Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A vivid image anchors this 30-minute session: the scholar who has studied everything and then, on the day they resolve to practice, cannot decide — should I meditate on emptiness, bodhicitta, or deity yoga? Geshe Pema Tsering uses this to drive home the session’s central point: Dharma study must be held as personal instruction, not merely accumulated knowledge. He first establishes bodhicitta — the wish to free all beings and attain enlightenment — as the proper motivation for any practice, grounding it in the idea that everyone possesses Buddha nature. The Lamrim commentary then distinguishes the two aspects of the Buddha’s teachings — scripture and realization — before closing with the difference between definitive sutras, which teach ultimate truth and may be taken literally, and interpretive sutras, which teach conventional truth and require unpacking. Part of an ongoing series; suited to practitioners engaged in systematic Lamrim study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 2008 03 27 BP (2).mp3
UUID: 61f8576a-5dc5-44ec-b9d7-106dce72fbd9
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Lam Rim (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2008-03-27
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 30.1 minutes
Words: ~1,562
So is quoting a verse from the from a mind training text that says in the beginning and in the end, the two actions. So we shall have said, so in the beginning, we need a proper motivation. So then we need a good motivation, and the best motivation there is the motivation of the mind of enlightenment, which is a thought that wishing to free all sentient beings from suffering and establish them in the state endowed with every happiness, the state of enlightenment. And one will oneself master enlightenment and accomplish that. So this is the best motivation for us.
Then Geshe says, if if if we think in this way, we have to think in this way. And if we think in this way, then for the sake of benefiting all sentient beings, I must attain enlightenment myself. And in this way, we engage in whatever activity we are going to engage in, then we are going to get Buddhahood. That’s what we’re going get. If that’s what we do, that’s what we get.
And Geshe-la says, every Buddha has attained Buddhahood in just the same way. You know, Buddha Śākyamūni has done so, and every other Buddha has done so, and so have they thought. So And Geshe-la says, we can attain Buddhahood because we all have in ourselves Buddha nature. And so then we have to clarify what the Buddha nature is. We have to clarify the Buddha nature within ourselves.
And in this way, we can engage in the practice. And in this way, again, we give rise to the thought in our minds for the sake of freeing all sentient beings from every suffering and giving every happiness, may they attain enlightenment. In this way, we engage in the practice, in the activity. Says, so then we have to give rise to good motivation. Right now, we, ordinary beings, we are all thinking, may these good things come my way, may the benefit come my way, so forth.
We’re all thinking about ourselves. And it has this sort of thinking. So we have to arrest that. We have to stop that. We have to stop that sort of motivation that thinks of oneself so we stop that, and then we give rise to the motivation that wishes to accomplish the benefit, the welfare of all sentient beings.
This way, Geshe-la says, this is the good motivation. This is the proper motivation. In this way, we accomplish not only the benefit of others. We also accomplish our own benefit at the same time. Then Geshe-la says, so we think in this way.
I will do it this way. Will attain enlightenment in this way. Thinking in this way, in order to accomplish that, Geshe-la says, we study. We study the lamrim today. And then by accomplishing the lamrim, when we bring the lamrim to completion, to perfection, then we we have enlightenment.
So then this is the motivation that we need. And in this way, we start with the hardest part. So we follow on where we stopped last thursday how how all the buddha teachings come into view is used for instructions on page ten. Geshe-la was going through the text. The great yogi, Jam Ngabpa Rinchen, says, someone who has reached a certainty concerning a a handy little volume, cannot be said to know all the topics of practical guidance. That is said about someone who understands all of the Buddha’s teachings as personal instructions.
So then, again, Geshe-la is just explaining some of the words with the Tibetan verse, and, again, a handy little volume. And then Geshe-la is just a little a small teaching or a small teaching on one aspect of the many teachings. So say, for example, a small teaching on on emptiness, a small teaching of the Buddha on on sorry. On impermanence. On impermanence.
And Just by merely reading that or knowing that one teaching, that’s not enough. Is meant is that one has to regards every teaching of the Buddha, everything that the Buddha said, as instructions that were given for oneself. And, again, going through the quotes, the sentence in the text which says one understanding that every teaching of the Buddha, everything that the Buddha said is a personal instruction. And Geshe-la was then again saying, so be it a teaching on impermanence, be it a brief or an extensive teaching, a big volume or a small volume, one has understanding that the Buddha said this to myself, to me. And when one has this understanding, which Geshe-la was saying, does not suffice to have mere scholarly knowledge and accumulation of knowledge about the teachings.
Considering the teachings to be personal instructions in this way, the Buddha said this to me, then one ought to practice and then I will practice. The Buddha taught this to me and I will practice this instruction that the Buddha gave to me. And then again Geshe-la goes on to the text which says we need to think we need the kind of understanding Jowo Atisha’s disciple, Gompawa Rinpoche, expressed, saying that he had ground his body, speech, mind to dust in a single meditation session on Atisha’s instructions, and that thereby understanding had now arisen in him that all scriptures are instructions, are personal instructions. And again, following the quote by If after studying the dharma a lot you feel the need to search elsewhere for a way of applying the Dharma, then you are mistaken. And again, the commentary is saying, Likewise, those who study the Dharma a lot over a long period of time, and completely ignorant as to how to set about practicing it, how to practice it, develop their wish to practice the Dharma, and people do not understand how to practice in the manner described above.
And Geshe-la is saying, again explaining to us explaining to us, the text is meaning, what the author means is that if we study a lot and acquire all this learnedness about the teachings, and we are very learned and have all this scholarly knowledge about the teachings without having practiced them, without having practiced all those teachings. So, the day comes, after you have this perfect knowledge, all this scholarly knowledge, when the day comes, the thought arises, I must practice, and you won’t know what to do. Should I practice deity yoga? Should I practice meditate on emptiness? I meditate on bodhicitta?
And one won’t know what to do. And this is a this is a big mistake. And again, as it says in the treasury of knowledge, again, the Buddha’s teachings have two aspects. How do you say? They have their nature is is both scripture and realization.
Then there is the aspect of scriptural knowledge and the aspect of realization. Again, in accordance with this saying, the teaching is nothing apart from scriptural teaching and the realization of the realization of teaching. So there’s nothing beyond these two. Nothing more than these two. The scriptural teaching is how the Dharma should be practiced and establishes the manner of of of its accomplishment, the manner of accomplishing the Dharma.
And Geshe-la was saying, so then is the the word lung is the word that is translated as scripture or scriptural. And Geshe-la was saying so because these are the instructions, because these are the words which are expressing the mode of practice and so forth, modes of the practice and so forth. This this is called. This is called the scripture or scriptural. And again, while the realization of teaching is established, what is thus accomplished.
And and Geshe-la was saying, since one practice in accordance with what is to be established, what is to be accomplished. Geshe-la says, so the teaching in the scriptural teaching, you have the description of what of what is to be meditated upon and what is how one has to go about the practice. And then the realization of teaching is is one’s actual, you know, analytical meditation and placement meditation on this on this on this topics. And then, again, when we’re talking about the scriptural teachings, those are very many, Geshe-la says. There are the collections of sutras, which were the teachings given by the Buddha himself, and then there are the commentaries on the sutras.
There are these two divisions, the the sutras and the commentaries on the sutras. And then there’s a and then you’re gonna have to help me here. There’s another division, Geshe-la was saying. Another way to divide the sutras is the the sutras who mainly teach on on conventional truths and the sutras who mainly teach ultimate truths. The name of each one of those are the definitive.
The definitive sutras are the ones who mainly teach ultimate truth. The interpretive teachings, interpretive sutras are those who mainly teach conventional truths. Okay? Is that is that clear? There’s a very there’s a very deep subject.
This one? And there’s a way to explain it, Geshe-la was saying, those those sutras which are suitable to be taken literally, they are the definitive sutras. And those sutras which are not suitable to be taken literally, those are the interpretive sutras. That’s another way to explain it. Again, was saying with regards to the words in Tibet