Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with a Tibetan proverb about a reluctant donkey hauled uphill, Geshe Pema Tsering defines his central theme: enthusiastic effort must be joyful and willing, never forced. In this 41-minute session he identifies three forms of laziness — postponing practice, attachment to trivial activities, and self-deprecating discouragement — with targeted antidotes for each, drawing on Śāntideva’s Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds to show that gradual training makes even extreme generosity feel as easy as giving vegetables. He then outlines three types of enthusiastic effort, quoting the Guru Puja on “armor-like effort” — readiness to remain in hell for eons out of compassion. A Q&A addresses powerful merit dedication, the distinction between conventional and ultimate bodhicitta, and whether to practice with a dull mind.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 10 LR 2002 09 10.mp3
UUID: b542fabf-653a-4faa-a211-690c8b478b2e
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Lam Rim 2002 Bodhisattva Deeds (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-09-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 41.4 minutes
Words: ~2,720
Or jig-tsa, the the the view of transitory collection that because with the enthusiastic effort and through hardships, one’s training, one can establish the the the selflessness establish the selfless nature of phenomena in the person and realize the emptiness. And through this can destroy the view of transitory collections. That’s what the Ārya Maitreya in his Ornament for Clear Realization set forth. Similar, likewise, the great master Candrakīrti in his middle way, the Mādhyamika text set forth that all or entire good qualities runs after or comes after the enthusiastic enthusiastic efforts. So, yeah.
Therefore, you know, should cultivate the enthusiastic effort and know whatever one practices one do. And any practices are the doing one’s commitment, sadhana, the meditations and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings, daily practices, so forth. Whatever practice one performs, always perform it with the enthusiastic effort in the sense of happily, willingly, and with the huge joy in practice whatever one is doing. By doing so, then the one’s practice also become the enthusiastic effort as well. Otherwise, and should not practice like the tired donkey being lead up to up in the hills.
Which means that it’s a saying in Tibetan that when the donkey is very tired and you just still and you put the load on the back of the donkey and up the hills. Mean, he will eventually walk but reluctantly, you know. Don’t really want to go. So likewise, should not be like that. Whatever you wanna do, just do happily and joyfully.
So that becomes the enthusiastic effort. And to do so, it is difficult from the very beginning but should not jump into the big one from the very first step. Go step by step from the very small then increase and gradually it happens. It will happen that whatever it practices are the small ones or big ones or short ones or long ones. One can maintain enthusiastic effort and engage in the practice with joyfully or with, yeah, now happily.
And so there are three opposites of the enthusiastic effort and which should be abandoned or get rid of. That the which are the three types of laziness. The first one is the laziness of delaying or postponing things tomorrow, next, such and such. So in order to So order to get rid of the first laziness which are delaying or postponing the practices, to overcome or apply the antidote to that is meditating or recalling on the impermanent nature of death and how difficult it is to obtain this precious human rebirth and developing renunciation, recalling the essence of renunciation. And this And the second one, laziness, is laziness of attachment to to trivial activities. Like yes. You know, laziness, so attached and and willing like, we’re very happy to engage in the trivial activities like, you know, the farming the fields, the farming and doing businesses and enjoying in the idle gossips, yak yak yak yak.
And want we’re happy to to to, you know, cultivate the non virtuous actions. For those, there is an effort, but it’s not called enthusiastic effort because enthusiastic effort is happily to engage or cultivate the positive actions. So in order to get rid of that laziness of laziness, which laziness of attachment to trivial activities, to antidote to that is to recall the benefits, sorry, to recall the qualities of the virtuous actions of the dharma and the disadvantages of non virtuous actions, the great qualities of the liberation states, the sufferings of the cyclic existence, and those worldly, the non virtuous actions are the source for the sufferings and wanting to attend, developing renunciation, which is seeing the disadvantages of the cyclic existence. Those are the antidote to the second laziness. And then the the third laziness is laziness of being covered.
But, putting oneself down, the saying that it is very difficult, the qualities of the Buddha, the liberation state, Buddhahood, as well as all the attainments of the good qualities, attainments. They are good, but person like myself, there’s no way I can do such and such and such, which is putting oneself down or being cowards, disheartened. And so so in order to overcome to apply the antidote to that third laziness, then one should should have have encouraged oneself that, you know, and no matter I’m willingly to spend my entire life, even it takes my entire life to attain one of the good qualities of the precious human rebirth, I will do it. Encourage yourself to perform that I can do it. And thinking that that all these worldly activities I do and all the energy I spend on spend energy I use is time I spend on just cultivating wealth and so forth.
And they are they are to have the happiness and and, yeah, have easy life, just current life. And thinking that if I spend all those energy and the time I spend just to have the happiness of this life, if I instead if I spend those energy for the betterment of other lives, know, but if I use all this energy, I’m pretty much up there very close to attained the bodhicitta and so forth. Coming very closer should encourage oneself. And those thoughts, those training minds are the antidote to the third laziness. Right.
Okay. And antidote to that, third laziness, the great master, Śāntideva in his, Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds did set forth that the the lord Buddha Śākyamūni, the Buddha will never tell lies. He set forth that the the liberation states like arhathood and the buddhahood are the object to attain and they can be attained. And he has set forth the path to attain those attainments and through applying the antidotes. By engaging in the practices and applying effort, all these Buddhas and Bodhisattvas attained all those attainments.
So likewise, I’m a person I can understand. I know the practices of abandoning and taking or cultivating good activities, positive actions, and abandoning all negative actions. By doing so, yeah, I know all these practices. So if I do I am a person. So if I do, I can attain those attainments like Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have attained.
And and also, the great master Śāntideva engaging in the Bodhisattva deeds by saying, if I’m discouraged by saying, no, I can’t attain enlightenment or reach the Buddhahood because to do so, I have to do all these practices of generosities like cutting my limbs and giving my head and so forth. If you step forth, then should not be discouraged by thinking that way because if one practice from the very small stage of giving generosities and so forth, but gradually by doing such practices, then gradually one will develop one’s own mind and come into the state that one have no problems of giving any kind of generosity, like even one’s part of bodies or head and so forth. Giving the practicing the generosity of giving one’s limbs, the hands and legs, become very easy, like through training. They become very easy like giving a generosity of vegetables to other. That the qualities of the Buddhas are huge.
And there are numbers of qualities to be attained as well as those qualities are very profound and wide or intensive. And I can’t do that. So if that is so, then you should not be worried. Don’t be disheartened. It doesn’t matter if Buddha’s qualities are numerous in numbers.
They’re very profound. It’s very intensive or wide. Likewise, it doesn’t matter how profound and wide those are. But if they are the ones, it doesn’t matter because they are a path to train. They are also a profound path and wide intensive path to train in, to cultivate those profound activities.
So they are the path to attain. Therefore, I should not be disheartened just by saying the numerous qualities of the Buddha because there are numerous paths I can go to to attain those qualities. And if one thinks, I can’t still do so because in order to attain enlightenment for the sake of entire sentient beings is huge, difficult, very difficult. That I even have to go take rebirth in hell realms to benefit the sentient beings. And this is not my job and I can’t do that.
You think that way, you should not think in that way because here the great master again, Śāntideva, again in his in the bodhisattvas Engaging in the Bodhisattva’s Deeds did set forth that that those scholars reference to bodhisattvas, right? For the sake of entire sentient beings, for the sake of others, they are happy to go through the sufferings and they have no difficulty taking the sufferings. And Yes, please. And, you know, yeah, they’re happy to take their sufferings. And they have no problem, no difficulty being born in the suffering sorry, in the hell realms, not the great, great hell and huge Avici hell.
And they have no problem going through the sufferings and they are happy to take rebirth in those, the hell realms in order to benefit sentient beings. And for them, being in the hell realms like being in the hell realms for the sake of entire for the sake of others is like being in the pure land. And if there is a choice for them to choice of them to take rebirth in pure land in the hell realm, they will choose the hell realm to to benefit the sentient beings. And now to enthusiastic effort, there are three types of enthusiastic effort. The First one is called the armor like effort or enthusiastic effort.
For this, the great master Pänchen Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen in his Guru Puja text set forth that making praise to fulfill a perfect the enthusiastic effort, this fourth perfection, saying that, you know, even for the sake of single sentient beings, if I had to stay in hell with a great Avici fire, I need to stay in the fire for hundreds of eons for the sake, just for the sake of mere sentient beings. Should not be discouraged and maintain the great patience and great compassion and fulfill, and may I fulfill my the perfection of enthusiastic effort. That was the prayers from Guru Puja. Yeah. So should have the willingness and very happily without any force, you know, should happily engage in the positive actions without any encouragement from others, just voluntarily that should have enthusiastic effort, that should be like a mother with a single child, that if a mother with a mere child, she has a huge affection and love to a mere child.
If the child been drowned or drowned in the water, the mother with great joy, no matter how difficult it is, with great joy can voluntarily, willingly jump in the water to rescue the child. Likewise, one should have such enthusiastic effort and willingly and happy, happily engaged in the positive actions. And so that that is the effort that the bodhisattvas, know, for the sake of for the sake of others others or to benefit other sentient beings, they voluntarily, they’re happy to take rebirth in the hell realms or, yeah, in hell realms, like even the great dorje. And they are like and and they’re happy to take rebirth and which is through in through love and compassion, love and great compassion. They, yeah, wish to project, take rebirth in those hell realms.
But they are like one ourselves. They do not want to take rebirth in the hell realms or lower, yep, in the hell realms under the influence of karma and disturbing emotions and action or karma. So we’ll stop here and take a few questions. Yes, please. So in terms of dedication, it is true.
It’s very important to dedicate one’s virtues or the merit one have cultivate each day through the practice. And for the dedication, it is important, yeah, and to it should dedicate to either to the yeah. Of those three objects of attainment or being born in the pure realms or have high rebirth or to attain the liberation like arhathood or enlightenment should be dedicated to any of those. Substance of dedication is one’s own practice, the merit gain from one’s own practice of the day or whatever practices the merit might have gained today or the previous, as well as the merits gained by the five different types of practitioners on the five paths. So one’s own merit as well as others merit gained by others by doing practices to dedicate all those prayers for either of those dedicate to take rebirth or attainment liberations and so forth.
Like one is Buddha, one is liberation or one take rebirth in a higher rebirth or the pure lands. And yep. So the dedication and it is important to make yourself like substance of dedication be very powerful, not just on your merit, also dedicate to others’ merit as well of the five great practitioners in the five paths or entire sentient beings. And that becomes your substance of dedication. Dedication becomes huge and powerful.
And the way of the prayers of dedication are many and you can do the dedication prayer likewise. So the likewise great master Ārya Maitreya and the Bodhisattva Samantabhādra — in Sanskrit name, I don’t know, its Tibetan name is the one great practitioner called Kuntu Zangpo. And so like them, wherever they have dedicated their merits, likewise, I could dedicate in the same way dedicate all my merits and others in the same way and be able to attain the attainments the way they have attained. So they have become Buddhas.
That is not saying the ultimate bodhicitta is emptiness. What it’s saying, in terms of the bodhicitta, there are two types of bodhicitta. One is called the conventional bodhicitta and one is called the ultimate bodhicitta. Right? And that ultimate doesn’t mean it’s ultimate ultimate.
What it means is the conventional bodhicitta is the one that that the mind that develops the mind wishing to attain enlightenment for the sake of entire sentient being is called that bodhicitta is called the conventional bodhicitta. The ultimate bodhicitta is the one, the bodhicitta which is the wisdom directly realizing emptiness is called the ultimate bodhicitta. Yeah. In order to meditate on bodhicitta, it is not compulsory or it’s not necessarily to meditate on emptiness. But if one do a meditation on bodhicitta with the attitude of the with the mind of seeing the inherent existence of the bodhicitta itself sorry, the bodhicitta itself, the view of inherent existence.
That becomes it is said that that meditation becomes like being adorned by the view of emptiness. So it becomes more powerful. But you can do it without If you only meditate on both the chita and do not think of emptiness at all, then But To develop and realize the wisdom realizing emptiness, Then one has to think of emptiness and of the nature of being free from inherent existence, lacking inherent existence. So you go out when you come in, right?
Late at night, right? Where have you been going all the time? Just joking. And yeah you go. Yeah yeah you come out.
Well if you’ve been here the whole evening probably should be okay to go straight to bed. So and then what were you saying? You go out and come back late in and it’s worth doing the practice or with a dull mind? The mind is. Yeah.
Yeah. So it’s rather do it or just better to, is it better to go straight? No? Hopeless state. Yeah. And No.
It’s not better to knock off straight away. Because no matter how alert you are or not, you know, if you do something, you’ll still gain something, you know. Still a little bit of the positive actions or merit you gain by doing something. So if you just go straight to bed, you know, you gain nothing. So and if you do it with a huge effort, it will become more beneficial or more useful, better.
But if you can’t do it in that active way, but just doing still something is better than better than nothing. Ten. So