Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Why is the person hurting you not really the cause of your harm? In this 46-minute session, Geshe Pema Tsering takes up the perfection of patience, arguing that harm originates in our own past karma rather than in the person who acts against us, and that a single moment of anger can erase merit accumulated over eons — including the merit earned by ordained monastics through their fortnightly confession ceremonies and rains retreat. The wide-ranging Q&A covers three sharp ethical questions: whether childhood abuse is the victim’s karma (yes, but this demands seeking the most beneficial course of action, not passive acceptance); whether killing a suffering animal is compassionate (no — only removing self-grasping ends suffering, the same logic that makes killing terrorists self-defeating); and why formally taking vows is more powerful than deciding virtue case by case.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 38 2004 07 20 RG.mp3
UUID: 024598c4-a32d-4b1d-b177-027dff7e438b
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Essence of Refined Gold (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-07-20
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.8 minutes
Words: ~3,282
I wasn’t pointing at you. I pointing at the table. So, the next thing that we’re up to is the practice of patience, which is the third of the perfections that we need to train in. The perfection of patience is said to, first of all, to the way that it is not appropriate for us to react with anger when someone harms us. Now the reason that it is not appropriate for us or beneficial for us to react with anger when someone harms us is that the real reasons for ourselves being harmed is not an external person.
It is, first of all, that we are receiving retribution from someone, a negative action that we have performed in the past. So we don’t get harmed by other people, we get harmed by the causes that we have created to experience the results of harm. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that if we wanted to actually find the person responsible for the harm that is being inflicted on us, it wouldn’t be the person doing the harm but the fact of the anger that has arisen in them, the neurosis that has come about in their mind which caused them to do something negative towards us. So, if we want to blame anything for the harm that was inflicted on us, then we have to look to first of all our own negative actions in the past and second of all to the actual neurosis itself, the actual conflicted mind itself as opposed to the person. This is where we need to look to if we want to point fault when we are harmed in any way.
The second thing is that anger doesn’t help us in any way. If we are angry for just one moment, it’s said that that is, can be responsible for us wiping out positive karma that we have accumulated over eons. Now, it especially refers to the positive karma that’s accumulated through the practices of what’s called the three bases. Now the three bases refers to four bases. Oh no, no, three bases.
Sorry. Yeah, three bases. And the three bases are the practice of Sojong which is actually referring to that fully ordained monks and nuns do. The first of which is the practice of Sojong which is a meeting every fortnight, twice a month to purify shortcomings in their vows. So they meet every couple of weeks to, it’s a way of like a confession except it’s a group confession.
So that’s the first way of these three bases that collect what’s a merit. The second one is what’s called the rains retreat. In the Vinaya, the monks are asked to spend the rainy season in a retreat situation and focusing intensely on practice and at the end of the rains retreat then they take other vows or they have a release from that rains retreat and they take and do another confessional ceremony. So the basis of these three practices of fully ordained monks creates a lot of merit, positive karma because of the vows that they’re taking, they’re done within and the practices themselves. So the accumulation of these three different types, the merit from these three different types of practices over eons is wiped out once you get angry.
So you have to be really careful about anger and really try and recognize when we’re getting angry and try and stop it. We should think, hang on, I’m getting angry here and that’s not gonna help and then try and do anything we can to stop ourselves from being angry. So therefore anger is said to be pointless and destructive. The other thing is that if other beings harm us and we experience great suffering from harm that others inflicted on us we can also look at that as a way to get rid of our arrogance and pride. So we can actually, if we don’t react, we don’t get angry, if we don’t try and seek revenge in some way then we can actually use that situation as a way to get rid of arrogance and pride.
So it can be beneficial for us if other beings harm us. So we can pause. And Geshe-la thinks you probably have questions. Does anyone have a question? Sure, because I’ve got a question too for you guys.
It’s a test. No, it’s not a test, yes. What were the three no. I remember Geshe Tashi Namgyal doing that to me once and I got wrong and he hit me with mala. Yep.
It didn’t hurt. Sorry. Go on. [Question about a child being sexually abused] Okay, so nothing happens that isn’t the result of karma, so you can’t have a result without a cause. If you have a result then there needs to be a cause for that, so there needs to have been something that caused that to come around, so the cause for that had to have been negative action in the past by the person experiencing it but then causes don’t turn into results without conditions so there needs to be the conditions of the negative factors of the other people that are performing that doing these things for that cause to bring about a result.
He said no, he would think that that would be a result of something negative happening as opposed to a reason for something negative to happen. But what it does do is give, what it would do would be give the person, whether it’s a child or an adult, an opportunity to do whatever they could not to be in that situation. So it could give them a way to get out of it, it’s definitely a cause for it to happen. The words he used, I was trying to be as specific as possible, the words he used is to find a way out of it, to, it’s not like a dharma way. The word is this word that’s Tavshi which is like they use it for, I don’t know, this word he was saying is like, they use it for find a way to make the Indian government help you.
You know what I mean? It’s like, it’s not like a cosmic way to find a way out of it. Like, do what you can to not be in that situation. Very practically, not a Yeah. Not like, not not sit there.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That’s yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It says like it’s a worldly thing.
Yeah. It’s a worldly way out as well. Okay. Geshe-la said that doesn’t make any sense. And I said yeah, but they could no, hang on.
He said, doesn’t make any sense for them to be in that situation, but they have to look to see if the situation will get worse if they leave or better if they leave. And so he said to, yeah. Sorry. No. Because I just said in Tibet, they don’t always leave if they’re getting hit.
And he said, yeah, but sometimes they do. Yeah. If he said, You have saṃsāra, you have everything happen. So he said that So it’s not a matter of thinking that this is just my karma. I should stay here and the beatings.
It’s a matter of trying to look at the situation with as much objectivity as you can and see which is going to be the most beneficial for everyone involved. If staying and making the situation better and practicing patience is beneficial for everyone involved and is going to help everyone, then do that. If it s not going to work, if it s not going to help anyone, then leave. So it’s not a matter of saying this is my karma or this isn’t my karma, it’s looking at the situation to see which is the most beneficial. He said, yeah, probably not, but what they need to do is to analyze and look at the situation as much as possible.
Yes. I like that when you say that natural vows. That’s actually just a word in Tibetan and I’m thinking, man, how do I translate that word? Yes. They’re not natural vows. Sorry, not natural Naturally. Not natural virtues and virtues from vows and virtues that are Yeah.
Special vow to consolidate it to make it easier. Mhmm. Sure. So I’ve taken the vow out there. I didn’t worry about it.
That’s what I’m doing. Sure. Okay. And that’s that’s the idea about it. Right.
He said, yeah, the reason that you take vows is to, because they’re beneficial to your practice of ethics and they don’t just mean that you’re practicing ethics in any given situation but it means that you’re carrying around the practice of ethics at all times. So for example, if we take the example of killing. Now killing is a non virtuous action whether you have vows or not, right? It’s a non virtuous action if you kill without vows and it’s a non virtuous action if you kill with vows if you refrain from killing in a given instance and that is practicing ethics if you take a vow not to kill you’re practicing that ethical situation for your whole life. Yeah, so you have a vow not to kill all the time so you’re continually being ethical.
You’re continually restricted from that unethical behavior whereas if you don’t have that vow, you are only practicing that ethics in certain given situations. Does that mean? If have vow, you’re continually practicing the ethics of not killing because you have a vow restricting you from killing, when you take the vow until you die, yeah, but if you only decide I’m not going to kill, yeah, when the situation comes up, you’re only practicing not killing in that situation, yeah, as opposed to continually practicing it all the time. So obviously, having something that you’re continually practicing all the time is more beneficial for your practice of ethics and more solid and helps you to be able to practice other parts of the Buddhist path more, with a more solid base. I had a bug fly in my mouth when I was translating once.
Committed suicide. So, the idea of killing something being putting it out of their misery doesn’t really fit into Buddhism because of the concept of reincarnation. Alright, so if you’re not putting something out of its misery by killing it, you could be sending it to a place where it’s experiencing more misery. Yeah. Just because it’s not in front of your face doesn’t mean that it’s not experiencing misery.
Alright. The cause for its misery is not that you don’t it on the head. The cause for its misery is that it has self grasping and it’s created the causes for that. So what you want for this animal is not to be put out of it to be killed, it’s to become a Buddha because that’s the only way it’s going to stop suffering, not by killing it. Yeah.
So what you’re trying to do here for that animal is to do as much as you can to make that come about, to pray for the animal, to try and help it as much as you can. But to think that I’m killing it to put it out of his misery doesn’t make sense if there’s a continuation of life. Yeah, that’s the same thing. Yeah, but you don’t know if you kill it then it’s gonna go to hell. That’s what she was saying.
If it’s suffering, kill it. You don’t And that suffering could actually like Purify the results of going to a worse place afterwards. I’ve gotta check that because I just said that myself and I know shit all. Sorry, first day back. Allowed to make mistakes on the last day and the first day.
You don t get rid of suffering by killing an animal, get rid of suffering by getting rid of self grasping. So if you want that animal to stop suffering, have to get rid of it self grasping, alright? So you can’t get rid of the animal suffering by killing it. That doesn’t do anything for it. So are if you are trying to get the animal even into a situation where it can regret and purify things that it has done in order to purify its karma and not have to experience suffering.
So what you need to do is to look at the animal suffering and pray really hard that you are able to develop yourself enough and to become a Buddha so that you can help the animal get rid of suffering. That’s the way you can help the animal. You can’t help the animal by killing it. Geshe said it’s a similar thing to thinking. That it’s a similar situation to this idea that we can stop suffering in the world, or we can stop bombs going off all around the world by killing terrorists, right?
We have this idea that, okay, they’re the problem, we kill the problem, that goes away. Yeah, it’s the same with when we see a bug, the bug is suffering, kill the bug, the suffering goes away. It’s not the way it works. By killing, you create more suffering. You don’t ever create the end of suffering by more killing.
Alright, it doesn’t ever work. So the same idea as people have this idea of they keep killing terrorists, then there will be no terrorists left and they’ve won. It’s not gonna work. The more people you kill, the more terrorists you create. The more suffering you create, the more anger you create, the more problems you create.
So therefore, the more terrorists you create. So you’re never going to be able to get rid of suffering by killing no matter who or what it is. Better be quick. He doesn’t think that spiders’ natural inhabitant is a house. So he said that he thinks it’s best to put the spiders outside because they’re outside animals and he doesn’t know how much they’re gonna actually be able to eat inside as well.
So if their natural habitat is outside then putting them outside doesn’t necessarily mean they’re gonna die. They come from outside. So, but he said if there is such a thing as an inside spider, then leave the spider inside. Now quickly, I have a question for you guys, which I’m asking now, so I can tell them, but we don’t have that much left to this text and this class is actually Geshe-la’s choice for teaching and we were trying to figure out a text and then he said to ask you guys if you have anything you particularly want to study and that’s like very unusual for I’ve heard of that. Yeah.
Have you guys heard of that? It’s a text called Nāgārjuna’s Letter to a Friend and it’s about it’s about like it’s about engaged Buddhism. It’s about like how to behave in society and about say it’s it’s a Nāgārjuna teaching a king about how to run the country and like an ethics for society and how to behave? Yeah, does that sound cool? Yeah.
Geshe-la likes it. Now I have to go and search for the text. But that’s alright. Yeah. Okay, so anything that we can experience has to have a cause, right?
And that’s why Samsāra is so bad is that all of the Samsāra is about is at one stage doing something negative towards someone and then another stage experiencing negativity back at you you know it’s like that’s what that’s why Samsāra sucks that s why it s so bad is because it s about in one lifetime hurting someone the next time experiencing the results of that suffering and then going back through it and again and then thinking they hurt me I m gonna hurt them or they hurt me that what Samsāra is it s experiencing the results of doing bad things in the past and then keeping on repeating that cycle and experiencing suffering. You can’t have a result without a cause and you usually don’t have a result without a, what’s called a similar cause. Yeah, so you do something bad to someone in one life, you experience something bad in the next life, yeah, or in a future life. So, and I said, but so then how do you deal with that? So, to help the question, Geshe said, so if you grow up, right, then you have to say okay this person caused me suffering I don’t want anyone else to suffer I’m not going to do this.
I regret everything that I’ve done that’s negative. I have compassion for anyone who’s done anything negative and you cut the cycle. And until you get rid of self grasping, there is not going to be cessation of suffering. In the world at the moment. These people don’t know ethics.
They don’t have an idea of what’s gonna make them happy and what’s not gonna make them happy. Then they are focused all continually on themselves as opposed to anyone else. So if someone’s mired in that kind of neurosis and destruction, they’re going to keep behaving in negative ways until they develop understanding but the thing is they don’t have dharma in their lives they don’t have an understanding of ethics so in this way they’re very sad people it’s very sad for them to be in this situation Yeah. I think I know what you mean. Listen.
Hey? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. No.
It’s okay. But we have to we really do have to, like, chop it off at some stage. Because This is possible and it’s there’s lots of stories about it in text. Like, there’s a lady who had the hots for the Buddha. There was another person who tried to seduce Langri Thangpa, this guy.
So there’s there’s always this and there’s a lots of times that happens with monks and nuns that they have people very attracted to them. So the if they’re like very virtuous people. So what the thing is though, is that person who is practicing virtue has to realize and has to realize that there may be lust arising in this other person or attachment arising in this other person but if they if they actually leave their place of virtue and go and become attached to this person thinking they can help they’re not going to be there’s as much benefit as if they continue to be virtuous. So they have to keep working for the benefit of other people and trying to purify other people and that depends on what they’re going to do in that situation depends on the way they perceive the situation. And so from the point of view of the person that is attracted to the virtue, there’s two ways they can go about it as well.
They can look at it and say, alright, I like this person. If I try and seduce them and take their vows away from them, I’m hurting them and I’m hurting me, yeah? If I try and help them to protect their vows and help them to protect the way of life they’re living, they’re benefiting themselves and benefiting me. So you can either, from that perspective as well, you can look at two different ways. Yeah.
Sorry. Sorry. You’re gonna have to apologize to everyone else. Okay? Say sorry.
I’m keeping you in here, and I’m sorry. Otherwise, I’ll get in trouble.