Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Nobody wins in a fight — Geshe Pema Tsering uses that blunt verdict on anger-driven violence as the emotional centre of this 44-minute Lamrim session on bodhisattva deeds. He opens by cataloguing forms of service to others — financial help, shelter, restoring peace in fractious communities, teaching ethical conduct — then shows how all such merit is subsumed within three ethical disciplines: restraint, accumulating virtue, and benefiting others. The talk then pivots to patience, drawing on Śāntideva to argue that seeing anger’s faults is its sharpest antidote, illustrated with a stark portrait of how one moment of rage destroys lifetimes of merit and traps the aggressor in fearful exile. A closing Q&A covers whether tantric vows automatically include the five lay vows and at what point on the path anger is fully overcome.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 LR 2002 08 27.mp3
UUID: 0b8d5299-620e-48e6-b68a-3b30e4f9fcd0
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Lam Rim 2002 Bodhisattva Deeds (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-08-27
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.6 minutes
Words: ~2,841
So in terms of working for the welfare of other living beings, so in terms of work, there are many works one can work for the welfare of others, like giving help from sufferings and helping those who are ignorant in cultivating the methods, who have not yet developed bodhicitta, and helping them to develop bodhicitta and then and giving yeah. Giving giving help and protecting or giving help or protecting from fears as well as from the sufferings like diseases and so forth. And those who are in poverty, giving help of financial support. And then those who are homeless, giving shelters.
But, yep, those who are, like, not Those who are, they’re bringing harmony and peace to a community, like, in a community where everyone fights, not so harmonious, not peaceful, and going into the community and bringing everything into a nice community. And then those who do not have any knowledge of practicing the ten virtuous, giving them help to practice the ten ethical disciplines of refraining from ten non-virtuous actions, and those who have wrong views or are going in wrong directions, bringing them into the right direction by giving teachings and entering into practice. And then helping through miraculous powers. So there are many ways one can work for the welfare of others — except for the last one, benefitting sentient beings through miraculous power, which most of us can’t do. Except for that, the rest we can do.
So those are the many actions works, the actions which one can use it or work for the welfare of other living beings. Briefly speaking, then one can briefly speaking, then all the the actions of the body’s speech and mind, which are pro performed performed with the intention of helping others, then all the action become the the the welfare for that welfare for other living beings. So the intention to benefit others very important here we are talking about the ethical discipline, the perfection of ethical discipline, not just the ethical discipline. So perfection of ethical discipline and it should, intention be to benefit others. Right?
And so with that intention of benefiting others and any actions one performed through the body, speech and mind or three doors, then all the actions become the working for the welfare of other sentient beings. So therefore, the briefly speaking, then all the virtuous actions are subsumed or within the three ethical disciplines, which repeat here, the restraint from the faulty conduct, ethical discipline of accumulating virtues and working for the welfare of other sentient beings. So speaking of this, then all the virtues of the so called the foundation or the very basic and the path and the result are included within the three ethical discipline, perfection of three ethical discipline. So basis which means the virtuous of the ordinary beings And the path means the virtues or the merit of those who have entered the path. And the result is the virtue, the merits of the Buddhas are included within the three ethical disciplines.
Do you understand? And this is how all the virtues or merits of ordinary beings and those on the training path and the Buddhas are included or subsumed in the three ethical disciplines. How they are subsumed in the three ethical disciplines is this. The only the the the merits they have of those entire sentient beings, which have gained through refraining or maintaining their vows. For example, like abandoning all the negativity.
For example, those supreme beings or those who are on the path — every time they enter the path and they abandon negativities, they attain a cessation of those negativities. So all the abandonment or cessation, as well as if it’s an ordinary person, the cessation of abandoning all the ten non-virtuous actions, those virtues are subsumed under the first one, which is restraining from faulty conduct. So, briefly speaking, the merit they have gained from maintaining their vows or abandoning the non-virtuous actions are subsumed under the first one, restraining from faulty conduct. And the virtuous or a merit they have attained through, you know, practicing the path, the meditations and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings, making prostrations, circumambulating like ordinary the being practices of the ordinary person, like circumambulating prostrations, so forth, under the second one, which is accumulating virtue.
And then the rest — the virtuous deeds of the bodhisattvas, which are the benefitting of sentient beings and the actions performed with the intention of helping others, and like the hearer and solitary realizer practitioners and so forth — are under the third one, which is working for the welfare of other sentient beings. So speaking of this, then there is no such virtues or merit, which is not included under any of those three practices of ethical disciplines. And so this is how all the virtuous or, yeah, the merit are subsumed into those three practices of ethical discipline. Speaking of that, then the first, the ethical discipline of restraining from the faulty conduct and the third ethical discipline of working for the welfare of other sentient beings are also subsumed under the second one, which is accumulating virtues. So practically, then the practices practicing of the second one, the ethical discipline of accumulating virtues is doing the practicing the entire ethical disciplines.
So speaking of this, then the practices of ethical discipline of accumulating virtue is not a simple thing. It’s a very profound and very wide. Do you understand, What? Now to the third one, which is the patience. And the definition of the patience is the patience is the mental factor or secondary mind, which is not disturbed by the harms.
Which is not disturbed by the harms and suffering? So yes, so that mind which cannot be disturbed by harms and the sufferings. The harms could be the harms caused by the humans as well as the other beings, beings beside the humans and could be an object as well. And so remaining, no matter how much harm one receives from others, is still maintained undisturbed. And as well as not disturbed and willingly to accept all the sufferings that whenever suffering comes, instead of being disturbed and, you know, restless and maintaining very calm and taking as it comes and thinking it’s a result of the karma.
Yeah. Geshe-la said, he has no idea why some people are laughing. Looks like some people don’t want to maintain patience. So the great master Śāntideva in his Bodhicaryāvatāra says that one should maintain patience and should not be disturbed and angry at harms, and should maintain patience for all the harms that and in order to do so, first one has one, it’s important for one to see the in order to maintain patience and remain undisturbed from the harms, it is important. To do so, it’s important for one to see the disadvantages or the faults of the anger.
So it is important for one to see the disadvantages or faults of the anger. And yeah. So the the faults of the the anger is like the the anger is one of the worst of the ten non virtuous actions. The faults of anger are set forth as: a moment of anger will destroy the virtuous one has cultivated in one thousand eons.
Yes. A moment anger will destroy all the virtues one have cultivated in thousand eons. So it is very important for one to know the the faults of the anger and and how we destroy all the virtues. So, because, for example, you know, we work so hard for our whole life, our whole life practicing collecting virtues and so forth. And at the time of the day, it’s just developed by moment anger.
It destroys all the hard works. So it’s important to know that there’s a huge danger of destroying within a moment of anger. And, yes, there are many faults of anger. And and, for example, like, within this life, in current life, anger will disturb and destroy all the comfort for oneself as well as others, and within families, destroy all the happiness. Yeah.
So it’s the anger brings all these many sufferings. And and there’s no benefit of developing any developing anger because, like, for example, like, up until now there has been no one who says that they’re happy through anger. So it will disturb and destroy both the self and others. And for the worst, it might kill oneself. So if we we we don’t recall the faults of the anger, and this and this is how it the anger keep coming.
And if one thinks of the anger, one can think of all the disadvantages and faults of the anger or being angry, and by recalling all the faults one can overcome the anger and see the importance of overcoming anger. And so there are many faults of anger. If I think of the faults of anger I can think of many, many faults of anger. For example, like, for the worst thing, you know, like, one anger within this life, that we destroy oneself as well as others. That, for example, due to huge anger and being angry and one kills somebody, and as a result of that, you know, one will suffer, the other person, you destroy other person, kill.
And then the person has lots of families, and now they go and come into the first oneself, one can’t remain in within that place very comfortable and one can’t feel safe now that the other siblings might attack and and have to live with a fear. And so, yeah, and one you have to put yourself have to remain uncomfortable and very fearful all the time watching alert, whether anyone’s causing harm and so forth. And so those who can see the fault of the anger can see all these faults. Whereas those people who don’t recall the faults of the anger and don’t think of the disadvantages of the actions anger, then they just probably think and say, oh, he is a great man or she’s a great lady, you know, does such and such, very brave, kill somebody, blah blah blah. But those things happen because I’m not recalling the faults of the anger.
Got it. So yeah. And it has a it it has a huge force, you know, that anger, that those who can’t see the faults, force of anger and might think, I’m such a brave person, won the fight and kill somebody and etcetera and etcetera. But in reality, he didn’t win. He didn’t win the fight because within this life, he can’t he goes through a huge suffering that he has to live through the fear, but thinking the other relatives or the person who was being killed might attack him or look for him, and he can’t remain comfortable in the community or within the village or hometown, always has to leave the place to have some safety.
And then which is the loss for this life. And in future, for sure the person will take rebirth in the lower rebirth because have commit the huge act of killing because out of act of the killing, the killing the human is the most heavy act of killing. So nobody win in the fight. And the person who was killed in the fight, know, and it’s also the same that he has to die with the anger because he was fighting so forth and and then got killed. So he has to yeah, he died or she died with the anger and that’s for sure will take rebirth in the lower realms or hell realm.
And not only for himself, and he left not peacefully, he left with the anger as well as let all the relatives or a family cause huge problem for them, you know, huge suffering, destroy all their happiness and oneself angry and kick the bucket, you know. So speaking of all these non virtuous, you know, the the fault of the anger, the out of the ten non virtuous actions, the anger is one of the the worst one. And we’ll stop here. Do you understand? Yes.
Of course. Yeah. That’s why you’re. Take some questions. When when you take a tantric vows,
Yeah. But if if that happens automatically, it can be called as that. Okay. Does it happen or not? Yes.
Okay. Yes. And when you take the tantric vows and taking Yeah. Bodhisattva vows are required when you want to take the tantric vows, but one doesn’t need to have any pratimoksha vows to take the tantric vows. So when you take the tantric vows and you automatically have taken you haven’t performed any particular special ceremony to take a lay vows of the five, yeah, five lay vows.
But by taking tantric vows, you have received the lay vows automatically because you have taken the higher vows. And by undertaking the tantric vows, you are already keeping the five lay vows automatically. Therefore, after having taken the tantric vow, you don’t have to go and take another separate set of lay vows. Yeah.
Yeah. Attend. Yeah. Yes. Course, ethical discipline is needed.
One has to maintain ethical discipline to attain Buddhahood because ethical discipline is the foundation. The cause for the higher rebirth is ethical discipline. There’s no other cause than ethical discipline to attain higher rebirth.
So which means even just to attain a higher rebirth, one has to have the ethical discipline. Of course. So what is the difference between training in ethical discipline and the perfection of ethical discipline? Yeah.
The the practicing of ethical discipline and practicing of perfection of ethical discipline, you mean? Yeah. But the training, but the autonomous school is the same that, you know, it’s, you know, of the training Yeah. Of ethical disciplines. Yeah.
And yet the So yeah, the the perfection here. So six perfections is the word. Right? So the it’s a common translation, six perfection. Actually, the the word here, everybody used the perfection, but is called the gone beyond.
It’s the word to word translation. So gone beyond. And so this is how it’s saying. The school below the autonomy school, autonomy school middleweight, below that, it’s saying the training of the perfections is there, the perfection of the ethical disciplines. What it means is that during the path, training path, that is that the practice is like a training of ethical discipline is the one which is to gone beyond, but it’s not completely gone.
It’s one to gone beyond. It’s like a ticket to, which you reach you there. Where so so there’s a two system. So so the the perfections, the gone beyond is only in the Buddhahood. And the training doing the path is the one which you take you to take you beyond, like equipment to take you beyond, but it’s not gone beyond.
This is what they say. So the training of the perfection is there, but not the perfection is not there. Whereas the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school say, no, you know, to go beyond doesn’t necessarily you have to be gone beyond, like I’ve reached the Buddhahood. So one which one takes you to beyond is also you can call the beyond, gone beyond. So this is how the difference is.
Yes, please. Is there a level on the path to Buddhahood where one stops feeling uncontrived anger? One. Stopped. You’re not just saying entire anger, just the automatic anger?
Well Or just anger? Yep. Yeah. It’s a yeah. You don’t have to attain enlightenment, you know, to overcome the anger, any type of anger.
Whenever you have developed the bodhicitta, you become a bodhisattva and anger entire anger is gone. The best the antidote is to recall the faults and the disadvantages of the anger, being angry. And whenever you sense it’s okay, it’s starting now, you just think, well, I shouldn’t be, you know, this is not good. Here is coming. Should rather I should stop it straight away because it has no benefit at all.
Once it’s up and these are the results I’m going to go through. So, you know, that’s the best antidote. Right. Right. And use your best effort to, you know, stop that, you know, the stop that anger from rising.
And if it’s still coming, try to distract yourself and not just be with that coming anger. Tell yourself to involve in some activities that will distract you from that anger. Yes? There’s a fair statement Yes, that’s true. That’s right.
Because the patience is the antidote to the anger. Yes? Humility, being humble? No, it can be an antidote to anger, but it’s not really the antidote to anger. And the reason why it can be is because while you’re in a very humble state, during that time, you can’t get angry at all.
Okay. Bye.