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 opens with a blunt observation: everything we spend our lives pursuing — wealth, reputation, food — is the suffering of change, and any Dharma practice done for material gain or praise is not Dharma at all. He then moves to the bodhicitta section of the Essence of Refined Gold, unpacking the image of all past-mother beings as blind people staggering along the edge of a cliff above the lower realms, enslaved by ignorance and negative emotions. He argues that securing worldly comfort for these beings — even a god-realm rebirth lasting eons — falls short; only Buddhahood will do. He closes by generating loving-kindness and compassion in their formal sense, then acknowledges an honest problem: we cannot help even one being yet, which is precisely why we must commit to becoming a Buddha ourselves.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 27 2004 06 01 RG.mp3
UUID: 1b18df8a-d16c-4cb3-815a-5daa196ff41d
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Essence of Refined Gold (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-06-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~3,917
It said that all beings seek happiness but don’t establish its causes or don’t produce its causes. So what this means is that all beings have this innate sense of wanting to be happy and not wanting to experience suffering. But the problem is that they don’t understand the causes of happiness and the causes of suffering, so even though they want to be happy, they continually produce the causes to experience unhappiness or suffering. So beings want to experience happiness, but they don’t know the causes for happiness. So they have this idea of striving towards happiness, but that striving towards happiness that they know about is based on desire.
So in actual fact, their striving towards happiness acts as a cause for them to experience suffering. The problem happens because they don’t know what true happiness is, and if they don’t know what true happiness is, then they don’t know to strive for it. They don’t know what it is that they should be working for it. And even if they’ve heard about it, even if they’re like us, they may not necessarily believe enough in this idea of true happiness or that that kind of true happiness can be experienced, so therefore they don’t try and create the causes for it. If you don’t know about something and you don’t believe in something, then you’re not going to try and work towards it.
So, understanding true happiness, not understanding liberation, we don’t create the causes for liberation, and we continue to create the causes for suffering because we believe that samsaric happiness is true happiness. So then he said that we continually walk towards suffering or walk towards the causes for suffering and walk towards negativity. When he was talking about walking towards negativity, he wasn’t talking about literally finding negativity and going going for a stroll towards it. What he’s talking about is continually creating the causes for us to experience this type of suffering or creating the causes to experience saṃsāra. This is referring to the fact that even though we want happiness, because we’re ignorant to the causes of happiness and because we think that by trying to satisfy our desires we’ll experience happiness, although we are striving for happiness, we’re actually creating the causes for suffering.
If we want to change that around and actually try and achieve true happiness, then we have to understand what true happiness is and we have to understand the causes for true happiness. What we’ve been doing up to now has been continually creating the causes of suffering. So, we’ve been engaging in the ten non virtuous actions for all this time and creating the causes to experience the results of that, which is suffering. All of this has come about because of our desire, because of our striving for samsaric happiness. If we think about it, we can see that it’s true because if we watch the way we think, most of the things that we think about are how to make ourselves happy in this lifetime.
When we talk about being happy in this lifetime, it usually refers to getting two things: one is like praise or respect, and the other one is material things: food and drink and clothing and wealth, these kinds of things. So if we watch the way that we behave, everything that we do is usually in order to get these two things: either wealth or praise or respect. So, if it means we’re working towards it today or we’re working towards getting it in the next few days in order to get money or food or clothing, or we’re working towards establishing ourselves in a position where we will have money in our old age, or we will have enough food and drink for our old age, or our children will have enough food and drink after we’ve gone to give them wealth as well. So, is the way we seem to work, that we’re concentrated on establishing ourselves, having money, having food and drink, having the right reputation. If we think about it, that means that we’re constantly working towards suffering, because all of these things that are considered good in saṃsāra are actually suffering they’re the suffering of change.
So, means that we’re constantly working to try and achieve suffering. So we need to recognise this. We need to recognise that all of these things that we’re working towards, whether it be wealth, whether it be to have enough food and drink, whether it be for a good reputation, whether we’re working to a good reputation or some kind of praise for our actions. All of those are actually suffering by their nature, and they’re the suffering of change. Any of these positive things we can experience in Samsāra are the suffering of change.
And the reason they’re called the suffering of change is because they’re not stable. We can’t rely on them. We may work really hard to get food and drink and wealth and a good reputation, but we can’t rely on them continuing to exist. They’re unstable and they can disappear quickly. So, while we’re doing these things, while we’re working towards these things, then we need to remember that they are the suffering of change.
We need to recognise them for what they are so we can not get too caught up in them, in the pursuit of them. The other thing that we need to remember is that even though we may call a lot of the things that we’re doing a Dharma practice, if we’re doing this so called Dharma practice with the idea of getting material benefits or with the idea of getting praise, then what we’re doing isn’t Dharma practice. So, these kind of tendencies, working towards material satisfaction or praise, means that whatever we’re doing isn’t Dharma. If we’re focused on this lifetime, whatever we’re doing isn’t Dharma.
So, focusing on these things not only means that we’re continually creating the causes for suffering, but it also harms our Dharma practice. So, we need to be careful about what we’re thinking about while we’re doing Dharma practice. What we need to do is to make sure that we have the right motivation for doing anything that we do, especially the things that we do that we call Dharma practice or religious practice. So we need to make sure that the reason that we’re doing these things is to achieve true happiness. At the moment, we don’t know properly, we don’t consider properly what true happiness is, so we tend to concentrate on temporary happiness which is unreliable and actually is a form of suffering.
The only types of true happiness are the happiness of liberation and the happiness of Buddhahood. So, if we do any positive action that we do with the motivation that that be a cause for us to achieve liberation or Buddhahood, then that becomes a cause for true happiness. If we make sure that that’s our motivation, then the result of that action will be true happiness. And if we make sure that our motivation for doing something is to achieve Buddhahood or liberation, the other thing is that that positive action doesn’t disappear until we achieve Buddhahood liberation. If we do something with a short term goal in mind, once that short term goal is accomplished, then the positive actions from that don’t continue to abide.
But if we do something with the idea of Buddhahood or liberation in mind then that cause or that virtuous action abides with us until we achieve that goal until we achieve liberation or Buddhahood We need to focus our motivations on achieving Buddhahood and doing that for the sake of other beings. If we’re able to focus our motivation on Buddhahood, then any of the other positive goals that we may have actually come along with that achievement. It’s not as if we have to focus on them individually. By working towards Buddhahood, liberation, we achieve a good rebirth, we achieve a positive state. If we just focus on Buddhahood, we don’t have to focus on any of the other things that may help us to achieve that goal.
We should try and make our motivation for anything we do, whether it’s listening to teachings on the graduated path, whether itis meditating, whether itis helping people, anything that we do. We should try and make our motivation for doing that so that we are doing it in order to become a fully enlightened being, and through becoming a fully enlightened being we can benefit all sentient beings to our utmost ability. We shouldn’t be discouraged thinking that we can’t achieve Buddhahood because just as other Buddhas have achieved Buddhahood and we’re exactly the same as us before they did, then, we can also achieve Buddhahood. Kuti Tagis.
So with this idea in mind, then we should think that the reason that we’re listening to the teachings on the graduated path is to develop a virtuous action, or to do a virtuous action, that could become a cause for us to receive enlightenment, to be able to benefit all sentient beings. And in particular, because we’ve arrived at the stage of these teachings that talks about how to develop bodhicitta, that may our listening to these be a cause for us to develop bodhicitta, and by listening to it, we understand it and then be able to put it into practice. That’s the development of bodhicitta. May we develop bodhicitta, and then through developing bodhicitta, become fully enlightened beings Buddhas. And Geshe-la says there’s no need to meditate on that, because you already have it, do you? He thinks that you’re already meditating.
Mhmm. So we were going through the stages of developing our bodhicitta based on meditating on all beings, having been our mothers. And we’re up to the stage where we look at repaying the kindness of our mothers, all these beings who have been our mothers. Now, if we think about the way that because we’ve had countless rebirths, all beings have shown us incredible kindness in all these different lifetimes, Then we had to look at their situation and see how it is that they’re actually experiencing these lifetimes or what their experience is at the moment. So their kindness to us is immeasurable in the way that they have looked after us in the past.
But at the moment, their minds are so confused by the negative emotions that cloud it, that not knowing what they’re doing, they become like crazy people who are powerless to stop themselves from doing negative actions. Their minds are so confused by negative emotions, by ignorance, that they become slaves or servants to these negative emotions and then behave in ways that create the causes for them to experience suffering. So in this way, they, like us as well, are enslaved by this experience. They’re enslaved by their lack of power and their ignorance and the way that their minds are confused by these negative emotions. So, in this way, they’re in a very pitiful state.
And so they’re also said to be ignorant, and through this ignorance their wisdom eyes are blinded. Because they don’t have any wisdom, they are unable to perceive which is the path to the lower realms and which is the path to the higher realms, so what it is that they need to do to experience a good rebirth and what it is that they need to refrain from doing in order not to experience a negative rebirth. So they can’t see this because their eyes don’t have the wisdom of the view, so they don’t understand what it is that they’re doing. So, through not understanding what they’re doing, they create the causes to experience suffering in the lower realms and don’t know what they need to do in order to experience happiness in the higher realms. So this is basically the way that this text describes ignorance, and their ignorance is such that they don’t know how to achieve happiness.
Because these beings that have shown us great kindness in all these lifetimes, lifetimes, at the moment don’t have this understanding, it’s like they’re like blind people trying to find their way around. And in order for a blind person to find their way around, they need someone who has sight to be able to guide them. And then in this text it says that these beings who have shown us immeasurable kindness in the past whose kindness is almost unrepayable, without a sighted guide or someone who can show them where to go, which is like a teacher or a Buddha who can show them and it says, Take them on the path to the city of liberation or Show them how to achieve nirvana. So if they’re blind and they can’t figure out where they need to go, then they need someone who does know where to go to show them how to get there. And in this way, a teacher or a Buddha is like someone who can do that, someone who can show them how it is that they can achieve Buddhahood, how it is that they can achieve liberation.
But at the moment they don’t have anyone like this and without anyone who can guide them towards liberation then they’re completely lost they don’t know where they’re going they’re blind people without a guide. That’s a bit like us at the moment, but we have the Buddha’s teachings and so forth to guide us, so these other beings don’t have that. So not knowing this, not having a guide, not knowing what it is that they need to do to achieve true happiness and what it is that they’re doing that’s going to cause them suffering, then these beings that have shown us great kindness, what they do is they behave badly, behave based on this ignorance and this lack of understanding, and create the causes for them to experience suffering. So it means that their behaviour they do all sorts of things because of this clouded way of thinking and these negative emotions or these destructive ways of thinking. They tend to behave in all these negative ways, and through behaving in these negative ways, they’re like we’ve already said that they’re already like blind people because they don’t know where to go.
But it’s not as if they’re blind people in a safe place. Through their negative actions caused by these unknowing and negative ways of thinking, then where they walk to is, it says, to the cliff of Samsāra and the lower realms and stagger along it, right? So through their negative behavior, they’re said to be like blind people staggering along the edge of a cliff that is the cliff of the lower realms, a cliff of suffering. So this is a fairly alarming situation for them to be in, to be right on the edge of this cliff that if they fall off they’re going to experience intense suffering in all of these different ways and be in a destitute situation. So this is the way that we come across them at the moment.
We find them in this either having fallen off the cliff or on the edge of this cliff, where they could experience intense suffering just by merely dying and being reborn in another realm. So then, if this was happening to our mother in this lifetime, then our mother would look to us to try and help her. So the text says, if we, their child, if we, our mother’s child, isn’t going to help her, then who is? And if we aren’t going to try and help her, if the responsibility for trying to get our mother of this lifetime out of this situation doesn’t fall on us, then who does it fall on? If our mother is going to experience this kind of suffering, who has to take responsibility for that if they can’t help themselves?
So, in the same way as the mother of this lifetime who has shown us great kindness, so have the people who have been our mothers in other lifetimes. So this means all sentient beings are in this destitute situation, and if the responsibility for helping them doesn’t fall on us, then who does it fall on? So this is the situation that all of these beings who have shown us great kindness have been given birth to us and looked after us in all these different lifetimes. This is the situation that they’re in. So, if we are to discard all of these beings and only seek liberation for ourselves, then we should be really embarrassed about that.
It’s our responsibility, in the same way as it’s our responsibility, to look after our parents if they’re in a destitute destitute situation. And then it’s our responsibility to look after all of these other beings who have shown us this great kindness. And even if we don’t it falls on children to act responsibly towards their parents if their parents can’t look after themselves. To just leave them and throw them out on the street is not considered very good, Geshe-la said.
It’s incredibly rude at the very least. So, it’s not enough for us just to think then, Okay, I’ll set my parents up in a good situation for this lifetime. So, I’ll set them up so that they have all the pleasantness and happiness and health that they could have in this lifetime because it’s not a stable situation. Even if we’re able to get our parents to become a god of a universe like Brahma or Indra from the Hindu mythology then even if they were able to abide in this intense state of bliss and power and positiveness for many eons, then they’re still going to have to die at the end of that and be reborn either in hell or in some other part of saṃsāra. So even in these intense states of happiness and power and pleasure and so forth, we can’t rely on them.
We can’t rely on our mothers continually being happy there because they’re not permanent. So what is it that we need to do then? What is it that we need to achieve in order to make our our our these beings who have shown us great kindness truly happy? Well, the first thing that we need to do is to get rid of thinking about ourselves to start stop thinking about our own what’s going to benefit ourselves and start thinking about what’s going to benefit other beings if we focus on our own benefit then the most that we can ever achieve is personal liberation so we need to start thinking of others and when we think of others then we should be thinking of sentient beings who are equal to the sky in terms of the number that there are and how we can get all of those beings out of the suffering of saṃsāra so how we can liberate all of these beings that were numberless from the sufferings of saṃsāra. Now, best way we can get them out of saṃsāra, or the best experience that we can lead them towards, is the happiness or the bliss of the unsurpassable liberation.
There is nothing higher than that and that’s what we need to try and establish them in. Now when it says unsurpassable liberation or the liberation that is the highest, then that’s talking about the achievement of Buddhahood. So we need to find a way to lead all of these sentient beings to the state or to establish them in the state of Buddhahood. So we want these beings to experience the best. We want them all because of the kindness they’ve shown us to have the best type of happiness that they can have, that they the best the best experience that they can possibly have so in this way we want them to have the best and the best is Buddhahood and when it says the the unsurpassable happiness we’re not talking about any kind of happiness in saṃsāra or anything that’s going to be limited in any way we want them to have unlimited happiness the best happiness they can and the best happiness that they can have is to become a Buddha By becoming a Buddha, then they have absolutely no experience of suffering and all positive qualities.
So we need to do this. We need to establish them in that state. We need to lead them to this state and make sure that it comes about as a person who has benefited from their great kindness in all these ways. Okay. So then we should so given these reasonings and given that this is why we want them to be, then we should think, from this happiness all of my old mums are going to be freed immensely right so what is wrong with them being separated from suffering and experiencing this happiness and then we think they experience this happiness and then because of their great kindness I’ll bring that about I’ll do whatever it takes to make them experience happiness and so this last bit where we think may they experience happiness and I’ll do whatever it takes to bring them this happiness, that’s actually what we talk about as the development of love and kindness, this idea that may they experience happiness.
And then we have this idea of the flip side of this loving kindness, which is compassion. This is based on the idea that all of these sentient beings who have shown me great kindness and being my mother are experiencing great suffering. May they be separated from that suffering. What would be wrong with them being separated from that suffering? Because there’s nothing wrong with that.
Then it says, May they be separated from that suffering. They will be separated from that suffering. I’m going to do it myself. So this is a development of compassion. Now, when we talk about suffering here, we’re not talking about just an illness or lack of money or some kind of separation from something that they wanted or death or anything like that.
We’re talking about completely wiping all different forms of suffering from all beings’ existence. So this means the suffering of suffering, which is things like illness and losing things we want and so forth. But it also means the suffering of change, that is, they can’t rely on the happiness that they experience at the moment and even in fact all-pervasive suffering which is the basic ignorance of saṃsāra, which means that they continue to cycle in saṃsāra. May they be rid of all of that different kinds of suffering and achieve true happiness, which is liberation and Buddhahood. Okay.
So this may bring up a problem in our minds, right, because we can’t actually do this at the moment. We can’t lead even one little being out of a little bit of suffering at the moment, let alone try and get all sentient beings to become Buddhas. So we’re left with a bit of a problem. So what we need to do then is to promise to get to the state where we can do that, to work hard to become a Buddha so we can