Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Pema Tsering opens this 45-minute session with a pointed question: what actually protects a beginner at death, when personal willpower alone cannot prevent rebirth in the lower realms? His answer grounds the rest of the talk — strong, active refuge in the Three Jewels, expressed by following the Buddha’s instructions on cause and effect. He then moves through two of the six perfections. On patience, he argues that anger harms only the one feeling it, illustrates the point with the post-9/11 cycle of retaliation, and unpacks a verse comparing patience to Garuda destroying a snake. On joyous effort, he redefines “laziness” as attachment to samsaric pleasures — including working hard for food or sex — not mere sloth, making diligence the antidote.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 33 2004 06 22 RG.mp3
UUID: 72dac2d7-02e1-4f5d-bf63-b827adec2913
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Essence of Refined Gold (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-06-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~3,290
Oh, yeah. After a year and a half, I’m still mishearing Geshe-la’s accent. Anyway, as beginners, if we die, the only thing that can stop us from entering the lower realms is having refuge in something. This is according to Lama Tsongkhapa said in one of his texts. If we are just depending on ourselves, thinking that by the force of our own power we can stop ourselves from creating the causes to go to the lower realms, that isn’t going to work.
What we need to do is have refuge in something other than ourselves. As Buddhists, we need to have refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, Dharma, and the Sangha. As beginners, that’s the thing that we really need to concentrate on the most because dying is something that we are certain of. This means that if we want to work on something that’s actually going to help us, we really need to make sure that we have refuge, and that our refuge is very strong. Sorry.
So What taking refuge means is to follow what the Buddha says. It doesn’t mean just having a vague idea of refuge. It means believing that the Buddha’s teachings can lead us to a positive state. Taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha means looking towards the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha for instructions and then putting into practice what the Buddha taught. The main thing that the Buddha taught with regards to people who haven t developed an understanding of emptiness, who haven’t developed renunciation, who haven’t developed bodhicitta is this idea of cause and effect, the idea of abandoning the ten non virtuous actions and practicing the ten virtuous actions.
Beings without any of these major realizations, then we need to focus on that. We need to focus on doing as many positive things as we can and refraining from doing as many negative things as we can refrain from doing. This needs to be the focus for our practice. This is a way of actually properly taking refuge. It s following the Buddha s instructions.
So, from amongst the positive and the negative things that we can do, we need to try and refrain most from the negative things that are strongest and try and practice most the fabricated sense of bodhicitta or renunciation. As people who don’t have those things naturally present in their mind stream haven’t developed these things, what we need to do is cultivate a sense of that before we do anything positive. So if we cultivate a sense of bodhicitta as being the one that we can access the most before we do anything positive, then that action that we perform becomes a very strongly positive action, the most strongly positive action that we can do at this stage. So as human beings, if we haven’t created the cause to be born as an animal, then as human beings we have the ability to develop an understanding of bodhicitta, an understanding of emptiness, an understanding of renunciation even if we haven’t got these things manifesting in our mindstream and in our way. We have the ability to process and reason in order to develop something similar to bodhicitta and understanding of emptiness and renunciation.
We can motivate ourselves with these ideas to do something. Then that thing that we do becomes a powerfully positive action. From amongst these, then bodhicitta is the best motivation for us to develop. If we are working with the idea of working towards our own salvation from saṃsāra, this is a very positive thing to do, but we have to look at the end goal.
The end goal of an arahat is someone who has achieved amazingly high levels of realization and they have completely eliminated suffering and the causes of suffering from their mind stream, but the happiness that they experience at that state isn’t complete. Also, the way that they can benefit others is fairly limited. As an arhat, we are someone who hasn’t completed our own goals.. We haven’t completed the path of our own potential because we still have obscurations to our knowledge. We don’t have.
Obscurations to suffering, but we have still obscurations to our knowledge, our ability to know. In this way, haven’t completed our own goals, and we certainly haven’t completed the goals of others. We certainly haven’t worked to the stage where everything we do is spontaneously helping others. In this way, although the goal of an arhat is something to be admired, it isn’t as strong a goal as the goal of a Buddha. If we want to make any action that we do the strongest positive action that we can, then we need to develop the strongest motivation that we can.
The strongest motivation we can is to work towards the greatest outcome, the greatest outcome being Buddha. This idea of working towards enlightenment for the benefit of other sentient beings gives us the strongest motivation to do any action. By having the strongest motivation to do any action, we create the strongest positive karma from doing that action. Okay. So this means that we should think, I’m going to listen to the teachings on the graduated path to enlightenment in order to understand them, in order to meditate on them, become familiar with them and be able to put them into practice.
May the merit that I get from listening to these teachings and putting them into practice be a cause for me to become a completely enlightened Buddha and be able to benefit all sentient beings. Not only that, but may that cause for me to become a fully enlightened Buddha be mixed with all the positive things that the five types of beings, Buddha, Bodhisattvas, arhat, ordinary beings, solitary realizers. Positive things that all of them have done be mixed together and may my rejoicing in all of those positive qualities be a cause for me to become a Buddha. And so we should meditate on that for a few minutes. Yeah.
So we were talking about the practice of the perfection of patience and the practice of patience. The first thing that we need to look at is to see what the practice of patience is. The first thing is if other beings harm us in some way then we need to examine to see whether that being is actually a worthy object for our anger. This is a being that hurts us. If we examine, then we’ll see two things.
First of all, the real culprit for the harm that was inflicted on us isn’t the being or the person, it is actually the anger or the vindictiveness within them that causes them to act in this way. We understand what it’s like to be overcome by anger or to be overcome by negative emotions, so if we see that happening to someone else, we have to learn to see who we should actually attribute the blame to, the person or the negative emotion. The other thing is that if we do behave in a way where we’re continually blaming the person for a negative action then there’s no end to this. If you’re dealing with the person as opposed to the neurosis then there’s no end to the retribution that will be forthcoming. For example, with America at the moment, they have this idea that because the terrorists harmed them, then what they have to do is eliminate the terrorists.
There’s no way that they can eliminate hatred by eliminating people that just creates more hatred. If they continue to have this idea of eliminating each other in order to get rid of the problem, all they’re actually doing is exacerbating the problem, exacerbating the anger, exacerbating the hatred. So if we look in this way, then it is actually inappropriate for us to blame a person for the negative action. We need to look at, first of all, the neurosis. We also need to look at whatever it was that we did that brought this situation about because if someone is going to harm us, then we have to have created a cause for them to harm us in the past.
In this way, if we are doing something negative based on self grasping, then we are creating the causes for experiencing suffering because this is a process of saṃsāra. First of all, we see that the emotion, the affliction, rather than the person is truly at fault, and then also that we created the causes for this. We also need to look at the negative aspects of getting angry and that being angry wipes out all of the positive karma that we’ve accumulated in the past. If we think in this way many times, that getting angry never actually harms the person or the emotion that we are angry at. The only being that gets harmed from getting angry is ourselves because by getting angry then we destroy positive karma that we have accumulated in the past, positive merit we’ve accumulated in the past, and we’re creating the causes to experience more negativity in the future.
Getting angry never harms the person we are angry or the object we’re angry at only ever harms ourselves. If we think on these many times, then we can see that there’s absolutely no point to anger and we can train ourselves not to react with anger when we feel someone is harming us, and in this way we can practice patience. So not only can someone else’s anger not technically harm us absolutely, and our anger will actually harm us more than other people’s anger. Actually, trying to harm us or someone who gets angry at us can actually be a positive cause for us to practice. The way that this happens is if someone gets angry at us and we don’t react, we purify negative karma that we have accumulated in the past.
Also, if we are experiencing intense suffering of some kind like from someone harming us then that gives us the opportunity to get rid of arrogance in a way that if someone is yelling at us or getting really angry at us we’re hardly going to think — suffering in an intense way, we’re hardly going to think — I really like myself right now. It’s a way of us getting rid of arrogance. That’s one thing. Also, if we are experiencing suffering or we have experienced suffering that is at the hands of other people with neurosis, that gives us the opportunity to develop a mind renouncing saṃsāra. If we look at this situation then we think, Okay, I’m suffering because I’m a sentient being.
I’ve created the causes for suffering and I’ll continue to do that while I’m in saṃsāra. This being who is inflicting suffering on me that’s harming me, They are also a sentient being and are behaving in this way because they don’t understand the nature of reality and are therefore stuck in saṃsāra. In this way, if we have the ability to look at situation clearly, then being in this situation helps us to generate renunciation from saṃsāra and see that there is nothing in saṃsāra but suffering. Moreover, the way that we can generate renunciation from saṃsāra by experiencing suffering is if we develop this idea, I really don’t want to experience suffering. I’m not enjoying this.
If I want to stop experiencing situations like this, I have to stop creating the causes to experience situations like this because how can a result come about without a cause? There’s no way you can have a result without a cause. Therefore, I should stop accumulating the ten non virtuous actions. If I stop accumulating the ten non virtuous actions, I don’t experience the results of the ten non virtuous actions and won’t experience suffering like this. This is the way we can develop renunciation through experiencing suffering.
The other thing that we should do then is that if someone is harming us, then we can think that that’s an amazing opportunity to practice patience and in actual fact if we don’t have opportunities to develop patience then we can’t complete the practice of the six perfections and become a Buddha. Without opportunities to practice patience there’s no way we can progress along the paths of the bodhisattva to become a Buddha. In actual fact the person who is harming us and giving us this opportunity to practice patience, we can try and see them in a similar way to the teachers that give us instructions on how to meditate and how to understand the path and to work towards Buddhahood. In this way, they have shown us great kindness because if we didn’t have people to try our patience, we wouldn’t be able to develop patience. If we can’t develop patience, we can’t become a Buddha.
So, in this way, people harming us are actually great teachers for us and people we can try and develop a mind of gratitude towards. If we can do this, if we’re able to do this, then this practice is what’s called the patience that takes on suffering. Okay. There’s another type of patience that we need to try and develop. Excuse me.
And which is if we look at at the way that the Three Jewels are and the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas and the powers that they have and the states of mind that they develop, the way that they do everything for the benefit of others, then our mind can’t actually conceive of that properly because it’s too restrictive within our neurosis. This is amazing the energy and power that these beings have. If we want to become like those beings then we have to practice do the practices or the behaviors of a Bodhisattva. That means acting from a point of view of selflessness and having a firm resolve to train and go through hard times with a determined mind, a determined mind that deals with these things in a patient way. The idea of having patience with regards to practicing in the same way as Buddha and Bodhisattvas is another type of patience that we need to develop.
To do these practices in the same way as Buddha something that’s very difficult and takes a lot of hard work, we need patience to endure that as well. So, Geshe-la just cracked me up because you read out this poem and goes, Patience is the best ornament of real heroes, a supreme self-mortification, a supreme asceticism to overcome delusions, the garuda that destroys the snake of anger, an armor to protect from the arrows of criticism. Knowing this, familiarize yourself with the armor of supreme patience. That means it’s good. Patience is the best ornament of real heroes.
This is saying that patience isn’t something that we should be dismissive of. It’s not something that we should think, Oh, yeah, just be patient and talk about it in this dismissive way. It’s something that real heroes have as their mark, as a sign of their strength. This is what the first line refers to. It’s the supreme asceticism to overcome delusions.
What this is talking about is that we have to experience an intense amount of suffering because of the neurotic types of minds that we have or the neurotic ways of thinking that we have. If we can bear those with patience then that’s the most extreme form of asceticism or self-mortification. It’s his translation, so I was just like, That’s so strange. You know, like we see the ascetics in India. The most extreme form of that is patience.
It’s also said to be the Garuda bird that destroys the snake of anger. Although there may not be Garuda birds around at the moment, can always watch eagles and other birds of prey that swoop down on snakes and can see them from great distances and completely dig them out from groups of trees and things like that. In this way, we have this patience, it gets rid of anger and it can do so in a very precise and very guided way. It’s also said to be the armor that protects one from the arrows of criticism. If we have patience, no matter what people say to us, we’re not going to react with anger.
We’re not going to react in a way that’s going to create negative karma for ourselves. When it says, Armor to Protect One from the arrows of criticism, this is what it means. It says if we know all this, if we know how beneficial patience is, how much it helps us, then we need to try and familiarize ourselves with patience in any way that we can. This means thinking about it a lot, processing every time something happens, every time that we experience anger, every time someone harms us, we need to put in a lot of analysis into that situation before it becomes so familiar that we don’t need to.
So the next perfections to deal with is the training of the perfection of the way that he’s translated in this book is joyous perseverance. The definition of this is taking joy in virtue. It’s translated as joyous perseverance, joyous effort, diligence, a whole bunch of stuff. Anyway, the way of developing this is in the text says that if we haven’t meditated on the craving for and the inherent faults in the different happinesses we’re able to find in saṃsāra. That can be the happiness of sleep and sloth and sex and attachment to food.
Any of these cravings that we have that are like the blisses of saṃsāra, the happiness that we can find in saṃsāra. If we haven’t meditated on how they let you down and they’re not consistent and we don’t develop a disappointment with saṃsāra, then we’re likely to have laziness which is another word that doesn’t translate well. Anyway, So yeah. Because this this word that I usually translate as laziness doesn’t really fit for as laziness because the idea of laziness is not wanting to do anything. And this word this word actually means being attached to the things of Samsāra, right?
So Geshe-la says, so it doesn’t mean just sitting there and not wanting to do anything. You can work really hard to get lots of food or get lots of sex or whatever. People can work really hard to do that and that’s still what’s termed as laziness because it’s attachment to something that’s in saṃsāra. It doesn’t mean just sitting around doing nothing or being slothful. It means working really hard to get things that aren’t going to get you out of saṃsāra.
Joyous effort is the antidote to that. It means working towards things that are going to get you out of saṃsāra. It basically means that what we need to do is get rid of our attachments to the ten non virtuous actions and abandon these actions in speech, mind and body. If we can abandon these and practice virtuous actions constantly then this is the practice of diligence, joyous perseverance or effort. One.
This one. This this way, Geshe-la says that this word that’s translated as laziness or whatever is huge. It’s really vast and covers most things we do. So, order to develop this, we need to develop a type of joyous effort or joyous perseverance which works towards the ten virtuous actions and away from the ten negative actions in a way that even in order to help clear suffering away from one sentient being that we will endure the most arduous