Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A student’s question — must siddhis be accomplished before realizing emptiness, or vice versa? — sets the agenda for this 29-minute Q&A with Geshe Pema Tsering on Grounds and Paths. The answer: neither comes first; bodhicitta, siddhis, and emptiness realization all synergize each other. He draws out the Sūtra-Tantra contrast: Sūtra cultivates two separate awarenesses — method and wisdom — that reinforce each other, while Tantra holds both in a single mind. Using the siddhi of going underground as a vivid example, he demonstrates that even such attainments require both concentration and genuine realization of emptiness, and that all siddhis are motivated by the wish to benefit beings. The session ends with a question on cosmology: both Sūtra and Tantra agree the world arises from karma and afflictive emotion, but Tantra targets progressively subtler levels of affliction. Suited to students already following the Grounds and Paths series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 2005 11 10 G and P (2).mp3
UUID: e8d7d92e-5f84-4fff-b859-ff99551db380
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Grounds & Paths (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-11-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 28.6 minutes
Words: ~1,321
What what date is today? Thirty two? Thirty Yeah. So we just wait, Jude, before we start with the questions because the questions are usually quite relevant. So in the meantime, could could you remind me what the question is?
Yes. Okay. Okay. Good one. I I I don’t know.
It’s a good question. So next question. So does one have to have the siddhis? It’s going to well, what does not have this one has to have the siddhis to accomplish it before the realization of emptiness Or vice versa. Or vice versa.
Okay. How does it how how does going underground relate to all this? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So then I asked him, okay?
I asked Geshe-la, this one has to accomplish the siddhis before being able to before realizing emptiness. And he said, no, that’s not the way it works. So what he was saying is that, so one meditates on emptiness, then one meditates on the siddhis or accomplishes a siddhi. And then again, So it’s like when I don’t know if you remember a few classes ago, we were talking about the Sūtra system of the union of method and wisdom and difference between the Sūtra system and the Tantric system, you remember? So that the Tantric system has one mind, one only one mind which has both aspects of method and wisdom.
And the and the and the sūtra system, this tantric and the sūtra system has two minds. So the mind of of enlightenment. So and then and then the the the mind realizing emptiness, the awareness realizing emptiness, and they how these two minds, these two awarenesses, they help each other. Right? And so it’s it’s the same.
Just instead of using the same meditations and teachings as in the Sūtra system, when we use the meditations and teachings of the lower tantras, involving the deities and so forth. So the same, like, as as as Geshe-la was saying right now, in the sūtra system, one meditates use also the mind mind of enlightenment. And then after having having given rise to this mind of enlightenment, bodhicitta, right? One engages in meditation on emptiness, right? And then this mind of enlightenment and this and the meditation on emptiness, they go helping each other.
And then after one finished meditating on emptiness, then one goes back to meditate on the mind of enlightenment and how they go synergizing each other. And the same he says, the same happens here. The accomplishment of the siddhis will synergize the meditation on emptiness. And and, again, the meditation on emptiness will synergize the accomplishment of the siddhis. Body of practices.
Yes, there is a No, no, no. They said this was my doubt. It’s the subtle body of practice. There is a gross body of practices such as giving and morality and and this is stated in the sutras like just like in the sutras. But there is a subtle body of practices that they don’t have in the sutras.
They don’t have they have only on tantras. And this this refers to the siddhis. It’s referring to the siddhis, and then to being able to go underground and seeing far away. Pardon? So if you can go underground, you can get more easy access to food.
So then, what can I say that, okay, that this easy access to food was just a joke? What is really is that the accomplishment of such a siddhi involves, let’s say, powerful concentration, involves concentration, right? But not only that, again, I say is involves also a certain a certain realization of emptiness because without being able without having both this this concentration and this and a certain realization of emptiness, then there’s no way you can go underground. So then he says says that then you need the the you need the it’s by the power of this mind realizing emptiness that you can go underground. Then I’m going to ask you a question now.
So yeah. So for example, before you can accomplish this siddhi of going underground, I asked specifically that, do you have to do you have to have realized emptiness? He says, yes. Okay. Very nice.
So then he’s just explaining to me right now then, all these siddhis, they depend on first having realized both the mind of enlightenment, the bodhicitta having bodhicitta and having mind realizing understanding a mind understanding emptiness, comprehending emptiness. So the fact that you have bodhicitta and realization of emptiness continues to develop the mind realizing emptiness and things. Yeah. Okay? And and the point of having those siddhis then is actually to help beings.
But with this motivation, we go everything we’re doing with the mind of enlightenment. Yes. Yeah. Well, he said, first of all, it’s like you’re doing that all that you’re doing with the motivation to achieve enlightenment for benefit of us. Yes, it is to benefit.
You’re achieving this you’re gaining the siddhis for the sake of all sentient beings. You’re gaining the siddhis for the sake of attaining enlightenment. You’re gaining the siddhis again to benefit all sentient beings. Yes. So this one here.
Don’t know how to say superhero, though. This is interesting because every culture seems to have superheroes in in them. Yeah. No. They have.
They have. They sure have. Well, they are superheroes. And Zoro Zoro was a Pardon? Zoro.
Zoro. No. No. No. Sorry.
No. No. I’m just trying to explain. Yes. Yes.
Last one, please. So it’s the city that relates to cutting afflictions and obscurations by the roots. Is that cutting the afflictive emotions and the obscurations by the roots, that’s what it is. I’m not sure here. Your English is English is good.
This is fine. Do we have the same text? Yeah. So the Tantra system, what you want to ask is if the tantra system has a different view of the universe of matter, different from what? The sūtra system?
Wow. Yeah. So what is what is the tantric explanation of the ultimate constituents of the universe? Is it different from what? Listen.
You’re saying are you asking is tantra another way of looking at the universe? Say, compared to the No. Yeah. English But it’s a concept. Doesn’t it have a whole way of explaining the whole kind of universe?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It does. So is that what?
Is that basically the tantra view? Yeah. Things The tantras do explain the universe in different ways. Yes? Different from Sūtra.
Right? Yeah. It has to be different different from something. The So okay. Maybe maybe your English is not so good, maybe my translation is not that good also.
So the answer I got, okay, that this word we live in, okay, it comes it is originated by karma, action and afflictive emotions, right, or afflictive mental conceptions. And this is the view of both the Sūtra vehicle and the Tantra vehicle is common. Okay? Both vehicles see that the origin of this world we live in, the Earth, planet Earth, is out of karma and afflicted afflictive emotions or conceptions, okay? And then the elimination, the eradication of these afflictive emotions and the exhaustion of these negative karmas, these contaminated actions, then leads to enlightenment and leads to one not having to be born here again.
And now what Geshe-la made a distinction, Geshe-la made one distinction, okay, that there are gross levels of afflictions and of karmas, and there are subtle levels of afflictions and karmas. He just made this distinction. After all that, as I saying that, he’s made this distinction, okay? So then yeah. So then Geshe-la explained that the objects of abandonment of the Sūtra vehicle are more coarse, and the objects of abandonment of the Tantra vehicle are more subtle.
So the afflictions are more subtle. Yes. Okay? Okay. Yeah?
Okay? We we finish? Finish.