Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A verse from Āryadeva’s Four Hundred Verses — first stop unvirtuous deeds, then overturn the concept of self, then overturn all inherent existence — provides the structural backbone of this 45-minute Lamrim commentary by Geshe Pema Tsering. He opens by defining Bodhicitta through three grades of compassion: great compassion, immeasurable compassion, and superior intention (personally committing to attain Buddhahood for others’ sake). He then examines the three types of suffering, arguing that failing to recognise pleasurable things — possessions, health, happiness — as the suffering of change is the main obstacle to renunciation. The second half introduces the emptiness section from Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, distinguishing the selflessness of persons (the merely labelled ‘I’ on the five aggregates) from the selflessness of phenomena. Suited to practitioners with Lamrim background beginning analytical study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 LR 2002 10 15.mp3
UUID: b550066b-c992-45a8-912a-b305e710fb57
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Lam Rim 2002 Bodhisattva Deeds (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-10-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~3,792
And so he gave us a quote from the protector Maitreya, which says, in order to achieve the complete enlightenment, we must develop the mind that looks towards others. So when it talks about this mind, what we’re actually talking about is developing bodhicitta because bodhicitta is, in fact, this mind that looks towards others. And if we are able to develop this mind, then and only then will we be able to achieve the final enlightenment. So there’s these three different types of mind that there are two different ways we can develop bodhicitta. And if they if we don’t develop them, then we there’s no way that we can be that we can attain full enlightenment.
So apart from these, even if we try different ways, then there’s no way that we can try and attain enlightenment. Sorry. I was just having a little bit trouble with one word Geshe was saying because his accent was going backwards and forwards. But apart from this, apart from developing the mind of bodhicitta, there is no way that we can achieve enlightenment. So in order to achieve enlightenment, we because we have to develop this mind of bodhicitta, in order to develop it, we actually have to know what it is.
So the first step when we’re trying to achieve enlightenment is to try and find out what bodhicitta is. So this this mind that is bodhicitta is the mind that wants to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. And in order to achieve this mind, we must have the thought of great compassion, which is the mind that wants all beings to be free from suffering. If we don’t have this mind, the mind that wants all beings to be free from suffering, which is actually great compassion, then there’s no way that we can develop bodhicitta. So in terms of when we talk about compassion, there’s actually three different types of compassion.
There’s the compassion which we call great compassion, which is, like we mentioned before, the thought that all beings be separated from suffering. The second one is immeasurable compassion, which is greater than this great compassion because it actually focuses on all beings. And the third one is what we call a universal universal responsibility or superior intention, which is the thought that not only do I want all beings to be free from suffering, but I’m actually going to achieve Buddhahood so I can make them free from suffering myself. We must achieve these three different types of compassion in order. First of all, we have the thought that many beings should be free from suffering.
Then we have the thought that every single being individually should be free from suffering. And then third one is this thought of universal responsibility, which comes about that I will do it myself. I will free them from suffering myself by achieving Buddhahood. So the first thing that we should have is this idea of having compassion for those those closest to us. And the traditional example is used of our parents having compassion for our parents, not wanting our parents to suffer.
And then after that, we try and extend this compassion to all those people that we consider our friends, people that we have a good acquaintance with. And then after this we’ve achieved this kind of state of mind, then we go on to try and have compassion for those beings that we don’t particularly have any feeling to that are neutral to us. And once we’ve achieved this this compassion for even beings that are neutral to us, then this is what we call great compassion. So then after this, we extend it to all beings, even ones that we don’t have such a good connection with. And then, the after that, we get the thought that, I need to do this myself.
I need to free all these beings from suffering myself. If I can free all these beings from suffering myself, the only way I can do it is to become Buddha. And this thought that I need to become Buddha in order to free all sentient beings from suffering is the the next next compassion up, which was universal responsibility. So we have this thought in each of us individually have this thought that unless I myself receive enlightenment, then there’s no way that I can show these beings how to stop suffering. So unless I do it myself, they’re gonna continually suffer.
So I have to do it myself. I have to take this responsibility onto myself and for each and the each individual being. So when we have this thought coming about, this is what we call superior intention or universal responsibility. So in order for this bodhicitta to come about, first of all, we have to try and develop these two minds. The first one being I want all beings to be happy, and then the second one being, ‘I want all beings to be free from suffering’.
And in order for us to do this, we have to understand the concept of suffering. And in first instance, it’s best to concentrate on ourselves when we’re thinking about this suffering. Because if we don’t understand suffering for ourselves, then we can’t try and have the mind that wants our parents to be free from suffering and then our friends to be free from suffering and then eventually all beings to be free from suffering. We can’t develop this mind unless we understand our own suffering. And so the problem comes about that we don’t actually know our own suffering very well even.
There’s three different types of suffering that they talk about in Buddhist scriptures. There’s the suffering of suffering, there’s suffering of change, and all pervasive suffering. We know very well the first suffering, which is the suffering of suffering because that’s our diseases and our pain and things like that. But the other two, the suffering of change and the all pervasive suffering, we actually consider these to be pleasurable. We consider them to be good qualities.
So the other two different types of suffering that we don’t know so well is the first one is the suffering of change, which is actually what we consider pleasure now. Everything that we consider pleasure in this life, the things we enjoy doing, these are all actually the suffering of change. And the third type of suffering, which is all pervasive suffering, is that our very existence is under the power of karma and delusion. So by the power of this karma and delusion, we actually exist here, and in each moment by moment, we’re under this power. So this is what is actually called all pervasive suffering.
So we consider that our our pains and our illnesses and things, they’re actually suffering, but we don’t consider our our possessions in our house and our and our health and our happiness. We don’t consider these to actually be suffering. We don’t recognize these as suffering. If we actually did recognize that these things that we consider pleasurable were actually suffering and recognise that clearly then that would become renunciation In this way we wouldn’t go for the pleasures of saṃsāra we’d turn our back on saṃsāra or turn our attraction to saṃsāra around And this would be what would constitute renunciation and become a cause for liberation from saṃsāra. So we have to do and and we should be doing analytical meditations and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings on how that this what we consider pleasure is actually suffering, especially at the beginning of our, path because these things that we consider these things that we consider pleasurable, our possessions and so forth, actually come about by the power of karma and delusion.
And when we die, we don’t know where we’re going. We can’t take them with us, and we don’t know what’s gonna happen after that. So therefore, that is all in the nature of karma and delusion. So if we understand that we can’t actually take these things with us and then they’ll just become a cause for suffering in the end, our possessions and everything like this become we get to see them clearly for what they are, which is the suffering of change. And we get to see that they actually come about by the by the power of karma and delusions.
And therefore, we don’t need to cling to them because they’re not going to help us in any way. So therefore, if we can see this how this works for ourselves, if we can see that how clinging to the things that we consider pleasurable is actually gonna cause us suffering and we can’t take them with us when we die, then in the same way that we’re suffering, we can extend this concept out to all other beings and then we develop the three types of compassion that we talked about before, that being a great compassion, immeasurable compassion, and the universal responsibility that takes on the idea of achieving Buddhahood for ourselves. If we think about other sentient beings and how they’re suffering, these things naturally come about. So if we think about all the different sufferings that people have and how much they’re suffering at the moment and how we would like them to be, excuse me, free from suffering, then the only way that we can actually make these people see it free from suffering or these beings free from suffering is for us to achieve Buddha hood ourselves. So thinking in this way is is now time to do a meditation on bodhicitta.
Okay. And I just thought that it was three things I had no idea about, but it’s okay. We found out what they are. So the start of the outline that we’re doing in the special insight part of the of this Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, it has three divisions. The first one being ascertaining the nonexistence of a personal self.
The second one being ascertaining the nonexistence of the self of phenomena. And the third way is the way to develop special insight. So at the moment, we’re starting on ascertaining the nonexistence of a personal self. And so when we talk about this ascertaining the nonexistence of a personal self, what we’re actually talking about is the selflessness of beings. And the selflessness of beings is the actual way that beings exist.
So when we talk about this actual way that they exist in the selflessness, we’re also talking about emptiness, how they have a lack of inherent existence, these all these different things. So we also have to define what we mean when we say person in this case because when we actually usually think of person, we usually think of what we can see. And that thing that we can see, we usually label person. But this isn’t actually what we’re talking about here. So when we’re talking about a a it’s usually translated as being, but there’s different types of beings, we have to be careful.
But so when we’re talking about this person or this being, what we’re talking about is a continuum that is a merely labelled ‘I’ that has since the beginningless time been under the influence of kleshas or afflictive emotions and karma. So it’s just a continuum that since then has has existed but has always been under the influence of these two negative things. So all of us are actually beings or people. Yeah. So but when we think about ourselves, we usually define ourselves by our physical being.
We usually say, oh, this physical self is me. This is what I am. But this isn’t the case this isn’t what we’re actually talking about here. So what we’re actually talking about is on top of the aggregates that form our being, we actually place a label. We say, this is me.
This is you. This is Geshe-la. Geshe-la said this is Ruth, so I said back. This is Geshe-la. And and this is what we’re talking about.
So we usually label these things as person, and we label these things as consciousness. We say this is him, this is her, this is this is they, or this is something that they think, or this is something that they do. So this thing that we’re saying is is a person isn’t actually a person inherently. It’s that we’re labelling it a person. We’re labelling it we are saying that’s a person, that’s him, that’s her, that’s them.
We’re saying that. So it’s this this labelling on top of the aggregates that creates the person. It’s this labeled thing or person on top of the aggregate that we are saying, yeah, is a person. Sorry. We’re saying that the aggregates, the actually, the collection of aggregates is not on the aggregates.
We have to be careful with our words. It’s not on the aggregates. The actual aggregates themselves, we’re saying this is the person. Those aggregates are the person. So on this base, that is the five aggregates, that’s what we’re labelling a person.
So the different aggregates of form, feeling and so forth, we’re seeing that and saying, okay, that’s a person. But usually our labeling is mainly based on the physical sense, which is the form aspect of the aggregates because that’s what we relate to the most. So it is but it’s not the aggregates just themselves. When we sit here and think, oh, I’m here. I’m doing this.
I think this. I do this. Then this I that we’re talking about is is actually the person, but it’s something that we’re labeling the aggregates as. It’s not the aggregates themselves. It’s something that we’re labeling them as.
Of the five aggregates, it’s not usually that we can recognize all five aggregates at once. We can see the form aggregate, and we can see all the different things. But to actually find them is difficult. And then on top of so on top of that, to actually find this merely labeled eye that we’re talking about is really difficult. It’s very difficult to isolate what it is we’re talking about.
So this this this thing we’re thinking about when we talk about the merely labeled eye, usually, we see ourselves as a person and say, I am a person. But it also can be different animals, different like, pigs and so forth. So we can say, oh, there there’s a merely labeled eye as well. We can say on the basis of those five aggregates, we have labeled we we are labeling an eye or we are sticking a sticking the concept of an eye. So when we talk about when we talk about beings or it’s usually translated as person, but that makes it complicated.
When we’re talking about these beings, then what we’re talking about is the label that we’re putting on the five aggregates, the collection of the five aggregates, and saying that is the person. That person that I have merely labelled is actually a person. So it’s that person we’re thinking about that is one we talk about being what we’re talking about. Okay. So this we did a division of three before.
The second division that we talked about was ascertaining the existence of the self ascertaining the nonexistence of the self of phenomena. And what we talk about when we talk about phenomena is anything that isn’t a person. So it’s anything that isn’t a labeled eye on top of the five aggregates. Anything that isn’t that is a just plainly called a phenomena. So when in the second division, when it says, we have to realize the selflessness of phenomena, that’s anything that we wouldn’t say, that wouldn’t say eye about themselves.
Okay. So the five aggregates that we’re talking about before, each of those individually is actually phenomena. Alright? So you have to take those separately. Those five things are actually phenomena, and the thing that we label on top of that as I is actually a person or a being.
Alright? So they themselves are phenomena. They’re even phenomena, but the the thing we label on top of them isn’t. The thing we label on top of them is is actually the the being. So yeah.
So that ascertainment of that aggregate or that, like, collection of bits is basically what aggregate means. If it doesn’t if it’s not merely labeled on top of a collection of those to be an eye, then every single single one of those, understanding their selflessness, understanding their lack of inherent existence is what we call ascertaining the selflessness of phenomena. So both of these both of these selfless both of these selflessnesses are actually in our continuum. We have in our continuum the selflessness of phenomena and the selflessness of of a person or the selflessness of a of a being. So, yeah, I was just trying to clarify something because it can get a bit confusing, especially in the translation because you don’t usually refer to selflessness of phenomena, like selfless self the concept of selfless usually goes with this self, which we usually talk about as being us.
But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about how they the the actual phenomenons don’t have an inherent existence, basically. So they don’t exist. The the selflessness we’re talking about is their their lack of true existence. It’s not that they have supposed to have some kind of personality or something.
It’s a different concept of selflessness. So the two selflessnesses, the selflessness of the person and the selflessness of phenomena, it can be best exemplified by if we talk about ourselves, we say, my. This is I I, and Geshe-la said, I I I am doing this. I am doing that. This is mine.
This is mine. We all have this concept of this of our own true existence because of this mind saying, I I I I all the time. And this is what we call the the self the self that we think we’re truly established, so therefore we have a self. So in the same way we have that for ourselves, it is also true the way we look at phenomena. We think that it has a that phenomena each individual phenomena has a self of its own that we can we we assume is is truly existent in the same way we assume ourselves as being truly existent.
So this this self that we that we we we cling to, this idea of self that we have that we walk around thinking that we truly exist and we say, I I I all the time, this isn’t actually what we’re talking about when we talk about beings. This is is something that doesn’t actually exist. The thing that we talk about when we’re defining a being is the the label that we put on the five aggregates. It’s not the grasping that we have that says, this is me, this is me, I truly exist, and I have since beginningless time. It’s not that it’s the that doesn’t that doesn’t constitute a being.
That is that is exact actually a nonexistent. This thing that we say, this is me, me, me. That’s a nonexistent. The thing that we’re talking about here when we talk about a being is just merely the label that we stick on ourselves and others. And so this lack of inherent existence that we can see in ourselves that we don’t actually exist without any dependence on causes and conditions, the lack of that is called the selflessness of the person.
And in the same way, if we can look at phenomena and say that they don’t exist independent of causes and conditions, in other words, truly exist, if they’re not like that, then that lack of self of existence of there is called the selflessness of phenomena. So in this way, there’s these, two selflessnesses. Yeah. So the hang on. The second one is the selflessness of phenomena.
Yeah. So the lack of its inherent existence of phenomena is called the selflessness of phenomena. So then we have a quote from the Four Hundred Verses, which is a text by Āryadeva and it says in it that at first you should stop doing those unvirtuous deeds in the middle you should turn around your concept of self, and in the end, you should turn around your concept of all phenomena that inherently exist. And when it talks about when it talks about turning around our bad deeds, this is actually what’s covered in the in the within the lamrim in what they call the the scope of the lower beings, the lower scope, and that is the concepts of we’re concentrating on death and impermanence, and things like this will make us not want to do negative actions and concentrate on positive actions. So that’s what the first line means at this verse.
So in the scope, the lower scope or the scope the lower person, what we should be concentrating in is karma. And the idea is that we concentrate on karma, and that will bring about a good rebirth. We’ll get a rebirth in the higher realms, and then we can keep doing Dharma practice. So the the idea is to destroy the notion that karma doesn’t exist and to try and do meditations on karma that strengthen our belief in karma at that stage, this stage. And at the the mid in the middle scope, then what we’re trying to do is achieve self liberation or nirvana and this is achieved by an understanding of the emptiness of self so by understanding that we have the selflessness of ourselves and getting a glimpse into emptiness then we can achieve this liberation, and that achieves the goal of the middle scope.
So in the stage in the greater scope, the last of the scopes then we have to focus on the selflessness of all phenomena. And the understanding of selflessness of all phenomena is a prerequisite to achieving Buddhahood. And once we can understand the selflessness of all phenomena, then we’ve achieved Buddhahood. So we need to be able to focus on this so it’s like this this has to be achieved in order to become a Buddha. Therefore, it becomes the main focus of this of this the greatest scope. So there isn’t actually any difference between the thing that is to be negated in the two different types of