Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Pema Tsering opens this 45-minute session with a detail many practitioners see but rarely have explained: why teachers pour water onto a mirror during puja — the mirror stands for all the bathhouses of invited Buddhas, and the water is amrita offered to bathe them simultaneously. He then moves through the seven-limb prayer step by step, pausing on the Tibetan word chaktsal (prostration) to unpack its dual purpose: purifying negative karma and drawing in the qualities of realized teachers. A practical aside on offerings makes the point that mentally dedicating food before eating costs nothing yet generates merit, since the food returns to you. The session also traces the three Lamrim transmission lineages — through Naropa, through Asaṇga, and through Nāgārjuna — converging in Atisha, before closing on purification: developing genuine regret for harmful actions accumulated across many lifetimes.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 2004 02 24 RG.mp3
UUID: 69133d35-b068-4806-bf47-a10d978d9304
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Essence of Refined Gold (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-02-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.9 minutes
Words: ~3,294
Okay. So page one, we start off with praise and refuge in bodhicitta, and then do the seven-limb praise. Refuge in bodhicitta, say it three times. And on page four, the outer mandala followed by the mandala offering for requesting teaching. Okay.
So we’re going through the stages of the graduated path of the Lamrim, and we we were going through the preliminary preliminaries to a meditation session or how we should prepare to meditate on the Lamrim. But before we continue with that, we should make sure that before we listen to these teachings and contemplate on them that we have the right motivation. Now what motivation we need have to listen to these teachings is to think that they’re exactly the same as us. All other sentient beings don’t want to experience suffering and they want to experience happiness. So in this way they’re exactly the same as us.
It’s not as if some want to experience suffering and others want to experience happiness. They’re all exactly the same. They’re all exactly the same as us. And this isn’t just human beings, but also animals and beings in the spirit realms and beings in the hell realms, in the god realms. All other beings wish to experience happiness.
And in this way, they’re exactly the same as us. So if we understand that sameness, if we focus on that, then we develop a sense of compassion for them because we understand what they experience in terms of wanting to experience happiness. And on top of this, all sentient beings at some stage in the past have shown us great kindness. They have shown us kindness of a mother or a father in protection and helping us. So in this way, we owe them a great deal.
We owe them a great kindness. And we should have gratitude for that kindness. And because of that gratitude, it’s not enough for us just to think that they’re the same as us in wanting happiness and not wanting suffering, but we should think that we should find a way to make that come to pass. So we need to find a way for them not to experience suffering. Now the way that we can stop them from experiencing suffering is to become a Buddha and show them the path to not experience suffering.
So this motivation that not only for my own benefit, but for the benefit of all sentient beings so I can become a Buddha and show them how not to suffer. Now that is the reason I’m listening to the teachings. And not only that, but I should not just try and listen to the teachings on the graduated path, but I should try and implement them. I should try and practice, listen to them, contemplate them, and implement them into my life. So this is a motivation with which we should be listening to the teachings.
Okay. I was just having trouble figuring out what was real and what was imagined. So okay. And now with the we’re going through the process of, you know, how you make offerings to the teachers, to the gathered merit field in the beginning of a Lamrim meditation. And after inviting them all there, then you go through a process of offerings to the collection of teachers and deities and so forth.
Now the first one of these is to offer a bath or offer a cleansing to all the collected Buddhas and Bhagavatas and so forth. So the visualization for this is to imagine that each of them is in a very ornate beautiful bathhouse and is being offered water that is by its essence amritaa or bliss nectar. It’s a substance that’s by its essence real true happiness.. So you’re offering that to them to wash themselves. Now, when teachers do this in a ritual way to show this bathing process, what they often do is they have a mirror and they put lines on the mirror.
And the lines on the mirror indicate different houses because each of the deities or beings has a place to have a bath, a house to have a bathhouse. And this mirror indicates all the different places because it’s chopped into little squares, right? And because it’s a mirror, then it reflects all of the It’s supposed to reflect all the beings that have been invited into the place. So in this way, it’s said to act as a base for the meditation or the visualization. And then what they do is they get a vase and they pour water onto the mirror.
So that’s part of this ritual. So you’ll see teachers doing this in a ritual manner and now you know what they’re doing. And they’re pouring the water onto the mirror. That means that they’re giving they’re pouring and and this bliss nectar in in a light to bathe all of the Buddhas of the ten directions that have been invited and are reflected in the mirror. Does that make sense?
Okay. So not only are we imagining that all of these beings are in these bath and these ornate glass and jewel encrusted bath houses, and they’re being bathed in this amrit, but also that we ourselves who are bathing them aren’t in our ordinary form but we take on the aspect of having or we look like gods or goddesses who are bathing the beings in this state. And we think that in this bathing process because this is the Buddha’s that we’re bathing in they’re already of having any negativities, that this process is actually a purification for all sentient beings, that by washing this one this one being or as many beings as we can imagine, that we’re actually purifying all beings of their negative karma. Then after we’ve offered them a bath, we then give them they dry them off with a very rich material, very beautiful material. And after we they’re washed and dried, then we make offerings of food to the beings.
And so we’re imagining all of this. And so the food offerings that we make, we’re thinking this is on behalf of all sentient beings. May this offering of food be a cause for all of us to achieve enlightenment. Alright. So then after we’ve given them a bath and a towel and some food, then we also offer jewels and ornaments.
This is a way making offerings of jewels and ornaments even if they’re visualized is a way for all beings to create merit. And so we think that we and all beings are doing this and by doing that we’re creating good causes to experience positive outcomes in the future and and ultimately to become Buddhas. Okay. Right. Now after we’ve done all this after we’ve imagined the beings, we give them a bath, we towel them down, we give them some food, we offer them jewels in in succession in our heads, and then we give them a seat.
So we offer them a cushion, a comfortable cushion to sit on. And then when all of these beings that we’ve invited into our visualization are sitting down on cushions, we do what’s called the seven-limb prayer. the seven-limb prayer consists of these seven different aspects to it. So the seven-limb prayer is the same prayer that we do at the beginning of the of the teaching sessions. Now this seven limb prayer consists of one line that refers to prostration, one line that refers to offering, one line that refers to purification that is regretting and purifying negative actions committed in the past.
Then we have a line that’s dedicated rejoicing in the positive actions of other beings. And then on the in the sixth line no. Sorry. The fifth line, then we request the Buddhas to to turn the wheel of Dharma. And on the sixth line, we request the Buddhas to not go into nirvana, that is to say, keep coming into being reborn so samsaric beings can be helped by them.
And the seventh line is dedicating the merit for all beings. So we go through the seven-limb prayer when we have them all seated in front of us in the visualization. Okay. So then we imagine that these beings, however many beings, whether it’s one or many that we’re able to visualize in front of us, that finally, we imagine that those beings are the essence of all of the enlightened beings, the the embodiment of all the enlightened beings, as such, then we make prostrations to them. Now because we’re doing a Lamrim practice, we then go on to a prayer to the different lineages that make up the Lamrim.
The first of this is what’s called the practice the blessings practice lineage. And the prayers of the blessing practice when it starts off with the Tathāgata to the Tathāgata Vajradhāra to Tilopa to Naropa, and there’s a whole lineage of what are called pandits or no, sorry, siddhas or maha siddhas in India that this lineage comes down through. So we list off the different people or the different practitioners in that lineage that this teaching has been handed down through. Okay. So that was the first thing.
The second thing is we go through we start with the the protector Maitreya, and then Asaṇga, who is an Indian pundit, and then Vasubandhu, who is his brother. And we think of the teachers in that lineage from Maitreya down to our own teacher, and then that’s called the greatly expansive lineage of practice sorry, the greatly expanded lineage of method, and we we visualize all those people and and pay homage and prostrate to them. Okay. Then there’s the final lineage that makes up the the lam lamrim trio or the graduated path trio is what’s called the the profound lineage, which is the wisdom lineage. And that starts off with Nāgārjuna, and it goes down through different teachers from Nāgārjuna up to our present teacher.
So imagine these are three different lineages. Okay. So we have these three lineages now. These three lineages actually came together in the form in the teacher, Atisha. So he’s called Okay.
So so we imagine these different lineages. All these lineages came together in the in the person of Atisha who took these teachings to Tibet. So from Atisha, then we imagine the teachings being handed down from teacher to teacher to teacher to until they come to our own teacher. And then there’s prayers that we can say that go through making homage or prostrating to the different teachers of the lineage, one of which is the prayer for which is like a mantra for that starts we’ll go through the different prayers that it says it says in the text, the first line of a prayer and then etcetera for the rest of the prayers. It’s going through all of the different teachers that are in the in the lineage, and there’s a different prayer for each of the teachers.
So then there’s different prayers of, like, making offering to the Three Jewels, making offering to the teachers, and you go to the prayers in all in order. But eventually, that comes down to a a prayer that sees all of the teachers’ essence, all of the Buddha’s essence as one, and then you prostrate and make offerings to that. Okay. So all of this, however, could be is done with the intention of of what’s called prostrating to these teachers. Now the word for prostrating in Tibetan is chaktsal, this is a two part word.
The first part, first syllable actually means that by doing this action we’re purifying all of our negativities. We have this idea of by pushing down, by bowing down, that we are getting rid of all our negativities. And the tail part of the word is that by doing this action, we’re also asking for the blessings in the form of all their qualities of all of the teachers to come into us. That means that they bless us to develop qualities like they have. So this is the whole purpose of prostrating.
Has these two aspects to it. There’s a purification process where we think this is getting rid of my negative actions, and then there’s also asking for blessings to develop qualities. And so it has the that’s the that’s the whole purpose of prostrating, and that’s the two parts to what the word means in Tibetan and. Okay. So word prostration, again, in Tibetan is chaktsal.
The chak means get rid of negativities, purify all negativities. Tsal means to develop all qualities. So in this process, we bow down to get rid of all negativities. We ask for blessings to get all of the to develop all of the good qualities that a Buddha or realized beings may possess. So we’re asking we we’re getting rid of negativities and in the process of prostrating, asking for blessings to develop these qualities.
And this one. Okay. So where we we have them sitting on a throne after we bathe and cleanse them in this visualization, and we’re going through the seven different limbs of the seven-limb prayer. Now the first one was to make prostration. So we have this idea of prostrating to these beings.
The second one is to make offerings. And to make offerings, we visualize that we’re offering a mandala. And the mandala prayer is similar to what we say at the beginning of all the teachings, but there’s also an extended version of the mandala. Even if we do the short version of the mandala, then we should have this idea that we’re offering as much as possible that we can to the Buddha. Traditionally, this includes things like what are called the seven signs of kingship, the eight precious substances, the sun, the moon, this mountain called Mount Meru, which is supposed to be the center of the universe.
We’re offering as much as we can through these things. And so after this mandala, we can also continue to do other types of offerings so we can have this idea of anything that we have that we feel like we can offer with, then we can do that, or we can visualize any offering that we that we we think we can visualize. So whatever we have and whatever we can offer visually or or mentally or or really, then that is really beneficial. So this is something that we shouldn’t worry about too much in terms of expense because we can offer almost anything to the Buddhists and then eat it ourselves or take it ourselves. Ourselves.
So every time that we have food, then if we make an offering about food and then eat it, that’s okay. It’s just the idea of making the offering and visualizing that we’re making the offering to to all of the Buddhas that we have we’ve imagined or if we if we just imagine a Buddha and think that we’re making this offering. So we can do that on a fairly regular basis with anything that we have, and it doesn’t end up costing us a hell a very much because the because we get to use it afterwards. Mhmm. So So this is like a kinda really smart thing to do, right?
Because if we eat the food just ourselves, then it’s only going to benefit first for a while until we get hungry again. So it’s only very limited benefit is this that we stop being hungry for a couple of hours. But if we make an offering to the Buddha first, then that acts as a cause for us to achieve something positive in the future. We’re doing something very generous and we have a good motivation and then we eat it anyway. It means that not only is it benefiting us in the short term, but it’s benefiting us in the long term.
So because we’re looking at the long term future as well as the immediate gratification of eating the food. So in this way, get a bonus from the process. And it’s the same thing it’s the same thing when we have, which is a a collection of different foods that are offered to the Buddhas in a in a puja. It’s not like you’re giving the the food to the Buddhas and then you don’t get it back as well. So it’s it’s just like you get a you get the bonus of getting the food back at the end, and you’ve already done the offering.
So it’s like you’re not only benefiting the Buddhas, but you benefit yourself as well. So in this way, if we try and remember to to offer everything that we eat or drink before we eat or drink it, then this means that we get the benefit of having made offering to the Buddhas and the the merit or the positive karma that comes from that, and we also get to fill our stomachs. Okay. Now the third limb of the seven-limb prayer that we’re saying is our part is is about purification. Now what we need to do in in order to practice purification is first of all to develop regret.
And how we develop regret for negative actions that we’ve done is not necessarily just by focusing on this life. Because in this life, we may may not have done anything that is particularly negative. We don’t just think about this life, but we think about the lifetimes that we led before this one, some of which of of hang on, how do say it? Some of which in them, we didn’t do anything positive and we did many negative things. So especially if we’re in the lower realms, there’s some existences where which we are born into like animal existence where we don’t do anything but eat and kill or kill to eat.
So we’re in a constant state of killing and killing and killing and killing for example. And so we have to think about those kind of actions and any other negative actions that we may have done in past life where we may have killed many people, we may have killed many animals, we may have been a thief, we may have done all these things. And we should think about then all of those negative things it is possible for us to have done, and then what the consequences of those negative actions may be. And then we develop this sense of fear for what those consequences may be. And because we don’t want to experience the consequences of those negative actions, we develop a strong wish a strong sense of regret for those negative actions.
Now that strong sense of regret, through that strong sense of regret, we then think, okay, in order to stop myself experiencing the consequences of these actions, then I’m gonna go and do this practice that we’re about to do. So after we’ve done these preparatory stages, so we have this idea of may my going for refuge, may my developing bodhicitta be a cause for me not to experience the results of my negative actions. And not only myself, but all other sentient beings have done negative things that they may have to experience the consequences of as well. So in order for all of us to be free of the negative karma whose consequence is suffering, I’m performing this action of meditating on the Lamrim or whatever it is. So and that acts as the the antidote to us experiencing the results of our negative action.