Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 25-minute commentary, Geshe Pema Tsering works through one of the Lamrim’s most concrete meditation practices: recognizing that every being has at some point been our mother. He lists the specific kindnesses a mother shows — carrying the child nine months, wiping away snot, worrying more over a minor illness than her own health — then guides listeners to extend that recognition outward from strangers to enemies to all beings without exception. He explains why this breadth matters for bodhicitta: goodwill aimed at all sentient beings generates far greater karmic benefit than caring only for a few. The session ends with Q&A, including Geshe-la’s personal reflection on the Chinese occupation of Tibet as an illustration of finding common ground even with those who reject Dharma entirely.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 26 2004 05 25 RG.mp3
UUID: 19cd71f8-acc0-4b47-9c83-63c786ad77e7
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Essence of Refined Gold (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-05-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 25.5 minutes
Words: ~2,441
This means that if we are continually being reborn and dying, reborn and dying, reborn and dying, every time we go through this process, we need to get a new body. That has to rely on someone else in most instances, that has to rely on someone else the giving of this new body so that means that to bring us into existence, we have to rely on someone. Just because we can’t remember what happened before this lifetime doesn’t mean that we weren’t experiencing these different rebirths and doesn’t mean that the mothers in those lifetimes that we had didn’t show us great kindness either. So if we think about it in this way, it means that all beings have had the opportunity to give birth to us, and just because we can’t remember them being our parents doesn’t mean that they weren’t. Okay.
Okay. So, in this way, if we think about things in this way, then there isn’t a being that we haven’t had as a mother, and therefore there isn’t a being that hasn’t shown us great kindness and protected us. Because of this, then, we need to think about the kindness that these beings have shown us. In order to do this, if we think about the kindness that the mother of this life has shown us, then we will be able to find these beings more appealing, all the other beings. Now, to remember the kindness that the mother of this life has shown us, we first of all have to start with before we were born and when we were in our mother’s womb.
When we were in our mother’s womb, for starters, they carried us around for nine months. Also, they made sure that they weren’t in situations that were perilous to us. Most mothers tend to try and protect themselves so they can protect their unborn child. Then once we are born they look after us by wrapping us in soft clothes and making sure that no harm comes to us when we’re born. I just had to guess that I think some of these things are peculiar to Tibetan culture, right?
So he’s going through things that mothers do for children. And then he said, if you don’t think any of them aren’t what Western mothers do, then don’t say them. But I don’t know enough about what Western mothers do because he’s scared of babies. Okay. First of all, the first thing that sounds a bit weird to me is they let them suck on their fingers.
This one is probably definitely universal. They look at them with very loving eyes. They always have a pleasant smiling face that they try and convey to them and the child doesn’t have to do much to make their parents happy. They try and do everything that they can to make sure that their parents that their child is happy. And also mothers give milk to their children.
They try and bring them food, including meat and different vegetables, so that they can be nourished. This is the bit that was weird for me. They chew up food first and then give it to the kids. Okay. We’re cool now then.
Like, I ain’t seen nobody doing that. Okay. They wipe snot from their noses. They clean up all their faeces when they have pooed their pants. They make sure that they’re not in danger even from very small things and they protect them even from the smallest things.
And if a child is ill, even in a very small way, it’s not unusual for the mother to suffer more than the child from that illness from worry and so forth. Another thing is that mothers tend to view their children s health as more important than their own. They re more worried about their children getting ill than they are about themselves being ill. They work really hard. They put their own happiness to the side and work really hard for their children. They try and get everything that they need.
They work really hard so the children have all of the opportunities that they need to grow and to have a happy lifetime. This can mean things like they work hard to make sure that they have a roof over their head and clothes to wear and that they can go to school and so forth, that they can drive them around in a car here or get taken around on horses in Tibet. Geshe-la said that it s traditional to say that they make sure they have horses so they can be transported around, but he hasn seen any horses here and he thinks that probably cars have taken the place of that. They try and make sure that they have all of the things that they need to grow up healthy and happy. And in brief, the way to describe the kindness of the parents and especially the mother is that they do everything in order to stop the children experiencing illness, cruelty or suffering.
And they also do everything they can to benefit the children. And they don’t have this idea just once. They don’t think I’ll try and do something to help my children out now. They have this idea again and again and again through this intense mind of love. They constantly working to benefit their children.
So In this way, the parents of this life have shown us this incredible kindness. It s beyond comprehension kindness that they have shown us. In the same way, we should meditate on the fact that, just like they have shown us great kindness now and the friends and the family we have have shown us great kindness now, that even people that we are indifferent towards, even people we consider as strangers, have in the past shown us this same kindness in different lifetimes. They have shown us this same kindness, and not only that, but the people that in this life we feel are hurting us, we consider to be our enemies or people who are damaging us in some ways, they also have at some stage in the past shown us this great kindness. We can meditate in this way, first of all thinking about the kindness of the mother in this life, and then focusing on how strangers and also people we are ambivalent towards have also shown us this kindness.
Then we can focus on how people who we consider are enemies or people who are harmful to us have also shown this kindness. In this way, then we can see that because we’ve had countless rebirths, and we’ve even had countless rebirths as a human, then we’ve had countless human mothers. This means that all these beings, at some stage, have been our mother. They’ve protected us from harm and worked tirelessly for our benefit. We can view all sentient beings in this way.
So we can stop there. Okay. That’s all. Yeah? So does anyone have any questions?
Cool. While he drinks his yummy tea. And he said, in that way, no, because we haven’t been meditating on how everyone s our mothers enough. So if we focus on that then we re looking at all sentient beings and we re trying to focus on how all sentient beings or all beings have shown us great kindness. So if we limit the way that we look at things to only the people that we have direct contact with and have shown us direct kindness, that means that the the way we can benefit is very limited and our focus is very limited if we can start developing that and look at all beings then we can see how much more beneficial we can be.
So when we say that bodhicitta is an idea to work towards the enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, yeah? It s not a couple of hundred people that we ve known It s not even a couple of thousand people we may have seen somewhere. It s all beings. We can think, We don have to think of each individual being.
We can just have the idea of all sentient beings. So we can develop the idea of all sentient beings because we re just thinking, if we have this idea, I’m not going to leave anyone out. Yes? And we think of all sentient beings. We don have to know each of them individually to develop this idea.
So, the way that this works then is that if we are focused, we think we’re doing something for all beings, right? We re doing something with the purpose of benefiting all beings, then our motivation and our view is incredibly vast. We like thinking of something incredibly vast. The benefit that we get from this action is incredibly vast, right? But if we re just focusing on the most limited view which is how this benefits ourselves or even if we re thinking about five people say then the benefits from that isn t going to be as great.
So we re not going to have as vast a karmic result as well as as vast a mind. So we should have this idea that whoever we run into or whatever being we see that we think okay whatever I doing is for them as well for them as well. If we run into people we think may what I do benefit them and all beings or if we see a bug we can think may what I’m doing benefit the bug and all beings. So whoever we run into, we should keep having that idea that whatever we’re doing is beneficial for them and for all beings. Or may it be beneficial for all of So this is how we develop So we can approach it in two different ways, right?
So we can think, every time we bump into someone, I’m going to achieve Buddhahood so I can make them become free of suffering, right? Whether it s a bug or a person or whatever it is. And then we can look at it in a kind of linear and individual basis and that can help us to develop that way of thinking, but then when we’re meditating on it we can also have the idea of all beings without exception so if we focus on that aspect then that we’re not going to leave anyone out then that’s the way to develop both together in two different ways Yeah. Yeah. Sure.
Sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So Geshe said that, yeah, he knows about this because he had to do that kind of thinking with the Chinese when they came to Tibet.
So what the best thing to do in that circumstance is to go, Okay, they don have the same views as me. He said in actual fact, the people that came into Tibet didn t even have this idea of performing a virtuous action or a non virtuous action. They didn have an idea of a helpful action or non helpful action. They didn accept karma at all in any way. And they didn’t accept the idea of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha in any way.
So what they but hang on so but them not accepting it didn’t mean that the idea of karma ceased to exist and the idea of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha ceased to exist just because those guys didn t accept it. So it s like they don t know what the actual situation is and then because of their ignorance they re not focusing on Dharma or they’re not focusing on a spiritual path. So that s the difference between them and us. But there is many things in common. For example, though they don’t accept these things, they still want to experience happiness.
They just don know the way to bring about necessarily true happiness. So if we focus on the fact that they re exactly the same as us in wanting to achieve happiness and not to experience suffering, then that makes us feel a closeness to them because they re in exactly the same situation. They just have different means of fulfilling it. Also that if we focus on the fact that at some stage in the past they have been our mother or father and shown us great kindness, then we can develop this feeling of love towards them even though they may not be on the same path. So in this way then, we could think, whatever I do, may that be a cause for them to be happy as well.
Maybe I would be able to eventually show them how to experience happiness and may they themselves come towards happiness. So if we develop that idea for everything we do and every interaction we have with them, that can bring us closer to them. So even the the the people who had this philosophy of well, either communism or Marxism or Maoism, but I don’t know which is the direct translation. It s literally the red view, but anyway. These people who had this idea, they deny anything apart from a material existence.
They don believe even in consciousness and so forth. They only have this material existence. So for them, everything that you can experience as being happy or not happy depends on this life and in this life in a very limited way as well, like what you can do with material things. So they’re doing everything that they re doing, though still to be happy. They re not doing it for some other reason so that they can experience suffering or whatever. They re doing it because this is what they believe will bring them happiness.
So they have a different view and they re not focusing on practicing Dharma or focusing on the next lifetime or focusing on developing the mind but they re still trying to make themselves happy. So, in this way, then you can see that there s a definite commonality that there s something in common there between all beings that they want to experience is happiness. So, if we think, Okay, they want to be happy, may they be happy? Then we can see the closeness that we have to all beings, even if they have a different view. He said, So that s the way he thinks it is anyway.
Does that make sense? That s fine? Yeah.