Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute commentary, Geshe Pema Tsering reaches a key structural transition: the Lamrim preliminaries give way to the path’s first actual meditation, on the kindness of the teacher. He first completes the seven-limb prayer’s rejoicing limb, explaining how to celebrate virtue across five categories of beings — Buddhas, bodhisattvas, solitary realizers, hearers, and ordinary people. The teacher-devotion contemplation then opens with striking Jātaka tales: Śākyamūni in a past life offering 100,000 pieces of gold for a single half-verse of instruction, surrendering his queen and wealth for another teaching, and visualizing his own body transformed into a thousand butter lamps as an offering. A Q&A closes by distinguishing offering (to Buddhas), respectful giving (to the Sangha), and generosity (to those in need), and comparing the Lamrim and Guru Puja merit field visualizations in the Gelugpa tradition.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 2004 02 24 RG.mp3
UUID: 63fff0d3-06f7-4f0e-ba34-5b47a83041ad
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Essence of Refined Gold (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-02-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~3,212
Uh-oh. So in this way, when we’re doing purification, the base for our purification is our sentient beings or Buddhas who we have acted negatively towards. So we think because of the negative things we’ve done towards these beings may whatever it is we’re going to do be a purification towards those actions. Then the fourth the fourth of the the seven limbs prayer seven limbs prayer is the action of rejoicing. And now what we’re doing is rejoicing in all of the positive actions, in all of the virtuous actions that all types of beings have done.
Now in general, when we talk about all types of beings, there is five different types of beings we’re referring to. And the first type of beings that refer to are Buddhas, and it’s fully fully enlightened beings. Now, we think about Buddhas usually by thinking about Śākyamūni Buddha, the historical Buddha, and we usually only think about one Buddha. But in actual fact, there are many, many, many different Buddhas that we don’t know about. Because we’re for starters, we’re only dealing really with one planet or one dimension one dimensional existence here.
And there’s many other different planets or places where people live and where Buddhas manifest. And then we’re only dealing with one realm. And so there’s Buddhas manifesting in many different realms in many different places. And so and then there’s Buddhas here that we don’t know about. So so there’s many, many, many different Buddhas that we can focus on their positive actions or their virtue.
And the other thing is that even any one individual Buddha’s virtues are almost limitless because they have this idea of, oh sorry, almost imperceivable because everything they do is such a powerfully positive action that every action or every activity that they engage in is so positive that by concentrating on that becomes even one individual Buddha’s action is very powerful positive action. So we have to take into account Buddha’s actions. And likewise, bodhisattva’s actions. Bodhisattva’s have very powerful positive activity, so we should think about how positive that is. And then also, there are solitary realizers that is Hīnayāna practitioners who have completely got rid of all afflictive emotions.
And also there’s two different types of those, solitary realizers and hearers. So there’s the third and fourth type of beings, and they also have very powerful positive karma or very powerful positive actions they engage in. The fifth type of being is ordinary beings, and we may think that that their actions aren’t as powerful as the other types of beings, and that’s true because they don’t have the powerful states of mind to go along with the other types of beings. But there’s also many positive things that ordinary beings do. We can rejoice in the positive things that we ourselves do.
We can look at the positive things that our friends do, our companions do. And then we can think about the positive things that other beings in in the world do, other beings that we know about, the positive things they’ve done. So we think about the whole all of this, all of the positive actions that are performed from Buddhas down to ordinary beings and including our own positive action, and we get some sense of how powerful that all of that positive action is. And then by rejoicing or being very happy about those positive actions, we create a very positive we’re doing something very positively karmically positive ourselves. And so then we say, okay.
Through this positive karmic action, may I become a Bodhisattva so I can benefit all sentient beings? May all the sentient beings be free from suffering. So so rejoicing in a a being’s positive action is a very powerful process, a very powerful action in itself. So then we need to dedicate this properly. So we need to dedicate it by thinking, may this be a cause for me myself attain complete enlightenment in order that all other beings may attain complete enlightenment and therefore be free from suffering.
And so because it’s a powerful action to rejoice in this way, then we should concentrate and try and dedicate it in the most powerful way that we can. Okay. Right now. Finally, if we are doing one session of in a day, then we’ve invited them. We’ve done all of these things at the beginning of the of the session.
And then at the end of the session, we say, thank you for coming. You can go home now. Alright? To all of the Buddhists. So if there’s one session in a day, then we can say that.
If we are either going to do one, four, or six sessions of Lamrim meditation in a day, and then we request them to stay for all of four six sessions. And then we have to remember at the end of the fourth session or the end of the sixth session to please ask them to that say to them, thank you for coming. You can go home now. So for example, if we if we’ve invited Chenrezig to come from Dewachen or Tuśita to come into our meditation field, then we say, please, you can go back to Tuśita or Dewachen now. And Geshe-laa says the same thing that if I have to come here on my bike and cycle here and then I have to translate three times a day that I don’t go home in between.
So I stay for those sessions and then go home at the end. It’s like a matter of when you finished it when they finished it, work for the day, then you say you can depart now, or they finished being in your meditation for the day, you can depart now. And then you say, please come back tomorrow. Right. So up until now, what we’ve been discussing is the preliminaries to the Lamrim practice.
So the things that you do before you do the analytical meditation is on the Lamrim or on the graduated path. So we don’t say that that is the graduated path practice. It’s been the preliminaries or the prepare preparatory prayers and preparatory visualizations before we actually do the Lamrim practice. Okay. Sorry.
So after doing the preparations, the first thing that Okay. So after doing the preparations for doing a graduated path meditation, then we go on to the actual meditations and teachings of the graduated path. Now the first meditation or the first contemplation of the graduated path is a contemplation on the qualities of the teacher or the kindness of the teacher. And it says that the way to focus on the kindness of the teacher or the role of the teacher in the path is to remember the qualities or the what’s called the qualities or the realizations, the abilities of the teacher. To first focus on those.
And then to remember that all of the good things that we have, all of the positive qualities that we have are only brought about because someone has told us how to develop them, and the person that developed tells us how to develop good qualities is the teacher. So the way to to view the relationship between ourselves and the teachers, or the teacher, is to view the teacher as the doctor that is giving us medicine that will enable us to be free from suffering. So by practicing the teachings, we will be able to be free from suffering. And in this way, we should feel respect and gratitude for them. We also should remember that from time immemorial until now, we have been wandering in Samsāra because we didn’t have opportunity to meet with a teacher who could instruct us on the path that we needed to follow to get out of that state of suffering which is saṃsāra and experience the true happiness of nirvana.
Now if we did meet a teacher, then we didn’t we weren’t able to do what they instructed otherwise properly. Otherwise, we wouldn’t still be in saṃsāra. Okay. So then we should think then that because we have now had opportunity, because we’ve wandered all this time without having instructions on how to get out of saṃsāra and not being able to follow them, and now that we have the opportunity to do, to listen to the teachings, to be able to put the teachings into practice, we should really try and put them into practice. It is said that it is more beneficial to give a bowl of rice or bowl of food to someone who is starving than to give a handful of jewels to someone who’s who a very, very rich person.
And in the same way, instead that our teacher, because they are teaching us who really, really need help, it is said to be more kind than the Buddhas themselves. It says in the text called the Five Stages by Nāgārjuna that the self born Buddha is a being gone to perfection, but kinder than the Buddha is one’s own teacher who personally gives one the oral instruction. Now, the self-born Buddha is, for example, Śākyamūni Buddha, someone who is completely enlightened, someone who’s completely enlightened. But in order to have the karma to meet a teacher like this, then you have to have gone through a certain amount of perfection and a certain amount of realization yourself. You have to have developed in yourself to be able to have the karma to meet with someone like this who can take you through their more refined stages of realization.
But because we don’t have that realizations, then the teachers that we meet at the moment are said to be more kind to us than the Buddhas because they’re like people who are giving beggars a bowl of rice. So we’re like beggars getting a bowl of rice. We have this need to We have this We are showing this great kindness by them so that we can start to put the teachings into practice. So there’s a verse that says, if there is birth or if there is someone who’s born, then there is death. And if there is cessation, then there is happiness.
So what this means is that if we are born into an existence, it necessarily means that we have to die from that existence. We have to pass away from that existence. And if we have cessation, that is the cessation of suffering, which is another way of saying liberation or nirvana, then in that case, the cessation suffering means that happiness is certain. So this is this one saying that’s called like a half verse. Okay.
So it said that in order to to receive this half verse of instruction, in a previous life in the Jātaka tales, Buddha Śākyamūni was said to have offered one hundred thousand pieces of gold to the teacher who gave him that half verse of instruction. In another time, he said to have given away when he was a king at one stage. He said to have given away his queen and much of his wealth in order to to receive one set of instructions. And in yet another lifetime, it is said that Śākyamūni Buddha, in order to receive instructions on the path, made his own body into a thousand butter lamps as an offering to someone in order to achieve the teachings. So then it says that we should meditate on these kind of things because if we see ourselves as followers of the Buddha, then we need to develop the ability to do the same thing.
Okay. Okay. So I was just a bit confused about how someone could make an offering of of butter lamps of their own body because then there wouldn’t be anyone there to make the offering because they’d all be just butter lamps. But apparently, it’s a visualization that he had so much selflessness that he could visualize that he himself was it was made into butter lamps and then was able to make that offering with through a visualization. And so then we should think in this way that if this is what the Buddha was able to do in order to show gratitude to his teachers, then we should try and remember the kindness of the teachers, remember how kind they are showing us how not to experience suffering and to follow the path towards happiness and try and develop that kind of gratitude within ourselves.
So we can stop there and if anyone has any questions. Oh, yeah. The mirror. Yep, visual explanation Yes. Yeah.
And then you’re, like, offering it around. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you you you do with the water, you make the crosses, and then you put the the vase all around.
So you’re imagining you’re you’re cleaning everybody or washing everybody, and then you pour a bit. Okay. Alright. You don’t talk about Alright. It’s not practicing generosity because practicing generosity is an action where you’re giving to someone who needs, and Buddhas don’t need anything.
So the in dependence on the object, can do one of three things. If you are making if if it’s an object of veneration like the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, then what you’re doing is making an offering. If it’s an object of respect and kindness like the Sangha, then what you’re doing is I’ve never heard it translated before, but it literally The different words mean through liking someone and paying respect, you give. So one of them is like a complete offering and the other one says through liking and respect giving. Yeah?
And then the third type of offering is to give So the third type of giving is to give to people in need, whether it would be time or money or whatever it is and that’s actually practicing generosity. So it depends on the object. Whoever made the tea, tastes yummy. Okay. Okay.
So the the first one is Buddhas. Second one is bodhisattvas. Third one is solitary realizers. Fourth one is the hearer arhat, which is someone who’s completed the path of a solitary realizer, which is a Hīnayāna path. Yeah?
And then there’s a hearer arhat, which is another type of Hīnayāna path. And then there’s ordinary beings. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
That’s part of it. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Okay. So So the idea is it’s what’s called a merit field that you have all of the different beings from the different you’re focusing on from that tradition that you’re meditating in.
Therefore you create the merits by making offerings and prostrating to them and so forth. So there’s a merit field for the Lamrim tradition. There’s a merit field for the Guru Puja tradition. Yeah. So this is the Lamrim above here, is there?
That’s a Guru Puja. Yeah. But if that that’s really difficult to imagine all of these different beings because you got all the different lineages and all the different types of being and everything. Right? So that’s getting too too complicated and distracting.
Then it’s possible to visualize one being, whether it be Śākyamūni or Chenrezig. So if you’re focusing on, say for example, Chenrezig and you think Chenrezig is the embodiment of all of these beings. Chenrezig is the embodiment of all of and all enlightened beings. Yeah? Or all all objects of veneration and is inseparable from your teacher.
Yeah? So if you have that idea or teacher or teachers. If you have that idea and then you make the offerings and give them a bath and everything, then it’s the same process. You know what? That’s fine.
Okay. Okay. So there’s the it’s similar the Lamrim’s merit field is similar to the Guru Puja one, which is here, but the Lamrim’s merit field is has all of the teachers sitting on thrones that are supported by lions. Right? And in in the Guru Puja visualization, they’re all in a tree.
Okay? Now there’s also a difference because the central figure of the Guru Puja Guru Puja visualization is said to be take the image of Lama Tsongkhapa, but be in essence four things inseparably that is to be the teacher, your teacher, and Lama Tsongkhapa, and Guru no. And Buddha Śākyamūni, and vajradhara, which is the tantric aspect of Buddha Śākyamūni. Yeah? So all those four things inseparably in one.
Now in the Lamrim tradition, it’s lion thrones instead of trees, and the central image is Buddha Śākyamūni and your teacher inseparable. Okay. So there’s a short form of it where they say, Alright? Which is the the four things that should be in the Guru Puja tradition. So, is your is short for Losang Drakpa.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So yeah so Lama means your teacher right then there’s this it says Losang which is second one that’s short for Losang Drakpa which is Lama Tsongkhapa’s name then there’s Dorje which is Buddha and which is another way of saying is another way of saying Śākyamūni yeah yeah so and then the third one, it says, Dorje Chang, which is like saying the Buddha Vajradhāra.
Yeah. So there’s all these four that should be. And he said it’s not easy. Doing that visualization. But it’s very like important and holy, but it’s not easy.
But he said Uh-uh. He said that in actual fact, there is really no difference between a mental act and a physical act. It’s just that physical act usually comes after a mental act. So physical act is a mental act in a way. So whether it’s a verbal act or a physical act, they are actually or mental acts as well because they’re an active mind in one way or another.
So whatever we’re going to be using in order to develop practice depends on mind as well. So is that okay? Yeah. I was saying it’s a tricky one to do it in a Gelugpa tradition because the Gelugpa tradition incorporated all these other traditions. So when you’re doing the visualization, it’s like, and it’s like, woah.
And in other traditions, they just have one lineage as their focus, and Geshe-la said, yes. But if you’re doing the other lineages properly, then you should be realizing that that one visualization that you do incorporates all the other things as well. And it’s just not manifest in terms of the visualization. Yeah. So you should be trying to imagine whatever your visualization is.
You should be trying to visualize that this is all of the people that have passed down the teachings from Śākyamūni Buddha to today. Yeah. No matter what you’re visualizing. So so Geshe said in the Gelugpa tradition, because there’s a it comes down from the teachings of Atisha, and then there’s Tantric traditions that come down from different lineages. So what happens in the end is that you have all of them in the visualized refuge field.
But in other traditions, for example, because in the Kagyu tradition, it goes one to the other down through very clearly known people, then it may seem easy.