesting, harvesting the rice or the grains as well. So the the both of these actions cause suffering to beings.
It’s just about understanding what’s what’s happening when you’re doing things. Most of the time, people think, oh, I can’t eat meat because it’s really bad non-virtue to eat meat, and the and the poor animal had to die for me to eat meat. But they don’t think much about eating spooning rice into their mouths. They don’t think about that very often. But in actual fact, there’s all these animals that get killed in the process of bringing rice to us.
So both of them are negativities, but we need to think about that before we’re eating. Okay. So what we should be doing then is that we need to eat. If we don’t eat, then we can’t sustain our precious human body that can take us to enlightenment and we can’t do all these practices with. So what we need to do is while at the same time as we’re eating, eating, eating, then we need to be purifying, purifying, purifying is what I said.
So we think first of all, we have to start the eating from the with the motivation that we’re doing this in order to sustain ourselves, not necessarily from greed or desire. Then while we’re eating, we should be thinking I hope purifying that thinking having regret for the fact of the animals that were harmed in the process that brought the food to our table. Yes. Okay. So, right.
There is collective karma. Collective karma works in terms of if you have one person doing something, then the karma, the result of that action won’t be as powerful as the result of a group of people doing something. So therefore, for example, us coming here tonight and doing and trying to study and trying to meditate and so forth will have a greater effect than if each one of us was doing it individually. There’s there’s a it has a greater effect if you do something as a group. It’s the same thing as if you have a brush or a broom and you’re trying to sweep the floor and you only have one hair on the broom, yeah, then you’re not gonna be able to sweep up very much.
But if you have a whole group of you call it hair or straw or what? Yeah, bristles. Thank you. All the different bristles. So all the different bristles on the broom mean that you can clean more.
So it’s in terms of the accumulative effect of more people doing something means that the effect for every single person is great because their karma is brought together. So the more people you have doing something, the more powerful the effect is of that particular action. And it can work the same with vacuum cleaners because if you have a small vacuum cleaner, then you’re not gonna be able to sweep up as much because there isn’t much as much energy behind it. But if you have a big vacuum cleaner that uses up a lot of electricity, then you can vacuum more. So if you have one person doing an action, then that action is positive just for them.
But if you have a whole group of people doing the same action, that means that the power from that action is multiplied by exponentially because in or if you’re doing something negative, it’s the same thing. So for example, if you have ten people kill one person, then it’s not like they get one tenth of the karma of killing a person. They all get the same