Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A vivid analogy drives this 34-minute commentary: just as people raised on chili barely notice the burn that overwhelms others, a bodhisattva meets suffering without aversion — not denying pain but refusing to regard it as unwanted. Geshe Pema Tsering uses this to explain how advanced practitioners relate to painful feelings, then fields student questions about whether an ordinary practitioner can also transform suffering, drawing on a student’s real example of reframing illness as karmic purification. Geshe-la draws the distinction carefully and offers practical guidance for working with unavoidable pain. The final portion turns to Buddhist philosophical schools, contrasting Nāgārjuna and Asaṇga on whether the Buddha’s later teachings are definitive or interpretable in meaning — a notoriously subtle debate that Geshe-la introduces honestly as taking years of study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 2006 10 12 M and MF.mp3
UUID: 9edf7685-32c2-45eb-b752-b1d627035531
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Mind & Mental Factors (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2006-10-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 34.1 minutes
Words: ~2,277
Arise in dependence on the body sense power. Again, the same goes for for the nose and and the ear and the tongue and so forth. They all arise because of their respective sense powers, and they are all body. And because of that, then we have bodily feelings. We have what is called we call them bodily feelings because of that.
I presume you’re making this distinction because feeling is an aggregate of the mind. And what’s the aggregates, feeling is a mental aggregate? It’s a mental factor. Yes. Feeling is not body.
Feeling is consciousness. It is a mental factor. That’s the subject of the teachings today. Bodies that which has formed, is formed. Okay?
Okay. But What? Pure. Okay? So if you have questions, bet you have.
Where is where is this? You know? I see I see where you’re coming from. I see where you’re coming from. So So then so then for for example, for someone as a bodhisattva, such a being, even though there will be there will be what we would call suffering feelings and happy feelings, for him, he wouldn’t experience them necessarily as such.
Even though there will be suffering feelings, he wouldn’t be wishing to be separated or divorced from them. He would take take all in happily. He would say that’s okay. And if happiness if he experience happiness also is the same is the same for him. It’s it’s all good.
But that doesn’t change the definition of of happiness and suffering. For such beings, they have as I was explaining, they have realized the mind of enlightenment, so they do not experience suffering the same way that we do. So then, Geshe-la then explains, so then, a bodhisattva, such a being as bodhisattva is a being who is has developed such a state of mind to to a point where he’s he’s wishing, he’s wholeheartedly wishing to then attain enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, take whatever it takes. If he has he’s willing to in his wishes, in his in his mind of enlightenment, he’s determined to to experience every suffering there is, any suffering there is for the sake of accomplishing the mind of enlightenment. And then as for him experiencing at the same time happiness and suffering, there’s none such thing.
There’s not nothing like two two different feelings being experienced at the same time. Even though he is has he might have he might be having the feelings of suffering, he does not regard them as such. He regards them as a means to to attain enlightenment, to accomplish his goal of enlightenment himself. And then Geshe-la was then explained is just like in the example that he has given, I think, just on Tuesday I think last Tuesday, he gave this example of someone who got who has gotten used to eating chili. It’s just an example of the chili.
So then I guess I was explaining he he told this example of the the chili last Tuesday, and I asked him to tell you again, to talk to you. And then it’s just like Indian people or Nepali people or Asian people in general, they regard food that does not have chili on it as as tasteless. They must they must have chili on their food and not and not only a a little chili, they must have a lot of chili in their food. And then we, on the other hand, as Geshe-la was then just explaining, we, on the other hand, we just eat just a tiny little bit of chili, and we’re already burning, and and we don’t want it. But these people, they are all that they want is chili.
And in the same way, the bodhisattva, he’s willing to to experience any suffering that might come his way. Whatever it is, he’s willing to to take it on to him for the sake of attaining enlightenment. Then our mouth and their mouths burn just the same, but it does not affect them because they grew used to it. It does affect only affect only us. We are not used to it, but it burns all the same.
So it’s like if I stab myself with a knife through my foot, and so I feel suffering from that. But if I was a bodhisattva, I stabbed myself with my knife I don’t think a bodhisattva would do that — and I don’t think if I got stabbed, the knife went through my foot, for whatever reason, the bodhisattva would not feel suffering, they would feel happiness. Is that what he’s saying? Even though he he he will experience, he will have the feelings of suffering, the painful feelings, he does not regard it as suffering. So following on from George’s question, say, you know, I get the flu, and my initial reaction is, I don’t want this suffering, I don’t like it, but then I use my mind to turn that around and see that it’s really good because it’s actually purifying some negative karma, but I’m not a bodhisattva.
And? So it just I just don’t feel that I really felt that that George’s question was really answered in terms of, like, if you’re not about to suffer, you can still have something that you experience as suffering but have a positive mental factor with it or, you know, say it in a positive way. You can transform your suffering even though you’re not able to suffer. I’m not sure if I understand what if you’re not a bodhisattva, then you cannot transform. Can you transform it the same way as Geshe-la was describing with the bodhisattva?
Is that what you’re asking? No. That’s not what I’m saying. No. That’s not because, you know, like, recently, I did get the flu.
Okay? Yeah. And initially, it was like, oh, no. I’ve got the flu. You know?
And then I started thinking, oh, this is very positive. You know? This is pure this is a purification. So I felt good about it. Yeah.
I’m quite happy about it. So, you know, that suffering, initial thing of, like, transforming, you know, the the body suffering that you wanna get rid of, you don’t we don’t want that suffering feeling. I was able to transform that and feel that it was a really positive thing to have. And, you know, that’s a lot of people then I guess is saying that even though, okay, you are not a bodhisattva, you have experienced the suffering. You have the the suffering experience because of having been sick with a cold.
And then at first, you you were experiencing the suffering feelings, and then later on, you you you meditated on the fact that then this this suffering is exhausting your negative karma, your previous negative karma, and then you feel happier about it. And then Geshe-la was then saying that still in deep in your mind, you were still you still had the wish to be free from it. You still had the wish to be separated from it. And if you you were separated from it, then you would think, oh, that’s that’s especially good. But then still, Geshe-la was saying, it’s it’s good that you train your mind in this way, and then Geshe-la was saying, you must do that in respect to karma and all that.
So So then there’s only I guess, I said, there’s nothing like this. There’s no benefits whatsoever coming out of acting in this way. And, as I said, eventually, after one one one after one has harmed oneself in such ways, then eventually, one will get angry oneself, and then we want to create more negativity out of it. Not only one won’t be able to get rid of previous that one has accumulated, one will accumulate more karma. You wanted to ask something, didn’t you?
Yeah. Mine was actually along the same lines as George, like, what should we do when suffering comes along? I’d be pleased to hear it asked again. I guess Natalie’s case was was an excellent illustration. So then, I guess, I was just saying just in those lines of of Natalie’s case, then, I guess, I was saying, so first of all, one tries to find a way to avoid that suffering, to stop the suffering.
And if there is if, in the end, one does not find any way, then one then takes it on as one’s own karma, as the result of one’s previous actions, and then then think that one is then burning away those negative actions. These these negative actions are being exhausted. And not only that, just I was just saying, one then understands, brings brings onto onto this meditation, understanding that many other sentient beings experience the same suffering. So may I then take take onto me now all the sufferings of all other sentient beings and exhaust all the suffering. Yeah.
Totally. Okay. Yes? The these both ways of looking right now? No.
No. No. It’s Tonight? No. But is it it good just to sort of stick to it stick to, say, the the the school of thought, which is coming through and stick with that or, you know, it it and perhaps not not bother about understanding, trying to look at So if you are able to generate an understanding of both systems, then that’s great.
But if you are not, then I guess I was just saying that you should certainly study at least the system of Nāgārjuna. Is the system asanga, is that what is termed emptiness of other? Yeah. So then it is not what is called other emptiness. It’s Shentong.
It is not that. It is a is a mind only school. And then, as I was saying, the the Buddha taught mainly four tenet schools. And the the Mahāyāna school, which is based on the teachings of Ārya Asaṇga, they are the Mahāyāna, of the two Mahāyāna schools. It is one of the Mahāyāna schools, and it is what is called Mahāyāna school of philosophy.
And then and then if you if you go back to the beginning of this text, you will see it explained that Ārya Asaṇga, he’s a follower of of of the last of the turning of the wheel of the Buddha, of the three main turnings of the wheel of the Buddha Śākyamūni. He he follows the last teaching and says that that is a definitive teaching as opposed to be interpretable teaching. And then Ārya Nāgārjuna says, on the other hand, that that teaching is an interpretable teaching as opposed to being a definitive teaching. And you have mentioned to that in the beginning of the very beginning of this text. And so the the third turning of the the wheel is it deals with which particular sutras?
The the Prajñāpāramitā sutras? Or what what what is the third turning of the wheel? The third turning of the wheel is a sūtra itself. The Samdhinirmochana. The Samdhinirmochana is the sūtra elucidating the intention of the sutras. So then the main difference is that Ārya Asaṇga asserts that this last turning of the wheel, this last teaching Just in time to ask the questions.
This last turning of the wheel is Ārya Asaṇga says, that is a definitive teaching, of definitive meaning. And then, Nāgārjuna says, is an interpretable teaching. And then in in the second turning of the wheel, it is is what Nāgārjuna asserts to be a teaching with a definitive meaning. It’s a complicated it’s a complicated matter. Stick.
It can take many years of studying. A living proof of that. Then a sūtra being of interpretable meaning means that one has to investigate what is the actual intention of of of the Buddha behind those expressions and the words that are being that are being taught. And then a teaching of definitive meaning, a sūtra of definitive meaning is that those sutras which can be taken then literally. And then, again, what what the Nāgārjuna says that though the the the second turning of the wheel is is such a a definitive scripture, which teaching which can be taken literally, and the third turning of the wheel is not so.
It’s not definitive. It’s interpretable. And then Asaṇga says otherwise. He says that the second one is interpretable, and the last one is definitive in the in the sense that it can be taken literally. That’s very difficult, Geshe lah.
So then again, Geshe-la is summarizing, and then again, Geshe-la is saying, first of all, it is a very difficult subject. A sūtra is is a teaching of the Buddha himself. The sutras are what are called sutras, they are the teachings of the Buddha himself. And then those sutras, they are said to be sutras of interpretable meaning, and sutras of definitive meaning. And then again, those this may may make reference to the to there being sutras which explicitly mainly teach about emptiness, and then other sutras which do not explicitly mainly do so.
And then so then, generally speaking, teachings sutras that mainly teach about emptiness, those are generally speaking, those are said to be sutras of definitive meaning. And then the sutras that do not do so, generally speaking, are said to be sutras of interpretable meaning. Without having studied many texts, there’s no way it will be easy to understand. But I’ll show you. I’ll give you some reference to that.
Then Geshe-la does agree with that. Okay? Shall we shall we finish?