Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A story about a thief and Prime Minister John Howard anchors this 39-minute session — Geshe Pema Tsering uses it to resolve a student’s pointed question: if Buddhas cannot wash away negative karma, how does taking refuge actually protect us? His answer is that refuge means practicing what the Buddha taught, nothing more. The session builds toward that exchange by first covering the three scopes of practitioners — particularly what it means to seek personal liberation rather than just a better rebirth — then spending considerable time on motivation. Geshe Pema unpacks the Tibetan etymology (literally “that from which things arise”) and illustrates how intention colors every act, including the practical example of transforming tooth-brushing into Dharma practice. He closes by explaining why Dzogchen and Mahāmudrā remain out of reach without the Lamrim as foundation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 2004 03 09 RG.mp3
UUID: 86181382-7e4f-4094-9eee-4671e9da3d8f
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Essence of Refined Gold (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-03-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 38.7 minutes
Words: ~3,331
Act like humans, or we need to try and develop the understanding that we have in our being as humans and try and focus on at least what’s going to happen after death or at least what’s going to happen in the future lifetimes. We don’t at this stage, there is no focusing on liberation from suffering. There is only focusing on stopping or getting rid of the grosser manifestations of that suffering, which is the rebirth in the lower realms. From amongst those who strive for true happiness, that is not temporary happiness by being born as a god or a human, but true happiness that is getting out of saṃsāra, there are two types. There are those who are working towards nirvana, which is a liberation from samsaric suffering for a personal purpose.
And there are those that are seeking for omniscience or Buddhahood. Now, from amongst those then, the first one, person who is seeking personal liberation, the person seeking personal liberation is said to be someone of the intermediate perspective or the middle scope. Now as being of the middle scope, there is a certain dharmic practices or dharmas that are done in order to achieve this aim. In the main, when we talk about the focus or the meditation or focus or the practice focus of beings of the middle scope. Then it’s said that these are focusing on the four noble truths, understanding the four noble truths, and also on the what are called the three higher trainings.
Through the practice of these things then one is able to attain personal liberation. Beings who are mainly focused with this attitude on these practices are said to be middle scope beings, and the practices associated with them are said to be the common practices of the common practices of the middle scope. Common in that they are shared with the prac the with the practitioners of the highest group. So therefore, these beings are described by Atisha in his lamp for the path to enlightenment as those who with the aim of peace for themselves turn their backs on samsaric happiness and reverse all negative karma. These are known as spiritual aspirants of the intermediate perspective or of the, middle scope.
So, where it says, those who aim of peace for themselves, what this means is that they are working towards achieving a personal liberation from suffering or a personal experience of a true happiness that is beyond suffering. This peace here is a synonym of nirvana or liberation. It says they turn their backs on samsaric happiness. That means that they understand that there is no true happiness in saṃsāra, so therefore there is nothing nothing to truly strive for and then they reverse all negative actions or they stop performing negative actions that are going to cause them to experience samsaric suffering. Any being that does this is said to be an aspirant of the intermediate perspective or being of the middle scope.
Okay. So we can stop Geshe was like, where’s your pen? You’ve got a whole big container there. What’s in it? And I said, paper.
And he said, well, you usually have a pen with papers, don’t you? Where’s your pen? It’s okay. I’ve got it. Mhmm.
Yes. And I said, guess what? I don’t have a watch. I don’t I don’t have a brain, I don’t think, so bringing a pen is difficult. And he’s like, yeah.
Well, I can’t really say anything. Didn’t bring my glasses. He doesn’t reckon blonde people are dumb. Uh-huh. And from Geshe-la’s perspective, they say all Westerners are blonde.
But not as in silly, but, yeah, they go, oh, they’ll point to someone with really dark hair and say they’ve got blonde hair. Yes. Geshe was a bit more he said, no. Angus isn’t blonde. Geshe-la’s a little but honestly, I’ve seen Geshe-la doesn’t reckon they’re blonde.
I swear I’ve heard other Tibetans say it though. But he thinks that people with blonde hair have subtle minds. No. No. No.
Sorry. Does anyone have questions? I’ve got Annie’s watch, so that’s okay. All right. So why does it matter what The answer to question is.
So why does it matter what motivation you have? Okay. Of course, getting on with it is important, but you can’t get on with anything unless you have a reason for doing it. So Geshe-la said that he if you if you think it through, then before you perform any action, there’s a a motivation to do it. So you can’t do anything without thinking about it, without having a having a motivation to do it.
Alright? So getting on with it’s important, but you don’t get on with anything unless you have a reason for it, unless you have a motivation to do it. Yeah. So the motivation is the the root of everything, is the key to everything. If you don’t have the right motivation to do something, you don’t get on with anything.
You don’t you don’t work on anything. You just you just do something. So therefore sorry, you don’t do anything. So therefore the motivation acts as like the root of any action that we perform. The mind, the thought of mind, yeah, comes before any action of body, speech or mind.
The what’s called the it’s a word for it in yeah, it literally means movement. The movement of the mind comes before a thought, comes before an action or a word or a physical action. Yeah. Okay. So that also means that the motivation colors whatever we do.
Right? So even though we may look like we’re doing a positive action and the action in itself may be positive, if the motivation is negative, action is negative as well. It’s like a poison that pervades the action. So if motivation to do something is a negative one, that action becomes negative. So it’s not so much the action that is the most important part, It’s the motivation with which we do something.
So that’s why it’s so it’s the the emphasis is placed on the motivation. He doesn’t think there’s any action you do without a motivation if you think about it. So this idea of motivation, right, is Okay. So guess, let’s say, example, me drinking the tea. Yeah?
In order for me to drink the tea, I have to have the idea to drink the tea. I can’t just drink the tea without having some kind of thought to drink the tea even if I don’t recognize it. Yeah? So you don’t just drink the tea without having a mind saying, I’m gonna drink the tea. Right?
And then and I was just thinking maybe something to do with this is to do with the translation. This word that’s usually translated as motivation in Tibetan is literally all there’s two syllables and the first one’s all and the second one’s arising. Right? So it means literally that which arises from, that that which that something arises from. So it’s it’s the base from which everything else comes.
So it’s it’s translated usually as motivation, but it’s more specific in Tibetan. Yeah. The source of Yeah. The yeah. So he said you can’t have an action without a sort of a a a thought of that action.
Is it do you think it’s like that, you said? He said that, like, breathing isn’t something that has a a motivation. It’s something that happens naturally. It arises because of the because we have the it’s a current result of a previous action, but it doesn’t have a specific motivation. But if we are focusing on our breath and we think I am now breathing out, and we breathe out, and then we think I’m now breathing in, then we have a motivation.
Then we have, like, a we have a reasoning behind breathing out of breathing. We can we can make breathing motivated. By focusing. Yep. Yeah.
So maybe intention instead of motivation. The intention, we have to focus on the intention as opposed to the motivation. Alright. He said you can transform it. Right?
So when you’re cleaning your teeth, you’re usually thinking, okay. You have a motivation for cleaning your teeth or you have an intention for cleaning your teeth, which is if you keep your teeth clean, stops disease, that keeps your body healthy. If you go one step further and then say, the reason I want my body to be healthier so then I can practice Dharma and be of benefit to other beings, then can turn your clean your teeth into a positive action. You have a question? Similar to Hillary.
That’s mine was a long one. I just if you’re practicing the minor scope, and that would that possibly lead the next rebirth, next thousand rebirths, and you’ll go up to the second scope and then eventually your motivation wouldn’t change over time because unless you’ve got negative karma which could pull you back a bit, you’re sort of going to keep progressing progressing. So Geshe said that it’s possible to do it’s possible to keep being reborn by focusing on achieving a positive rebirth, but it’s a bit pointless. So if you can understand to practice in that way, then you should understand to practice in terms of at least, personal liberation, because you may be working towards a new rebirth as a God or a human, but you’re still working towards more suffering. So you’re focusing on more suffering and more suffering.
You need to change your motivation, But it doesn’t naturally happen that you change your motivation. So the the this motivation is the base, but you do more contemplative you need to contemplate differently in order to work towards personal liberation. I you know, you could be wanting to be I sort of think, well, from the first step being reborn as a human so that we can practice better to be for individual liberation, then why stop there? Because that’s gonna be, you know, that’s not gonna help anyone. That’s why I was sort of thinking it is step by step by step.
I mean, being reborn as a god, I don’t So once you recognize that all the sense are suffering, then you’re not going to particularly want to be reborn as a human or a god at all because that’s just another form of suffering. It’s just a suffering of change. And so if you focus on understanding suffering in saṃsāra, then you’re going to not be thinking, oh, I want to be coming back as a human. You’re going to be thinking, I want to achieve liberation, because coming back as a human is another form of suffering. Coming back as a human Buddha was a bodhisattva before and then reborn as a human prince and then became enlightened.
You have to actually come back as a human bodhisattva to become enlightened or you can come back enlightened like the next rebirth, bang. That’s it. You’ve already got everything you’re aiming for. You come back as a Buddha, or is it something you’ve gotta sort of achieve during a lifespan? So Buddhas can be born wherever they want.
Alright? The idea of being reborn when you talk about being reborn in saṃsāra as a human is different to Buddhas and bodhisattvas who can both take rebirth wherever they want when they’re out of the cycle of karma. Right? So once you’ve gotten out of the cycle of negative karma, you can take rebirth wherever you want. Right?
Buddha Śākyamūni, when he was born, didn’t come to achieve enlightenment in that lifetime. He came to show people how to practice. Yeah? So he didn’t achieve enlightenment then. He showed people the process of achieving enlightenment.
So his life is supposed to be taken and teaching. Right? So they can be reborn whenever they want, wherever they want. So we may actually meeting Buddhas and whatnot because we don’t have the perception to see them for what they are. So Buddhas appear wherever they’re needed and wherever they can help.
You said that you got your thinking, Angus. Too much. Do you guys mind if I ask a question? Because it’s about oh, you’ve got one. You can do it then.
Sorry. Not too much to get. You need more on two of the like a touch of lightning. Uh-huh. You’re a good tea maker.
So Dennis makes good tea. Okay. He said, well, you’re already doing the listening to teachings on the graduated path and focusing on the three the three different types of being. That’s the best way to the best focus. There’s nothing better.
In in Buddhism. Can I ask my question now, please? Please. Alright. Oh, yeah.
I’m going to. Okay. So there’s all different types of practices that you hear people talking about in terms of Dzogchen, Mahāmudrā, different tantric practices and so forth. They’re all in the Lamrim. There’s nothing that isn’t in the Lamrim.
There’s lots of different teachers that have different that teach different things, but they’re all contained within the Lamrim. So if you go if you study the Lamrim, you’re you’re studying everything. And if you try and practice the Lamrim, you’re practicing everything. Okay. Alright.
This is my question. Right? It says in the Lamrim text when they’re talking about developing refuge, yeah, that we’ve done all these like heinously bad things and we are from the force of those heinously bad things and we should be reborn in the lower realms. But if we have refuge, then we don’t get reborn in the lower realms, right? Then therefore there’s something inherent in refuge that makes us not be born in the lower realms, right?
But at the same time it says that the Buddhas can’t save us. Yeah? We have to save ourselves. So if we take by taking refuge in them, then we don’t get born in the lower realms. How is the how is that then them not saving us?
It’s our motivation. It’s our motivation. Geshe-la said that he keeps hearing or there’s lots of there’s really famous things around that we can practice like Dzogchen, Mahāmudrā, the wisdom what’s it called? The bliss bodies of the deities and so forth, yeah? And these practices are really full on amazing practices.
But trying to practice them without understanding the Lamrim, without having the basis of the Lamrim or the different aspects of the Lamrim is a bit like trying to reach out and pull stars in when you haven’t even realized the sky is there. So it’s incredibly difficult. You have to have the basis there before you can even perceive these things, let alone try and practice them. And he said, So that means that when we talk about practicing Mahāmudrā or talk about practising Dzogchen, when we talk about practising these things, the way that we should approach it or the only way we can approach it at the moment is by thinking that, Okay, there’s these very, very holy teachers who are teaching these very, very holy teachings. And so if we go and try and develop some kind of understanding of them, then we’re putting imprints on our mind stream so that when we develop the other qualities that we need to develop, then we will be able to practice them.
But if we go with the idea that we’re going to practice this, then we’re just kidding ourselves. We’re not creating very good causes. We’re developing arrogance and we don’t have a basis to work from yet. So we listen to them with the idea that this is creating the habit or the idea of this in my head. So when I’m able to do the practice, then I it’ll become clearer or I’ll be able to incorporate it.
So Geshe-la said that the quote that I was having trouble remembering is is it says in the text, Buddhas are unable to wash away our sins or our negative actions with water. They can’t save us from our negative actions, and if they could, they would have done it already. That was a basic quote from the Sūtra. Geshe-la said this is true. What refuge means is that you do what the Buddha said.
So it’s not enough to have this idea of I go for refuge to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sengha, and therefore think that everything’s going to be made alright. Refuge means doing what the Buddha said. Is practicing like the in accordance with what he explained. If you practice in accordance with what the Buddha explained, you don’t experience suffering. So if you have refuge, you practice.
And if you’re able to practice a little bit, then you have a little bit of refuge. And if you’re able to practice a lot, you have a of refuge. And so it’s not like they get rid of negativities. It’s just they give you the means by which you can do it. Okay.
So Geshe-la said that there is no difference between refuge and implementing the teachings. You have refuge, you implement the teachings. If you don’t implement the teachings, you have no refuge. If you implement the teachings, then you don’t end up with the results of negative karma. And so your refuge depends on your ability to how strong your refuge is depends on your ability to do what the Buddha said.
So he said it’s the same and he said, I’ve been talking about that. Didn’t you listen to anything? Anyway, and then he said, Last night, what did I say last night? And then he said, You know the story about Johnny Howard? Right?
So I have to relay the story about Johnny Howard that he said last night, which was that if there’s a person and they were a thief and they got caught by the police and put in jail, and they would then look to someone who could give them protection from their experience of suffering, was being in jail. Right? And so if they were in a place where Johnny Howard, being the prime minister, could do something about that, then they could ask Johnny Howard for protection and say, Please help me from this experience that I have now. Then Johnny Howard could say, Okay, if you do this and this, then you get out of jail, right? And leave them out of jail through that, right?
And so having got them out of jail, he would give them advice. Please don’t go around stealing from people anymore. If you steal from people, you’re gonna end up back in jail. Please do some positive works to give back to the people that you stole from, Then otherwise you won’t create the reasons for being back in jail. Now if this person doesn’t listen to that and goes out and keeps stealing, they’re to end up back in jail.
And they may look for refuge again and get taken out of jail but they’ll end up keep going back there. So refuge works in the same way. The protection is the advice. So you have the protection in terms of if you do this, then you achieve then you don’t experience suffering. And so he said that if we are to walk with the Buddha, we need to start at the beginning.
We need to focus on not being too attached to things in this lifetime and thinking about how they’re gonna make us happy when they’re not. Okay. I said sorry. I just thought that that was like a question, but a personal question, but it was a question about dharma, so maybe it would help other people too. And he said, Well, whosever question it is, there you go, there’s the answer.
Okay. Page five of dedication.