Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Three vessel analogies — the upside-down cup, the stained cup, the leaking cup — give this 24-minute Lamrim session its most memorable structure. Geshe Pema Tsering opens with a brief guided meditation and refuge prayers, then covers the benefits of Dharma study: working through the three scriptural baskets leads progressively to ethical restraint, concentration, and liberating wisdom. He addresses how to listen: the six conditions required while receiving teachings, followed by each vessel fault — inattention, impure motivation, and forgetting — and their antidotes. The patient-and-doctor framework runs through the second half: the practitioner carries a chronic illness of the three poisons, Dharma is the medicine, and the teacher is the physician. A closing mirror image captures the whole point: Dharma shows you the flaws in your own mind. Suitable for newcomers to structured Lamrim study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: z Students BP – BP Meditation How to listen to the teachings.mp3
UUID: da9f8ee6-c95b-43b1-a34a-75a5ce646c36
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Middle Lam Rim (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2009 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 23.7 minutes
Words: ~1,197
Resting gently in the lap, left hand in the right hand, or maybe it’s the other way around. Forgot. Sorry. Mouth and jaw relaxed. The tip of the tongue touching the back of the upper teeth against the hard palate.
And maybe just keeping your eyes slightly open just a fraction and looking down at the floor in front of you. And then we just adjust our motivation. That you want to find happiness and to develop the altruistic aspiration to become a Buddha so as to be able to be of the greatest possible benefit to others. And then we just say the refuge prayer together. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly.
By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the assembly. By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme assembly. By my practice of giving enough perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings.
May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all sentient beings be inseparable from their happiness, free from suffering. May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment to friends and aversion towards enemies. So now we just focus on the breath.
The way to listen to the dharma. Thinking about the benefits of studying the dharma, you will know all the main points for modifying your behavior. You will understand understand the meaning of the Vinaya basket, and as a result, will stop non-virtue by following the high training of ethics. You will understand the meaning of the sūtra basket. And as a result, you will come to abandon such meaningless things, such as distractions by following the high training in single pointed concentration.
And you will understand the meaning of the Abhidharma basket and abandoned delusions by means of the high training in wisdom. So your study cuts the root of saṃsāra, and you attain liberation. You will develop faith in the Three Jewels and your belief in the certainty of karma, and hence, you will be happy to adjust your behavior. You will come to understand the faults of the first two noble truths and the qualities of the last two. So you will be steadfast in working towards your final goal, Buddhahood.
How to show respect for the Dharma and its teacher. You must pay the same respect to the teachers of Dharma when you are listening to their teachings as you would to the Buddha himself. You must listen with an undistracted mind free from delusion and pride. There should be six things that should be present while you listen. The right time, courteous regard, regard, respect, lack of anger, the intention to put the teaching into practice, and an absence of arguing with the teacher.
The actual way to listen to the Dharma. Abandoning the three types of faults which hinder a person becoming a worthy vessel. The fault of being similar to an upside down vessel, no matter how much nourishing liquid is poured over it. None of the nourishment gets into the vessel. To absorb the teaching, you must give it your full attention.
The fault of being similar to a stained vessel. A vessel may be turned the right way up, but if it is dirty, even the nourishing liquid being poured in becomes polluted. This means you may be listening and taking the teachings in. However, your motivation may not be pure. The fault of being similar to a vessel which leaks.
If the vessel contains holes, it will not retain the liquid regardless how much you are pouring into it. You may be listening and taking in everything, and your motivation may be faultless. However, However, if you don’t listen carefully, you will immediately forget everything. To abandon these faults of the vessel, in one of his sutras, the Bhagavan stressed, listen well. Listen the best way and retain it in the mind.
Cultivating the six helpful attitudes. Developing the attitude that you are like a patient. It may seem perverse to meditate on being a patient as we think we are not ill However, we have a serious chronic illness of the three poisons, attachment, hatred, and ignorance, though we don’t know it. So we look for the right cure by developing the attitude that the holy dharma is medicine. Dharma is the only medicine that pacifies the disease of delusion.
To obtain a prescription for medicine, you need to depend on a skillful doctor. Hence, you develop the attitude that your spiritual teacher is like a doctor. You will not develop any realizations or insights from practicing Dharma from books. So when you decide to practice Dharma, you must seriously rely on a spiritual teacher as you would rely on a skillful doctor if you were sick. You cannot blame the medicine or the doctor if as a patient you’re not following the doctor’s advice.
So we develop the attitude that diligent practice will cure the illness. You should not blame the guru or the Dharma. It is the student not putting Dharma into practice who is at fault. Keeping in mind the first person to teach the Dharma was our teacher, the Buddha, and he himself manifest the path and its results.
Then think my spiritual teacher and guru is an emanation of the Tathāgata Śākyamūni. So we develop the attitude that Tathagatas, or Buddhas, are holy beings. Through listening to such Dharma as this one comes to think how wonderful it would be if the teachings of this tradition be preserved in this world for a long time. When listening to the Dharma, these attitudes are important. The reason for attending teachings is to bring some pressure to bear on your mind stream.
Otherwise, your mind will only stay the way it is. An illustration. You need to look into a mirror in order to see if your face is dirty. Then you can remove any dirt that may be there. You examine your own mind stream and behavior in the mirror of dharma.
You listen to dharma to tell whether your mind has any flaws. If you find any, you should be distressed and think, has my mind come to this? You will then want to do all you can to rid yourself of the faults. And so we dedicate this positive energy of the meditation so that the pure teachings and great teachers may remain in the world. Now we do the dedication prayers.
Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a guru buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the supreme jewel, bodhicitta, that has not arisen arise and grow, and that which has arisen, not diminish but increase more and more.