Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A terminological pun hidden in the text’s own title opens this 46-minute session: Geshe Pema Tsering shows how “explicitly indicated” in the formal definition of the Mahāyāna path of accumulation plays on “clear realization” — the phrase the Ornament for Clear Realisations takes as its central term. He then unpacks the path of accumulation using an Abhidharma source, explaining why listening and contemplation rather than meditation are its primary activities, and why the actions of body, speech and mind on this path become the first stable causes for Buddhahood. A class debate follows: can someone who later loses bodhicitta truly be called “skilled”? The session closes with questions on the Tibetan term for mental grasping, how self-grasping persists in the continuum without arising in every moment, and whether two schools of Buddhist philosophy differ on whether realizing selflessness equals realizing emptiness.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 OCR 2005 02 10.mp3
UUID: 07583232-0a3f-4a5a-a165-3142bdd7834d
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Ornament for Clear Realisations (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-02-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.7 minutes
Words: ~2,987
Mhmm. Okay. So then the part after ‘bying in the basket’ still trying to figure out a way that can translate that and make sense. But, anyway, it says that in the Abhidharmakośa Really? Okay.
In the Abhidharmakośa, it says that the path of accumulation is characterized by that which comes from the karma arising from thought and from contemplation and listening, The karma arising from contemplation and listening. Now, when it says this, we shouldn’t just think it’s mental karma we’re talking about here. You can have karma of body, speech and mind that comes about through contemplation and listening. So if we’re listening to teachings and contemplating them, then the actions of our body, speech and mind will accord with the teaching. So it says then that on the path of accumulation, the actions of body, speech and mind become the actions of listening and contemplating.
They come become the actions that come about through listening and contemplating. And it says in the Asaṇga wrote a commentary to the two hundred and twenty thousand shloka Prajñāpāramitā. Yeah? Okay. So he wrote a commentary to that.
And it says in there that all of the actions of the path of accumulation are by their nature, the wisdom of contemplating and listening. As this is their mode of behavior, this is the way they are, then they are the first cause for Buddhahood. This means that the first direct cause for Buddhahood is the karma that we accumulate when we the path of accumulation. So up until that stage, you may be creating causes and conditions for developing Buddhahood, but none of them are stable. When you attain the path of accumulation, then all the actions of body, speech and mind become causes for Buddhahood in a very stable way as opposed to the unstable way that any karma that we can accumulate now will behave.
So in this way, it’s said that the development of the mind of enlightenment, bodhicitta, that the karma we accumulate on the path of accumulation is the first cause. And it’s not that we don’t do anything that leads to Buddhahood before that, but that’s first time that we can call what we’re doing an actual cause for Buddhahood. Okay. So then says that even though these texts say that the main focus for development on the path of accumulation is developing wisdom arising from listening and wisdom from contemplation. It doesn’t mean that those on the path of accumulation don’t meditate.
It just means that the main focus for their practice is actually to listen and develop and to contemplate the teachings. Because as they have first entered the path, they haven’t developed enough of an understanding of what it is that they need to do and the way that their own mind is working to be able to concentrate solely or even mainly on meditation. So they do meditate and they do develop wisdom arising from meditation, but the main focus of their practice is to listen and contemplate on the teachings. Okay. So given that this is the this is the main focus for beings on the path of accumulation, that is, hearing and contemplating, and it’s not necessarily meditating, although they do meditate.
This leads us to the definition for for a Mahāyāna partial concordance of liberation, which is a clear realizer of doctrine of a bodhisattva skilled in achieving an exalted knower of all aspects in his own continuum. Okay, so definition of a partial concordance with liberation, right, explicitly indicated in this case. You guys all have this definition, don’t you? No. Anyway, the partial concordance with liberation is another way of saying path of accumulation, right?
Explicitly indicated in this case When it says explicitly indicated in this case, it refers to the fact that it’s a pun, there we go, Because well, don’t if it’s quite a pun, but anyway. The explicitly indicated is another way of saying a clear realization, a clear ornament, like the ornament of clear realization, right? Explicitly indicated is a pun on a clear realization. So it means indicated in the case of the ornament of clear realization. Right?
So that is so it means the definition you can have for the path of accumulation if you’re talking about the path of accumulation from the point of view of this text, The Ornament of Clear Realization, right? And then that is a clear realizer of doctrine. Now a clear realizer of doctrine means a direct realization of doctrine. Now it’s not necessarily a direct realization of the emptiness of doctrine. Now actually, this word that they’ve translated here is doctrine, is dharma.
Dharma has two meanings. One is has actually, according to some texts, it has twelve. But in this instance, there’s two that it could directly have, that of phenomena or a phenomenon, yeah, and the other one is doctrine. In this instance, actually means phenomena or phenomenon, alright? So in order to have a clear realization of doctrine, means that you have to, or a clear realization of a phenomenon or phenomenon, phenomenon, sorry, that you have to be able to perceive something without a unmistakenly.
Now, I guess you said that there’s two different ways that we can perceive things unmistaken or we can perceive things without getting it wrong. It’s not necessarily unmistaken but without getting it wrong. We can perceive things and not get it wrong from the point of view of what’s called the profound path. Then we can also perceive things and not get them wrong from the point of view of the vast path. Now the profound path is the perception of emptiness.
The vast path is the perception of means. Specifically when we’re talking about the path of accumulation, we’re talking about the path of means, because it’s the development of bodhicitta. The wisdom of emptiness is based on the idea of hearing and listening, not necessarily meditative realization. This means it refers to the vast path as opposed to the sublime or the deep path. This means they have a clear realization of phenomenon as it relates to method, and because of this they’re skilled in achieving Buddhahood or an exalted knower of all aspects in their own continuum.
So that means that they are focusing on developing Buddhahood for themselves and not ripening it in other continuum. Is that how you say it? Yes. So in terms of this clear could have it as a clear realizer of doctrine or a clear realizer of phenomenon because Buddha taught many different things in many different ways. And if you have developed an understanding of something the Buddha taught, this means that you’ve developed an understanding of what is being taught about and an understanding of doctrine.
So in this way, if you’ve developed a clear realization of what the Buddha taught, that means you have a clear realization of Dharma as both a doctrine and a phenomena. And another way that you could say the clear realizer of Dharma, right? They’ve translated here as doctrine. It could be doctrine, it could be phenomena. It also just to say it could be the Dharma jewel.
So you could say, to have a clear realization of the Dharma jewel would be to have a clear realization of the qualities, that the qualities of true cessation and true paths exist. So you have to clear faith in that. So if you develop an understanding of true paths and true cessation, which is the definition of the Dharma jewel, it’s based on listening and contemplating, and this is the work of the path of accumulation. If based on that understanding that you’ve developed through hearing and contemplation, you develop a meditative experience or realization of true paths and true cessations and you enter the path of preparation. When the experience goes from being something that you’ve understood through contemplation and hearing to being something that you’ve experienced through meditation, and you cease to be on the path of accumulation and into the path of preparation or joining.
So there’s three different sections or there’s three different divisions to the path of accumulation. The first, being the smallest, is what you enter into at the beginning, the middle being the middle is what you enter into in the middle, and the big or the great being the great is what you enter into at the end, you’re about to enter the path, just before you enter the path of preparation. And Geshe-la said, That’s easy, isn’t it? It’s not something he says very often in his class, but yeah. Oh, yeah.
Right. Okay. So here’s a wee debate for you to end with. It says, some mouth or some dude said that you can’t posit the aforementioned definition as it being a definition of partial concordance with liberation because there are those who having achieved bodhicitta lose bodhicitta and they can hardly be defined as skilled. It says adoption of a bodhisattva, skilled in achieving and the result of knower.
So if you develop bodhicitta and then lose it, you can hardly be defined as skilled. You can also hardly be defined as someone who is able to develop the knower of all aspects in your own continuum. Therefore, it’s saying it’s okay to use this definition of partial concordance with liberation explicitly indicated in this case because this is what the clear ornament of realization is talking about when it talks about Mahāyāna partial concordance with liberation. But it is inappropriate to talk about the Mahāyāna partial concordance with liberation in general as being defined by these these characteristics. Okay?
Is that okay? More years. More like five weeks. But there’s not lots for any them. Yeah.
So the most was in the first one. So there’s most of it most of the whole text is in the first one. I finished the first one. We’re now up to topic six, which we will finish and maybe do seven as well next week. Then we have eight, nine, ten, eleven.
Yeah. Guess the thing’s a couple of months. Nice talking to you. I said, yes. So we’ve only got a couple months of that, and then we’re doing the Sublime Continuum.
Sublime Continuum is going to be fun for me because I’ve had to translate it before in different lineages where they consider it to be a definitive text as opposed to an interpretive one. And in the Gelug tradition, it’s an interpretive text. Geshe-la said, yeah, but the explanation is the same because when you describe a text, pretend that it’s definitive anyway. I said, you’re teaching from the point of view of that text. So if you’re teaching from the point of view of a text, you’re teaching from the point view that it’s definitive.
Alright? And I said, yeah. But then this he goes, yeah. But the description is going to be very different, so you have to watch it. And I said, yeah.
So I can’t go around saying that the Buddha nature is the Dharma Dharmakāya. And he goes, no. The Dharmakāya is only the mind of a fully realized Buddha. And I went and he goes, don’t you think? And I said, I think I’m drinking my tea.
And if you have questions, please ask. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. To what? To faith? Yeah. So, all minds have grasping, all minds are holding or grasping.
Right? All minds have it. It’s holding things. Mhmm. So word also in the the in a Dalai Lama’s name is the the holder of the teachings.
It’s a zin in that too. Oh, completely. Okay. So Geshe said that having Okay. So mind holds an object or grasps an object.
Right? It will grasps an object, as in I grasp that idea even, that kind of uses the word grasp. Grasps or holds an object, and the reason that sometimes it gets usually grasped as opposed to hold is that hold implies some sort of concentration, and it doesn’t necessarily have concentration, okay? So that’s why we use the word grasp a lot of the time. The mind holds or grasps an object every time that you have a mind.
A mind has an object, they’re dependently originated, right? The attachment or desire or whatever you want to translate it as, is process by which you ascribe qualities to an object it doesn’t have, and that leads you to grasp at that object. The mind grasps, right? But the process of ascribing qualities to something that it doesn’t have, and therefore holding onto it, is different. The actual holding onto an object or grasping in an object is the process in every mind.
The mind grasps an object, holds an object, grasps an object, But the attachment is talking about something different. One second. Yeah. In other words, it can be used instead of grasping or holding Yeah. It’s to say that a mind recognizes or a mind perceives or realizes something.
So I guess just that every mind, right? So mind isn’t we’re not talking about mental continuum here, right? An instance of mind. Every mind holds an object, yeah, or grasps an object, which I think it should be more grasped because it’s like hold implies something with length. So every mind grasps an object, every mind recognizes an object, and every mind realizes an object or comprehends an object.
Okay. So it’s said, everything appears to us as having a self. If something appears to us visually, then it appears to us as being a self contained thing. Although we may not be processing a thought, a conceptual thought that has a self, it appears to us as if it has a self. The individual thought of grasping itself isn’t there in a conceptualized way, but the way that non conceptualized objects appear to us is as if they have a self.
Okay. That’s but that’s not grasp self self grasping. That’s like Okay, so it’s always in our mental continuum until we get rid of it, but it’s not necessarily manifesting in every mind. So every mind that we have isn’t necessarily a mind of grasping at the idea of self, but it’s continuous in our mental continuum. It’s not necessarily manifesting at all times, but it’s continuous in our mental continuum.
Okay. So there’s this continual grasping itself in our mental continuum, but not every mind that manifests or that comes to the fore in our mental No, it’s not comes to the fore. Not every mind that manifested as much as I don’t wanna use that word. Pardon? Dominant.
No, it’s not dominant because it’s No. No. See, because this gives this idea of different minds and one coming to the fore and subtle consciousness and all that. It doesn’t work. Because it’s every sixty fourth so there’s one mind every sixty fourth of a snap of a finger, right?
So the idea of self is constantly in terms of imprints on our own mind. It’s not the mind that is present in any one time, all the time. So, for example, if someone yelled at behind us, looked behind us, we’d be thinking about, What was that? We’re not thinking, I exist, but it is very prevalent and it’s a very strong habit to think of I, so it comes up a lot. And Geshe-la said that, so even though the tendency to think of I may not be present in every mental or sensual consciousness, right, of the sense consciousness.
But is definitely felt very strongly when we are experiencing suffering or happiness or loss of happiness or aversion to suffering. Okay. Which school position do you want him to answer this from? Sorry. Prāsaṇgika.
The one he thinks is right. Can I say that too? No, okay, I guess I’ll probably agree with you on that. But anyway, Alright. From the perspective of the Prāsaṇgika school, then any being who perceives selflessness perceives emptiness.
Right? So selflessness is equivalent to emptiness. So that means that a being who has perceived emptiness and has not perceived has not developed bodhicitta has developed the cause for achieving liberation, but not the cause for achieving Buddhahood. So they have entered the Hīnayāna path. Right?
Now from the Svatāntrika school’s point of view, then a being who has attained who has developed a realization of emptiness has still entered a Hīnayāna path if they haven’t developed bodhicitta, yeah? But from their perspective, you don’t need to They say that a realization of selflessness is not the same thing as realization of emptiness, and you can attain liberation just by attaining selflessness, by realizing selflessness, right? So from the Prasangikas’ point of view, realization of selflessness is a realization of emptiness and all arhats have achieved a realization of emptiness. And from the Svatāntrika point of view, not all arhats have realized emptiness. Okay.
Okay. Oh, yeah. Why? He’s asking from the perspective of the prasangika. Then Geshe-la said, in all the prasangika texts, in all the commentaries from the perspective of the prasangika, it always talks about both the selflessness of the person and the selflessness of phenomena, and these are defined by the object, not the emptiness.
So that means you have a selflessness of the person is the lack of inherent existence of a person, and the selflessness of phenomena is the lack of inherent existence of phenomena. And if you read, he said, if you read in the Lamrim text, you’ll find that the discussion of emptiness is always defining the self to be negated and a description of how to refute self and realize an emptiness of self, which is the same thing as selflessness. So he said, it is emphasized and it is their description of emptiness.