Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 14-minute Q&A segment, Geshe Pema Tsering walks through each of the three root afflictions systematically. Attachment is defined through a concrete example — drinking wine that tastes pleasant — to show how the mind first misperceives an object as genuinely good and then grasps at keeping it, a dynamic that extends to everything we call “mine.” Aversion is presented as the mirror: a mind that wishes to be separated from what it perceives as harmful, and one that, crucially, damages the angry person rather than its target. The session closes on ignorance as the root of both, explaining self-grasping — the habit of treating the “I” as inherently real — as the engine behind all afflictive emotion.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 2008 04 03 BP Q & A.mp3
UUID: ddb7db3c-c595-44e5-ba4e-209d39836d97
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Lam Rim (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2008-04-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 13.7 minutes
Words: ~1,167
Regarding the teachings or anything else that comes to your mind? So, yeah, you should have any questions, please. Is it ignorance, the three poisons? Yep. So then the three poisons or the three root afflictions, Geshe-la was saying attachment aversion and ignorance or myriad of ways to translate it, lust, hatred, and ignorance to be more strong.
Geshe-la was saying so then mind of attachment is the mind that we’ve we’ve distorted how do you say? How can an improper mental engage engagement. An improper then perceives a certain object which is not actually good, perceives it to be good, and then develops the intention to either develops then the wish or to either to not be separated from it or to try to obtain it and or and or to not be separated from it. And such a mind is which is defined in this way, such a mind is a mind of attachment. And is giving us an example of of, for example, taking something like beer or wine, a fermented drink, which refers to with a beer or wine.
So then we drink the wine and it has a pleasant taste. Geshe-la was making reference to having a sweet pleasant taste. And then because we drink it has this nice pleasant taste and then we become a bit how can I say that? Just drunk? Okay.
We become a bit drunk, a bit high and happy with it, and then we we we we want to not be separated from it. We want to have it, and and this is we have this this liking for it, this this liking for it. And we and this is attachment. This is our attachment that we have towards it. So we have this this inappropriate engagement, this it.
We we we have this motivation that the mind that firstly thinks of it as being good, that thinks it is good. It is it is a good thing. And whilst it is not actually good. So then there is a it is mind that superimposes the notion onto something which is actually not good. Sorry.
It superimposes onto that the notion that it is good. It is not good, but thinks it is good. And, again, with regards to any phenomena, any object, again, we with this with this inappropriate engagement, again, we we develop desire to obtain the object and so forth. And and then, again, this is the attachment that we have towards the phenomena. And, again, and the same and the same applies to anything all the things which are included in our continuum of our being.
Geshe-la was saying, we think of whatever is included in our continuum of our being or any part of us, which are not actually good. We think of them to be good, we develop attachment towards it and everything else which is not included in continuum of our being we think again even though they’re not good we superimpose the notion that they are actually good and then we develop attachment and we develop the desire to obtain them and so forth. And then as for as for anger, coarse anger, aversion, hatred, anger in general, Geshe-la was saying it is it is the opposite, but the opposite in in in that it is a mind that when perceives its its object of of observation, it does not wish to remain with it. It wishes to avoid the object. So, again, it is it would see someone or something which causes us harm and pain, it wish immediately it it wishes to avoid it, which is to be separated from it.
And then we become disturbed by this mind, and then it’s a very bad mind. I was gonna say under the power of such mind, we do all sorts of bad things. So then that that mind which is avert or is angry with regards to someone who has caused us harm in the past that mind not only does not cause any harm to that person it actually harms us harms ourselves it destroys our roots of destroys our peace of mind. It doesn’t cause any harm to the other person. That’s anger.
And then and then lastly, ignorance, the third of the poisons of ignorance which is ignorance which is again, it is that mind which does not know is that lack of knowledge about a phenomenon a phenomenon. If an well, in about an object. And Geshe-la was saying, in in in it is it is mind that does not know the the way that a phenomenon exist, the way of existence of phenomenon. And then Geshe-la was saying, so then with regards to ignorance, there’s there’s a lot to be said. So generally speaking, there is the ignorance, which is a lack of knowledge of this and that.
Not knowing this, not knowing that. We we have we we have ignorance with regards to this, with regards to this. But when we talk about the ignorance, which is the root of all afflictive emotions, the very source of all afflictive emotions, we’re talking specifically about the ignorance, which is the ignorance of self grasping, of of grasping to a self. So then in the end So in dependence on that ignorance of self grasping, then attachment and aversion, attachment and anger arise. So then all the other afflictive afflictive emotions and conceptions, all the all the other disturbing emotion conceptions arise in dependence on that ignorance of self grasping.
Is that is that okay? Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Hiro.
Geshe-la was mentioning about the self grasping. Self So there is a in Tibetan, we have two two words here which one is dak and the other one is dzin and they are usually translated as self and grasping okay to grasp dzin is to grasp so dak it can actually be translated in english will be translated in many different ways it can be translated as self ego I my mind again I, mine, and I mine, me. And then when we’re talking about self grasping, we’re talking about the fact that the I, whatever it is that you call I in in you, is not does not exist from this one side. It does not inherently exist. And but we grasp we grasp at it as if it was inherently existent, as if it existed from its own side.
That’s what we’re referring to when we talk about self grasping. Is that okay? Yeah? Is that is that okay? Says it’s very difficult to recognize, to identify this self grasping.
It’s not without a lot of putting a lot of thought to it and studying a lot of text and teachings and so forth that we’ll be able to identify and recognize the. Is that okay? Yeah. You’re following? Okay.
Oh, yeah. So then now is a is a time that you discuss afterwards with and so we we finish now.