Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 35-minute session, Geshe Pema Tsering closes his commentary on joyous perseverance by distinguishing three forms — armor-like endurance for even one sentient being, the effort that gathers all Dharma practice together, and the effort directed at beings’ direct benefit — and punctuating the section with Je Tsongkhapa’s verse on unrelenting perseverance and its fruits. A student’s question about hedonism then opens an extended Q&A in which Geshe unpacks the three types of laziness (lelo): samsaric indulgence, procrastination, and thinking enlightenment is beyond you. A vivid apple example explains why practitioners must first see samsaric pleasure as poisonous rather than assume detachment is already present. The session closes on the middle way: do what you can, without pushing to the point of regret.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 34 2004 06 22 RG.mp3
UUID: d00fc1fc-82e3-4470-b5e4-c31c43e47512
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Essence of Refined Gold (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-06-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 35.3 minutes
Words: ~3,186
Of body, speech and mind in order there is no more in order. I’m just trying to read things backwards. Anyway, so in order to do this, we will endure the most arduous things with this thing called armored perseverance. Now, it doesn’t mean just putting yourself through these difficult situations in order to help one sentient being just putting up with the pain and grinning and bearing it. It means actually enjoying it.
The definition of this mind is a happy mind. So it’s not about putting up with things, it’s about enjoying putting up with things, like doing and being very happy to put up with things in order to help other beings, even if it’s just one being. Now, this mind that enjoys having to put up with things in order to help even one sentient beings is what’s called the armor like diligence or armor like joyous perseverance. So in dependence on this, if we then have the idea that in order to expand our practice of the other five perfections and the practice of diligence or joyous perseverance, that we can joyously do anything, this is what is called joyous effort or the diligence that brings together the Dharma. This means that, for example, if we are working towards Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings, then there’s not much that we’re not going to do in order to get to that goal.
There isn’t any time that we’re going to think that’s too hard, I’m not going to practice that, I’m not going to do this because we’re focused on the goal. We’re focused on working towards Buddhahood. We have that as our goal, we can turn everything that we do into a practice that works towards Buddhahood. Anytime we do anything, we can think, I’m doing this in order to attain Buddhahood for the sake of sentient beings. And at the same time, we’re not going to think I’m too tired, I’m not going to do this or have some other reason for not practicing and not turning whatever we do into practice.
If we have this idea of joyous effort that brings the Dharma together, then whatever we do will become positive in this way. So what this is basically talking about is a strength of mind. If we have a very strong mind, then we can do things in a very happy way that we may not necessarily be able to do now. This is talking about practices of Bodhisattva, right? So these beings have Bodhisattva in the mind stream if they’re able to do this properly.
So it means that if you are focused on the benefit of all sentient beings, if you are working from a position of compassion towards each and every sentient being then you are not worried about what happens to you. You’re worried about working for the benefit of sentient beings. So it means you have a strength of mind that means that you can do anything to benefit sentient beings. So in on the basis of these two different types of effort that is the armor like effort that means we can endure for the benefit of one sentient being and the effort that brings the dharma together the effort that wants to attain the other perfections, work towards the other perfections. On the basis of those, we’re able to abandon non virtuous actions, So not do non virtuous actions.
So, yes, it sounds strange when I say it in Tibetan as well. So, you’re not doing negative actions, which is another way of saying doing positive actions only. For the benefit of all sentient beings. This making effort that we have for the benefit of all sentient beings is what’s called the effort that works for the benefit of sentient beings. So this is oh, it just so working for the benefit of sentient beings is called the effort working for the benefit of sentient beings.
Anyway, so it’s just working for the benefit of sentient beings is the effort working for the benefit of sentient beings. What this does is it makes every effort to work towards Buddhahood by getting rid of all negativities and practicing all positive things without a gap so that it can be of the most benefit to being. So it’s this idea of doing everything you can, all positive things you can, abandoning all negative things in order to become a Buddha, in order to benefit sentient beings. So to explain this, there’s a a quote from Je Tsongkhapa, a poem from Je Tsongkhapa that says, if you If one wears the armor of unrelenting perseverance, qualities of learning and insight will increase like the waxing moon. All activities will become meaningful and all works begun will reach completion.
Knowing this, bodhisattvas apply themselves to vast perseverance, dispeller of apathy. If one wears the armor of unrelenting perseverance, this is what we were talking about in the first part where it said that if you have the armor of perseverance then even for the benefit of just one sentient being then you endure extreme austerities with a happy mind. Not only that but if you practice the diligence or the joyful perseverance with regard to bringing together the Dharma, your qualities of learning and insight will increase like the waxing moon. All activities will become meaningful. Everything will be done with the idea of working towards Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings.
All works begun will reach completion. If you have this idea of joyous perseverance, you’re not going to give up when you haven’t finished something. You keep working in the same way as the bodhisattvas and you don’t have this idea of starting something and then not finishing it. Knowing this, bodhisattvas apply themselves to vast perseverance dispeller of apathy. Apathy is this like wanting to do it’s not apathy either.
There’s got to be a word for it. The dispeller of — it’s this word again that means being attracted to things that aren’t helpful. So the dispeller of wanting to sleep and eat and all those kind of things, yeah, or being attached to that. Knowing that these bodhisattvas apply themselves to the vast perseverance, the samsaric view is very vast and to get rid of their attachment to samsaric things which aren’t going to create happiness for them. Yes, I do.
That’s the end of Perseverance. Next week, we’re going to do Protection and Meditative Concentration. Geshe-la wants to know if you have any questions. I hope I didn’t scare you. Yes, Chris.
Hedonism. So is this this in Tibetan, it’s the word lelo. So I’m staying with that for the There’s three different versions of it. First version of this laziness, whatever, is actually being caught up in samsaric happiness and not noticing what you should be doing. So being completely involved in hedonism.
That’s only one aspect of it. The second aspect of it is thinking that you do it another time, procrastinating. I’m too busy to do it now so I’ll do it when I’m older or I’ll do it in my next life. That’s the second type of lelo. The third type of lelo is thinking you can’t do it.
I can’t become a Buddha. I can’t achieve realizations. I can’t develop my mind. So it encompasses all three of them. Yeah.
So this is another way of thinking about it is that what this lelo is is the opposite of joyous effort, right? A joyous perseverance or diligence. But it’s not just the opposite of it. It’s also anything that harms perseverance, anything that stops you, anything that distracts you from perseverance is this thing. So Geshe said, well, we can only do what we can do.
We can only handle what we can handle, so we shouldn’t be pushing ourselves into extremes and stuff that we’re going to regret. But ultimately, in order to become a Buddha, have to give attachment to any enjoyment in saṃsāra because any enjoyment that we have in saṃsāra is something that we’re attached to. Anything. Anything. But if you’re if you’re if you’re he he explained this because I was like, what?
If you’re if you’re enjoying having a cup of tea, right, and thinking I’m really enjoying having this cup of tea, yeah, then there is an attachment to that cup of tea. And if you don’t someone doesn’t give you the cup of tea, you’re going to be missing the cup of tea. So there’s and if there’s attachment that creates suffering, right? So if you it’s not saying give up everything all at once. It’s saying look at the faults of the enjoyments that you’re having, yeah?
And think if I if I’m attached to this then that’s only gonna create suffering in the future. Alright? It’s it’s my my happiness depends on something external to me. Yeah? So it it means ultimately getting rid of all attachment to anything in saṃsāra.
Alright? And that’s the only way you can become a Buddha. Yeah? But that doesn’t mean that we can we all have to do it all at once because we can’t. We we have to deal with what we can do and and gradually work towards things.
Yeah? Because it’s not about making yourself miserable. It’s being happy with what you don’t need. Then I said, Yeah, but didn’t Buddha have Don’t you remember the story about Buddha? This is what the discussion was about.
Did extreme asceticism for six years and then someone gave him some yogurt and that was like his middle way because he wasn’t going to do the extreme asceticism before he could and it was like a middle way approach between extremes of asceticism and indulgence. And Geshe-la said, Yes, but if he hadn’t done the six years of asceticism, he wouldn’t have been able to make that approach. Was on the basis of that six years of extreme asceticism, getting rid of attachments to things that he was actually able to become a Buddha. So that was the point of him doing the six years of asceticism. So it ultimately means so it ultimately means working towards a point of view that the only reason that you eat, the only reason that you drink tea, the only reason that you do these things is to not die. Right?
It’s not because there’s any inherent enjoyment in that process because that’s all about attachment. You eat it as medicine to stop you dying so that you can work towards Buddhahood. No. I reckon it’s a middle way.
I think the point I would like frankly that if you’re living in the Right. And and you’re enjoying the conversation Geshe-la said, sorry. He said we’re actually living in an extreme because all of everything we experience is based on stimulation from outside. That’s an extreme, he said. No.
No. I’m just actually trying to get the question out. So Geshe-la says that we have this extreme of attachment to things and seeing things as being inherently existent. So the way we exist is an extreme. We’re constantly looking for stimulation stimulation from outside even if that is in a even at every moment we’re looking for how to make myself happy by thinking that things truly exist and that we can grasp onto them no matter what it is.
So for us to come back to the middle we have to get past our attachments to everything in Samsāra because we haven’t made ourselves happy doing this, being attached to things, thinking that we can grab onto things. So we are living in an extreme at the moment. Okay. I’ll get your question out now. Said that that’s fine, but it’s not gonna get rid of your attachment.
He said that if you don’t if you’re not thinking about, okay. This is what I’ve this is if you’re not if you’re just going, this is fine. This is a nice experience. And he goes, but can you actually if you are actually enjoying that moment without looking at the faults of that moment, are you truly going to be able to say if happiness never comes along again, I’ll be fine? Yeah, but hang on, sorry to say it.
Anyway, I’ve got to translate first, otherwise I’ll get confused. Alright, so then you have this if you’re attached to the present moment, that experience of joy, then there’s no end to that. There’s no end to constantly striving for samsaric happiness. You have to look at that moment, see why you’re attached to that moment, see that it’s not true happiness, yeah, and cease to be attached to it in that moment. So if you unless you do that, you’re still you’re you’re behaving in an extreme.
You’re behaving in an extreme of attachment. Right? And he said, And even if you are experiencing it, it’s like it’s not true happiness. So if you’re rejoicing thinking, Oh, well, I must have created the causes to have something good happen, right? It’s not true happiness.
So you’re rejoicing in experiencing the results of saṃsāra. Yeah. So that’s So so the idea is that we have this we we have this idea that those kind of happiness is a happiness, and that we can then be happy when they come about. Oh, I experienced that kind of nice thing. Isn’t that great?
Right? But having this idea of experiencing that kind of nice thing isn’t that great is actually being attached to it. Yeah? And if we’re doing that, that means we’re working towards more happiness in saṃsāra. It’s not true happiness.
It doesn’t make us happy. It hasn’t made us happy until this point, so there’s no point in thinking it’s going to make us happy in the future. We have to look at it. If we look at that kind of happiness, we can’t rely on it. It doesn’t last.
It doesn’t help anyone, so there’s no point thinking, oh, it’s great that I have this happiness at the moment because it doesn’t help anything. So it’s the same thing as if a pig has just eaten lots of food, then they’re happy. Alright? But if we look at the situation the pig’s in, we’re not gonna be like, oh, that’s where I wanna be. You know?
We’re not that that we’re not going to be looking at that pig saying that’s really that’s true happiness. Yeah? So it’s the same situation that we’re in. We look at what we think is happiness and keep thinking, yeah, that is it. This is it.
This is what I should be rejoicing and so I should be happy about but it’s not. So guess what? Well, you can have doubts about it, and then that’s why that you can you can’t get rid of it. So But he said that he said that the the joy that we if we can think about it this way, if we are experiencing something and go, okay. This feels like happiness to me, but it’s the same thing as if I was looking at pig.
You know? And the pig’s just eating and he’s really happy. Do I wanna be there? I’m experiencing the same Then I’ll listen. Give me a hug.
He wants to give you an example now. Okay. So Geshe-la said his example revolves around apples. Right? So if you have habituated yourself to eating an apple that’s diced up every day, right, and you really enjoy your apple, yeah, and you go through it slowly and you eat one piece at a time, one piece at a time, one piece at a time.
Then one day someone only comes and gives you one piece of apple, right? If you are able to eat every time the apple without attachment, the one piece of apple that you get instead of the whole apple won’t make any difference to you. But because that’s not the state of our mind, it’s best not to eat the apple or to view the apple as poison in the first place. If we’ve already reached that stage, then it’s okay to eat one piece of the apple and we’re really fine whether whether there’s a there’s lots of apple or there’s one piece of apple. Right?
But if we have attachment in our mind stream, then eating an apple every day in that way is gonna make us attached to the whole apple. Yeah? So in order for us to get to the middle ground, we don’t start off by saying I’m not attached and whatever comes is fine. We have to start by turning our mind away from we have to turn that attachment around, right? So in actual fact, being attached to that apple is creating suffering for us so the apple is actually like poison for us.
In order for us to get to the state where we’re not attached, don’t start off with the idea that whatever happens, happens, it’s fine. We have to understand that our attachment is a problem. We can’t start off at the end. We don’t understand that the apple is actually like poison at the moment. We don’t understand that feeding our attachments just creates suffering for us in the future.
So in order for us to understand that, we have to get So in the same way that we don’t see apple as poison because they create attachment in our minds and create situations where we experience suffering, we don’t see saṃsāra happiness for what it is, which is poison that creates makes us stuck in saṃsāra. I said, I think she’s still got He goes, Of course, she’s going to have doubts. Otherwise, she’d like have realized He said there’s no point doing that. And so that if you if you go home and sulk, then you’re not gonna be happy in any way. You have to be happy, but the happiness has to come from you, not from the objects that you’re interacting with.
But you can’t make yourself truly happy until you realize that saṃsāra is nothing but suffering. Yep. Yes. He said, Yes, definitely. We need to That’s like a middle way path.
We have to do what we’re able to do, and not only that, do what we’re able to do without developing regrets about afterwards. We have to strengthen our mind so we can do more and more. We don’t start off by doing stuff that we’re not able to do because if you regret doing something you’ve done, then you undo the positive karma of that. So you just do what you can, and that is like a middle way. Yeah.
Yeah. That’s all. Is that all okay? Chris, do you have a question? You mean?
Yeah. You look like you’re going, and I didn’t want you to be scared. Okay then. But we’ll make notes on us next time. Don’t be scared.
Okay.