Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A story about Puchungwa — a Tibetan master whose students complained he only ever taught bodhicitta, never the advanced tantric stages — opens this 24-minute commentary by Geshe Pema Tsering. He then works through a sequence of cautionary cases: a Hevajra yogi who, lacking bodhicitta, attained only a minor Hīnayāna result instead of enlightenment; three-year retreatants reborn as spirits or hungry ghosts; and Atisha turning back a Yamāntaka practitioner who had become a harmful spirit. The warning: pursuing deity yoga or clairvoyant powers without bodhicitta risks lower rebirth rather than liberation. The commentary closes by explaining why bodhicitta is called the father and wisdom realizing emptiness the mother — emptiness can lead to any of the three vehicles’ attainments, but only bodhicitta leads to Buddhahood. Suited to students already working through the Lamrim.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 LR Great Scope – 2002 07 23.mp3
UUID: ff240dd5-372b-4548-81d8-1d3a104697c4
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Lam Rim 2002 Bodhisattva Deeds (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-07-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 24.3 minutes
Words: ~1,490
Without bodhicitta, one will not be able to attain enlightenment within one lifetime no matter how profound teaching is. Got it. Right. Therefore, once, you know, two masters, and Tibetan masters, and one is called Puchungwa. So when Puchungwa teach any, like, giving teachings or initiations so forth, he always talks about the Lamrim teachings and cultivation of bodhicitta all the time.
And once many of the students and approached Dromtönpa saying, when talk, teachers, any teachers always ended up talking about bodhicitta and so forth, it looks like he doesn’t know anything, you know, about, you know, the tantric teachings of generation and the completion stage and so forth. And and the put yeah. Said to the disciple, this is not the case. He is very qualified teachers, he’s expert, has perfected all the teachings, but he is very skillful, he knows without having developed bodhicitta or a certain experience or attains bodhicitta, no matter how profound the teaching he explains, it’s not going to help at all. Therefore, the teachings he has been giving to you are the very key the basic, the important essence teachings, which are to be practiced by the disciple first.
This is what he said. Because he was not should not say that he is not qualified. He’s a great master, but he understand. He’s very skillful. That’s why he’s showing the key practices for the very beginning.
And there is also another true practitioner, a true story. And once there was a practitioner in yeah. Puchungwa who was a tantric practitioner or the yogi who practices so called the Heivajra Tantra. And Heivajra, it’s a deity thing. And he practiced the Hevajra tantra without bodhicitta.
Set forth, the practitioner has a very kind heartedness, kind heart. But practiced the Hevajra without the bodhicitta altruistic intention. And as a result of that, he attained the so called the stream enterer, which is one has attained the path of seeing of the Hīnayāna schools, the lower vehicles. And that message was heard by the Jowo, the Atisha, the great master Atisha heard the story and he was curious and surprised and laughed actually because a person practiced the Mahāyāna, the highest yoga tantra, Hevajra. Practice which is supposed as a result should be enlightenment and it became a lower attainment.
But attains the lower vehicle’s attainment. But when he heard that news, the Atisha said, well, it was good for you, it was lucky that you have attained that stream enterer. There have been two stories in the past that the one who practiced the Hevajra tantra without bodhicitta and ended up in a hell realm. So it was lucky for you to attain the stream enterer. But so Atisha was a bit shocked.
So and now there are many other, yeah, practitioners in the past have been who practice the wrathful deities without tantric wrathful deities without the bodhicitta. And as a result, they ended up being in, you know, rebirth in the hell realms or becoming a devil or monsters. Devas is better. Yeah. And this one?
And once there was a true story that in the Tibet, the region called Tsang region. And one practitioner who did the three years long retreat, three years retreat could be Yamāntaka or Vajrayoginī or any any three years retreat. And that retreat was performed without generating a bodhicitta. And as a result, what happened when practitioner passed away, he was born as the spirit or so called the regional protectors of the particular land. Yeah.
And the earlier that Hevajra tantra practitioner, the yogi who practiced without the bodhicitta, he was a good practitioner. And as a result, with a kind hearted and he achieved that stream enterer, it was said that. If he had practiced with the bodhicitta, he would have attained enlightenment. It was was a true story that Got it. And once, you know, the the Atisha was teaching in Tibet.
During that time set forth, one, Yamāntaka yogi of Yamāntaka Tantra, the practice yogi who practice Yamāntaka in India, which was practiced without a bodhicitta, and and at the end, he ended up being born as a devil or a spirit, as a spirit. And it was set forth that he he and he was traveling to Tibet, and that the good master Atisha, through his clairvoyance, he knows the person was coming, which is very harmful for the land. And he do the ritual practice of torma, ritual practice torma, which we call a ritual cake or dough tablet, okay? And through his ritual practice, giving one to that spirit and let him return back. He said, not come to Tibet.
And, yeah, And also, they set forth one practitioner of the Pembar region in Tibet, who was set forth to be a the Yamāntaka practitioner. And and without the bodhicitta. And as a result, when he passed away, he was born in the hungry ghost. And within the hungry ghost, he has a shape like you know, this body because he was a Yamāntaka practitioner, he exactly looks like Yamāntaka. But being in and and he was born in the hungry ghost and always waiting for his sponsors to to to to do the burnt smell offerings.
Because because he’s in the hungry ghost, all they can eat is smell. So they’re waiting for the smell offerings. They weren’t doing. So it’s many stories like that. So therefore, saying these days, you know, people tend to practice and and and do meditation and so forth to attain, you know, like deity yoga or clairvoyant, some miraculous feat or a power so forth.
But whatever meditation one person do and aiming to attain all this attainment, if one performed the meditation without the bodhicitta, no matter how good meditation one does, to achieve all those, instead one ended up in a lower rebirth. And and there’s a danger of being born in low rebirth and the hell realms so forth. If one has that both cultivated the bodhicitta and achieved the unshakeable bodhicitta and one fails to attain the the deity yogas or clairvoyant and so forth, still okay. The the good news is one one’s been able to build the foundation or the root of the Mahāyāna practice. So therefore so if the whatever the highest the the Mahāyāna teaching is, the sūtra teachings or the tantric teachings.
If one do not have the altruistic intention, then one’s practice won’t become a Mahāyāna practice even though it’s the Mahāyāna teachings. If one has the Mahāyāna, if one has the bodhicitta altruistic intention, then the teachings will become these teachings are also Mahāyāna teaching, and one practice will become Mahāyāna’s practice as well as even just giving a single fruit to an animal will become a Mahāyāna practice. And not only that, if one has the bodhicitta, even in the neutral actions like one one sleeps with the bodhicitta, then entire sleep will become a cause for the attainment of enlightenment. So therefore and the great bodhisattvas who have bodhicitta altruistic intention, because of that having bodhisattva, the altruistic intention, they can convert the non virtuous actions into a positive actions.
So therefore, the the bodhicitta is very important. For example, the emptiness, wisdom realizing emptiness is very important and very in terms of attainment of Buddhahood, one has to have both the the method and the wisdom. Method is bodhicitta, and wisdom is wisdom realizing emptiness. So wisdom realizing emptiness is inevitable. So whatever either one wish to attain the liberation of the highest school or solitary realized schools or Buddhahood, the of the Mahāyāna school, the wisdom realizing emptiness is important.
Without wisdom realizing emptiness, one can’t attain any of those, like liberation of the lower two schools and the enlightenment of the Mahāyāna school. But but if if one has the wisdom, realizing emptiness and do not have bodhicitta, then one’s practice will become the lower way, called the Hīnayāna practice, and it won’t become a Mahāyāna practice. No? So, therefore, this is the reason it’s called the wisdom realizing emptiness is called the mother, and and the the bodhicitta is called the father. Because bodhicitta will the will will only result one to the enlightenment, buddhahood, whereas wisdom realizing emptiness will become a cause for any of those, to the the enlightenment as well as to the solitary realizer’s liberation, and Hearer’s liberation.
That’s called. It’s a cause for entire three attainments. So wisdom realizing emptiness is called the mother. So the bodhicitta is called the father because it only leads to the Buddha. So if one do not wish enlightenment state or Buddhahood, then it’s a different case.
If one one wishes the Buddhahood or, yeah, Buddhahood, then should should should consider or consider the bodhicitta as the root or a key practice. Yeah. So, yeah, we’ll stop here.