Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The story of the Indian master Asaṇga recognising the Buddha Maitreya inside a worm-ridden dying dog anchors this 45-minute commentary by Geshe Pema Tsering on the Lamrim text Essence of Refined Gold. After brief motivation-setting — listen in order to benefit all beings, not yourself — the session works through guru devotion, the graduated path’s foundational topic. Geshe Pema Tsering argues that gratitude to the teacher parallels gratitude to parents, that apparent faults reflect the student’s impure perception rather than the teacher’s character, and that focusing on the teacher is the highest way to accumulate merit. A verse from Lama Tsongkhapa — the root of all happiness is relying on the teacher who reveals the path — ties the argument together before the session turns to precious human rebirth as the next topic in the sequence.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 2004 03 02 RG.mp3
UUID: 86a0ccc3-7568-463b-a2d0-5080a6980562
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Essence of Refined Gold (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-03-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~3,343
So today we’re going through the graduated path to enlightenment, the teachings on the graduated path to enlightenment that go through the entirety of the path. Now before we listen to these teachings, we really need to generate the right motivation for listening to these teachings, the right focus for listening to these teachings. Now in order for us to listen to these teachings properly, then we shouldn’t be thinking about how they will benefit us in this lifetime. We need to be focusing our motivation towards achieving enlightenment in order to benefit all sentient beings. So we need to have this idea that we are listening to these teachings in order to be able to understand them, in order to be able to put them into practice, in order to be able to join them with our mind stream and to incorporate them.
So by doing this, then we can attain enlightenment. And through attaining enlightenment, we can be of the best or the most benefit to all sentient beings. Yeah. But we don’t need to meditate on that at the moment? Okay.
Usually, we do a couple of minutes of meditation on that, but in the Lamrim tradition or the Graduated Path tradition, then it’s considered that you should think about or contemplate or meditate on each of the individual things they’re going through in a perceived in a what do you call it? Consequential manner. So talking about the the focus or the focus on the teacher in this tradition as the base of the path. In the text, it’s describing how there are some people that don’t necessarily think about the qualities of the teacher. The teacher may have been the cause for all of good qualities that they’ve developed for themselves, because without teachers we can’t understand anything, can’t develop qualities.
But despite this, a lot of people have this idea of going to see their teacher because they have to, or thinking that they don’t actually have that many good qualities or they don’t have that many positive aspects, but we’ll go and see them anyway because we should. Or there is this idea of I’m not going to see the teacher themselves, I’m just going to listen to what they say about Dharma. I don’t really care about seeing them because I’m not interested in them, I’m just interested in listening to what they have to say. So it says that this is a bit stupid or it shows great ignorance to be thinking in this way because we should be contemplating or trying to understand the great kindness of the teachers. So this means that we should focus on the fact that, or we should understand the fact, that our teachers have shown us great kindness by explaining to us what it is that we need to do and what it is we need to abandon.
So it says, for example, we shouldn’t be thinking about what their qualities are or what qualities they lack and then thinking because they lack qualities, they don’t deserve any respect from us or any gratitude from us. Because it’s the same way as thinking that our parents don’t have any good qualities, therefore they haven’t shown us any kindness. So thinking in this way doesn’t really make sense because our parents looked after us when we were children and it was because of them that we managed to survive. So this idea of whether they have qualities or not isn’t really the main focus for our gratitude towards them. Our gratitude towards them comes from the fact that they have protected us, they have given to us, they have saved us from harm, from being in danger and things like that.
So if we’re able to take on this idea of kindness or this idea of gratitude towards our parents, then that’s really beneficial. If we’re unable to take on this kind of kindness or gratitude, we’re not able to think in terms of gratitude towards our parents, then that’s really a fault or it’s really something that could harm us. And it’s a similar thing in terms of the teachers that we have because our parents may have been able to protect us and give to us and show us kindness in this lifetime and in order to benefit us in this lifetime, but the teachers are able to show us what it is we need to do, how we can benefit ourselves, and what we need in terms of protection, not just for this lifetime but also for future lifetime. Okay. So the other thing that goes on to explain is that if someone gives us a little bit of wealth or a little bit of something physical, a physical gift, then we have this idea of, Wow, aren’t they really nice to us?
We have a sense of great gratitude towards these people who have given us a gift. But this gift is nothing compared to the fact that any kind of experience of happiness that we have in this lifetime actually comes through positive actions that we’ve done, which we did through knowing that they were positive actions, and that information came from a teacher. So in this way, every kind of positive feeling happiness that we have comes about through our teachers. So in this way, if we contemplate well, then we will see that any positive action that anybody does from the very, very simple actions of householders or people who don’t understand the world from a basis of faith up until the actions of Buddhas. All of those actions Buddhas and bodhisattvas all of those positive actions actually come about through listening to and understanding the teachings of the teachers, the instructions of the teachers.
So any of the experiences of happiness or suffering that we have come from either not listening or not understanding or not having the opportunity to hear the teacher’s teachings and any of the happiness we have comes about from putting those things into practice and creating merit, which you then experience the results of. If we think about this, then it’s easy to be able to see this directly or to understand this directly. And the other thing is that there are many examples of people who through having respect and admiration and focusing on words of their teacher properly, have become Buddhas in a very short amount of time. So there are many examples of those who, through listening to the instructions of their teachers and following them correctly, became Buddhas in one lifetime. So there are many examples of these, and it’s obvious that if we do listen to the instructions of the teacher and follow them correctly, then we too can become Buddhas quickly.
And Geshe-la said, And that’s strange. But he didn’t say why. And so it also shows we another thing that emphasizes how important it is for us to be respectful and remember the kindness of the teachers is that up until this point, we haven’t met with our teacher and then followed their instructions properly without making having faults or developing doubts or whatever it is about this action. Because if we’d done that, then we would have become Buddhas. And the whole idea of being able to meet teachers in the future actually relies on how we engage with teachers now.
So that means that there’s this great danger that if we don’t remember the kindness of teachers and if we don’t have the right attitude towards focusing on teachers and how lucky we are or how fortunate we are to have met with teachings and met with teachers, then that could create the causes for us not to experience, to come into contact with teachers in the future, in future lives. So we have to be careful or we have to try and remember the kindness of everything that we’ve been taught. So then that would act as a cause for us to meet teachers in the future. So another way to look at it is that there is nobody who would actually by choice, or we ourselves definitely wouldn’t by choice meet with bad fortune. We wouldn’t regrettably meet with suffering of any kind.
On the same token, there is nobody who doesn’t actually want to create merit or positive karma, which is the causes for experiencing happiness. And because this is our experience or this is our situation that we want to create the causes for experiencing happiness, then we need to look at what is the cause for us to create what’s the best way for us to create that merit. And it said that the teacher, there is no higher way to create merit than by focusing on the teacher. Now the ways that we can create merit, the focus is for us to create merit either through actions of offerings to the Buddhas or offerings to sentient beings. And the Buddhas are, by their essence, said to be the same as the teachers.
And our offerings that we make to sentient beings, we wouldn’t know how to do them if it wasn’t for the instructions that were given to us by the teachers or we wouldn’t know to do that if we weren’t instructed by teachers. So in this way, focusing on teachers is the best way for us to create merit or create positive karma and to focus on them as our object for trying to create positive karma. And it said that it says this in the sutras, the tantras, and the shastras, or the commentaries by the Indian teachers. Okay. Now when we’re doing this, in order to do this properly, then there’s something that we need to focus on, and that is we need to focus on the good qualities of the teacher.
And at the same time, it’s focusing on the good qualities of the teacher. We shouldn’t let our mind or shouldn’t develop negative thoughts about the teacher in our mind. We shouldn’t focus or have thoughts or contemplate the teacher’s faults because and instead of this, we should meditate or we should familiarize ourselves with the teacher’s positive qualities. Now by doing this, then we are able to develop a faith that isn’t just lip service, that it comes from the bottom of our heart or the bottom of our minds. Yeah.
It literally says our heart bones from the bottom of our heart bones. But because there’s no bone in the heart, it means at the bottom of our minds. So it said that then that, you know, we should be focusing on these, focusing on the qualities of the teacher, reminding ourselves of the qualities of the teacher and the kindness of the teacher, and developing such a strong disposition towards those ideas that the mere or the hearing of the name of our teacher causes the hairs on our bodies to stand up, causes us to get goosebumps and causes it brings tears to our eyes, name of the teacher, we meditate on it so much that this is a reaction when we think about the teacher’s name. So and then in order to explain this, it then says that in general, the teachings of the bodhisattvas and the Buddhas say that we shouldn’t even be focusing on or we shouldn’t even be contemplating the faults of our ordinary sentient beings. We shouldn’t be thinking about we shouldn’t be focusing on other people’s faults or other beings’ faults.
So if we’re not doing that with ordinary sentient beings, then we’re hardly going to be starting to think negative things about the teacher. So if we’re training ourselves not to focus on ordinary sentient beings’ faults, then, of course, those things won’t come up up. We won’t have those thoughts about someone who who has shown us this much kindness. So this is the way that it was explained by the Buddhas and the teachers. Now because we have negative minds, however, and we have self grasping, then faults of the teacher it’s likely that faults of the teacher will actually appear to our mind.
It’s impurities in the actions or the way that the teachers behave. If this is the case, then what we need to try and focus on is the fact that this is our impure perception as opposed to an actual fault of the teacher. It’s said that before, a long time ago, Asaṇga, the Ārya Asaṇga, was meditating, he did a meditation retreat on the Buddha Maitreya. And during his meditation retreat on the Buddha Maitreya, actually or after the meditation retreat on Buddha Maitreya, he actually saw Maitreya as a worm ridden bitch, a female dog lying on the side of the road. And this was his first perception of Maitreya.
This is the way that Maitreya appeared to him. Another time, it talks about when there’s an Indian Mahasiddha called Naropa who met his teacher Tilopa. And when he met Tilopa, Tilopa was killing fish and eating them alive and eating them. And this was his first perception of Tilopa. And in another description, it says that there’s a sūtra in which Buddha Śākyamūni actually manifested as a demon or an evil person in order to be of benefit to sentient beings.
So if we reflect on these things, we can see that negativity was actually in the perception of the perceiver as opposed to the inherent in the teacher. So in this way, then we can see that if we’re focusing on a teacher as being the Buddha, then there is no fault there, and we need to develop understanding that there are no faults that we’re focusing on faults in our perception. And it also says in the root text of the Guhyasamāja tantra, and there’s another text called fifty verses on guru yoga, that there is no graver fault or there’s no stronger fault than saying or believing that one’s guru has faults. Now because of this, this means that we should try and practice guru devotion in the same way as it was practiced by a teacher called Dromtönpa, who was Venerable Atisha’s student who only had one lama him and focused on him purely. We need to focus on a teacher purely and if we’re able to do this, then it brings great benefit.
Once we accepted accepted a teacher, once we can see a teacher as a Buddha, then we need to focus or meditate on developing this reverence and this devotion and this pure idea of the teacher until it comes naturally. And we shouldn’t try and get caught up in doing anything else, even at the threat of our life, it says. So we need to focus on developing this respect and admiration once we’ve accepted someone as our teacher. Okay. The text goes then on the goes on then to quote a verse from a text by Lama Tsongkhapa, and they’ve changed it around in the translation.
I’ve gotta figure out which bits go with which. The first line of this says, The root of all causes producing happiness hereafter is the practice of relying in thought and action upon the sacred friend who reveals the path. This is the first part. What this refers to is that in order for us to do any positive action, in order for us to establish a cause for happiness in any way, then we need to have understanding of what it is that we need to do in order to establish these causes. In order for us to have this understanding, then we need to have instructions from a teacher, and we need to have been encouraged to what it is we need to do in order to achieve happiness.
Therefore, anything that we experience in terms of happiness actually has as its root the teaching of the instructions of the teacher, the guidance of the teacher. Therefore, not only the base of all of the path is the instructions of the teacher but the root of all happiness is the instructions of the teacher. This means then that what we need to do is we need to think about and put into practice what their instructions are. Then we should follow them at any cost, even the cost of our life. We should follow these instructions.
And the way that we follow these instructions, it says, Seeing this, follow them at any cost and please them with offering of practice. So this means in accordance with their instructions, trying to achieve their instructions or trying to follow through on their instruction is the offering that we should make to these teachers considering they’re the basis of all of our happiness and all of the positivity that we experience. And then the poem goes on to say, I, a yogi, did this myself. You, a liberation seeker, or one who seeks nirvana, should do likewise. And so that means that this is the way that Lama Tsongkhapa practiced and anyone who wants to practice like this, then they should anyone who wants to achieve liberation should therefore practice like this.
Then it the text comments on the fact that Lama Tsongkhapa has spoken this way, not in any way to try and get devotion out of his students or trying to encourage his students to have devotion towards him, but he spoke in this way or instructed them in this way just through pure compassion or great love, that they would then be able to achieve these realizations and cease to experience suffering. Now all this begs the question if we are to offer the practice of attaining or practicing in accordance with what our teacher taught us, what is it that we actually have to do? How do we actually offer the practice in terms of what do we practice that we can then offer? We may actually ask this question if it all comes down to making an offering of our practice to the teacher, what is it that we have to practice? And so in order for us to understand this, then we need to know what it is that the teachers are teaching us, what it is that they’re explaining that we then need to establish the cause for doing in order to experience the results of happiness or the results of offering their practice to the teacher.
Now, in order for us to practice the Dharma, we need, instructed to us by our spiritual teachers, we need to have what’s called a difficult to find, easily lost, fully endowed, precious human rebirth that is more precious than a wish fulfilling gem. And once we have this precious human rebirth, then we will be able to put into practice the teachings of the teachers, the instructions of the teachers and make an offering of this. And because we have this precious human rebirth at the moment, it says that we should okay. Yeah. It’s it’s like it basically says stick your fingers in your mouth and go like, If you And Geshe-la says, so if you’re thinking really hard or you’re trying to deal with pain, one way of doing it is if you stick your thick fingers in your mouth and like brace your teeth, you go like that to like that.
Then it is so it’s basically saying brace yourself and get on with it. Get yourself together and take this opportunity in the best way possible to put into practice the teacher’s instructions and this way then you will be able to fulfill the true meaning or the heart meaning of this lifetime through practicing the instructions of the meaning of this lifetime through practicing the instruction of the teacher. Yeah. So it it means like yeah. So so it’s it’s just like bracing your teeth or or getting, like, a determined attitude that, yeah.
Okay. I’m gonna do it.