Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The image of greeting a hostile or suffering person with more joy than finding treasure anchors this 45-minute commentary by Geshe Pema Tsering on Verses Four and Five of the Eight Verses of Mind Training. He first lays the groundwork: genuine renunciation requires repeatedly confronting impermanence, the rarity of precious human rebirth, and the three types of samsaric suffering until a healthy scaredness propels the mind toward liberation rather than samsaric happiness. He explains why self-cherishing and bodhicitta cannot coexist, making mind training the necessary antidote. The verse commentary is practical: deliberately seek out those you would normally avoid; when slandered or abused, take the loss and offer the victory — but not blindly, since compassion sometimes calls for firm words, and even small practiced losses yield large returns in lasting happiness. Suited to practitioners with some grounding in bodhicitta teachings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 TT 2004 08 24.mp3
UUID: 68cfc935-e8b0-4419-9a57-b2dc6a2a1042
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB Thought Transformation (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-08-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.9 minutes
Words: ~3,550
In the three principal aspects of the path, it says, leisure and fortune are difficult to find, and life has no endurance. Through familiarity with this, emphasis on the appearances of this life is reversed. So what this is talking about is the fact that because we don’t focus on the impermanence and the uniqueness of this lifetime, that we tend to get caught up in things that only matter in this lifetime. The happiness of saṃsāra, which we think is true happiness and cling to, becomes our sole focus and we don’t tend to think about the true happiness of liberation or Buddhahood. As we’re caught up in trying to achieve or trying to get this so called happiness of saṃsāra that we don’t realize isn’t true happiness, then we don’t really have enough time to practice properly.
We’re too distracted by our wanting to find happiness in this lifetime. The way that we can stop ourselves by getting distracted by the things of this lifetime is to remember impermanence and to remember the uniqueness of this precious human rebirth. If we remember death and impermanence, and we remember how rare it is for us to have this opportunity, and we think about cause and effect, then we’ll get scared. If we’re scared, we’re not going to be distracted. So we have to tend to we have to try and encourage this scaredness in ourselves because if we are if we keep reminding ourselves of death and we keep reminding ourselves of the consequences of negative action, then we will be propelled or we will be forced into behaving more positively and concentrating on dharma more.
We need to this that’s one way of focusing on it. We also need to look at what it is that we’re attached to, look at what it is that we’re actually look working towards when we focus on things of dislike or when we say focus on worldly things. Now, anything that we can strive for, any kind of happiness that we strive for that’s samsaric happiness, and it can’t bring us true happiness, a lasting happiness. It can only bring us a fleeting happiness and cause us to create more, reasons to to suffer in the future. So we really need to look clearly at the three different types of suffering that pervade our existence in saṃsāra and the three certainties of karma.
We need to look at these things and remind ourselves of these again and again. If we’re able to do that, if we’re able to remind ourselves of these faults of saṃsāra and the definitiveness of cause and effect, then we will be if we’re able sorry. If we’re able to remind ourselves of these again and again, we’ll be encouraged to develop the mind or the way of thinking that strives for liberation instead of striving for samsaric happiness. So if we do this, if we keep thinking about the faults of saṃsāra and the pointlessness of the things that we strive for saṃsāra, then we will develop renunciation from saṃsāra and a striving for liberation or Buddhahood. If we focus on working towards liberation and Buddhahood, then we are working towards something that can actually give us true happiness, permanent happiness, instead of a temporary thing that we think is happiness but isn’t really.
These are the two aspects of it. We focus on the unsatisfactory state of our existence at the moment, how Samsāra is completely faulty. We focus on the infallibility of cause and effect and the rareness of a precious human rebirth and the nature of death that is definite, it’s definitely going to happen to us. And by thinking on those things, then we can stop our attraction to samsaric things or the things saṃsāra, the things we perceive as excellent in saṃsāra, and actually start working towards Buddhahood and And without renunciation, without developing some sense of our experience of suffering in saṃsāra, then we’re not going to be able to develop bodhicitta. bodhicitta is the thought that we want to separate all other sentient beings from suffering, from all forms of suffering.
And if we don’t recognize suffering for what it is, if we don’t recognize saṃsāra as being suffering, then we can hardly seek to show all other sentient beings how to get out of that situation. We can hardly seek to deliver them from that or to show them how to liberate themselves if we don’t recognize that we need to get out of saṃsāra ourselves. This way, renunciation, in this way, the mind striving towards enlightenment and liberation is a necessary prerequisite for the development of bodhicitta. So all all of us or most of us know what bodhicitta is by this stage, know about the the thought to to strive for enlightenment to benefit all sentient beings. We know about bodhicitta, and we may have even studied a lot when we tried to put into practice a lot of the Buddha’s teachings of all of the three different types of vehicles and all of the different instructions and instructions and advice for doing meditations and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings and to try to perform rituals and so on.
But the problem is most of us are so engrossed in ourselves. We’re so caught up in self-cherishing that even though the Dharma we may be practicing is labeled Mahāyāna Dharma is labeled the ultra Dharma of the altruistic vehicle, where because of our motivation, what we’re doing isn’t. Because our our motivation is usually to benefit ourselves in this lifetime, to think about how meditation makes us happy, to think about how we can improve ourselves in this lifetime. If we do things with that motivation, we may actually achieve what we set out to do. We may feel happier.
We may feel we may feel like we’ve grown or improved ourselves in this lifetime, but that’s it, and that’s a very limited motivation. Anytime anything that we achieve that’s about this lifetime will finish when we die. And we need to, broaden our focus and and try and think about future lifetimes and try and think about how, what we’re doing now can actually be a cause for us to attain liberation or Because of this, because of the way that our mind works, because of our intense self-cherishing that we have developed and encouraged and habituated ourselves to since the beginning of time, then it is very difficult for us to develop the mind of bodhicitta. It is very difficult for us to actually focus on our motivation properly before we do any practices or any meditation or virtuous like this. We may start off with the intention that we’re doing something with a bodhicitta motivation, but pretty soon after developing this motivation or thinking of this, then our minds revert back to how this can help us in the short term, how we are doing will help us become distracted by other things that we want to do.
This is our habit. The reason that this is our habit is because of two things: first of all, because of our self-cherishing and also because we haven’t seen the faults of what it is that we are actually striving after. We haven’t seen the faults of saṃsāra. So these are the two things that inhibit us or stop us from being able to develop bodhicitta. These are the two things that stop us from being able to practice Dharma perfectly or with such a clear motivation.
So they are the two things that we need to focus on. They are the two things that we need to remember. If you don’t have self-cherishing and bodhicitta in the same mind stream. You can’t have both of those exist at the same time. As soon as you have self-cherishing, bodhicitta isn’t there.
So in order for us to develop bodhicitta, need to get rid of self-cherishing. The two things are mutually exclusive. The mind of bodhicitta is seeking to work for others. self-cherishing is thinking about ourselves. So we can’t be seeking to work for others if we’re thinking about ourselves.
So in order for us to try and work towards developing bodhicitta, we need to get rid of self-cherishing. And we need to get rid of the things that self-cherishing makes us desirous of the things, the happiness of saṃsāra. So if we get rid of these two things, then we are actually able to develop a proper motivation. And what we are doing will be actually a correct or a real Dharma practice. So because self-cherishing is such a a obstinate obstacle to us developing bodhicitta.
It’s such a problem for us when we’re trying to practice Dharma. Then that’s why we’re studying this eight verses of mind training this evening. That’s why we’re practicing mind training in order to get rid of self-cherishing and start focusing on others. The only way that we can do this is if we thought about certain things beforehand. We thought about impermanence.
We thought about the shortcomings of Samsāra, how rare it is for us to have a precious human rebirth, and the infallibility of cause and effect. Once we thought about those and developed some sense of renunciation from Samsāra, then we can start practicing mind training, and we can start thinking of how we need to get rid of self-cherishing and we need to focus on others order to progress. If we haven’t thought about these things beforehand, then the practice of exchanging self with others, of getting rid of self-cherishing, doesn’t have as much potency, doesn’t have as much effect on us. There are two different ways that we can develop a bodhicitta and develop compassion and work towards eliminating self-cherishing. One is called the seven point cause and effect process, and the other one is called the exchange of self with others.
These eight verses of mind training that we are studying this evening come from the second group, the exchange of self and others practice. So the the point of doing these is to eliminate self-cherishing, which is the main obstacle to us developing So therefore, we should think that by listening to this teaching on the practice of exchanging self with others, a process of mind training, may this be a virtuous activity that I can then apply to. May the virtue accumulated through that positive activity and through the study of this text be mingled with the virtuous karma created by all five classes of sentient being, and may that be a cause for me to attain Buddhahood in order to benefit all sentient beings. So if we can try and meditate on that thought for a few minutes. So we’re up to verse number four from the eight verses.
That starts by saying, I will learn to cherish beings of bad nature and those possessed by strong sins and sufferings. Those cherish beings of bad nature bad nature means people who enjoy hurting others, who do this habitually and in an easy way. So it’s something that they do without having to think about too much. So beings who behave in this way and also those who are so overcome by afflictive emotions that they behave in ways that are really destructive, whether it be fighting or whether it be manipulating situations or whatever it is, what they’re doing is usually harmful to other beings. It’s saying that when we come into contact with these types of people, when we meet them, that we should be really happy happy about that.
We should be as happy about meeting them as we would be if we’d found some treasure. So it says, as if I found a precious treasure very difficult to find. In actual fact, Geshe-la said that we should be more happy about bumping into people that are this negative than we should be if we found treasure. If we found treasure, we would be really happy. But in actual fact, finding treasure isn’t going to give us as much chance to work on ourselves as finding an obnoxious person.
So when we meet people who have bad character and have harmed us in some way, but also people who are very ill or have other problems that they need to deal with, our natural reaction is usually to try and create some distance between ourselves and those people that have harmed us or are experiencing these things. We don’t feel a strong bond with them, and we don’t find any particular reason to seek them out or to try and help them. But this is the way we normally think. This is a self-cherishing attitude, and we have to train our mind not to respond in this way. If people are difficult or if people are ill and need a lot of attention and help.
If we are able to focus on them instead of focusing on our normal reaction, this way we are able to make the most out of the situation. Don’t think that they are going to be able to help us, but in actual fact, by giving us the opportunity to do helpful to practice patience and to be helpful to them they are. So this kind of practice, this kind of behavior is associated a lot with Christian monks who perform charity and work for people who are less well off than people who have leprosy and so forth. This is what they do these days, and this is also what people used to do when they were practicing mind training. They would go and help people who were great difficulties and try to work with them and try to be able to learn from that experience.
By going specifically to help those whose natural tendency was to walk away from, people who are practicing mind training are able to eventually develop bodhicitta, but also develop their ability to experience all things with patience. They are able to also develop their ability to withstand suffering and also to take on suffering for the benefit of other beings. Given that these beings that are difficult, these beings that are ill, these beings that may have all these different problems do actually present us an opportunity to develop these qualities, then they really are more precious than finding treasure precious for us than trying to find treasure. So verse number five actually says, when others out of jealousy treat me badly with abuse, slander, and so on, I will learn to take all loss and offer victory to them. So beings are jealous of us or covetous of any of our possessions, then they are more likely to abuse slander in order to get what they want.
Of these things that may be directed towards us would usually be a cause for us to respond aggressively or to feel like we need to beat these people, but the next two lines indicate. It says, I will learn to take on and offer the victory to the others. This is the practice of mind training. Of reacting, we turn the way we think around. We learn to take on our loss, so this refers to loss of physical things, loss of pride, loss of physical things and mental things like pride and so on Then, it also means that, the next line, and offer the victory to them means that we’re giving any positive things that we can. We try and offer them to others.
The reason that we would do this is because of compassion and because of seeing the faults of self-cherishing. self-cherishing makes us want to take the victory for ourselves and give loss to others, but we realize how faulty self-cherishing is, and we have compassion for other people. So we turn that around, and through our compassion, we offer the victory to others, and through our understanding of the negative results of self-cherishing, we take the loss to ourselves. Oh, Did I say that the right way around? Because anyway.
Okay. So in general, all have experienced situations where people without proper reason, without proper thought say negative things to us, slander us unjustifiably. The normal way that we would react to such a situation from a worldly perspective or from an ordinary perspective would be to respond to those accusations, to if someone hurts us, then we would hurt them if someone is nice to us, then we would be nice to them. That’s the normal way that we behave. We are hurtful to those who are hurtful to us, and we are kind to those who are kind to us.
Even though that may be the normal way of behaving, it doesn’t sit well with the practice of developing the altruistic intention and developing bodhicitta. If we want to develop bodhicitta, we have to turn that way of thinking around. It may seem okay normally to do this, but it would be okay for us normally to behave like that as long as we’re not trying to attain bodhicitta. If we’re doing a mind training practice and trying to develop bodhicitta, then it’s not okay for us to behave like this. So instead of behaving like this, what we need to do is, as it says in if we’re practicing mind training, what we need to do, as it says in this verse, is offer their victory to others.
So this means that when we are treated badly, even if we are beaten up and stuff, then we should take on the defeat ourselves. We should not try and win in that situation and offer up the victory to others. That means giving the victory to the other people. That’s the opposite to what we may have done previously. Now this may be very difficult, and the Dalai Lama says, in fact, almost unrealistic.
But it’s definitely difficult for us to try and put these into practice, given the way that our mind works. The thing is that if a being wants to develop a mind of enlightenment, they want to develop bodhicitta or the altruistic mind, they need to practice like this. It may be very difficult, may be almost impossible, but if you want to develop bodhicitta and you’re focusing single pointedly on developing bodhicitta, you need to practice like this. Okay. This doesn’t mean that you should be a miserable person because you’re a Buddhist, or you should go around seeking out horrible situations because you’re trying to be a Buddhist.
It doesn’t mean anything like this, and it doesn’t also mean that you have to always behave like this. There needs to be a reason for doing it. There needs to be some kind benefit to come from this. You can also do this kind of practice with very small losses. It doesn’t have to be massive undertakings or massive losses that you incur in order to practice this way.
You can develop the same kind of mental strength through very small losses, offering very small victories to others. It doesn’t mean that you should be miserable about things all the time, too. If anything is making you miserable, then you’re not practicing it properly. You should always try and have a happy, open mind about what you’re doing. In in actual fact, you have to understand the process of what you’re doing in order to be able to do it properly and without regret and without a sad mind or a closed down mind, a depressed mind.
This process of taking on loss and giving others the victory should be understood that you can take on a very small loss and actually get an enormous gain from it in terms of more permanent happiness. So, it’s a small output, high return process. You may be able to take on a small loss and therefore give out a little, then you get big returns from that process. Therefore, we shouldn’t be doing it in a manner that isn’t motivated by compassion and where we are trying to be harmful to ourselves through doing this practice. Because this process has to be about bringing about the most positive outcome, this means that sometimes, through a motivation of compassion, we may have to use strong words or strong actions in order to avert a negative situation.
It doesn’t mean that you should always accept a loss in a situation, if accepting a loss is actually going to be harmful to the other beings. If you’re able to experience a situation like that, see that there is no point or there is no benefit in taking on the loss to yourself, and without anger, compassionately respond to that situation, even it means you have to use strong words or strong actions, then this is also a way of practicing mind training. So in fact, one of the forty six secondary precepts of the Bodhisattva vows is to answer appropriately and halt someone who is engaged in wrong activity. Example, if we see someone who’s about to do a negative action and we’re able to stop them, then should do whatever we can to stop them.