Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute introductory session, Geshe Pema Tsering opens with a striking image the Buddha himself offered: treat his teachings like a gold merchant checking gold — chop it in half, rub it, weigh it — and accept only what holds up under analysis. From that premise, he lays out the two aspects of Buddhism (scripture and realization), then explains why the Buddha taught three successive Dharma wheels addressing different student temperaments. He works carefully through the Four Noble Truths as two paired cause-and-effect relationships, identifying self-grasping as the root cause of suffering. The second half turns practical: karma is defined broadly as everything we do and experience, its moral weight determined entirely by motivation. Geshe Pema closes by enumerating the ten non-virtuous actions, covering the three of body and all four of speech. Pitched at complete beginners.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 ItB 2003 03 10.mp3
UUID: d08598f0-a8eb-4503-b752-cdd14c784ece
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: IB Introduction to Buddhism (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-03-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.9 minutes
Words: ~3,313
Hello. Okay. So if the people that are used to taking refuge, they could recite it themselves and I won’t say it. Okay. So the the purpose that we’re here for tonight is to explain the basis of Buddhism.
Now Buddhism, if we take the words of Śākyamūni Buddha who founded Buddhism, Buddhism has two aspects to it, two aspects that we need to know in order to understand Buddhism. And those aspects are the aspect of scripture or text and the aspect of realization or understanding or knowledge. So a lot of the time when people talk about the Buddha’s teachings, they always talk about the truth. There’s all these different types of truths that people associate with the Buddha’s teachings. But in order to understand the essence of the Buddha’s teachings, the thing that you need that that we need to understand is these two aspects, the truth of the text or the truth of the word and the truth of the realizations or the understanding.
So when we’re talking about the truth of the word or the truth of the texts then what we talking about is the words that Śākyamūni Buddha spoke and the words that Bodhisattvas also spoke, words that the teachers speak and the words that us individually speak these is what we mean by the truth of the word or the truth of the writing So it’s trying to develop an understanding of those is the purpose that they were spoken for. So these two together become the truth, the the first truth. Okay. So the the truth of realization is the truth of understanding. He talks about is the path that we go, we progress through in order to attain Buddhahood.
So the the truth is the path in a Buddhist terminology is referred to as the five paths of the three vehicles. So what that means is there’s three different ways you can achieve Buddhahood and three different paths you can go on and those different paths have five stages in each. So those paths are referred to as the truth of realization and before people arrive at those paths, so they’re beings like we are here today, then the thing that they must train in is the three the three higher trainings is what they’re called. And those three higher trainings are in ethics and in wisdom and in meditation. Okay.
And so when we’re talking about the truth of the word and the truth of the teachings then that what that actually the purpose of the truth of the teachings was to explain what it needs to be abandoned because the things that we need to abandon are the things that are going to cause us suffering and what we need to cultivate because the things that we want to cultivate are the things that are going to cause us happiness and because all beings want happiness and don’t want to suffer then that was the purpose of these teachings. And those are divided again because the Buddha taught in what I call three Dharma wheels. Three he taught on three main areas in his teachings, and they’re called the the first wheel, the second wheel, the third wheel. So the reason that Buddha taught three different Dharma wheels or three different ways of the three different sets of teachings in his lifetime is because the different his different students had different dispensations and they each of the different wheels of Dharma or the different sets of teachings has a separate focus, a separate object that it is working towards and so because the students that he was teaching to had different tendencies and different ways of looking at things he taught in these three different ways to facilitate the needs of the different types of students.
So the the first wheel he taught the first teachings here he taught were on the Four Noble Truths. The second teachings he taught were on emptiness and the third set of teachings he taught were to stop those students who had gone into either nihilism and believed in nothing or into eternalism and believed everything to be solid to stop them falling into either of these extremes, he then taught the third wheel of Dharma. So the Buddha said to his his students, don’t accept my teachings, because you think they’re holy. But instead, in the same way as a gold merchant, would check gold very carefully before he buys it, analyze everything I say, and if it works for you, then practice. If it doesn’t work for you, then forget about it.
I don’t know if it’s a direct translation, but yeah. And so the he said the first the first thing when you hear my teachings, don’t think, oh, the Buddha said this, therefore, they are very holy teachings and I must accept everything the Buddha says. Don’t think like that. The idea is that when a gold merchant is going to buy gold, first of all, he he rubs he rubs it he rubs everything and he chops it in half and he looks very carefully at it. So the idea is that before you accept the Buddhist teachings, analyze everything and don’t just accept them at face value.
And then after all your analysis, after all your chopping it in half and polishing it and weighing it and so forth, if it makes sense to you, then accept it and practice it. And if it doesn’t make sense to you, then throw it away. Part of the reason he said this was because in his first teaching, on the four noble truths, he actually says that things exist. In the second teaching he says that things don’t exist and in the third teaching he says that things do exist and don’t exist. They neither exist or don’t exist but and they do both and they neither.
So for people to have to understand those they had to do a lot of practice and they had to do a lot of, analysis of the three different things, three different ways he talked in order to make sense of them. So for example, in the first teaching, he he taught the inherent inherent existence of of objects and of people and things like that. And so because he most of the people there believed that things that things phenomena and people existed inherently. And then because but the idea was because they believed that in the first place that he wanted to draw them slowly into a better understanding of of reality. So he started from where their minds were.
Okay. So the so the second teaching that he taught was, to expand his concept of reality, in that all things don’t exist inherently, but they do exist, from the power of mind, from the power of the labeling mind and in the third turning of the wheel that was to stop people falling into the extreme of nihilism of believing that nothing existed at all. So in order to teach people that tell them that nothing had any meaning and nothing existed, then he taught the third turning of the wheel. So the first turning of the wheel and the third turning of the wheel are both to stop people having extreme views in their minds, and the second turning of the wheel was to explain reality how it is. Okay.
So the first turning of the wheel was on the four noble truths or the four truths of the Aryas. And in Tibetan, it comes out as twelve words, but I’m gonna I don’t know if it will in English. I was thinking, oh, how do I make that twelve words? So Geshe-la said, so his first teaching was only twelve words, and they were, life is suffering. Suff the suffering Okay.
So the first one is that suffering exists. The second one is suffering I’m trying to think of how to translate the second one. Okay, so, second one is the truth of origin and that doesn’t make any sense, does it? The truth of origin. He’s saying it’s the truth of origin.
Was like, yeah, but Okay. Sorry about this guys. That was I was just thinking I said, but that doesn’t make any sense if I said, You have to know the origin of suffering, because origin of suffering doesn’t mean anything, so is there any other way I could say it? And he’s like, That’s what Buddha said. So you have to tell him what Buddha said.
I was like, Right. So Buddha said that the first truth is the truth of suffering, and the second truth is the truth of the origin of suffering, so you have to know the origin of suffering. The third truth is the truth of cessation, in that suffering can cease, and the fourth truth is the path towards the cessation of suffering, which doesn’t come to twelve words, but it’s what Buddha said. So the four truths are known as the truth of suffering, the truth of origin, the truth of cessation, and the truth of the path. Okay, so the Buddha it’s been said in many different ways and it’s presented in many different ways in different texts, the basis is that first of all there is the truth of suffering that suffering exists.
The second one is is truth of the origin of suffering as in an explanation about how suffering comes about. The third one being the truth of cessation in that the cessation of suffering is possible. The fourth one truth of the path being the way to achieve that cessation of suffering. So they may be presented in different ways in different texts and by different teachers, but the essence of the four is the same. So another way that we can look at these Four Noble Truths is in terms of cause and effect.
So if we look at the last two, the path is the cause and the cessation is the effect. So if you practice the path, the result of practicing the path is the cessation of suffering. And if we look at the first two, then it’s it’s cause and effect, but in terms of what should be abandoned as opposed to what should be cultivated. So the first being the truth of suffering is the effect and the truth of the cause of suffering is the cause. So the first two are the ones that are to be abandoned, the second two to be cultivated and they both go into two sets of cause and effect.
So if we’re looking at the first two, the truth of suffering is something that we can experience and that we understand because everyone experiences suffering. The truth of the origin of suffering, if you want to know how, is the cause for this suffering. So if we’re trying to understand suffering we have to understand the cause of suffering and the cause of suffering is self grasping and because of self grasping the cause of all suffering is self grasping grasping at a sense of self holding on to a sense of self. So this in turn creates two causes of suffering and they are known as karma and delusion or klesha. karma being the law of cause and effect and delusions being kind of disturbing emotions and destructive thoughts.
Okay, so we’ve been talking, defining the afflictive emotions or the destructive thoughts. They are again divided into different groups and they usually called as the six major destructive thoughts or emotions and the twenty-one minor destructive thoughts or emotions. So, emotions and six major ones are the main causes of suffering and he will explain what they are in a bit. Okay, so on the side of karma, there’s three different types of karma.
There is virtuous karma or good karma and bad karma or unvirtuous. And the third one is literally translated it would be karma that’s not described in scripture, but it’s often translated as a neutral neutral karma. Okay, so when we talk about good karma or virtuous karma what good karma or virtuous karma is something that acts as a cause for having a good rebirth in your next life or achieving liberation or achieving Buddhahood or achieving happiness and being parted from suffering, that’s what is called good karma. So how bad or negative karma is described is that anything that is a cause for suffering, so if it’s a cause for being born in hell realms or being born as an animal or the myriad different types of suffering that people experience as a human or in other realms as well, that acts as a cause for that suffering is described as being negative or bad karma. So in neutral karma, anything that neither, is result is neither bad nor good, doesn’t affect in either way, it just is.
Anything that results in that is called neutral karma. So lots of time we hear this word karma, karma, what’s karma? And we think, I think I know what that is but we don’t really have an idea. We have kind of a vague idea of what karma is, but we don’t think about it. Geshe-la says he doesn’t understand what karma is properly.
He just has a vague idea about what it is. Okay, so if we have some kind of foreign idea or an idea of karma that’s a bit constructed that can actually get us away from what it is because karma is everything from being born to dying. karma is everything that we see, everything that we experience if we get up in the morning that’s that’s karma if we if we go to bed at night that’s karma if we go to work that’s karma everything that happens it’s everything that’s generated and everything that appears. Everything that we experience is karma. So, as every action that we do is karma, whether it becomes a good action, a positive action, or a neutral action depends on the motivation from which it’s done by which the motivation with which it is done. So if you do, if you before you do something that you have a thought that you’re doing that something for a positive reason, then it becomes a positive karma and leads to positive results.
That is happiness and not suffering. And if you do something with a negative mind or a negative reason for doing it, that is something that’s propelled by the six major and twenty-one minor negative minds. If you do something with any of those minds as the reason behind it, then it becomes a negative action or negative karma and has a result of suffering. So, the thing to remember is it’s not necessarily the action that’s carried out. It is the motivation behind the action that causes something to become positive or negative karma.
So, most things that we do, if we have as a motivation behind doing them loving kindness or compassion or the thought of attaining enlightenment or the thought of benefiting others most things that we do become positive by having that thought the the reason for doing them being one of these things most things because not all things can become positive just by having a thought for example killing no matter what your thought is in killing killing is not a good thing by its very nature it is a negative action so it doesn’t matter what the thought is behind killing, it still becomes a negative action So for example, if you’re from a Buddhist perspective, if you’re going to work, there’s nothing inherent in going to work that can be positive or negative. It depends on your motivation. So from a Buddhist perspective, if you’re going work you should be trying to go to work for a positive reason should be setting a positive motivation for working. If you’re just going to go to work just to get money then that becomes a neutral karma. So it doesn’t necessarily matter what the work is but it depends on what your mind the state of your mind is when you actually do the work, whether it becomes positive or negative.
Okay. So so it works in the way that anything that’s positive is a cause anything that’s positive karma becomes a cause for happiness anything that’s negative karma becomes a cause for sorrow or suffering and so this truth of these two axioms is called the truth of suffering and happiness. So lots of time when we think about karma, we don’t actually think about it being as basic as going to work. We don’t think of, the going to work, process of going to work or whatever we do their days as being something that’s directly related to karma. We sometimes have a different concept of what karma is.
We have to bring to this understanding that every single thing we do is karma so and whether it becomes good karma or bad karma depends on the motivation and then try and have an understanding of how important that is. So because of this process, because everything relies on motivation, then we often go through process of doing what we call negative karma or negative actions because dharma just means a thing and so negative things and positive things. We go through this process because we’re unaware of what our motivation is for doing things. So usually we do both. Okay.
And so, from these I actually made a mistake. Geshe-la was saying there’s ten virtuous actions and ten unvirtuous actions and I thought he was saying there’s virtuous dharma and un virtuous dharma because in his accent ten and dharma sound exactly the same. So, sorry about that, but what he was saying was there’s virtuous actions that we can do and non virtuous actions we can do, and the way that these are usually divided in Buddhism is by the ten non virtuous actions and the ten virtuous actions. The ten non virtuous actions and the ten virtuous actions are divided into three of body, four of speech and three of mind. Okay.
So the three non virtuous actions of body are to kill, to steal and to perform sexual misconduct. The first of the four of non virtuous actions of speech is to tell lies and that means to tell someone that something is what it is not and that it is not what it is. So the second one of speech is what’s called divisive speech slander in that when two people are friendly and saying things to either one of them that will make them not friendly whether it doesn’t matter what it said or done whether if it’s done with the intention to split people who are friends up so they’re not friendly anymore, then that’s counted in this next non virtue of divisive or slanderous speech. Okay so the next one, the next non-virtuous speech is called harsh speech and that is often when you talk really harshly, Geshe-la used a word that means it’s almost like slave talk, like talking to people as if they’re slaves. He said often people in authority can speak harshly to people who are below them, but people below them can’t speak harshly back to them.
So that abuse of authority by speaking harshly to people below you is one form of this harsh speech, but it’s basically using harsh words with anyone. Okay. So the fourth of the the non-virtuous actions of mouth or speech is basically talking nonsense or talking rubbish. And it means that without having any control of your of what you’re saying and just just saying whatever.