Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 49-minute talk, Geshe Pema Tsering traces the transmission lineage of the Seven Points of Mind Training from its origin in Sumatra — through Atisha, Dromtönpa, and a succession of Kadampa teachers — before mapping exactly where the practice sits within the full graduated path to enlightenment. He outlines all seven points, then focuses on the first: training in the preliminaries. This means understanding the three levels of spiritual motivation — staying out of lower rebirths, escaping saṃsāra altogether, and working for universal liberation — and their corresponding practices, including the sixteen characteristics of the four noble truths explained in some detail. A Q&A covers the ten non-virtuous actions, with Geshe-la memorably singling out pointless chatter as the most difficult to abandon.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 2005 05 29 MT.mp3
UUID: c871e1d5-afc0-42b5-bc71-b153a231c403
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Mind Training (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-05-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 49.6 minutes
Words: ~4,017
Alright. So please take a moment to look at your motivation for listening to this teaching this morning and try and guide your motivation to be that in order for sentient beings to be freed from suffering, they need someone who can show them how to do that. In order to bring this about, may we ourselves become Buddhas as quickly as possible and be able to lead sentient beings out of suffering. Now, in order for us to become Buddhas, we need to be able to develop the mind of bodhicitta. And so, this teaching, the mind training, focuses on the development of the mind of bodhicitta and is therefore essential on the path to enlightenment.
Please have this idea that you’re listening to this teaching in order to develop your mind, in order to train your mind, in order to become a Buddha. Oh. Geshe-la said where we’re up to. He said we have a different text, Geshe-la. It’s the same, a different format. And I gave you a pen last week and said we have a different text.
Please mark where you’re up to. Alright. So we’re talking about the lineage of this teaching, where it came from. We talked about how the lamas, the guru from Sumatra, Serlingpa, had developed this teaching and used it a lot in order to develop bodhicitta. He taught many different students who became teachers.
From amongst these, he said that Atisha, who is also called Jowo Je, he was the most revered or there was no equal in quality his other students who became teachers. Atisha was highly praised by Serlingpa. When Serlingpa was talking about who it was that should be respected as the holder of the teachings that he had passed on down as his as the essence of his heart instructions, then he said it should be it should be a teacher. Excellent. Likewise, Atisha said about these teachings, the teachings on transforming the mind, and his guru, Serlingpa, having a good mind, having a clear mind the hang on, I’ll try and do it again.
Atisha said: The fact that I have a clear mind, the fact that I have a good mind, is only because of the kindness of my teacher, Serlingpa, he said. And so I’m able to pass on these teachings because of the blessing or the inspiration of the lineage from teacher to student that has been passed to me. And another time, Atisha said that the vehicles of the perfections and the vehicles of the tantras have no effect if they’re not accompanied by bodhicitta. So he said that you’re not actually using the tantra practices or the practices of the sutras properly or using them as an antidote to afflicted states of mind unless you have done this training, unless you have started to focus on others and not on yourself. Right.
So after Atisha Pala Yura. Really? Oh. Okay. So after Atisha took these teachings, he he he had these teachings from Serlingpa, and he traveled back to India, then he went on to Tibet.
And when he was in Tibet, he taught are called the pith his pith heart instructions or pith heart instructions. Doesn’t make sense. There were his personal instructions that he gave to students in order for them to transform their mind. The first person he gave these instructions to was a Kadampa Geshe called Dromtönpa. Yeah?
Dumpa, right? Uh-huh. Okay. And so he he was a teacher I guess you don’t know his name was. He was a teacher who had many students.
And among those, it said that there were, three special students, of his that he trusted the most. And he gave he made one of these students whose name was Alright. And then he passed it on to another teacher whose name was Shengawa or Jingawa, which means ‘having eyes’. I don’t know what that means. Anyway, his name, mister five eyes, and then he was passed on to Okay.
It wasn’t five eyes. Was eyes to the past, the person with eyes to the past. It’s a different spelling. Alright. And then he passed it on to another man whose name was Gyalwa Gompa.
Now Gompa means meditator, and Gyalwa means victorious, so he was the victorious meditator. And the reason he’s called that is because it’s another way of saying that he developed the adamantine calm abiding, which means the vajra like calm abiding. Because vajras or diamonds are supposed to be so heavy, that’s why it’s called the heavy meditator. But it means that he had this ability to concentrate on whatever he wanted to. And then he passed it on to another teacher, another Kadampa teacher called Lama Jampa Namkha, which means the yogi that meditates on compassion that we talked about last week.
And then he passed it on to another teacher called Potawa, who’s Geshe Potawa. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Alright. Sorry.
Geshe Potawa wasn’t in that lineage. He was just on end, and I got confused. But he he’s he’s mentioned in his text because he said of this teaching, the seven points of mind training, that, he’d been given many instructions. He’d been taught the whole of the Buddha’s Dharma, but he considered, in terms of the kindness of the teachings that had been given, that Serlingpa’s contribution was the greatest. This teaching on mind training was the greatest teaching that he’d encountered in all that he’d studied.
Geshe Potawa was a student of Dromtönpa, who was the main student of Atisha when he was in Tibet. So, this is he’s he’s very highly regarded. For him to have praised these teachings in this way, it shows how important they’re supposed to be. Geshe Potawa was very highly regarded, as we’ve said. And because of this, many times these teachings are said to be teachings that came from him because he was so regarded as a student of Dromtönpa and he also emphasized these teachings to his students privately.
This is the tradition. This is where these teachings came from, from Sumatra to India to Tibet. An overview of exactly what they entail is given in the next section, which is The seven points are. It’s called the seven points of mind training. This is where they came from, we’ve just gone through.
The seven points themselves are: training in the preliminaries as the basis for all Dharmas is the first point. The second point is training in the two bodhicittas. The third point is transforming difficulties into the path. The fourth point is the practice that encompasses a whole life. The fifth point is the limits of mind training.
The sixth point is words to be trained in or phrases to train in. Phrases to train in. And then seven seventh is the oh, hang on. I’ll try that again. Yeah.
No. Six is words to train in, and the seventh is things to train in or teachings to train in. So they’re very similar, the last two. Words to train in and then teachings to train in. The first of these then is section that says: The basis for all dharmas is training in the preliminaries.
With reference to that, the first line of the actual text of the Seven Points of Mind Training says: At first, train well in the preliminaries. So, what this is talking about has been elaborated on by many different teachers, and most specifically by Atisha, who came with the idea of presenting the path to enlightenment by way of the three different beings or the three different motivations or the three different stages of the path. So the parts of that path that come before the development of bodhicitta, which is actually the beginning of the third stage, the beginning of greater capacity or the greater motivation are all considered here to be preliminaries, are considered to be things that you do before you start developing bodhicitta. So, before you get up to the stage of developing the aspiration of bodhicitta, developing the wish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, then anything preceding that is considered to be the preliminaries. Okay.
Okay. So this isn’t these preliminaries aren’t something that we need to that we can brush over or something that we consider consider to be easy. They’re very difficult. It’s difficult for us to develop a mind that is in line with these preliminaries. It’s something that we shouldn’t just jump over.
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It doesn’t mean that we can that we necessarily have to achieve the realisations of the stages of the path up until this point, but we have to know what they are. We have to have an understanding of the context in which the mind training comes in terms of the path to enlightenment.
We have to understand what precedes this idea or where this idea of reaching enlightenment to the benefit of all sentient beings comes from, in order to be able to practise mindful training properly. Otherwise, we’re doing it within a vacuum, without reference points. Alright. So what we need to become aware of is what these three stages are in the graduated path to enlightenment. So, it’s talked about in terms of three different beings.
Sorry. Hang on one second. Alright. So in the graduated path, it’s called the graduated path of the three beings. And I think when they translate it into English, they mostly say the three different capacities or the three different, motivations.
And in Tibetan, it says three beings. I said to Geshe-la, there seems to be a reluctance. Can you say that? In wanting to say the word, wanting to say three beings because it’s like you’re saying a being is stuck in one place, but that’s not what it means. It means that there is one type of being who is motivated by this idea, which is the first of the three types of beings, to stay out of the lower realms.
This is the first stage that we need to go through, the first type of being that we need to become in progressing along the graduated path. Recognizing that just stay out of the lower realms is a good thing, is the basis for all other Dharma practices. What this entails is developing ethics, because the idea of staying out of the lower realms means having good karma. It means having created the causes for a good rebirth as opposed to creating the causes for a negative rebirth. The essence of the practice of the first type of being is practicing ethics, abandoning the ten non virtuous actions and trying to practice the ten virtuous actions.
This is the first stage of the path and that’s the basis for the other two stages. Then the second type of being’s motivation is developed from the first type of being, so the first type of being can become the second type of being, right? Same being, different motivation. They develop motivation that they’re not just trying to get out of the lower realms, they’re trying to get out of saṃsāra and attain liberation. Then the third type of being isn’t only doing that for themselves, but they’ve turned that idea of getting out of saṃsāra for themselves themselves around, and they’re working to get all sentient beings out of saṃsāra instead of themselves.
So those beings who are focused on attaining a good rebirth, who are living ethical lives, working within the bounds of morality to attain a good rebirth as a god or a human, and to stay out of the lower realms, that kind of being, a person with that type of motivation, is called or the the smallest of the three capacities of being. So, Gesh, the way that Gesh’s piece is usually very compacted, and he uses a lot of very clipped phrases that mean a lot that I have to kinda unpack, and he just shortened one that was already short, even short, and I was like, what? Okay. Okay. So this means that for the beings of the lesser capacity who are working to their goal, what they’re working towards, their aim, is to attain a good rebirth.
Their practice is ethics. Their practice is abandoning the ten non virtuous actions and taking up the ten virtuous actions, right? That’s their practice. The goal, a good rebirth to practice ethics. For those of the middling capacity, their goal is to get out of Samsāra completely.
They haven’t just abandoned the wish to be reborn in the lower realms, right? They’ve abandoned the wish to be reborn in Samsāra completely, right? So, goal is to get out of Samsāra. Their practice is what are called the Three Higher Trainings, that is the training in ethics, again, then the training in meditation, and the training in wisdom the wisdom perceiving selflessness or wisdom perceiving the lack of identity. That’s part of their training.
The other part of their training, which Geshe-la said is Impermanence, etcetera. Right? Now, what that refers to is the sixteen aspects of the four This is why I was having trouble. Sixteen aspects of the four noble truths. Right?
Which means that they focus on each of the four noble truths, understanding the four noble truths by way of each of the four noble truths, four characteristics. Yes? The first characteristic of the first The first truth, sorry, is the truth of suffering. Its first characteristic is that suffering is impermanent. The experiences are impermanent, or compounded phenomena are impermanent.
Second characteristic is that it is by nature suffering. Misery is experienced in saṃsāra. Its third characteristic is that it is empty of a self or a personal entity, and then it’s also empty of a self that is permanent, autonomous and individual. And then it is also said to be selfless in that there is no substantial self that one can cling to that acts as a base to this experience of suffering and this experience of impermanence. The next Noble Truth is the truth of the origin of suffering, where suffering comes from, and its first characteristic Okay.
This is all from three words, but you have to extrapolate. Okay, the characteristics of the second noble truth, the truth of the origin of suffering, is that there is a cause for there is a source of that cause, there is conditions that make suffering come into being, even that have to come along with the cause, and the last one is what’s called intense arising. This doesn’t make any sense. What are you getting off? Just one.
Marty? Sorry. You translate them straight, and they just don’t make any sense, do they? Intense production, what does that mean? It means that things actually come into being, it’s the moment where they actually are.
So, you’re talking about you have causes for things, you have the source of these things, you have conditions that all come together to bring this experience of suffering, and then you have the actual moments where these things have come together and created suffering. And these are the four characteristics of the origin of suffering. And then you have the four characteristics of the truth of cessation. Alright. And so, the four characteristics of the truth of cessation, which is the third of the noble truth, is that suffering can have a cessation.
afflictive emotions can be thoroughly pacified. That this is a good thing is the third one. You could probably literally translate it as excellent. The fourth one is called definite emergence, which is also sometimes translated as renunciation, which means that a being definitely emerges from suffering. Okay.
And the four characteristics of the truth of the path are that there is a path, that’s the first characteristic, that there is a way you can go, that there is accomplishment on that path, that this is used by the development of wisdom the development of wisdom is the path. And, the third one is process that leads to definite emergence. In the first section, had this, in the Truth of Cessation, you had this idea that you have definitely gotten out of suffering, right? And then, in the Four Characteristics of the path, they use the present tense of that verb, which turns it into that which is happening, the the coming out. Right?
As opposed to the having come out. Does that make sense? Right. So developing an understanding of these four noble truths and the individual characteristics of these four noble truths is how a being of the middling capacity gets out of saṃsāra, right, in combination with the three higher trainings in meditation in ethics, meditation, and wisdom. Right.
So Then a being of the greatest capacity practices these things. They practice ethics, and they practice developing an understanding and using the four noble truths or the four noble truths to get out of saṃsāra and the three higher trainings. But they also develop this mind wishing to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, and then practice the six perfections the six perfections and the four means of gathering disciples in order to attain Buddhahood, in order to benefit all sentient beings. So, it’s not as if when develop the motivation of a middling capacitied being that you stop practicing ethics, you don’t. Take the practice of ethics with you and you incorporate it into the practices of a being of the middle scope.
And when you develop bodhicitta, it’s not as if you stop practicing ethics and you stop practicing meditation and you stop developing an understanding of the sixteen characteristics of the Four Noble Truths. You don’t, you continue on with those. But the practices that are said to be unique to the practice of the greater capacity of being are these practices of the six perfections and the motivation to attain enlightenment to benefit all sentient beings? So this path, this process by which you get out of saṃsāra and you attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings is something that you need to understand as a preliminary to practicing mind training. If you don’t practice mind training within this framework, within an understanding of what you’re actually doing, then it’s gonna have very limited benefits.
So this is this is a rough overview, a very rough overview of the path to enlightenment. You start with this idea of not wanting to be born in the lower realms and practicing ethics, and then you develop the idea that being reborn in the higher realms isn’t such a good thing either. So, you develop the wish to get out of saṃsāra, and then get out of saṃsāra by developing and understanding and putting into practice practice the Four Noble Truths and the three higher trainings in ethics, meditation and wisdom. And then, you realize that not only yourself but other beings are also suffering, so you want to do something that will lead them out of suffering, develop this idea of bodhicitta, attaining enlightenment for the benefit of other beings, and practice the six perfections in order to in order to become a Buddha. Right?
So this is a general overview of the and you need to we need to thoroughly familiarize ourselves with that idea as a preliminary to practicing mind training. Right. So, this means then, knowing this overview of what the three stages of the path are, that everything up to the point where we start the greater beings or the greater motivations, practices. Everything up to the point where we start looking at others suffering and developing the wish to get out of saṃsāra and lead other beings out of saṃsāra those two ideas together, attaining enlightenment for ourselves and others, is the preliminaries to the practice that we’re doing now. So this practice fits in the beginning of the greater motivation or greater being’s practices.
So anything up until that point is a preliminary to this practice. Is that okay? No. That’s okay. I think everybody can empathize.
Okay. So if you have any questions hang on, Peter. I have to give Carly a break because I cut her off twice. No. That’s why she put her hand up at the end.
I’m like, no. Time’s up, Carly. Alright. So she’s got her hand up first now, so I have to give her a go. Oh, yeah.
Could you just please repeat the first four Alright. Impermanence, suffering or misery, manifest suffering. Yeah? Emptiness, but the emptiness of it’s there specifically the emptiness of a gross personal self. Yeah?
Not not emptiness as in the other type emptiness. And the last one is selflessness or identitylessness. Yes? The ten you said ten minutes of Non virtuous actions. Okay.
Right. So there are ten non virtuous actions that we need to abandon in order to practice ethics. Three of body, which are killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct. Alright. Three of body.
And then there’s four of speech. There is divisive speech, slander. No, sir. Okay. Divisive speech, lies, and slander is one, I think.
Yes? No, it’s not. What am I talking about? Okay. There’s harsh speech, lies, divisive speech, slander is one, is number three, and the fourth one is speaking rubbish.
You know, yeah. Meaningless meaningless chatter. That’s no. That’s seven. Three and four seven.
And then there’s three of mind, three mental activities that we need to abandon, and they are having a malicious mind, having a covetous mind, covetous grasping, wanting other people’s stuff, yeah, and the third one is wrong views. He reckons it’s easy. Oh, yeah. No one’s gonna kill it. Yeah.
He says it’s it’s Okay. Said he reckons no one’s gonna it’s it’s easy to be he says it’s easy to be to not it’s easy not to practice sexual misconduct because there’s a lot of things that have to lead up to it before you get there. Yeah? And there there has to be a whole process before you get there, so it’s easy not to do that. He said, but the one that’s, like, speaking rubbish, just chattering, pointless chatter, and he said, that’s hard.
That just happens before you know it’s happened. Yeah. He He thinks that it’s the pointless chatter that’s the most difficult. So anytime that we’re talking and we’re talking about things that we’re talking because of our desires or our anger or our any of those things, that’s all said to be pointless chatter. Anytime we talk out of our negative emotions, that’s pointless chatter.
So he said he’d think that’s the most difficult. I mean, really That’s really hard, he said. This is the I know. If you can get rid of that one, you you sorted, he said. Yeah.
Yeah. When we review our day Uh-huh. Regret Mhmm. How wrong doing. I never I guess I should regret it because I can’t promise Alright.
So the fact that that you don’t think that you could stop doing it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t make the idea that you’re gonna stop doing it. Alright? So, the if you develop this idea in your head, at some stage, I’m gonna stop doing this. Yeah? Or I’ve gotta stop doing that.
Yeah? Then that acts that’s really beneficial to the mind because it sets a habit of wanting to get to the stage where you don’t where you’re not engaging in pointless chatter. So it’s good to to have that idea it’s not gonna happen even if you know it’s not. Even if you know it is. Sorry.
Okay. It’s saying mean things about other people. Right? So it doesn’t necessarily mean disagreeing with others because you may not necessarily be disagreeing with others for your own benefit. But if you’re trying to put other people down with words and say things, harsh things, to make yourself feel better or to harm them, then that’s harsh speech.
K. No more hands. So