Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute commentary on the Ornament for Clear Realisations, Geshe Pema Tsering works through the peak and tolerance levels of the path of preparation, tracing how a bodhisattva’s ability to benefit others grows at each sub-stage — from redirecting someone mid-action to transforming minds through sheer presence alone. He covers all three peak sub-levels and three tolerance sub-levels in sequence, anchoring a key principle: whatever level a bodhisattva attains, they can lead others to that same level. The session closes with an informal Socratic Q&A in which students are pressed to define the truth of suffering — Geshe-la’s point being that suffering need not hurt to qualify — and the causal versus resultant aspects of the Three Jewels and refuge. Suited to practitioners already working through the text.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 OCR 2005 03 03.mp3
UUID: 1504b917-cd7c-4ae4-890a-c226db9a7827
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Ornament for Clear Realisations (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-03-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.8 minutes
Words: ~2,838
Mhmm. Okay. So do you couldn’t hang on. So basically what’s happening at these different stages is that the bodhisattvas are focusing on the same object, but their understanding is that object is getting subtler and subtler and more complete and more moving towards the realization of emptiness. So they’ve developed the ability to be able to focus on all sentient beings.
Then based on that focus, they’re developing their understanding of the object that they’re focusing on. Okay, so we’re up to the peak level. Now at the peak level of the path of preparation, because peak level of the path of preparation, there is again three different sections: the small peak, the middling peak, the great peak. Now in these three different sections, there is three different activities that the bodhisattvas engage in, but they actually do all three at all three levels. Alright?
So Okay. So by way of being able to abide in the state where they abandon negativities and practice positive actions, the bodhisattvas at this stage are then able to practice bodhisattva activity of being able to encourage or stop other beings, it says those who are to be tamed, which is another way of saying students. Are able to stop them from performing negative actions and encourage them to do positive actions. The other thing that they are able to do is, by way of practising the perfection and giving and so on, they are able to explain to others how to practice the six perfections and therefore create positive qualities. Okay.
Alright. Okay. So and then in the third stage Yeah. So it’s actually got a different enumeration. That’s why I was getting confused from what’s in the notes here.
So it says, like I just said, the first thing that they do is to abandon negative activities. And by abandoning negative activities and abiding in that state, they are able to show those who are to be tamed, which is another way to say students, how to abandon negative activities and practice in order to attain the wholesome aspects. Then by abiding in the practice or performing the practices of the six perfections, then they’re able to show others how to practice the six perfections, right? That’s the first two that it has. And then it says that there’s two parts to the last section.
The first is that they are able to explain these things, they are able to encourage others by explaining what it is that needs to be taken up and what needs to be abandoned. And they their mind is happy when this happens. So the explaining and the being happy about it, alright, are actually said it it does say, Geshe-la says it says. Alright? It says that they’re one one thing.
Alright? One section. And then they the first section is being able to abandon negative practices and showing others how to do it. The second section is doing positive practices and showing others how to do it. And the third section is expressing praise and having your mind joyful about it.
So being joyful and expressing that joy when people are practicing in that way. Right? So that’s different to what it says. Yeah. It’s almost the same because I think this when they say the mind of placing others in positive activities, that’s the second part the second one, and then the last two are one together.
Linear. Jeez. Mhmm. Right. Now it’s okay.
Now that I vaguely understand it, I have to try and figure out it. Mhmm. Okay. So as these practices as the bodhisattvas move through these different levels, their abilities to control others’ mind streams or tame others’ mind streams, and their ability to practice meditation themselves grows and grows and grows. So when they are at the small level of the peak section, they turn away from practicing the ten non virtuous actions themselves.
And they also can help others turn away from practising, ten non-virtuous actions like killing and so forth as well. But the way that they can do it at that level is kind of limited because they can encourage others to to stop killing other things at the time that they were about to do it. Alright? So it says when they once they become, as this word, stream enterer, which usually applies to someone who’s realized selflessness. But in this instance, it means someone who’s entered into the action of going to kill something or going to do something else.
Right? So at this moment then, these these bodhisattvas who have developed this peak level are able to convince them out of doing it at that time. So the way that they convince people to do things is, in this way, kind of limited. It’s based on the situation. So they can only help them in certain situations if the causes and conditions have come together.
Now when they get on to the next stage, which is the middling peak section, they are able to convince them or they’re able to show them why they shouldn’t do it at all, whether it’s brought up or not. So the way that it says this is that they are able to tame others and take joy in being able to help others without, it says, encouraging them. So their presence, without needing to use an incidence or without needing to use a specific reason, are able to encourage others not to behave like that. And not just them, but in future instances as well. So it’s not situation based.
The ability to change others’ minds so that they stop performing their negative actions is increased so that it doesn’t have to be based on the situation, and it doesn’t actually have to be based on them using a specific way of encouraging them. Just by talking about it in general or by showing them a certain way of doing things, then they will be encouraged in this way. And, again, and so forth. Okay. And then also at this at the same way?
So at the next level, the middling level, not only are they able to encourage beings just like in this way, they’re also able to practice the six perfections themselves and to encourage other beings to practice the six perfections as well as establishing them in the practice of the six perfections. And at the third level, the greater peak section, they meditate on emptiness and the twelve links of dependent origination that accords with scriptures and that which doesn’t accord with scriptures. And by meditating on that is based on reason. And by meditating on them in this way, they are able to establish themselves in the realizations of this stage of the path and encourage others or lead others to the same realizations. Mhmm.
At the tolerance level, at the, small level of the tolerance, section, they, develop understanding of the four noble truths and are able to, establish other sentient beings in that understanding. Mhmm. Okay. At the level of the middle section of the Okay. So at the medium level of the tolerance section, they develop the result of being a a stream enterer, which is resulted in a knowledge of the abiding in knowledge of of emptiness.
But this is only the case if if they are not someone who has gone through the Hīnayāna path before they entered the Mahāyāna Path. So if someone’s gone through the Hīnayāna Path before they enter the Mahāyāna Path, then they’re not a stream enterer. They’re an Arahat. Alright? But if they haven’t gone through the Hīnayāna Path before they enter the Mahāyāna Path, then at this section, the tolerance level, they develop develop the realisations of a stream enterer in terms of their understanding of emptiness and so forth.
So that means that they understand what the results of their practice are. They understand that they will attain liberation, and they understand that they’ll develop a direct realisation of emptiness, but they also understand that this hasn’t come about yet. And they’re able to establish others in that state. Okay. So in the the last stage is the tolerance level.
They sorry. Okay, so the greater That’s all we’ll cover. The greater level of tolerance means at this level that these bodhisattvas can abide in the cause of the path of seeing of a bodhisattva and place others in that state. That means that they have developed the greater tolerance level of the path of preparation and they can lead others to that state. And I asked Geshe-la what the cause of the path of seeing was, and he said it was path of preparation.
And I said, Well, if it’s the path of preparation, why are they specifically signalling out the greater tolerance level as being the cause path of seeing? And he said, Because it’s on the path of preparation. And I said, But it’s not the entirety of the path of preparation. And he said, No. And he goes, It’s simple.
It’s part of the path of preparation, therefore it’s the cause of the path of seeing. It’s not simple to me, but anyway. Okay. So Geshe-la said the point of them saying this is that whatever level the bodhisattvas achieve, then they’re able to lead other sentient beings to that level. So when you’re in the path of accumulation, you’re allowed you’re you’re able to lead other beings to the path of accumulation.
When you’re in path of preparation, you’re allowed to lead other being you’re allowed. You’re able to lead other beings to the path of preparation. So when you achieve the greater tolerance level of the path of preparation, then you can lead other beings to the greater tolerance level of the path of preparation. So if you have any questions, if you are awake. Uh-huh.
Guess I said that guy that came in before, he thinks he was really looked like, yeah. Yeah. I wanna go to a meeting, and he said that he looked more and more and more and more confused, and then he left. You probably thought, what weird things are they talking about? If you guys have any questions, you’re allowed to ask them.
So I guess it says that bodhisattvas will do whatever it takes to benefit sentient beings. To if that with this motivation, it means that they will do whatever it takes to develop realization in sentient beings’ minds to lead the minds of sentient beings So if this means giving a teaching, they’ll give a teaching. If it means starting a war, they’ll start a war. Whatever it whatever it takes. There’s so many different things that they do to, to develop understanding and sentient beings’ continua.
And it he guesses that it’s difficult for us to kind of understand or comprehend it because we’re not coming from the same place. Alright. What we’re going through now is, like, the paths and the the the things that they work through in order to become Buddhas. Right? The the paths of bodhisattvas.
So they do certain things. They develop certain understandings. They perform certain activities. Then they go into the next thing. They they develop an understanding of that, and they do certain activities at that level.
So it’s going through all the different levels of the practices that bodhisattvas do. You need to understand the noble. And there is the path of the bodhisattvas of sharp capacity as well, not the path of all bodhisattvas. So for us to try and understand it all, that’s why it’s hard. Yeah.
Because we’re not sharp faculty bodhisattvas. But if we wanna become sharp faculty bodhisattvas, then we need to understand it. So we need to study it before we can become it. We’ll try and understand it before we can understand However much we can understand, that’s however much we develop. That’s however sharper our faculties get.
So Geshe-la said it’s very difficult to understand. So if he’s teaching and he doesn’t understand it, How are you guys gonna understand it? Basic, but we can always just think about the imprints we’re putting on our mind mindstream. So if we’re looking at this text, if we’re trying to develop understanding of this text, if we’re familiarizing ourselves with it, then that’s an amazing thing to be doing.
It’s an amazing thing to be familiarizing ourselves, and it sets a very good pattern. No questions? He does have a question. Okay. Now that I finally got over to him what you were asking for, he wants to know what if you know what path preparation is.
If he says path preparation, what’s he saying? Is it? Okay. He wants to know what the path bit means and what the preparation or union or whatever way you wanna translate it bit means. So he said not all of the causes for the path of seeing are the path of preparation.
It’s just one. It’s one just one of the causes. Geshe-la said that it’s not a mind. It’s not a mutual pervasion. So a path is a mind, but a mind is not necessarily a path, but a mind is not necessarily a path.
So so you can say it’s an exalted knower or a clear realization — it’s a clear realization. So it’s an ornament of the paths, basically. And he also you started something now. Okay.
So so the first thing we’re talking about tonight was taking refuge. One of the things we’re talking about tonight was focusing on the four noble truths. So he wants to know what the definition of the truth of suffering is. You’re not very fast. Okay.
So the truth of suffering is anything that is caused by or is a contaminated karma or afflictive states of minds. So therefore anything that is the truth of the origin of suffering is necessarily truth of suffering, but not everything that is the truth of suffering is necessarily the truth of the origin of suffering because you also have the results of negative or contaminated karma, not negative karma, contaminated karma and afflicted states of mind within the truth of suffering. Suffering. So he said, “it hurts” is an instance of the truth of suffering, but it’s not a definition. Yes.
Anything that is a combination of these four things is an instance of the truth of suffering. Okay. It doesn’t have to hurt. Yeah. He can feel good and still be the truth of suffering.
I just had to explain a digression of course. That’s all. He did not give a definition for this one. He said that would probably be manifest suffering as far as he thinks. Is that enough questions?
He said he thinks you did very well. Okay. Now he wants to know what the Three Jewels are. Yeah. So he wants to know what do you Mhmm.
Okay. So Geshe-la said Buddha jewel has two aspects. It has a causal there’s a causal Buddha jewel and a resultant Buddha jewel. Please give the definition of both. Come on.
This is refuge, people. Okay. First of all, I you’re kinda this is funny. Okay. The Buddha Śākyamūni is he said you do very well.
Buddha Śākyamūni is I don’t do. He said what you said was right Except to extrapolate on it more, it’s not just the Buddha Śākyamūni. It’s any Buddha. And a Buddha is is one who has a person or a being who has completely gotten rid of all faults and completely accumulated all positive qualities. Okay.
He said you won’t you shouldn’t say external Buddhas. You should say external Buddhas, that is, Buddhas other than yourself. Okay. Okay. Geshe-la said, so the definition of a Buddhist is one who goes for refuge.
And in re and when taking refuge, there’s also two aspects. There is a causal refuge, and there is a resultant refuge. First of all, he wants to know what you think refuge is. Okay. So he said if it’s a Buddhist refuge he said in general, there’s different types of refuge.
There’s different types of protection from suffering that you can have. So but if it’s a Buddhist refuge, it has to involve something to do with the Buddha. And if it’s another type of refuge, it can have some it can be a refuge from any type of suffering. But if it’s a Buddhist refuge, it has to have a specific reference to to the Buddha and to to what you’re trying to have refuge from. I’m just translating.
I don’t have to mark this test. But you’re very brave for coming. You’re the only one talking, so I think you’re doing really well. You could say that. Okay.
So he said Geshe-la said you could say that, but usually they are a lot more specific. So he said that in general, you say that they are going