Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A peacock’s feathers are Geshe Pema Tsering’s image for karmic complexity in this 44-minute Introduction to Buddhism class: only a Buddha can trace the cause behind every individual fleck of color. The session analyzes the truth of suffering as container (objects encountered with a deluded mind) and contained (beings within saṃsāra), covering their four shared characteristics — impermanence, manifest suffering, emptiness, and selflessness. Geshe Tsering dwells on moment-to-moment impermanence, change so rapid it masquerades as continuity, and on karma and afflictive emotions as the engine of suffering. He challenges the assumption of personal autonomy — if we were truly free, we would not age or fall ill. A Q&A addresses whether motivation or action determines harm, and why siblings raised in the same family still carry distinct individual karma.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 ItB 2003 03 24.mp3
UUID: 5802a73a-d946-4941-b2cd-0388bf2dce9b
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: IB Introduction to Buddhism (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-03-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.8 minutes
Words: ~3,310
Okay. So there’s another disc Right. Okay. There’s another way of dividing the truth of suffering. Truth of suffering can also be divided into the container and the ingredients or the things contained in the container.
So for example, we would just the same way that we describe the earth as being like a container and the people as being that which is contained in the earth and our and perhaps our bodies as a container and our minds as being what’s contained in the container. There’s also another division that you sometimes hear, manifest suffering and suffering of change and pervasive suffering, but that’s actually the division of suffering and not division of the truth of suffering. So the container aspect of the truth of suffering is so called because anything that is a phenomenon that somebody in Samsāra experiences also contains the truth of suffering. And then anything any being that is within saṃsāra, they’re like the the things in the container. They’re also called the truth of they’re also another aspect of the truth of suffering because everything they experience comes about because of karma and delusions and every in their body and their the the beings themselves comes about because of karma and delusion.
So the first division is that the the truth of suffering as it as it applies to containers refers to any objects that we may encounter with a delusionary mind so if we have delusions in our mind and for example we encounter a car we encounter a house or we encounter another not another person if we encounter something that we want or if we go into shops and all the things we see in shops then those are all considered within the container aspect of the truth of suffering because they are all manifestations of the truth of suffering. Now the reason that all these phenomena that we encounter are called the truth of suffering or a manifestation of the truth of suffering is because they all have the four elements that we described before as being the divisions or the different aspects of the truth of suffering. That is, they’re all impermanent, they’re all suffering manifestly, they’re all empty and they’re all selfless So actually these two objects, the container and the things contained in the container, contain both have all these different aspects. The first one being impermanence. Now what impermanence definition is is that it changes in every single moment and so what this means is that with every single moment everything is changing from one is changing without stopping.
There is no moment that things are the same. Everything is in perpetual state of change without any solidity. But we don’t think of ourselves at least as being something that’s changing moment, moment, moment, moment, moment. We see ourselves as being something that’s pretty constant. We think, yesterday I did this work, today I did this work, tomorrow I’m going to do this work.
And all of these things that we’ve done, we consider to be done by the same stable entity. No. But this isn’t the way that we actually see ourselves existing isn’t actually the way that we exist. We see ourselves as being a stable entity that goes from day to day to day, but in fact we’re not the same stable entity from moment to moment to moment to moment. But the moments happen so often and they’re so small we don’t actually notice the change that we’re going through from moment to moment to moment to moment.
The moments are so fine they just look like a continuum to us. They look like a continuum of stability to us and we can’t see directly the changes that we’re actually experiencing. So we can sometimes see how much we change in a year We can see different changes in ourselves in a year But if we could actually see the changes that are taking place for every moment of that year then we get scared we have this sense of I’m really changing this is a bit terrifying but we don’t see it in terms of moment to moment we it in terms of perhaps a year where you can see slight changes in ourselves. Okay. So we don’t see the moment to moment changes in ourselves, but if we put a lot of time and thought and meditation into trying to understand impermanence and going through the processes in our mind of how impermanence actually works and using logic and reason to establish it in their minds, and then after we’ve established something logically going through a meditative process on that, then we would develop an understanding of impermanence.
And then after we’ve developed an understanding of impermanence, we’d be able to develop an understanding of very subtle impermanence and be able to understand or perceive directly how we are changing from moment moment. The next section of the truth of suffering is the section of misery or manifest suffering. Misery or manifest suffering comes about by the power of karma and delusion as we discussed in the, truth of the origin of suffering. It comes about by this power of karma and delusion and therefore manifests itself as suffering and because of the power of karma and delusion things perpetually change as well. So the process of change is caused by the power of karma and delusion, and the suffering that comes about is also caused by So how karma works on a very gross level, we can understand.
We can understand it that if we work, we can get money. We can understand if we have money, then we can buy a car or if we can even buy an airplane Because he said because they don’t grow on trees, you need money, you can buy one. So we understand how things have a cause and effect in a very in a very gross way. So we understand how it works in on a gross level, but to understand how it works on a very, very subtle level is that you have to be a Buddha. The only people that can understand the very fine complexities of karma are Buddhas because karma actually is one of the finest things to understand.
It is so complicated and so subtle that you have to have an omniscient mind to be able to understand it. So for example, to explain the complexities of karma, if we look at the plumes on a peacock, we can get some understanding of that because every single little color that is becomes within a peacock’s feathers has a cause and a is the result of of a cause. So a Buddha can understand every single cause that created every single little bit of color on the feathers of a peacock, and it becomes very complex when you expand out from the peacock’s feathers. But, yeah, even a peacock’s feathers are very, very complex to try and understand the cause for all of the colors, and only Buddhas can do that. So at the moment we only have like a rough understanding of emptiness but if we keep meditating and keep practicing and eventually understand emptiness and then realize emptiness directly and then from there keep meditating and become a Buddha then we’ll understand emptiness more and more gradually.
We’ll understand karma in a more complicated more complicated fashion eventually as a Buddha understand it completely. And so suffering or manifest suffering comes about because of karma but it doesn’t only come about because of karma it actually has a lot of help from afflictive emotions so if someone asks you is that the only cause for suffering then you have to say no you have to say that it is helped by afflictive emotions. So all the experiences of misery and suffering that people have come about because of karma and delusions and we can’t understand karma or delusions as clearly as Buddha obviously and we can have trouble even understanding them in a rough way but if we make some effort to try and understand the karma and delusions in a rough way like understanding the concept of throwing karma and the general karma and the completion karma that go with us from life to life then we can have a rough understanding of it that can enable us to create less negative karma so it’s almost impossible for us to even count each individual moment of karma because in each individual moment we’re creating different karma so if there’s sixty four moments in a second and then we calculate that by a few hours then we probably it’s almost very difficult to count and if on top of that we count the fact that there’s say twenty million about twenty million people in Australia alone and each person has this throwing karma which doesn’t just rely on one action that they’ve done it relies on their relatives their relatives come into play saying who is going to exactly be their relatives by their throwing karma and that for each person expands out because each person has a certain amount of relatives and then the next person has a certain amount of relatives so each person of those twenty million has some some piece of karma to do with all their relatives then it becomes difficult to count.
And it’s the same with the afflictive emotions. We described the six major afflictive emotions and twenty minor ones, but if you’re actually going to try and describe every single afflictive emotion that every single being had experienced, we wouldn’t be able to do it. So suffering comes about because of causing conditions because most of our act no, sorry, all of our actions come about because of causes and conditions they actually act as a catalyst for most of the experiences that we have in our life most of the experiences that we have in our life we do not have personal control over most of them come about because of things that we’ve done in the past that we have to experience the results of. And because existence is very complicated, that means that the causes, the karma and the afflictive emotions for that existence are also very complicated and very difficult to understand. But we don’t usually think like this.
We usually think that we are independent. We have control over our lives. We do everything from choice that we’re we’re we make decisions and everything based on our own power but most of the things that we do actually come by caught by the cause of karma and and delusions so even Australia Australian people think they live in a free country they say Australia has independence We have autonomy. But that’s kind of an illusion because we actually don’t even have control over ourselves, let alone the country that we live in. If we we so we think that we’re independent, we think that we have autonomy in our lives.
But if we had autonomy and independence in our lives, then we wouldn’t get sick. If we had autonomy and independence in our lives, we wouldn’t get old. We wouldn’t die. We wouldn’t suffer in any way. All we would experience would be happiness and pleasure.
So there, if you ask the question, is there anybody that is alive, is there any creature or any being that is alive and doesn’t experience suffering? Then the answer has to be, no, there isn’t any being that doesn’t experience suffering, whether it’s a human, whether it’s an animal, whether it’s people in other realms, whether it’s someone with a lot of money, whether it’s someone with no money, there isn’t a being that doesn’t experience suffering. And if you ask the question is there anyone who doesn’t experience illness then the answer has to be no as well. Even though people may go through periods of of of robust health, then they all end up with some kind of illness. So with regard to that, a Bodhisattva is someone who has this understanding that whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it for the benefit of all sentient beings in order to free all sentient beings from suffering and for it to make the situation come about where all sentient beings don’t experience suffering and only experience happiness So in order to be able to do that, in order to have that thought in their mind on a constant basis, they have to have a lot of courage.
And the word actually Bodhisattva, the Sattva is Sanskrit for hero. So they’re called a hero because their whole their life is about battling to go into battle with suffering. So so these beings, because they’ve understood the the true nature of reality and they’ve understood that suffering is based on our understanding of reality they don’t suffer anymore and then and their main mission is to to bring the lack of suffering to other people. So apart from them and Buddhas and and arhats, then there isn’t anybody who doesn’t experience suffering. So if we, if we if we think about this a lot, if we think about the this situation and then try and understand that how much suffering we’re going through, if we think about that a lot and and meditate on that and use reasoning to establish it, then we can establish a a firmness in our mind believing in, oops, this this this aspect of of suffering.
So we have to think about how powerful karma is and understand that there isn’t anything that we do that doesn’t come under the power of karma and delusions. So if we think about people in terms of experiences that we may be able to see in our lives, if we think about people that have spent their whole life working incredibly hard and have gone everywhere in order to try and create wealth for themselves, but still haven’t gotten anywhere, That’s because of their karma. So if they no matter how hard they work, matter how much effort they put in, if they don’t have the karma to get rich, they’re still not going to become rich. So it it it no matter how much work, it doesn’t make any difference. What they needed to do was to create merit in order to get to get wealthy.
So we also hear about people that don’t do anything but practice Dharma and do good deeds and try and create a lot of merit. But what happens is the more good deeds they do, the more merit they create, the worse their life gets. The the the they practice, they create, they do they do offerings, they try and help monks and nuns, they work really hard, and then their life gets worse and worse and worse and worse and we think, how does that happen? But what’s actually happening is what they’re experiencing is the karma that they created in the past and what they they could the merit that they’re creating now won’t be experienced until later. Because what we’re actually doing now doesn’t have that much relation to what we’re experiencing.
So if we stop there, if anyone has it. So if anyone has any questions. Yeah. Uh-huh.
Uh-huh. He said, it’s always caused by karma and conditions, and it’s always suffering because it’s not a very pleasant experience. Tuition? He’s not gonna like that metaphor. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Explain on the ears now. What’s the question?
Alright. So the definition of, where’d it go? Harmfulness or unhelpfulness, it doesn’t come down to what you’re actually doing. It comes down to the motivation behind it so if you see someone and think oh I should help them but if I give them this then it’s not really going to help them then you’ve already thought that you want to help them so therefore it’s not not helping this actually comes from compassion so but if you just see them and think, don’t care. I don’t care if they’re suffering or not.
I don’t care what experience they’re having. It’s not my business. Then this is non helpful helpfulness. Then it’s like, it’s a harmful thought, and it should be counteracted with compassion. But it depends on the thought.
It doesn’t depend on the the actual action. So having the thought, I don’t care what happens to them and forgetting about them is non helpfulness or or harmfulness. And having the thought, I want to help them, what’s the best way to help them is is helpfulness or or, is yeah. Helpfulness. Yeah.
Dear, this is hard. Okay. First of all, said it depends on yes, of course you’re going to have different experiences because you’ve created different causes and conditions in the past, and therefore you’re going to experience different cause different results to those causes and conditions that you created so therefore sometimes you’re going to have one experience and sometimes you’re going to have another experience but in every single mind it comes down to what your motivation is so if you have a different motivation in each place, that’s going to create different causes for the future. And I said, Yes, but that’s not really his question. A lot of this is based on cultural understandings of what’s good and what’s bad, and how do we tell which one’s which.
And I said, for example, in Japan, they think if you work long hours but don’t work so hard, that’s good. And in Australia, we think you want to get the job done. And he said, doesn’t matter, they’re all bad. If you’re doing something for work, that’s that’s gonna always be laziness because you’re not doing Dharma practice. If you’re thinking if I do it well, if you if your motivation is I’m working in in order to get the job done or I’m working slowly so I can show that I’m working many hours, both of those are bad motivations.
So if you can think of another way to ask the question, please. Okay. That’s alright. Motivation. Yeah.
So, yeah, it always depends whether you’re doing something that’s considered within the twenty secondary afflictive emotions or not, whether you have these minds always depends on your motivation. Yeah. I’ve got I’ve a question, Ruth. With projecting karma, that lands you in your next life. Mhmm.
So what happens in families with brothers and sisters being really different from each other, yet ending up with the same parents? Mhmm. Even though they may end up in the same family, they don’t have the same throwing karma or projecting karma. They have similar projecting karma, but their karma is very different still because each individual person has their own separate karma. So they may have had ended up in the same situation, but they still have very, very distinct karma.
In my family, the three of us He said there isn’t two people that are exactly the same. You may say, well, they look the same, but if they have the same body, they’re not going to have the same head, and if they have the same head and body, they’re not going to have the same nose. Even if their bodies and their noses and their heads are exactly the same, they don’t think the same. So there’s anyone that is actually really similar. You may see similar traits, but no two people are really similar because they have different karma.
So we’ve been creating, collecting karma since beginningless time since since forever. Yeah. So, you know, that’s always going to have different permutations to it than anybody else because it’s had such a long time to to come together.