Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with a verse from Tsongkhapa — “If you do not contemplate the Noble Truth of suffering, the wish to be free of saṃsāra will never arise” — Geshe Pema Tsering uses this 36-minute commentary to unpack the Lamrim’s middle scope: generating genuine renunciation. He traces the logic of the Four Noble Truths, covering suffering’s three forms, ignorance of selflessness as saṃsāra’s root cause, and the three higher trainings as the path out. A vivid burning-house image illustrates how renunciation should feel: spontaneous, not analytical. The Q&A that follows ranges widely — whether passion or enthusiasm can be virtuous (motivation decides), how meditating on selflessness gradually exposes self-grasping as a fraud, the difference between spirit realms and formless-realm beings, and how motivation determines whether any livelihood is worldly or not.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 24 2004 05 18 RG.mp3
UUID: 37d3b145-eb4d-4d1b-880f-5e9bd34099b2
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Essence of Refined Gold (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-05-18
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 35.7 minutes
Words: ~2,685
So then it goes on to a quote from a poem by Tsongkhapa, in which he starts off by saying, If you do not contemplate the Noble Truth of suffering and the fallacy of saṃsāra, The wish to be free of saṃsāra will never arise. So, this noble truth of suffering is the idea that everything that we are, everything that we experience in saṃsāra is by nature all pervasive suffering. It comes into, it’s a compounded thing, it’s an experience that doesn’t last, so therefore it’s by nature all pervasive suffering, and it comes to us in our experiences as the suffering of change and the suffering of suffering. So happiness that changes into suffering and manifests suffering. So this is our experience in saṃsāra.
But if we don’t contemplate that, if we don’t think about this, then we’re never going to develop a mind wishing to get out of saṃsāra. We’re never going to develop the idea to get out of our situation, to work towards achieving true happiness, which is nirvana or is a liberation from saṃsāra. So, we need to contemplate saṃsāra’s nature in that it is suffering, that it is these three forms of suffering and it’s not stable in order to develop the idea of getting out of Samsāra in the first place. So, the way then that we need to proceed is if you do not contemplate the source of suffering, the door to Samsāra, you will never discover the means of cutting Samsāra’s root. So then we need to think about what it is that causes Samsāra, what it is that causes suffering.
The truth of the origin of suffering is the second Noble Truth. Where does suffering come from? So we need to think in progression, okay, we have Samsāra, then we have the cause of what’s the cause of? It says that the cause of root is what we need to get rid of, and this is ignorance. The cause of is ignorance and more specifically the ignorance that doesn’t realize selflessness.
So by realizing selflessness, we cut saṃsāra at its root. I’m just saying, wait a minute, haven’t finished. I’m just thinking. Discover what this cause is so then we can get rid of it. And if we develop this idea of getting rid of it, then we will become tired of saṃsāra, and once we’re tired of saṃsāra, we will try and create the causes to get out of saṃsāra, we get saddened by saṃsāra, we try and create the causes to get out of saṃsāra, and that is working with the three higher trainings to develop our understanding, to develop our meditative capabilities and our ethics so we can get out of saṃsāra.
And so at the end, says, base yourself on renunciation of cyclic existence. Be tired of it. Cherish knowledge of the chains that bind you to the wheel of cyclic existence. Because if we know why we’re here, then we know how to get out of this experience. So when we develop this understanding, when we understand what exactly saṃsāra is and how it’s nothing but suffering, and we develop the desire to get out of saṃsāra in the same way that someone who is caught in a burning house would try and find any way possible to get out of his house.
So if someone was in a house that was burning down and they thought their life was in danger, they would have a spontaneous idea. They wouldn’t have to contemplate or analyze to see what the best thing to do would be. They would be just trying to get out of their house and using any means possible to get out of the house. So when we develop the same perspective on Samsāra as a person in a burning house and we think, I’ll use any method possible to get out of this situation because I realize what it is, that it is nothing but suffering, and there’s nothing in no experience here but suffering, then we have developed the mind of renunciation, and we have become a being of the intermediate perspective or the middle scope. And so we can stop there for today.
So say, guess it says, so we too are going to drink tea. And if you have anything you need to ask questions about or investigate, then ask, please. Sure. How does Buddhism define passion? Passion.
And is passion and How would you say passion in Hindi? Because if you can say it in Hindi, then I can translate it. But I don’t know what you mean. I mean, I know what you mean because it’s an English word, but I don’t think there’s a word for it. Anyway, so because I don’t think there’s a word for it in Tibetan.
Because it you know, it’s the same kind of group of ideas. Can you think of one that’s similar? Passion. Passion. Fashion.
Yeah. Really cockier. Put it as a case scenario maybe. Yeah. That’s a good idea.
Yes. I mean, whatever you do, like, personal passion Yes. In a career or whatever. Is that impediment to You mean, like, a interest, a strong interest in a wish to do something. Yeah.
That’s that’s more easy to translate. Thanks very much. Yeah. No. Not ambition necessarily.
It’s like a it’s it’s oh, like, when you start off the bed, you know, you’re doing. Yeah. You’re doing, like, a heavy field. Yeah. Doing, to do more and more.
Yeah. It’s a combination of interest and it’s and desire for achievement and enthusiasm. Yeah. Well, not necessarily. Okay.
Okay. So whether it’s put positive enough or not depends on motivation. So for example, if someone has the ambition, I had to find an example. Right? And someone has the passion, and I said, define passion as something that has commitment and interest and an ambition, a combination of those three things.
Right? Is so so for example, if someone had the ambition to become the president of America, right? And the reason they wanted to become the president of America, and they had a passion for working towards that, the reason they wanted to do it is so they could be an important, famous, powerful, rich person, then that’s not very positive. Yeah? That’s not a positive thing to do.
Not a positive thing to work towards. But if someone decided that they were going to become the president of America and performed the same actions and did the same work and did the same effort, because they thought as the president of America, they could benefit a whole lot of people and bring a lot of happiness to the world, that’s a positive passion. Sorry? Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm.
Yeah. But it’s interesting because there’s a word that’s usually translated as enthusiasm from Tibetan, and it’s defined as taking happiness happiness in virtue. Yeah, enthusiastic efforts, yeah. To take that question one level further, the reason I’m asking, in this book by Kongtrul, put together some teaching in place for that for the same meditation. Well, he said Geshe-la said he that could be true because that would be doing it for your own benefit.
So you have to get rid of the idea of achieving enlightenment for yourself. So if you’re doing something from your own desire, then that’s that needs to be abandoned as well, ultimately. So it when it gets to the stage where it’s not about you at all, it’s about other beings. Yeah. And then you abandon your own ambition.
Is that because you’re not thinking of others, or you’re only thinking of yourself when you’re meditating? I said, I I keep getting that feeling too that there’s nothing I I can’t help others. And he said, well, that’s actually ego. That’s actually having this idea that is that’s like grasping itself, this idea I can’t benefit others. Yeah.
When you’re when the separate consciousness Okay. Sorry. I was trying to figure out. I know what you mean. Okay.
Okay. Sorry. That took a while because it’s like, of course, self grasping always creates suffering. I’m like, yeah, but specifically in this case, it’s always creating suffering. It doesn’t necessarily mean just because you start meditating that your self grasping is going to create more suffering for you.
It’s always creating suffering for you. It’s creating more suffering for you than anything else. It’s the reason you’ve been in saṃsāra since the beginning of time. Self grasping is always a cause for suffering, whether you’re meditating on it or not. Alright?
So, but when what happens when you start meditating on self lessness? Right? So, the mind meditating on selflessness is the antidote to self grasping. Okay? So, mind meditating on selflessness becomes the enemy of self grasping.
Self grasping becomes the enemy of the mind meditating on self grasping. Okay? So, but what should happen if you’re meditating on this and you’re thinking in the correct way, if you’re meditating on selflessness with a with a correct understanding, then self grasping, you should embarrass self grasping. So self grasping, it’s not so much becomes an enemy as becomes becomes embarrassed by the hold that it’s been having when it’s not a real reason. The antidote to self grasping is meditating on selflessness of the person.
If that’s done correctly, self grasping becomes less and less and less and less in terms of its power until it’s finally seen as being completely false. At the beginning, you will notice it, so it may feel more powerful, but in actual fact, it’s always caused problems. And then and and as you keep meditating, then it becomes like there’s a sense of being embarrassed that it’s found out for a fraud. Alright. If that makes sense.
Oh, god. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Time doesn’t have an end either.
How could time have an end? He wants to know how time could end. He’s like, time doesn’t have a beginning, and it doesn’t have an end. How could it have a beginning, and how could it have an end? Or stop the next moment from coming.
Mm-mm. You gotta wait, though. Yeah. He’ll No. That’s a good thing.
My parents and everything. But Right. Right. And then what’s the official That’s different. So hang on.
I’m not answering for again, love. I have to get the question straight. Right? I didn’t mean to the the these because I think I didn’t This is I didn’t use the word spirit for these beings in their form of formless realms. Who is the spirit?
That’s a different question. Alright. Alright. And yeah. Sorry.
Because the those dudes, I didn’t use the word spirit for them because they’re not spirit. They’re just refined states of mind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, okay. Because alright. Okay. So I did because I was just freaked out if you thought that I’d said that those guys were like ghosts because they’re not. No.
No. So so Buddhism accepts the idea of spirits or ghosts. It’s probably a better word that exist and have the ability to harm humans and the ways that you can tell if someone’s being harmed by a ghost is if medicine doesn’t help them and things like that, Right? So that’s they they have this idea of spirit malicious spirits being out to harm people. That isn’t the same as the form and formless realms because these beings are actually in the realm of hungry ghost or the spirit realm.
So that’s a lower existence than a human or an animal. So it’s a trapped existence based on desires. Yeah. It’s in uh-huh. Yeah.
It’s both. It’s a Buddhist idea from India, and it’s a Tibetan idea as well because it’s a it’s a realm of existence that we have the ability or the lack of ability in terms of not being able to practice or not being able to do virtue that we can end up in through attachment. Yeah. Oh, hang on. There was someone else.
Sorry. Could you have one question? Uh-huh. Mhmm. Mhmm.
The the the the demigods brush up against each other. He doesn’t think that there’s probably that there’s probably demigods around here. She said the whole idea of demigods is that they’re born into a different like, a dimension that is created by their karma. Right? So they don’t go into all different dimensions and all different existences.
They are trapped in their dimension that’s created by their karma. So, yeah, so they they said to a So they so they’ve created their own existence that they’re living in. So he doesn’t think there’d be any necessarily on earth. Yes? Yeah.
Right. Uh-huh. So within Buddhism, something becomes worldly or not depending on the motivation with which it’s done. Alright? So if you do something with a positive motivation, as soon as you do it with a positive motivation to achieve a good rebirth or to achieve liberation or to achieve Buddhahood, it’s not a worldly action anymore.
It’s not an ordinary action, no matter what it is. There’s many different jobs that we could do, and any of them can be good depending on what our motivation for doing them is. Any of them can be a cause for achieving Buddhahood depending on what our motivation is. There are some things are included within what are called the ten non virtuous actions that are by their nature negative. That means that if we are killing, stealing, sleeping around, lying, deceiving people, being slanderous, and then have all those ideas as part of our work, then that’s not a positive livelihood.
Again, those things, by their definition, are things that are motivated by personal interest and by delusive emotions, right, a destructive emotion. So, example, if you were lying to someone for their benefit, that’s not a technical lie according to the ten non virtuous actions. A lie is motivated by negative intention as opposed to positive intention. So, any of the ten non virtuous actions become those non virtuous actions depending upon a negative motivation. So, if you’re not in undertaking those in your work, then no matter what it is, it’s positive.
Yeah. Okay. Mohan. Oh, it was? So so you’re okay now?
Yeah. He said he want to know if you’re okay. Well, I’m about to eat the bread. A funny question, though. Yeah?
When we were born, were you had I love this. He said if you’d achieved nirvana, there would have been no point of being born. Okay. So you didn’t achieve nirvana. You achieved human birth.
One of the things he said was that we don’t have motivation to achieve nirvana. Uh-huh. At least in my case, if I can see something, investigate people who have developed themselves to either having achieved nirvana and have explained how they’ve done it. We can investigate those people and people who are on the path who have more ability to deal with suffering and so on. So this man said, Geshe-la said, sorry, that many people, if they’ve said they’ve achieved nirvana or they’ve achieved liberation, then we can believe in them because of their experiences and how they can show that their experiences existed.
I said, Yeah, but that’s not that easy because here’s people who go around saying, I’ve achieved nirvana, they were like complete Wallies, right? And he said, Yeah, but it’s not just by what they say that you can see this. You can investigate the way that they behave. You can investigate the way that they deal with situations, how they deal with suffering, how they deal with experiences, so the way that they’re motivated by their experiences. Once you develop faith in them through watching the way that they behave, the way that they do things, the way that they deal with situations, then you can start to believe what they say.
So it’s not easy. So now you’re okay. Two among you. Yeah. Sure, you’re going to sing, Chris?