Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The memorable image in this 43-minute commentary is a television set: Geshe Pema Tsering uses it to explain that the Lamrim merit field visualization — an ocean of Buddhas, bodhisattvas, lineage masters, and protectors assembled on a lion-throne — requires no mental engineering about scale, just as a viewer never worries that the screen is too small to contain a country. He walks step by step through the full Lamrim session opening: altar setup, the seven-point Vairochana posture, refuge and bodhicitta, the four immeasurables, and an analytical meditation on emptiness, before the merit field visualization unfolds in detail, including offerings imagined as crystal bath houses. He also shares his teacher’s approach of imagining all lamas as inseparable from Śākyamūni Buddha, and clarifies that meditating in a quiet place means free from distraction, not from noise. For practitioners actively working through a Lamrim text.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 2004 02 16 RG.mp3
UUID: 1b89b780-5616-4f20-8cbd-01d8a720acbb
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Essence of Refined Gold (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-02-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 42.8 minutes
Words: ~3,157
To the to the the the images of the. One second. Okay. Sorry. I just wanted to get that clear so I could speak clearly.
So in general, we should be abiding in a or living in a quiet place where we can concentrate on what what it is that we’re doing. And then for every session that we do, then we should make sure that we are focusing on an altar which has images of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and the body, speech and mind of the fully enlightened Buddha in front of us. So we’re focusing on that. And then in the beginning of each session of meditation, we should make offerings. We should sit on a comfortable cushion in comfortable posture, preferably the seven point seating arrangement of Vairochana, which is the cross legs and and eyes down and so forth.
And then we should develop the motivation by going through refuge and developing the idea of bodhicitta, we should mix our mind with those ideas, and then we should say the prayers of the four immeasurables and so forth. Okay. So the first thing that we need to be concentrating on is developing an understanding of refuge or developing an idea of refuge. And then in order for us to develop an idea of bodhicitta or the mind wishing to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, and then we should meditate on the four immeasurables. So that is immeasurable loving kindness, immeasurable compassion, immeasurable equanimity, and immeasurable joy.
So what these four immeasurables are actually said to be What they actually said to be represent is, first of all, we have the wish that all sentient beings without exception which is an immeasurable number of sentient beings, that all of those have complete happiness and are free from suffering. And the second one is that all sentient beings without exception, which is an immeasurable number, have the causes of happiness. And then the third immeasurable points to the fact that we are imagining all sentient beings without exception being free from suffering. And the fourth is that all sentient beings without exception have the causes for happiness.
Okay, so having developed that attitude of refuge and bodhicitta through focusing on refuge and then focusing on the four immeasurables, it is then said that you should recite the prayer that starts off the one that we said at the beginning of the teachings. Now the first two lines of these refer to refuge. So it’s on page one in the prayer book. The first two lines of this refer to refuge because they’re saying, I’m gonna go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the highest assembly,, all the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. So in that case, you’re reciting a prayer of refuge.
And the second two lines refer to bodhicitta. So in the second two lines, it says, from the virtuous merit that I collect. So, that means the positive karma that we’ve collected through whether it’s giving, as it says in the as the example in the prayer, or whether it’s meditating, or whether it’s practicing Dharma, or doing it like a practice or whether it’s rejoicing in other people’s virtue or whether it’s studying or whether it’s teaching, whatever it is that we’ve done by all of the collection of that positive action that we’ve done. And we’re saying may that be a cause for me to become a Buddha in order to be able to benefit all sentient beings, in order to be able to show all sentient beings how not to suffer. And yeah.
So it’s the opposite way around in Tibetan because it says more like, in order for me to attain to be a benefit to all sentient beings, may I attain the state of a Buddha? Okay. So we’ve gone through the stages of developing the idea of refuge and then the idea of bodhicitta based on the recitation or meditation on the four immeasurables. And then we develop, we say the prayers that focus on refuge in bodhicitta. After going through these two types of meditation, we then move on to a meditation on emptiness.
And that is we think of, we remind ourselves or we focus on the fact that all phenomena are not inherently existent the way that they appear to us to be. They’re not solid objects that are permanent and autonomous the way that they appear to us to be. They are in fact empty of that kind of inherent existence and they are collections of causes and conditions that are labeled as something. So we do an analytical meditation to develop an understanding of emptiness after we’ve developed an idea of refuge and bodhicitta. Okay.
So then, after we have thought about refuge and bodhicitta and meditated on emptiness, then because we’re doing meditations and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings on the Lamrim or the graduated path, then it’s, what do you say, it’s encouraged or it’s explained that it’s best to, it’s advised that it’s best to have what’s called the Lamrim or graduated path refuge field or merit field in front of us. So that means that we visualize something in front of us in order to act as a focus for our meditation on the lang rim. And so the thing that you’re visualizing in this case is that, first of all, as we’ve been focusing on everything being emptiness, then we have this idea of a sphere of emptiness. And from in front of us, from this sphere of emptiness, we imagine eight snow lions, eight big lions.. And then on top of the lions is what’s called a jeweled throne.
On top of the jeweled throne, there is said to be a multicolored lotus. On top of the multicolored lotus, there is what’s called a moon disc. So it’s like a cushion, but it’s made from a moon that’s flat. And then on top of that, so on top of the lions, on top of the throne, on top of the lotus, on top of the moon disc, you then imagine the person who’s teaching you, the lama or the teacher who’s teaching you the Lamrim to be inseparable from Śākyamūni Buddha. So you imagine there’s an image that is both Śākyamūni Buddha and the person that’s teaching you.
So you’re visualizing Śākyamūni Buddha, but you’re thinking that is my teacher, so that they’re inseparable. So that’s the main focus of the visualization. Next to or behind this visualization, then you have two lineages that you have in terms of where the Lamrim came from. There’s what’s called the vast lineage and what’s called the profound lineage. So the vast lineage is the lineage of deeds and the profound lineage is the lineage of wisdom.
So in terms of that, you’re imagining a row of teachers who have brought the teachings down to your teacher. So you’re imagining the person who gave the teachings to them, the person who gave the teachings to them and so forth back to the two heads of this lineage is said to be Asaṇga and Nāgārjuna. So Asaṇga is the head of the conduct lineage and Nāgārjuna is the head of the wisdom or expansive lineage. Hang on. Vast is conduct Okay.
So once you have, visualized Śākyamūni Buddha that is actually your teacher, so you’re thinking it’s your teacher or Śākyamūni Buddha is inseparable from your teacher and he’s on a disc on a lotus on a lion throne. And then there’s two lineages of teachers coming behind. So two rows of teachers coming behind on the left and the right. One being the lineage of method and the other being the lineage of wisdom. And at the head of these two lineages is Nāgārjuna and Asaṇga.
Then you imagine that heaps of other people come as well. Right? So there’s a it is what’s called the Buddhas of the ten directions. Now the ten directions are north, south, east, west, and then and then we have like northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest, right? So that’s eight, yeah?
Everyone counting? And then you have up and down. Yeah, so that’s ten. So ten directions. So you’re covering all bases here.
So all of the Buddhas from all of of the ten directions, you invite all them into this image. And then you invite all of the bodhisattvas from all of the ten directions into this image. And then all of the hearers or the Shravakas, that is people who have achieved nirvana. And then all of the solitary realizers into this image. So you’ve got a big group of people.
And then you invite what are called the holders or the protectors of the dharma and you invite all the dakinis and all of the there’s two different types of protectors in the dharma. There’s ones that are called hearers and there’s ones that are called just protectors. So all of those and you end up with what’s called like an ocean like collection of beings. Yeah? So you’ve invited all this ocean like collection of beings.
You should be thinking there are so many beings there. There is starts off with a Buddha, and then there’s all of these beings, all of these virtuous beings around Buddha. So you should be trying to imagine it as clearly as possible and imagine as many beings as you can. Okay. Alright.
So then what we imagine is that the throne that Śākyamūni Buddha was sitting on becomes like huge, bigger than the world. And then all of these beings are sitting on the throne. So there’s this huge lotus seat. Yeah. So you said you don’t have to imagine Okay.
So he said that you don’t he Geshe-la said you don’t have to be so specific. You don’t have to try and figure out how this would actually work. Alright? It’s just a matter you don’t have to go, okay, we have to make the the throne this big because this many people have gotta come on it or anything like this because it’s not a physical thing, it’s something you’re thinking about, yeah? So you don’t have to think of the engineering techniques or whatever.
So it’s just a big throne with lots of people on it, right? So it’s a big throne that’s big enough to fit all these people on it and there’s not too many people that they’re not gonna fit on the throne. So it’s not as if you have to try and make them small or the throne big. It’s just working because it’s mind and you don’t have to figure out like how that could technically work. Okay.
So he says it’s a bit like a television. When we’re looking at a television, we don’t we’re not thinking, you know, that is way too small to be showing Mongolia or the or or a place. Not and he didn’t say Mongolia. He said this is a place. We can’t we don’t think, oh, that television is way too small to fit that place in.
You know what I mean? It’s showing us a place on the television and we don’t think, oh, that’s way too small. The television is way too small to fit that country in. So we just see that the television is small, but it’s showing us things. So it’s showing us in a compacted way, but we don’t think of it as being small.
Yeah? So we we have an idea of what what what we’re looking at. So it’s the same way we imagine that there is this image there, and we don’t think of it as being too big or too small or anything like that. We just visualize it as being Okay. So now that you’ve invited all of these amazing beings into your presence, then you start there’s a prayer that you can say that actually invites them.
But if you just think that you’re inviting them, then that’s okay if you don’t have prayer in practice book or whatever. And then the next thing that you have to do is start making offerings to these beings because it’s auspicious to give offerings to holy beings and you’ve invited all these beings there so you should make offerings to them. The first offering of which is to imagine that each and every of the beings that you’ve invited into this visualization that you imagine them each and every single one of them in a separate crystal bath house where there is a beautiful scented water that you’re offering to them in terms of offering water for them to bathe in. And then there is attendance in order to help them take a bath And that the floor of every single one of these, like, has many bath houses as you can imagine, is made from precious jewels. So it’s as lush and and intricate in terms of the visualization as you can manage.
I said by the time you get through all of these preliminary, you won’t have time to meditate on Lamrim. And Geshe-la said that, you know, yeah, but if you do them, then you get quicker at it and stuff. So yeah. So if anyone has any questions. Okay.
Geshe-la said he has many And I said, which one’s your main one? He said, they’re all main ones. Right? And And I said, then who do you visualize when you’re doing this? And he said, I visualize Śākyamūni Buddha as being the representation of all of them because they’ve all been kinder to me than Śākyamūni Buddha because they’ve given me the teachings now.
So he said, so I imagine Śākyamūni Buddha as being the essence of all of them because the essence of every teacher is the same. So he imagines it as collection. So he doesn’t think of one teacher as being more important than other teachers. He thinks of all of his teachers as being important. And he said he had lots.
And I said, not even you wouldn’t even say that the Dalai Lama was your main main teacher. And he goes, here’s my main main teacher. He’s one of my main, main teachers. And he said that he has been so blessed and the Dalai Lama has shown him so much kindness. He’s taught him on all different things from all of the sutras and the tantras and the different schools and everything, and the Dalai Lama has shown great kindness in giving him all these teachings and all of these instructions.
And so have all of his other teachers. Sorry. Buddy. Yeah. So uh-huh.
Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Mhmm.
Mhmm. Okay. Okay. So Geshe-la said that that if if you are concentrating on your meditation and you can focus on your meditation, then any noise that you hear outside shouldn’t be distracting from your meditation. If you just keep bringing your if you hear a noise you think, oh well, and you keep bringing your mind back to whatever it is that you’re focusing on.
The reason that it says in the text that we should stay in quiet places isn’t necessarily because of noise because even if you go to a very quiet place, you’re still gonna hear noises, you’re still gonna get distracted by noises. Now the reason that it says a quiet place is actually talking about the fact that there’s not a lot happening there, right? So that you don’t get distracted by things, that you don’t get people coming to harm you in some way or another or you don’t get pulled into politics or anything like that in order to be able to concentrate on your teachings. It doesn’t mean there’s no noise. It means that there’s no distractions.
There’s nothing that can drag you away from your meditation. So if you’re concentrating on your meditation, noises shouldn’t be a problem. And if you hear a noise, don’t worry about it. Just bring your mind back to the meditation. But the reason it talks about it is, yes, so people can stay in a place that isn’t they’re not they’re not gonna get dragged away from their meditation into other things.
So first of all, you visualize the merit field. And then from emptiness after doing both bodhicitta and compassion and focusing on emptiness. Then from that sphere of emptiness, merit field comes about. And then you make offerings to the merit field. You do what’s called the seven-limb prayer to the merit field. You do this procession of different things that will go through to the merit field.
Then you do your meditation on the Lamrim. And then at the end of that session, then what you imagine is either that the merit field dissolves into light and comes into your, the light enters you in forms of blessing, or that you say thanks very much and then you guys can go now, that they can leave. Yeah. Yeah. So that they, so it’s either one of two things.
The blessings come, you imagine them dissolve into light and come into you or you say thank you and thank you for your time sort of thing. You imagine that they’re there, but you don’t have to sit sit there focusing on them all the time. You just think of them as being there. But if you can’t even remind yourself that they’re there, then don’t worry about that either. If they’re not there, then that doesn’t matter either.
But if you can remind yourself that you’re there, it’s not something you have to focus on. You just have the occasional thought that they’re there still. Yeah. Uh-huh. Geshe-la said you should concentrate on your work, otherwise you could stuff it up.
You could make a mess of it. If you’re not working, whatever it is that you need to do that day, then you should concentrate on that because otherwise you make a mess of that as well. But if you can keep reminding yourself during the day to and try and do something with the right motivation or practice mind training, then that’s a good thing to do during the day as well. Because you really should be we should really should be trying to practice mind training as much as we can. Just just think about why we’re doing things And if we’ve got spare time, if you wanna read some of the If you don’t have any work, if you wanna read the Lamrim, that’s good thing.
And also absolutely have to watch TV. I think that was a joke. Yeah. Please? Yeah.
You finished? Yeah. Yeah. That’s me. I just keep expecting someone else to start saying prayers.
Okay.