Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 35-minute commentary, Geshe Pema Tsering opens with an image that cuts to the heart of patience: a disciple beats a thief, his lama pokes his nose and asks “what happened to your patience?” — already too late. Drawing on Nāgārjuna’s disciple Āryadeva, he argues that neither the person nor the stick is the real cause of harm — the anger within them is, and ultimately our own karma. He explains why provocations are actually necessary for practice, citing Atisha’s refusal to travel without a difficult, rule-breaking disciple. The session then moves to the second of three types of patience, voluntarily accepting suffering as ripening karma. A closing Q&A addresses whether anger itself creates non-virtue or only anger directed at a specific person.
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File: 08 LR 2002 09 03.mp3
UUID: b9bccc7f-df5f-4d85-892f-4ed26cd4ba6a
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Lam Rim 2002 Bodhisattva Deeds (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-09-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 35.1 minutes
Words: ~2,549
So, you know, one knows the nature of anger, the definition of anger, and the disadvantages and faults of anger — who knows everything — still the person gets angry, then it means that all the study or understanding didn’t help at all and has no use. So therefore, know, knowing is not good enough that when one know all the disadvantages, faults, the nature of the anger, then bring all understanding into practice. In the past, there was a master — one disciple, you know, caught a thief, and he just beat the thief badly. And then the guru, the lama, showed up in the middle of the action.
And then the lama poked his disciple’s nose and said, what happened to your patience? You what happened to your patience? Or maintain patience, you know. And then suddenly this disciple remember of practicing patience and he just maintained patience. And that is too late.
Actions that’s already done now, which is of no use. So you should do it before you get angry. So therefore, and on beforehand, you know, one should see the faults and disadvantages of the anger. And by knowing this, then whenever all the conducive conditions are present for anger to come, at that moment — when all the conditions for anger are about to come — because you have been prepared, seen everything, the faults and everything before the anger comes. And whenever it comes, then apply it straight away and block it.
And it might be difficult from the very first stage, not being angry and maintaining patience. But if one cultivates, trains your mind in patience, then it is not that hard and it’s quite easy to cultivate that. It’s not something very hard like developing a wisdom realizing emptiness. And so therefore, you know, one should not be angry to just because you have received the harm, for example, of the person. Because if one says so, it’s okay to be angry for the person who caused the harm because the person brought you harm.
Then speaking of this, you have to get angry at the stick as well, because the person used the stick, and actually the stick is the one that caused the pain, not the person. So you have to get angry at the stick as well. But you might say, no, it’s not the stick’s fault because the stick has no freedom or no intent. It was the man who used the stick to harm me. Speaking of this, then you should not be angry at the person because the person is not the true cause.
It’s actually the anger within the person which made the person dependent and influenced the person to bring harm to you. So you should get angry at the anger within the person, but not at the person. So and then if you go really go through the details, then it’s actually was you who caused yourself to get harmed. Because the person hit you or the anger and the made the person with the stick and hit you. And technically it was yourself — because you might have done something very unpleasant or something which that person doesn’t like.
And that caused, you know, you to receive a whack with the stick. And not only that, also it could be your karma you have cultivated in the previous lives. And as a result, have get this nice stick on your head from the person. And so, yeah, go really detailed, and there is something that which you have caused the person you have caused the person to do it on you, either directly or indirectly. So says Nāgārjuna’s disciple, Āryadeva, in his Four Hundred Stanzas.
So all the sufferings, you know, the sufferings and the pain, the sticks you receive in your head, so forth, are caused by the disturbing emotions. Not the person. It’s by the disturbing emotion, which is the anger within the person or anger of the person. So if you were to defeat the enemy, then you should defeat the anger of the person. So that actually implies that to overcome the anger of the person, you have to attain enlightenment, because in order to overcome the anger of the person you have to help or bring that being into the liberation state or arhathood.
And to do so, you have to attain enlightenment without achieving a Buddhahood, you can’t bring the person into the liberation state. So therefore, yep, this is how it leads to the attainment of how one should attain enlightenment for the sake of others. So should not be angry towards the harm. And and and it’s it is like that the mental patient, you know, mental patient beats the doctor or, like, psychiatrist. And the crazy child or son beat his mother.
So the mother and the psychiatrist or the doctor will not get angry to the patient and the son because they well, they give them an excuse because of being crazy or being sick. So likewise, you know. So whenever like those mother and the physician, excuses for the sick people, likewise, you know, you should not, you know, be angry towards the harm and get excuses. Yeah. Give excuses.
Sorry. So should not be angry towards the harms it was not the harm, you know, it was yourself who brings, caused you to have the harm. Because is like, you know, when your hands get burned, it is not the fire which gets you burned, it’s you because you touch your hand to the fire and that’s how it get burned. If you don’t touch it, you won’t get burned. So likewise, it’s anger towards the harm.
You should not be angry because if you don’t do something there, then you won’t receive the harm. There is something you have done to be to get harmed. So if you were to get angry, then you’d be angry to yourself, not to others. And and, yeah, because if one say that, yeah, the nature of the fire is hot. So it’s just the nature, but the sentient beings’ nature is not a If I say so, then then then then it’s not good enough because the sentient beings are the nature of disturbing emotion because they are full of disturbing emotions.
And they’ve got they are dependent and they have no freedom. They are under the control of disturbing emotions and they have no choice. And through this and you touch that disturbing emotions, the anger of the sentient beings, you get hurt. So so it’s not the sentient beings. It’s the disturbing emotions within the sentient beings or off the sentient beings.
So therefore, if you were to get angry, either to the disturbing emotion or to yourself. Excuse me. So therefore, that yep. So whenever you get hurt, yourself get hurt or bitten or get uncomfortable either physically or mentally, So whatever or any kind of harms one receives should not be angry and should not also retaliate to the anger, to the harm and maintain patience, develop a patience on it. Because if one retaliate, revenge for that challenge, that harm, then instead of getting better, it actually makes worse because when yourself get angry instead of patient, get angry and then retaliate and harm the other as well as disturbing emotions arise, and you cultivate numbers of non-virtuous actions and that will lead you towards the lower rebirth or lower rebirths and and and not not oneself.
It also harms other. So you should practice patience or maintain patience. And when you meditate on patience or cultivate patience, you should not cultivate patience towards the dear ones or towards the help you receive. To practice patience or maintain patience is towards the harm. On the basis of the harm, or what causes the harm, you maintain patience, not towards the help.
And so therefore, the more you have harm, the more you got to practice patience, the more patience you need to cultivate. So therefore, so the more patience you have, which is good that it will help you more to develop patience and it actually help you so you should think it’s good, there are many harms so I have many patience practice to do and they are helping me. You should think that way, and you’re not just think. In reality, it is also true that more then it will help you more patience to develop. So, yep.
So to develop the patient or maintain patient on the harm or yep. Or yep. To the harm. And they should to maintain patience, one should have the provocation or somebody to provoke you. Otherwise, you can’t maintain patience.
And therefore — it’s “Jowo Je” in Tibetan, which refers to Atisha. So the great master Atisha took one disciple wherever he goes. That disciple was supposed to have a very bad nature and would break the rules all the time. So one of the other disciples approached great master Atisha and said, “Probably it’s best that you should not take this disciple wherever you go, because he’s got a very bad nature and, you know, does this and that.”
And the great master said, “No, no, no, no. I must take him everywhere I go because without him, I can’t perfect my patience, you know. And in order to perfect my patience, this person is indispensable, very much needed.” So Atisha took him everywhere. So which means that you have to have provocation or somebody provokes you to maintain patience.
So therefore, yep, should maintain patience. Now to the second, So we finished the first out of three patience. First one, the patience of taking no account of those who harm. And now to the second one, which is the patience of voluntarily accepting sufferings. So, and should have, should take, yep, to accept all the sufferings like in terms of practicing, you know, should really need to accept all the hardships in, you know, through the practice, all the difficulties, and also maintain, yeah, voluntarily accept or willingly take the sufferings of like disease, illnesses we receive, as well as the harms of the enemies, and even the sufferings or the harms in the dream.
Think that all these sufferings and harms I receive, the hardships I get, are the results of my previous negative karma. I’m very fortunate to have this rebirth and have this chance. This is a very good basis — I have a chance to clear up all the negative karma. It’s ripening now, which is good. And also Got it.
And yes, and not only that, and also wish that all the sufferings you’re going through, accept it and rejoice and make the prayer or wish for the practice of that. Because, you know, I’m accepting and these negative karmas are ripening and I’m receiving all this suffering. So may all the motherly sentient beings’ sufferings come upon me. I wish them to arrive on me and get over with it. And think that all the sufferings I’m going through, may they bring all the sufferings of the sentient beings into cessation.
And so for example, the criminal received a life sentence from the court or the Supreme Court. And then finally, through lots of petitions and requests through connecting with the other authorities and getting them to request and appeal, and change the life sentence into something, etcetera. And then everyone was aware that person such person has a life sentence. And later on it got changed, know. Well, now instead of a life sentence, he’s going to have his hand amputated — just cut off the hand and that’s the equivalent to the life sentence. Then the person will rejoice and be very happy. He’s very happy to lose a hand rather than being killed. So likewise, you know.
So when all the sufferings you receive, you go into all the suffering within this life, rejoice, you know, be happy, and all the And be happy and wish that may all the negative karmas or result of the negative karmas have cultivated in the past and be purified and ripened within this life and get over it. And we’ll stop here. A few questions. Yep. Yep.
The yes. The selflessness. The selflessness of yep. Is of the person, for example, selflessness of the person is emptiness, but emptiness doesn’t need to be the selflessness of the person. We have in terms of selflessness, we call the selflessness of the person and the selflessness of the phenomena.
And so both are emptiness and the in free of inherent existence of the self or the person is called the selflessness of the person. And free of inherent existence of the phenomena is the selflessness of phenomena. But they are both the emptiness. So this is through the Consequentialist or Prāsaṇgika school of Buddhism, the view which just explained. Most of us haven’t developed patience properly.
Just basic, is anger the problem or is anger towards someone where we generate the the massive negativities and if it’s anger towards someone, if someone did gonked us with a stick, would it be far better for it? Would it be far to angry at that stick rather than the person? Would that be a less amount of non-virtue you would have created? Is it angry the problem or is it angry at something which is the problem? Anger is the problem or is the anger towards the person?
Yeah. Well, we may get angry, but we might like so may have us, but we may just get angry, but not at anyone in particular, but just the emotion arises in us. Is that the problem? Is that when negative virtue is created? Or is that the moment that we channel the anger towards something or the the the person or the the thing that’s actually made us angry in the first place?
So what was your question? Well, I wanted to know which Which Well, if I only developed and I haven’t Yeah. Channeled it towards anyone, I’m creating non virtuous action. Yeah. Or is it the moment that I channeled towards someone that’s been the non virtue.
Oh, okay. And if that’s the case, then would it be better for me to get angry at a stick than it would be to to get angry at the person that had a little stick because it’s I think he understand what it means. Should not be angry to all. Any type of anger should not be angry. Should not any kind of anger.
This, for example, you get angry to yourself and stay inside home and so forth. It’s just a loss for yourself and it’s not going to make anything better. Know, just still there and being angry and you miss the day. And then later on if that anger gets wherever you might start to, you know, break things inside the room or house. Dharma, be careful, venerable.
But keep the space, you know. Oh, yeah. That’ll be fine. I think this is it. So do the dedication prayers on page five and the closing prayers are on page ten.