Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Before a single line is read, Geshe Pema Tsering devotes the opening portion of this 46-minute first session to motivation: a Lama Tsongkhapa verse on the rarity of human rebirth sets the frame, followed by the three Lamrim levels — next-life benefit, individual liberation, and aspiring to enlightenment for all beings — with the pointed reminder that anything below the first level is not Dharma. He then unpacks the title: “heart” names the essence of the Perfection of Wisdom corpus, and “wisdom” specifically means the mind realizing emptiness. A lively detour covers four theories for how Vulture’s Peak got its name — including one involving a demon stealing the Buddha’s robes — before situating the Heart Sūtra within the broader Perfection of Wisdom literature. Accessible to those new to Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 HS 2003 01 03.mp3
UUID: e816b1e4-7f73-4606-ab03-f83ca990d10e
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Heart Sūtra (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-01-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.1 minutes
Words: ~4,043
Okay. So today, we’re going to be starting to study the Heart Sūtra. Before we start studying this, before we start going through this, we have to set our motivation. So our motivation is right to be listening to teachings. And in order to set our motivation, Geshe-la started by saying a quote from Lama Tsongkhapa, which said, by contemplating the leisure and endowments so difficult to find and the fleeting nature of your life, reverse the clinging to this life.
And by repeatedly contemplating the infallible effects of karma and the miseries of cyclic existence, reverse the clinging to future lives. By contemplating in this way, do not generate even for an instant the wish for the pleasures of cyclic existence. When you have day and night unceasingly the mind aspiring for liberation, then you have generated the determination to be free. Mhmm. And so what he says what he said this means is that we now, sitting in this room, have had the ability to get a human rebirth.
We came back here as humans. And to get this human rebirth was not an easy task. We had to do a lot of different things in order to, achieve this difficult task. And these, for example, were, praying a lot or doing a lot of good deeds. So on the basis of the the prayers that we made that we would be human and the basis of the, the good deeds that we accumulated in previous lives, we have now come to the point of being able to be born as humans.
So this situation that we’ve now managed to achieve is difficult. It’s easy to lose, it’s difficult to find, and it’s difficult to achieve. So we should be thinking about how difficult it has for us to get here and how how much work we’ve had to do to get here. So we should also be thinking about how to make this life meaningful, how not to waste this life. Because actually, if we don’t have a lot of time, and this life isn’t really long, if we know someone who’s a hundred years old, they’re very old.
We think of hundred year old people as being very old. So a hundred years isn’t really that long in the scheme of things. So in order to make this life as meaningful as possible, what we should be doing is concentrating on practicing Dharma to create the right causes and conditions to achieve liberation. So after this life, what’s gonna come next? We don’t actually know.
We may go to a, like, a a nicer rebirth, and we may go to a nasty rebirth. We can’t say. That depends on what we do with this life. If we accumulate a lot of merit, then and we’ve done a lot of good deeds, then we can go to a nice rebirth. And if not, we can end up in a pretty nasty state.
So what is what is it we’re we’re aiming for when we’re doing this practice? Well, our motivation should be, if we if we can, the best motivation that we can set is that we can dedicate all the things that we do that are positive to achieving enlightenment to benefit all sentient beings. And if we can’t do that, the next best thing is, to dedicate our all our good deeds to achieving our individual liberation, our individual, cessation of suffering. And if we can’t do either of those things, then the third best thing we can do is dedicating all our good deeds towards the fact that we come back in either the form of a human or the form of a god or some sort of pleasant rebirth. So the way that we should be doing this is by thinking ourselves.
We should be thinking in this way. We should be trying to get this thought into our head. If we’re not thinking in that way, then there’s nothing that we can do to set up a situation where we get where we have accumulated enough merit to have a good rebirth. Even if we start a war with someone or if we give people lots of money, there’s nothing there’s no way of doing it. It it only depends on the good things we’ve done.
We can’t buy our way there. Can’t fight our way there. And sometimes people find it hard to try and try and get this motivation in their head. They have to keep working at it. They have to keep thinking, you know, oh, I have to I have to I have to do this, and they can’t really get the the motivation happening easily.
But for Geshe-la, if he thinks about going to a to a hell realm or a really horrible place in his next life, it kind of spurs him on a bit, he says, so he can do that. So the the this this goal that we’re working towards our own the fruition of our own deeds. It’s the own the we’re we’re we’re reaping reaping our own fruit. So in that case, it’s our own karma that reaps that own fruit, that causes that own fruit to ripen. So we have to work on our karma.
And karma isn’t just doing good deeds. Every thought we have is karma as well. Every thought we have has the potential, has has, karma along with it. So we should be thinking about, what we’re thinking. We could should think be thinking about what we’re doing and trying to get make sure that we’re doing everything to to be of benefit.
So the way that our mind has been working is that since beginningless time, we’ve been thinking negative things and doing negative things and having these negative thoughts. So what happens now is that just naturally, have thoughts of anger and frustration and pride and and lust and all these things coming up in our mind. That’s the way that things are for us because they’ve they’re the habits we’ve accrued since beginningless time. And actually creating the causes for becoming enlightened, like, to like effort and joyful effort and patience and generosity and kindness and all these things, that’s actually difficult for us to to generate in our mind stream. Because the way our mind stream, works is is a bit like water.
If if it’s if we’re the negative things are coming into our mind stream, it’s like water trying to go downhill, which we find rather easy. But if we’re trying to generate these positive ideas in our mind, it’s almost like trying to push water uphill. We’re trying to make and it doesn’t water doesn’t go uphill unless you put a lot of effort into pushing the water up the hill. So it takes a lot of work in order for us to do to change our minds like this. Geshe-la says we can tell this.
Because if we sit down and watch our mind for about five minutes, about a minute of that may be thinking about positive things, but the other four minutes, our mind’s going everywhere trying to think of things we can do to make ourselves feel better and thinking of negative things about people or things like that. But the thing that we should be remembering is that that with whatever dharmic practice that we do, the whole point of it is to be in charge of our own minds, to be in control of our own minds. So whatever we focus we’re focusing on, the main point of it is to take control of our own minds. So when we talk about in Lamrim practice, there’s supposed to be three different levels of motivation. There’s small, the medium, and the great.
And for the small motivation, it’s that you do things for your next life, not this life, but for the next life. And the medium, motivation is that you achieve you’re doing things to achieve, your own liberation, your own freedom from suffering. And the third one is that you try and achieve Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. So if you have these three any one of these three motivations, whichever one you can you can manage, then whatever you’re doing becomes good Dharma, becomes like a good practice. But if you can’t if you don’t have those, it doesn’t become a dharmic practice.
So the lowest level of motivation we can set is that we’re focusing on the next life, that we’re doing things in order to have a good next life. If we’re thinking about this life, it’s not Dharma. So if we’re thinking about not being ill, if we’re doing everything in order not to get sick in this life, or if we’re doing everything in order to become famous in this life, or if we’re doing everything to become rich, or to, make ourselves feel better in this life, then that isn’t practicing Dharma. That doesn’t, help us in the end in any way. Any practice that we’re doing, if we sit there thinking, okay, I’m doing this so in the next lifetime I can become a a human or if not a god.
And in in one of those forms, I can practice Dharma properly and I can be exposed to Dharma, if you’re doing that with that motivation, then it becomes a a good Dharma practice that you’re doing. This is the smallest the smallest motivation. So if if we go on from thinking about this and then think, okay. Becoming back as a human or a god in my next life isn’t even really gonna help me much because I’m just gonna die again, then I’m gonna be born again and then die again. And I still don’t know where I’m gonna go every time I die.
So it’s it just brings on a whole bunch of suffering and and problems. So instead of that, what I should be focusing on is getting myself out of Samsāra completely and achieving liberation because then I won’t experience any suffering. And if you think in that way, that comes under the category of the second level of motivation, the the middle level of motivation, and that’s for individual liberation. So even we have to go a bit further than that even though to do it properly because if if we think about our own liberation and think, okay. If I get if I achieve liberation, if I achieve a nirvana, then I’m not gonna gonna be suffering.
I’m gonna be fine. I’m just I’m going to be in a peaceful, nice state. But all the people that have helped me in all the in all the different lives, all the people that may have been my even my mother in all the different lives, they’re still gonna suffering. So if I’m sitting there all happy and content and they’re suffering when I really should be a bit embarrassed, I really should be a bit cringing because they I’m not helping them. I’m just concentrating on my own, my own bliss and my own happiness, and I’m not thinking about them.
So because of this embarrassment about not helping anyone else, because of this this feeling like I should be helping them, then we generate the mind that all beings be free from suffering, that all beings have happiness, that all beings get liberated from saṃsāra. And this wish this wish to do in order to do that, the only way for me to do it is to attain Buddhahood. If we’re thinking in this way, then this is the best mind that we could have, and this is the best way for us to think. Okay. So says that when so when we’re practicing Dharma, and most people in this room, as in some way or another practice Dharma, he thinks that most people here are either Buddhist, if they’re not Buddhist, even if they’re Christians, they do some kind of spiritual practice in some way.
So depending on each religion’s individual focus, you should focus on that. But from a Buddhist perspective, when you’re doing any kind of practice, whether it’s saying mantras or prostrating or doing good deeds or helping anyone out, any of these things, if your motivation when you’re doing this is that this is going to may this be dedicated to achieving enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, then it becomes very powerful and becomes a very good way of practicing Dharma. And in fact, if you dedicate in this way and if you have this motivation that you’re doing things in order to achieve enlightenment, the other two levels actually come along with it. If you’re dedicating everything to achieving enlightenment, then naturally you have to achieve liberation before you can can help beings. You have to free yourself from suffering before you can help others.
And naturally, along with that, if you’re doing everything in order to achieve enlightenment, you accrue accrue sufficient amounts of of merit and good karma to be reborn into a nice place next lifetime. So at the at the moment, though, you said that in in this situation, we’re actually studying Buddhist philosophy because we’re studying the Heart Sūtra, and that’s a Buddhist text. So because of that, then the motivation probably should be that we are doing this in order to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, and Geshe-la is teaching this in order so that he can achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, and we should be likewise listening for the same reason, for the same with the with the same motivation. So we’re going to do just a little bit of meditation, and when we’re doing this meditation, we should be thinking that I’m going to I’m just about to study the Heart Sūtra. I’m just about to listen to the Heart Sūtra and try and ponder on it as much as possible, and the reason I’m doing this is so I can understand better, so I can achieve enlightenment.
And by achieving enlightenment, I can therefore be able to help all sentient beings in the best way possible. Oh, yeah. So if you can meditate now. What? So we’re studying a text called the Heart Sūtra.
The Heart Sūtra is actually why is it called Sūtra? The part where it says Sūtra is because it actually came from the mouth of Śākyamūni Buddha. It came from his mouth. If have Sūtra in a text in the text name, it usually means it was spoken directly by Buddha. Yeah.
Alright. This could be fun. The the Heart Sūtra in Tibetan is actually called something isn’t literally called the Heart Sūtra. It’s called the heart of wisdom. It’s the heart of intelligence or the heart of wisdom.
It’s called the Heart Sūtra in English, and in Tibetan, to literally translate it, it would be the heart of wisdom. So Geshe-la says, what are they talking about when they say this wisdom? Which wisdom are they talking about? There’s lots of different types of wisdom. There’s some texts that go through a thousand names for wisdom or thousand different types of wisdom.
What they’re talking about when they say the heart of wisdom is that is the wisdom that is the mind realizing the nature of existence, which is emptiness or the mind that realizes emptiness. That is the wisdom they’re talking about here. The wisdom that sees emptiness, that understands emptiness. Yes. The wisdom that is the mind that understands emptiness.
Okay, and now the heart. Why is it called the heart? The heart is in Tibetan belief, center of the body. It means the main, the essence, the part of all the different channels of the body end up at the heart and so it’s the bit that gets the essence of everything that’s going on in all the other sutras on wisdom. Oh, yeah.
So this sūtra falls into the category of the perfection of wisdom sutras. They divide all of the Buddha’s teachings into different groups. There’s one group Everything that talks about emptiness is what they call a perfection of wisdom sūtra. Anything the Buddha spoke that is talking about emptiness is perfectional wisdom sūtra. This is the main sūtra in that group.
This is the heart of that group. The heart is the bit that gets everything, and, this is the the heart of that whole group of texts that talk about emptiness. So the Buddha actually spoke this sūtra, and the place where he spoke this sūtra is called Vulture’s Peak, Gṛdhrakūṭa. It’s a Vulture’s Peak which is in the state of Bihar in India, not far from Bodh Gaya. And this is where he was when he actually taught all the teach all the sutras on emptiness or all the sutras on wisdom.
Okay. So why is this place called Vulture’s Peak? There’s a lot of different reasons why well, people say a lot of different reasons why it could be called Vulture’s Peak. The first one being the most obvious is it looks like a vulture. The second one is that it looks like a group of vultures.
The third one that vultures actually understand emptiness and therefore because of their brilliance in understanding emptiness that they named the peak after the vultures who understand emptiness. The fourth one, that a lot of vultures went there to eat dead bodies. Alright? So there’s a lot of vultures there. Therefore, it’s called vultures peak.
There’s also another point of view that actually one time when Buddha was Buddha was Fifty eight. Oh. When he was fifty eight, Buddha Śākyamūni Oh. Oh. Oh.
Okay. Fifty eight. When Buddha was fifty eight years of age, he actually went to vultures well, he went to a place where there was a rock that looked like a vulture, and a demon came and stole his robes. And he turned his robes magically into a vulture, which actually then turned into rock and made several different layered rock, which is why it’s called Vulture’s Peak. Oh, no.
Sorry. The demon was pretending to be a vulture and then stole his robes, and then the robes hit the rock and turned into something that resembled a vulture. Yeah. Does that make sense? Sorry.
It was it it it it kind of had the shape of a vulture, but after they threw the rope, it actually had a really like, it really looked like a vulture. And, you know, the the there is a. But they don’t know exactly if any of these theories are true because the source that they use for this is one guy who said it it comes from one text where someone said, okay, there’s these arguments about how it got called Vulture’s Peak, but we don’t know if it’s just what he said. We don’t know if it’s actually, like, true or anything. Yeah.
It’s kinda like they were speculating, and they and they just said all different things to try and get an idea of how and how about how these names came about, to try and get an understanding of it, and to try and put down all the the theories that they heard at that time so we could hear them. So so so so Buddha himself didn’t actually say how Vulture’s Peak got called Vulture’s Peak, and it isn’t isn’t in his teachings. So because he didn’t say anything, that meant everyone else thought they’d have a go. And and so they just were, okay. It may have been like this, and it may have been like that, and then they kind of com com made a compilation of all the different things that people had said.
But because it didn’t come from the mouth of Buddha, we’re not really sure how it may it actually came about, but these are the theories. Okay. So there’s these six places that I’m gonna have to try and remember. Bodh Gaya, Rajgir, Lumbini, Kushinagar, Sarnath, and Vaishali. That are the the the whole six holy places that Buddha went to in his life.
It’s hard enough hearing them in Tibetan, let alone trying to remember the Hindi. Yeah. So so that he went to in his life. And most in most of them these days, there isn’t much there. You’re not talking about much.
There’s Varanasi. Varanasi. That was the one I forgot. Varanasi is still there, but the rest of them aren’t really there. There’s not much there.
There’s not much there’s not even much in in in any of the places that that was there when the Buddha was there. So in order to establish what was happening then is very difficult or why they got their names. There isn’t much there to rely on. So it’s just a there’s a lot of speculation about the different places and what happened there. Okay.
So within this set of teachings called the perfection of wisdom sutras, there’s three ones that are usually referred to as the main three. And sake of for the sake of not having to say a whole bunch of Sanskrit, they are the the long prajnaparamita sūtra, the middle one and the short one. So the the first one is called the the great sūtra of a hundred thousand a hundred thousand boom. Okay. So it has a hundred thousand verses, and it’s called the great great sūtra of a hundred thousand verses because it it is great and not just great in in the sense of size, but it’s also great in terms of its meaning.
So the the the amount of words carries along with it a really in-depth meaning. So it’s not just the words that they’re talking about. Every word has meaning, so therefore, the meaning is expanded out. So the second one, which actually has, depending on who you listen to, twenty thousand or twenty five thousand stanzas. It or it’s called the middle prajnaparamita.
It’s actually shorter on words, but it still has the same meaning. It’s still it’s still got an incredibly vast meaning to it. It’s just that they managed to say that meaning in shorter words. In less words. Oh, yeah.
And Geshe-la says twenty thousand. He’s got twenty thousand So so the shortest one, has eight thousand stanzas, but even though they’ve used a lot less words and it’s a lot less explanation, it actually has the same meaning. So therefore, the same meaning as the larger text, it’s it’s said in a different way, and therefore, they’ve had to use less words. And so, in fact, all three of these different sutras have the same meaning. It’s just that they’ve been delivered in different ways.
Okay. So this is like giving a background of how the Heart Sūtra fits into everything, in case you didn’t guess. So the five, there’s also, they talk about five different big sutures or a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand verse sutures in Tibet that were really famous in Tibet. Tibet and they actually have they coincide with a aspect of the Buddha’s qualities. So the first one is called the prajnaparamita sūtra which is the the wisdom sutras and they coincide with Buddha’s mind.
And the next one is called the nirvana Sūtra, which is a manifestation or it has a link to Buddhist speech. There’s the one called the pile of jewels sūtra or the Ratnakuta Sūtra, which is a representation of Buddha’s body. And there’s one called the it it just means a big big a big lot that they translated it out. They say Avatamsaka Sūtra. And that’s in line with Buddha’s auspicious qualities.
And the last one is the Lankavatara Sūtra, the when he went to Sri Lanka. And and that it coincides with the enlightened activity of the Buddha. So these five different sutras were the the most famous ones in Tibet when or where is ah, then when people were talking about sutras, this is the way that they divided them up.