Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Working through the “Song of the Four Mindfulnesses” verse by verse, Geshe Pema Tsering anchors this nearly two-hour Easter retreat commentary with a vivid image: the blessings of all buddhas are like sunlight, and the lama is the magnifying glass that focuses them into fire. He unpacks types of refuge — causal and resultant, temporary and ultimate — then turns to pure perception: why we project faults onto enlightened teachers, illustrated through the Buddha’s cousin Devadatta and the Chinese government’s hostility toward the Dalai Lama. The second verse frames saṃsāra as a prison and draws a careful distinction between attachment to a partner and genuine cherishing of all sentient beings. A Q&A closes the session, including a parent’s candid question about telling her children they were once her mothers.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 2008 03 22 Song of the Four Minduflnesses.mp3
UUID: 31990721-bc0c-4197-958a-2ee5452a08ca
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Easter Retreat (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2008-03-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 114.2 minutes
Words: ~5,699
So I guess the last thing is instructing us to give rise to a good motivation, then with the with the intention then of freeing all the human beings from every suffering and endowing them with every happiness, establishing them in this state. One oneself must attain enlightenment. Order to accomplish that, oneself to oneself is going out to study, listen, study to the and study the teachings and contemplate the teachings in order to accomplish this goal. And then we start with the preliminary prayers. Yesterday, I guess you went through the title of the text and for the first line of the text, on the seed of the immutable union of method and wisdom.
And then the second line is saying, who then sits on that seat, on that cushion of the immutable union of method and wisdom, the current guru who is the entity or the essence or the nature of all the refugees. And in the Tibetan, the first expression is refuges or all refugees. That’s what comes first. So Geshe-la is saying something as for refugees, there are various types of refuge. Generally speaking, there is the causal refuges and the resultant refuges.
Geshe-la was in the sense for the causal refuges, what is this refuges which is cause, which is the causal refuges? It is anybody other than us who is showing us the Dharma, who is teaching us the Dharma. It can be Buddhas and bodhisattvas and the Lamas and hearers, solitary realizers, and any aryasangha in general, they are all this causal refuge because they’re all teaching us the Dharma. The the bodhisattvas, the ārya sanghas, because they all teach us the Dharma, then they are said to be the causal refuge because they cause the Dharma to arise in our mind stream. As for the resultant refuge, are all those qualities that we or whatever qualities we already have in our mind streams and So, Geshe-la is saying,
As for the resultant, what is the resultant refuge? Again, it’s whatever qualities we have developed. When we’re talking qualities, Geshe-la is referring to the grounds and the paths, not just any ordinary quality. Geshe-la is saying, for example, the mind of enlightenment that we have produced in our continuum, that makes us a bodhisattva, that is our resultant refuge. Whatever other qualities that have developed in this way all the way up to enlightenment itself, that becomes the resultant refuge.
Is, as I said, these are qualities that right now we do not have, and relying on the causal refuge, we develop. And when we develop those qualities, then they become the resultant refuge. So, now, the resultant refuge comes in dependence on the cause of refuge, isn’t it? So, without having the lamas and the teachers teaching us the Dharma, then we won’t be able to produce, to give rise to those qualities, isn’t it? Because of that, we understand how the resultant refuge depends on the causal refuge.
Also, Geshe-la says there is another way to talk about refuges, is to divide them in terms of temporary refuge and ultimate refuge. Do you know how to translate that definition? Somebody who has gone through all the paths and completed all the paths. Geshe-la says, this ultimate refuge is someone who has traversed all the paths or completed all the paths. Geshe-la says ultimately he is a Buddha, fully enlightened being, an enlightened being.
This is the ultimate refuge, So, the only being who has completed and brought the path to ultimate completion, so to speak, is a Buddha. And then, also, in terms of ultimate refuge, Geshe-la says, we can also divide ultimate refuge in terms of there being an ultimate refuge, which is a cause of refuge, and an ultimate refuge which is a result of refuge. So, in terms of being a cause of refuge, Geshe-la says, there are the Buddhas themselves who are teaching us the Dharma, and such beings as, for example, the Dalai Lama, who we regard as being an enlightened being and who is teaching us the Dharma. They are ultimate refuges and causal refuges. And then, also, as for that which is ultimate refuge and resultant refuge, is when oneself becomes fully complete, enlightened, and becomes an omniscient Buddha, then oneself is both an ultimate refuge and a resultant refuge.
Even though, right now, none of us are this, are this ultimate refuge and resultant refuge, we can be this. Generally speaking, we we can aspire to be this. So then also, in terms of temporal refuges, there are temporal refuges which are causal refuge and temporal refuge which is ultimate resultant refuge. And for that which is a temporal refuge and also a cause of refuge, and then are the bodhisattvas, solitary realizers, foe destroyers, the solitary realizer foe destroyers, and so forth. The texts that we study, and so forth, they are all temporal refuges, and they are causal refuges.
They are called temporal. This is the best translation. Temporal because they are not fully enlightened Buddhas, so they are not ultimate, like a Buddha is. That’s the reason why they are called temporal. So then, again, are also called causal refuges because they are the cause of all the good qualities that we can produce and dependence on them in our mind streams.
We want to Relative. Ultimate relative for relative. No. No. It’s it’s not the word for relative.
No. It’s it’s more temporal. And then whatever qualities we have developed in our mind streams we have produced in our mind streams refuge bodhicitta and so forth they are also temporal refuge and resultant refuge. So then, again, Geshe-la was reading again, Geshe-la was that same sentence: It’s the guru who is the entity, the nature, the essence of all the refuges. And Geshe-la was saying again: Refuges and all.
So, we saw how many refuges there are. There are causal refuges. There are resultant refuges. There are temporary refuges. There all sorts of refuges that are contained in one’s mind stream.
There are one’s mental continuum. There are refuges that are contained in the continuum of others. So there are all sorts of refugees. And guess what was gonna say? So then all the refugees.
Again, refugees. So all refugees. So it’s interesting if you’re reading the Tibetan because the Tibetan comes so the essence of all refugees is the kind lama who is sitting on that cushion. That’s more or less how it would sound in English. I said, what is the essence?
What is the nature of all the refugees? It’s the lama. It’s the lama who is showing us, who is teaching us the Dharma, who is giving us the chance to develop those good qualities. It is through the Lama that we can gain all the blessings. Is through the kindness of the Lama that we can gain all the blessings of the refugees.
All the blessings of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas, they come in dependence upon the lama, in dependence on the guru. It is by the guru teaching us, giving us the teachings, bestowing upon us the teachings, that we can acquire all the blessings of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Without the guru, without the lama, we cannot obtain all those blessings. Geshe-la is giving a beautiful analogy of how this is of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas and their blessings coming through the lama? All the buddhas and the bodhisattvas are like the sun.
The lama is like a magnifying glass. Is through the magnifying glass that the sun, its power, the heat gathers so much that it creates fire, that it starts a fire. The same analogy applies to to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and and the lama itself. And then, again, Geshe was saying, the last word of that of that one sentence is, is to sit. It sits down.
And then Geshe-la is saying, So then he sits down on that cushion of method and wisdom. And Geshe-la says, It’s not really a cushion that he’s not really sitting down. The cushion. It’s just to say that he has that method and wisdom inseparably united. And then, the third sentence is saying, a Buddha who has perfect abandonment and wisdom is there.
So, abandonment and wisdom, the way it was translated here, it refers to two words in Tibetan, which are in the very beginning of that sentence: pang and tok. Pang is abandonment. And there’s a third word, zopa, which is complete. Geshe-la is explaining, so then he has completely abandoned all objects of abandonment. He has completely rid himself or herself of all afflictive obscurations, cognitive obscurations, and the imprints.
There’s no fault whatsoever left. There’s no shortcoming or fault whatsoever left. And then, he has realized all good qualities. The word was translated as wisdom refers to the realization of all good qualities, accomplishment of all good qualities, developing the production of all good qualities within one’s mind. And so, he has developed all the good qualities that are brought to completion all the good qualities, all the grounds, all the paths, all the way to Buddhahood.
He has perfectly completed that, so Buddha is there. And then the fourth line is saying, Forsaking or giving up all thoughts of defects or false or shortcomings, then make petitions to him or her with pure perception. Again, the first clause of that sentence is saying, Contemplating abandoning, giving up these preconceptions of shortcomings that we have. We ourselves, we see all sorts of faults and shortcomings in our teachers, in our lama, in that being who is teaching us. We have to arrest.
We have to stop the spirit conceptions. We have to give rise to a pure appearance, to a pure perception of him or her as a Buddha, as a fully enlightened being. And then, in this way, we make requests. We make supplications and requests to him or her. And Geshe-la was saying, this is a very important point because if one can make supplications whilst forsaking these preconceptions of shortcomings and false and so forth, and giving rise to this pure perception the Lama, then blessings will come.
Otherwise, without it, blessings will not come. And and this is something which is difficult to accomplish. So then this giving up of all these preconceptions of faults and shortcomings that we have, this is something difficult to accomplish because we are already deluded. We are living in a state of delusion, of distortion. In this way, with the self-cherishing and the self grasping, what we always see, what always appears to us, is all these deluded appearances.
It’s very difficult for us to see otherwise. Even if a buddha were amongst us, amongst people, most people would see many faults in that being, whilst maybe a few people would not. So, again, these preconceptions of faults, these preconceptions of shortcomings, it’s not like they come from the side of that being, of the person out there. It comes from our own tendencies, from our own It comes from our own side. Geshe-la was giving an illustration, the story of the Buddha’s cousin, the cousin of the Buddha?
I think it was a cousin of the Buddha called Devadatta. Even though he was ordained in the Buddha’s Sangha and all that, he never believed the Buddha, and he was always saying that the Buddha was a farce and lying and all that, and what he was saying was not true and all that. He really disliked the Buddha. And then, on top of that, there’s all the non Buddhists of that time who also disliked the Buddha, did not believe the Buddha, so forth. Even though the Buddha is a fully enlightened being, perfect with all qualities and free of all faults, and there are no faults to be seen there, still from our side, we keep on seeing it, like they did.
And Geshe-la was saying, again, making reference to the fact that he doesn’t have, the Buddha does not have any fault, any shortcoming. There’s nothing really to there’s no fault to be seen there, but we cannot see the Buddha, the fully enlightened being, as free of every thought and without every thought. We are unable to see that. We keep on seeing, we readily see our social shortcomings. So if if Geshe-la says the argument Geshe-la is is putting forth that if if nobody were to see any fault, then everybody would have to be a Buddhist in that country or that place where the Buddha is.
Everybody will have to be Buddhist. Right? But that’s not the case. Still, the Buddha has no faults, no shortcomings from his side, still being seen, faults and shortcomings, and them seeing those faults and shortcomings comes from their own side. Nowadays, in planet earth, there are buddhas, there are fully enlightened beings, but we cannot see.
Those who are able to see them as such, they are able to benefit, but we cannot see, so we do not benefit. And Geshe-la was saying, again, for the sake of of of illustration, Geshe-la was saying, take the the the Dalai Lama, for example. The Dalai Lama is a being who who has who is free of every fault and endowed with every quality. But still, we see faults on him. We see shortcomings on him, isn’t he?
And when we a being or a person who is better than us, who is a fully ordained person, a practitioner, and so forth, we can appreciate their good qualities, how good they are. We generate or produce them a lot of merit in this way. So let me correct myself. It’s in dependence on the matters that we have gathered in the past and we are able to see such a being as a very great being, as a very good being. In the same way, if now we practice, engage in our spiritual practice properly and accumulate merit, then in the future we will be able to recognize the Buddha, the full enlightened being.
Again, it’s as if we practice and if we can read ourselves of all the obscurations that impede our seeing the fully enlightened being, then we will be able to see. We have to rid ourselves of all sorts of obscurations, to knowledge and afflictions and so forth, not to be able to see those. Again, I guess I’ll illustrate the saying, for example, in regards to the Dalai Lama, we see a great, fully ordained monk there. We perceive him in that way. On the other hand, for example, the Chinese, for example, see him as the enemy, see him as someone who is harmful, they are always putting thoughts on him and shortcomings on him.
And then I guess that was the same again because the chinese want to control to have power over Tibet, and then because the Tibetans are followers of the Dalai Lama, then they start seeing that the Dalai Lama is harming them, harming the Chinese. The Chinese see that Dalai is harming them and making trouble and so forth. And Geshe-la says, but Dalai Lama is not the Dalai is not doing such things from his side. So again, this goes back to the sentence. Forsaking your thoughts of the faults and shortcomings, then with pure perception, make petitions, make supplications.
In that frame of mind, we make supplications. May I become like you? May I turn out to be like you? When we make supplications in this way and then we practice, we accumulate our merit and wisdom and so forth, then everything is going to turn out well. Then we have accomplished the causes.
And then Geshe-la is reading the fifth line of the verse saying: Not letting your mind stray. Place it within admiration and respect. Then, again, Geshe-la says: Not letting our mind stray, not letting our mind be distracted. Instead, every day, we are always going with the whims of our minds.
Whatever direction it goes, we go with it. In this way, we are not able to give rise to any respect and to any aspirations. Möpa, what is the translation for Möpa? It translates it as admiration. English language in Spanish.
Then as for for that that expression in in Tibetan, which is letting our mind stray, letting our mind be distracted. There’s no difficulty in doing that. There’s no difficulty in being distracted, in letting our mind astray, thinking of the pleasurable things of this life, watching TV and so forth. Our minds get easily astray. We don’t have to make any effort for that, Geshe-la.
And then, again, we need to develop, Geshe-la says, with regards to all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas and the qualities. We need to have admiration and respect. The word was translated as admiration. Möpa. It is that mind which aspires to have those qualities or to be like the Buddha, to be like the Bodhisattvas, and to aspires to attain those states and to attain those qualities, to have those qualities for oneself.
That’s what that word means. And then Geshe-la is going through the last line of that first verse and saying, and not letting our mind stray, placing it within admiration and respect. It’s not something that should be done casually. We should do it by making your attention unforgetful, without being unmindful, and we should hold it then within faith and respect. So then we hold this mindfulness.
We hold in our mindfulness all these things that we have to give up, and in this way, we hold on to our admiration and respect with regards to the lama. And then the next verse starts: In the prison of the suffering of limitless cyclic existence. And Geshe-la was saying so then again for each word, khorwa. Khorwa is the first word that comes in that sentence, which is cyclic existence. Is saṃsāra.
So saṃsāra, we all understand what it is. It’s everything that is propelled that comes out of contaminated actions and afflictive emotions and conceptions. Everything that is powerless and powerlessly propelled by contaminated actions and afflictive emotions and conceptions. And then all this is saṃsāra And then Geshe-la is saying, and please correct me if I’m wrong because I had a bit of difficulty there.
Geshe-la was saying that in the beginning, when we’re talking about khor wa, when we’re talking about saṃsāra, we’re not merely talking about that understanding that we have, that it is somebody who has given up saṃsāra and has become a renunciate and is meditating, meditating, meditating. That’s not the only thing that we’re talking about. When we’re talking about saṃsāra, we’re talking about every phenomenon, everything here that comes about, that has arisen out of contaminated actions and afflictive emotions. That powerlessly arises out of contaminated actions and afflictive emotions and conceptions. It has been we’re talking about this phenomenon have arisen in this way since time immemorial, since beginning of this time.
It says in the text, limitless cyclic existence. There’s no limits. All the way until we attain liberation and enlightenment, we are going to keep on going through cyclic existence powerlessly, overpowered by contaminated actions and afflictive emotions. Beginning? Was was that what he said in the beginning?
The abandonment of cycle. This is is not is not something to become renunciate. To become renunciate and sit down and meditate, meditate, meditate, isn’t it? Yeah. And again, Geshe-la goes on.
The last few words of that sentence in the Tibetan is the prison of suffering. And Geshe-la is the same. So, again, cyclic existence, which is filled with suffering, is like a prison. In a prison, you have no happiness. So then it’s like existence and all the suffering we experience is just like that.
There’s no happiness, only suffering. In this prison of suffering of cyclic existence, who is it that is locked in this prison of suffering of cyclic existence? Are the six types of beings who are bereft of happiness, they wander in this prison? And Geshe-la was saying. So we have the six types of beings, the three types of beings of the lower realms of existence and the three types of the three higher realms of existence, and they are bereft of happiness.
They have no happiness. And when we’re talking about happiness, Geshe-la says, we’re talking about ultimate happiness, unchanging happiness, not just any happiness. And then, Geshe-la was saying, with regards to the first expression, bereft of happiness, Geshe-la said. So we, even though we are bereft, we do not have any happiness. We do not understand that.
We cannot see that we lack happiness. We remain holding that which is not happiness as happiness. We remain holding that which is in the nature of suffering as being happiness. And in this way, we are bereft of happiness also. This one?
And Geshe-la was listening. And then, was the first clause of the sentence: bereft of suffering, the six types of beings wander through cyclic existence. They wander there. Again, Geshe-la was explaining the last word, which is the verb come, which is to wander, to go for a walk, walk about, and so forth. Geshe-la was saying?
So, the sentient beings wander. Again, just like the prisoners in a prison, in a jail, they also wonder, and we see that in the telling. I was saying they also wonder, but they do not wander freely. They have to wander within the limits of the prison. They have to wander within the prison.
They walk about only inside the prison. And in the same way, we go about cyclic existence. And then, the next sentence is telling us that all our fathers and mothers, our kind parents, they are there. They are in this prison. They are locked in this and because of that, towards them we have to abandon all attachment and all hatred, hatred, and then we have to give rise to endearment and compassion, this affectionate love and compassion.
And Geshe-la is explaining the word that is translated as endearment or affectionate love is chesin, is cherishing. It could be self-cherishing or cherishing of others. Geshe-la is making reference that here, in this context, it’s a cherishing of others. We have to cultivate cherishing others, and we have to cultivate compassion, which is the wish to free all sentient beings from every suffering. And Geshe-la is saying, again, going back to the beginning of that sentence, we have to give up.
We have to abandon attachment and aversion. Geshe-la explained the meaning of the Tibetan words, which in English, because they are not abbreviated in any way, is just the same: attachment and aversion. This word means attachment, that word means aversion. And then we have to give up attachment and aversion. That’s something which is very difficult for us to accomplish, giving up something like attachment.
We are attached, first of all, to ourselves. We are attached to our friends and loved ones. We are attached to our possessions, and giving up those things is very difficult for us to accomplish those. Again, as for the other words, one is chagpa, attachment, and the other one is zhe dang, which is hatred, anger, or aversion. As for hatred, Geshe-la said, it’s something that we have in regards to someone or something that we dislike, that does not give us happiness, does not give us any happiness and pleasure.
Anytime we see such a being or such a thing, then immediately we get avert to it. We have aversion to it. We have anger or hatred towards it. And this, again, is something which is difficult to give up, to abandon. So, I guess that wasn’t saying, playing with the words, again, the word attachment attachment and cherishing of others.
Is there any difference between them? Cherishing of others, the expression that refers to cherishing of others, cherishing of others is a mind that is, how can I say, yid ‘ong, This mind of cherishing others is a mind that sees the others as attractive and then holds on to others? I guess I wasn’t saying the attachment also is a mind that’s coming out of one’s own self-cherishing. So Geshe-la was then saying again, the mind that cherishes others is against a mind that sees others as attractive and then the mind of attachment is a mind that comes out of one’s own self-cherishing and is then holding on to its objects. Geshe-la says there is a difference between them.
Geshe-la was then giving an illustration. For example, say for oneself one’s own, Geshe-la was pointing out to me and saying take, for example, your partner, and find that you cherish your partner so by holding my partner to be someone precious to me, then I develop attachment towards my partner. Then Geshe-la was saying, on the other hand, the mind that holds all other sentient beings as precious to oneself and then cherishes them. These are two different things. Those are two different minds.
So then I guess I wasn’t saying, you’re going to have to help me here, so both of these minds are similar in that they find their objects attractive. Both of these minds are similar in that they find their objects of observation attractive. By liking the partner then is attracted to the partner and develops attachment, the other by being attracted to all sentient beings. And Geshe-la is saying, so then both of these minds are similar in that they are alike in that they find their objects attractive, and they find their objects to be very precious and important. But one is attachment and an afflicted mind, and the other one is not.
So, the mind of attachment comes out of this deluded understanding that that which does not give happiness is going to give happiness, and then is attached to it. And then so, for example, in the case of one’s partner, then we see one’s partner as whatever happiness that it gives, is the happiness of this life, is samsaric happiness. Is not real happiness, and still we perceive it to be we hold it to be real happiness. Aside from giving us what is said, the happiness of this life or some sort of happiness, which is not real happiness, Geshe-la says, such an object as one’s partner cannot any real happiness to us. Now that mind which is attracted towards all sentient beings, that is cherishing all sentient beings, then that mind can give us So, that mind can give us love and kindness and compassion, and the mind of enlightenment, and ultimately, it gives us enlightenment itself.
So, it gives us real happiness. So then these two minds, even though both of them hold their objects to be very precious and important, one of them gives us only saṃsāra, only more saṃsāra, and the other one gives ultimate happiness, something like this. So one is a correct mind and the other one is a mistaken wrong mind So, again, these two minds: attachment and cherishing others. But we do not see the difference still. Still, we do not see the difference, And again, not letting your mind stray, place it within compassion, making your attention unforgetful, maintain it within compassion.
So then, with regards to those last sentences, we are being instructed then to cultivate compassion, to meditate on compassion. Then, with regards to all those beings who are in this prison of cyclic existence. We instructed them to not be attached or avert to them, give up attachment or aversion to them, develop that mind which cherishes them, and then, in this way, maintaining compassion. Otherwise, by being attached and avert to them, just create more bonds of cyclic existence. Geshe-la wants to stop here, and he’s he’s he’s wondering if that you probably have some questions now.
He says that you you have isn’t it? Yeah. It’s it’s okay? Yes. Oh, yeah.
So please ask some questions. Please. He was just giving an illustration. You want me to ask that, if that’s what he means, that having a partner only brings suffering? Would like me to ask that?
Yes, exactly. Because I’m just wondering, then, why do we have partners? Is there any point? So Geshe-la says, a partner only gives suffering. It provides us with no real happiness, only the happiness of this life that pertains to this life.
Yes? I said that I’m looking after them not because I’m their mother, because they they have never been my mother in the past. So now I do all this for them just to repay their kindness. Okay. And then I feel that it reduced my attachment, but I found one problem because I told my boys the same thing.
So they behaved a little bit like, they are my mother. I’m still trying to apologize away. But I don’t know whether I should just do the practice mentally rather than speaking it out so that my voice know that there my mother and not the other way around So then, is saying: explained everything that you said. Geshe is saying, look, this mind that finds its object attractive, or is attracted to its object. Probably there’s a better way to translate it in this context.
Geshe-la is saying, mind of yid ‘ong towards one’s children, and the mind of yid ‘ong that is attracted towards one partner. Those are two different minds. So, that mind that has this yid ‘ong, whatever that might be in this context in English, towards one’s children, is actually all right, it’s actually correct. That is a mind of loving kindness. That is a mind that wishes to one’s children, that one’s children meet with happiness and be free from suffering.
So, is all right. That’s a good mind. That’s correct. So then, that is a mind that wishes one’s children to meet only with happiness and not to meet with suffering. In this way, it looks after them.
So, is a mind of loving kindness and compassion. It a partial loving kindness, partial compassion. That’s what they are called. Okay? And Geshe-la is saying.
These two minds, the one that is with regards to one’s partner, the other one that is with regards to one’s children, they are different. Many of have very different motivations. Again, I need your help again here. One has a wrong, a mistaken motivation. How would you translate that?
Improper She has an improper mental application towards its observation, towards the partner in this case. One is a mind that is seeking, is motivated to gain some happiness and pleasure for this life, pertains to this life, and the other one is a mind that is trying to accomplish, you know, the bringing up one’s children well in a good way, in a beneficial way. So then because of all that, parents do have to cherish one’s children. And one’s children do have to cherish one’s parents, have to hold them in good regards. That is correct.
Okay? Oh, yeah. A copy of it. Forsaking thoughts of defects, making a decision of pure perception. So And then Geshe-la says just briefly, Geshe-la concluded.
So it is it is very difficult to accomplish that. It is very difficult to to see to do cultivate this pure perception and rid oneself of all these preconceptions of faults and shortcomings. But Our main teacher for us is the Dalai Lama, and because of that, we should not give up such a practice as a purification practice. Sorry. May I ask a question?
Is the idea of that verse or the thing that it’s trying to teach us not that if we take away if if we practice and become less attached and, you know, rid ourselves of all the things that make us, you know, human frailties, then we will see that force that, you know, that god force in in all all beings. Can you would you repeat that? Because I think I’ve lost the beginning. Very clear. I like I realized the verse says that we are, you know, to recognize the qualities of of the Buddha and of enlightenment in in our teachers.
Yes. But then we must not see their shortcomings. But the shortcomings come from our From our side. From our side. If we by practicing to remove from us the things that make us less pure Yes.
Then surely we take away whatever blinds us to that. Is that correct? And then we will be able to see our teacher as a buddha? Yes. Okay.
So, if you remove those obscurations which obscure you, which stop you from seeing the lama as an enlightened being, which stops you from seeing the enlightened being as an enlightened being, then if you remove those obscurations, those specific obscurations, then you will see the enlightened being as an enlightened being. You said something in the previous formulation of the question: Will I see all beings as enlightened? That’s why I repeated that. He said, No, because not all beings are enlightened. But will you see the ones that are?
Yes. You will you will see the ones that are. Yes. Yeah? Yes.
This one? This one. This one. Is that okay? Yeah.
Yeah. I do. Do you have a translation of the verse? Yeah. It’s just in in case you like quoting from the verse.
It says that the blessings of the lama are not really great or small. You have it there? The lama’s blessings are not really great or small. It all depends on you. The the blessings of the lama being their great and small, it depends on our motivation, our mind, on our frame of mind, our faith, and so forth that we have in the lama.
He said he he he thinks that it should be that way. Any more questions? You have any questions? Okay.