Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 28-minute Q&A session, Geshe Pema Tsering works through a distinction that catches many meditators off guard: the mindfulness used in calm abiding is a mental factor that notices when the mind has drifted and brings it back to its object, while the Four Close Mindfulnesses are higher meditative levels that cultivate insight into selflessness — vaster in scope, though calm abiding remains their necessary foundation. He then takes up a practical ethical puzzle: can you sincerely take the Eight Mahāyāna Precepts knowing you may later break one, say by eating at night due to illness or work? The answer is to commit fully when you take them; a downfall does not cancel the merit accumulated in the keeping, a principle that extends equally to Bodhisattva and tantric vows. The session closes with a lively exchange on whether monastic debate’s theatrical shaming gestures breach vows — the verdict depends entirely on motivation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 OCR 2005 02 17.mp3
UUID: 7399c5c6-f393-461d-970c-4a41cec725f9
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Ornament for Clear Realisations (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-02-17
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 27.9 minutes
Words: ~2,223
Okay. Pass on now. Okay. So we can finish then if you have questions. Yeah.
Mhmm. They’re totally different words. Yeah. It’s translated as a close placement of mindfulness. It’s just translated as close placement as different.
Yeah. But also and Gesso said that even the color book? Yeah. He said that even the because in in the development of tranquility or or śamatha, it often talks about mindfulness. And it’s a different kind of mindfulness to the four place close placements of mindfulness.
Right? Because the mindfulness that it talks about when it’s developing a tranquility or pliancy on body meditation is the ability to be aware of when you have agitation and sinking in your in your mental continuum and when your mind has drifted away from the object and bring it back to the object, to remember to come back to the object. Alright? So this word mindfulness in in that instance in both instances, it’s mindfulness or memory. Alright?
Being aware. And so you use awareness and mindfulness in calm abiding meditation. But these are different to the mindfulness as in the four close it’s it’s four mindfulnesses. There’s no close placement in Tibetan or Sanskrit. Yeah.
So but there is no close placement bit in Tibetan, and there’s no close placement bit in Sanskrit. It’s just they’ve added it in there too. Yeah. For mindfulnesses. So the the they are focusing on objects and continually being aware of those objects, remembering those objects, and if we keep focusing on them enough, you develop our insight through them based on the Four Noble Truths.
So the process is different. One is is being one is bringing your mind back to an object. It’s a process of being aware when your mind’s distracted and bringing it back to the object. The other one is a focusing on one of the factors of the Four Noble Truths in terms of body or mind, and by watching the way that the body and the mind works, seeing that there is no continuous eye there and noticing the factors of the Four Noble Truths. So one of them’s Okay.
So the mindfulness that you employ in developing tranquility is or calm abiding is what’s called a mental factor. It’s a mental factor of awareness no, sorry, the mental factor of mindfulness. So this means bringing your mind back to the object. The mindfulness that you employ placements of mindfulness are the four placements of mind. The way hang on.
Do you know? Trend. Okay. Okay. Because so the way he just said it sorry.
I take back what I said about them not having close placements. He did say that I had close placement. But it’s like it’s it’s not close placement of mindfulness because this idea of placement is a tranquility thing. Right? So it’s like four close mindfulnesses.
Right? But Geshe-la said it just means it just means it placement. He just didn’t say it was the first time. Anyway, here’s a It’s not the same as close placement as in the course. No.
No. No. It’s nothing to do with it. But hang on. So so when you’re developing a calm abiding and you’re using mindfulness in that instance, it is a mental factor of remembering of being able to concentrate on an object.
Alright? Bringing your mind back to the object. When you’re talking about the four close placements of mindfulness, they are meditative levels. They’re dhyanas. They’re levels of concentration above calm abiding.
Okay? And they are having the ability to synchronously focus on one of those objects without distraction until you develop realization of those objects. Yeah? So there’s a one is only a mental factor, and one is an actual is actual tranquility forms of tranquility. So the mindfulness is different.
But yeah. So the close bit is is the in the fourth level, it’s called close placeness and mindfulness, but it means you’re able to keep your mind on the object more. And in this one, it’s called close oh, she’s talking more. I’m sorry. The one in the calm abiding thingy, you’re right, is called close placement.
Yeah? And this one is called close mindfulness. There’s no placement in there. Does that make sense? Yep.
Yeah. So it goes close mindfulness, and the other one is close placement. Yeah. Close. Okay.
So the the four close placements, four close mindfulnesses. Yeah. So Geshe-la said, so in one way you could that the four placements Sorry, Geshe-la said that hang on. In this way then, the four close mindfulnesses are much more vast in their scope than the close placement that is a mental placement when you’re developing tranquility or calm abiding. He said, but then you can’t really say that the four close placements are not as vast as tranquility because or calm abiding because calm abiding and tranquility act as the basis for all of the others.
And he said that if you didn’t have tranquility, then you wouldn’t or calm abiding, you wouldn’t be able to develop this focus that you have in the four placements of mindfulness. He said the difference is that when you have that ability to focus on things, then when you are practicing the four placements the placement of if so the mindfulness of body, for example, not only using meditative concentration. And then he said, and then you may actually be able to have meditative concentration, but not tranquility and still practice it, but he thinks that it is is unlikely. Alright? But you develop realizations of wisdom.
You by focusing on the the close place the placement of the the close mindfulness of body, for example, you develop a realization of the selflessness of that body. Okay? So it’s not just something that is meditative concentration. It’s something that has wisdom involved in it as well. Okay, so the main difference in terms of, to get it clear for you, the main difference between these two different types of mindfulness is that the mindfulness that you use in order to develop calm abiding is a mental factor that indicates when the mind has drifted from an object.
So in this way, it’s a mental factor that has that indicates that that brings the mind back to the object. Now the four mindfulnesses, they have that mental factor or they are that mental factor of memory as well of bringing the mind back to the object. But because of the object and because of the focus of their meditation, they develop wisdom. So you can’t say that they are just the mental factor of mindfulness. They also involve this knowing as well, they’re the wisdom that sees the selflessness of the object that’s being focused on.
So in this way, then even though he he said even though you could argue it from both points of views, he would say that the four mindfulnesses are vaster in their scope than the mindfulness that you employ in order to develop tranquility. Said, that’s it. Can we stop here? My brain is not working. No.
I said my mind’s not working because that’s not possible. Mind ever stops working. And I said, okay. My my brain isn’t working. My brain isn’t working very well.
Then he said, you don’t need your brain to work. You just need your mouth to work. I’ll ask you a simple question. Okay. Good.
Uh-huh. Simple questions. Okay. That sounds scary. He said if I drink a little bit of tea, I’ll be fine.
Yes. Fine. Uh-huh. Okay. Geshe-la said, so in general, you would have to say that all Bodhisattvas have sharp faculties because they’re Bodhisattvas.
Right? But there are some within the group of Bodhisattvas who have sharper faculties than others. Alright? So he would say in general, you would have to say that cars go fast, but there’s some cars that go faster than others. And another thing is that there’s all different types of pandits or pundit.
And a pundit doesn’t work. Scholars. You know, there was, like, scholars it’s it’s like an Indian word for scholars. But there was some from everybody so anyone who’s caught a a pandit is pretty yay yay up there. Right?
And he said that from amongst the pandits, they would describe some as being as as some whose knowledge was as vast as the sky. Right? So to be included within that group, you have to be doing pretty well. But even from amongst them, there were some that they would consider even brighter than the rest. Yeah.
Simple’s good at the state. Mhmm. Yeah. Uh-huh. K.
So which ones are you talking about me? That lunch. What which ones are talking about, Jeez. You said simple question. I remember this in the debate courtyard.
This happened. Happened. Was like, that was a simple question? Alright. Geshe-la said you cannot take the eight Mahāyāna precepts as seven.
Doesn’t make any sense. Alright? But he would say that what you should do is if you look at how much that that if you have to eat at nighttime, that the benefits of taking the Mahāyāna precepts would outweigh the downfall of breaking them by having to eat at nighttime. Right? So the motivation for taking the Eight precepts is to get all these out of Samsāra.
That’s why you take the Eight Mahāyāna precepts. So if at some stage after taking them, you have to break them, for example, because you become very ill or because of some responsibility at work and you have to eat, then you have to recognize that you have to eat and think, oh, no. It’s really bad that I have to eat because I took these vows, and I’ll try not to do it again. Yeah? But you still do it.
You still eat. Alright? And I said, so does that mean you before you take the vows, think I may have to eat when I take this? He goes, no. When you take the vows, you have to be very clear that you’re not going to eat.
If later on something comes up that you do have to eat, then you that’s like a downfall, That downfall doesn’t outweigh the positive merit that you’ve accumulated through taking out the vows and keeping them up until that point. You have to be very clear in your head that you are going to keep them when you start. It’s better to take them and have a small downfall like that than it is to not take. Does that make sense? Okay.
Because that does for you. So he said, but you could still think I am not going to even though you know you have to. So you still said that It depends on the way you’re thinking about it. I said, that doesn’t make any sense. How are you gonna say I’m gonna eat tomorrow night?
I have to eat tomorrow night. I take vows, and I’ll I’ll I’ll promise that I’m not taking going to eat them when I know it’s gonna happen, and it doesn’t make any sense to me. So it all depends on the mind. It’s the same with when you take Bodhisattva vows because you have to know at some stages in the back of your head that you’re not gonna be able to keep them. Right?
Better, or tantric vows. Yeah? But you keep you can convince yourself that you are for that time. And then any downfalls that you may have having taken those vows will be outweighed by the benefits of having taken them. And he says the same for Gelong vows.
He has two hundred and sixty something vows. Right? And he can’t keep all of them. Right? But when he took them, he was like, I’m going to keep them.
Yeah? And so the benefits of living within as many of those vows as you can outweigh the downfalls of losing a few of So you don’t okay. So if you take the Mahāyāna vows for the day, the precepts, and you eat at night, you don’t actually lose a vow from the root. It’s just a downfall. So you you lose the eight Mahāyāna precepts by one of the eighteen downfalls of the Bodhisattva.
That’s how you lose it, Mahāyāna precepts. So you could want to destroy a city and not eat dinner, and you’d still lose it. Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s just like one I’m never doing.
La thinks the easiest way to lose the Mahāyāna precepts is by praising yourself and blaming others. He said that that would be the easiest way to lose them, he thinks, not destroying cities. I said, hey, Geshe-la. When you guys are debating, don’t you end up saying, like, there’s this one thing that they do where they rub their heads and go, you should be embarrassed. Right?
Because you’re just wrong. Right? And someone else. Yeah. Like and oh, they do that, which means, like, you know, shame out.
Yeah? And it’s like so how do you keep your both of those open vows if you’re debating? And he said it depends on your motivation. He said some of them probably don’t keep them. Come around, Okay.