Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A sharp question opens this 34-minute Q&A with Geshe Pema Tsering: can you realize emptiness without bodhicitta, and does that realization still help? Geshe explains why the two must work together — emptiness realization deepens bodhicitta by dissolving the residual self-grasping that persists even when genuinely working for others. He outlines three levels of compassion: focusing on beings, on phenomena, and objectless compassion. A student’s question about Japan’s Ullambana festival draws out a practical teaching on offerings to hungry ghosts: reciting Chenrezig’s mantra transforms the food so pretas can receive nourishment from it. Two brief exchanges follow — the sixteen moments of the path of seeing and their link to signs of irreversibility, and the symbolism of sun and moon cushions in deity practice as method and wisdom. Suited to practitioners with some grounding in Madhyamaka and sadhana.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 OCR 2005 03 17.mp3
UUID: d2ee329b-4a63-47c2-9e2f-61213affd4b1
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Ornament for Clear Realisations (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-03-17
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 33.8 minutes
Words: ~2,844
If you wanna ask questions, you can. Okay. So you can definitely have a realization of emptiness without having a bodhicitta. This happens quite a lot, right? And in this instance, this instance, realization of emptiness won’t help at all.
Alright. If you don’t have and you have a realization of emptiness, it’s not necessarily gonna make you develop. So in those instances, it won’t help. Alright. If however you have developed and then realize emptiness, then realization of emptiness will intensify the practice, then it will intensify the relative bodhicitta.
So if you realize emptiness, it means that you have in your continuum what’s called the mind realizing emptiness directly. Right? You have this realization in your mental continuum. Now this realization in your mental continuum will enable you to practice bodhicitta, develop bodhicitta and inter and relate sentient beings in a much more profound way. You’ll be able to perceive that the sentient beings that you are working with don’t inherently exist.
A creation of virtue the creation of merit which is the principle component of a bodhicitta and the relative bodhicitta that is working towards enlightenment for the benefit of sentient beings. You realize that this is not inherently existent. And with this realization that these things aren’t inherently existent, the practice of these activities becomes much more profound. So this this makes the the the accumulation of virtue much more profound and the yeah. No.
It makes the the ability it gives you more ability to accumulate virtue, which means that your your activities are more profound, and you will be moving towards Buddhahood more quickly. You’re creating more merit. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Okay. Okay. So so just to say for example, in Samsāra and as being as ordinary beings, we have, a strong experience of self grasping onto a self and and the imprints to grasp onto a self. Right? The tendencies towards grasping onto an idea of self.
Now, if you have realized emptiness and you have bodhicitta, is it No. Sorry. Before you realize emptiness, even though you may have you’ll be working for the benefit of others, but you may still have this this inherent grasping itself. This instinctual idea of self involved. You may be working for others, but you still have this instinctual idea of self.
But once you’ve realized emptiness, then you’re able to use that realization to meditate to not only stop this instinctual grasping itself or instinctual self-cherishing, but it’s also to get rid of What am I talking about? Okay. You you can use this realization of emptiness to get rid of that grasping sense of being self of self importance. And that means that all you’re gonna be thinking about is others. Alright?
And if you’re focusing totally on others with even an inkling, without even a tendency towards, cherishing yourself, then then and then obviously your bodhicitta practice is going to be much more profound. And that comes about through I yeah. He said, is that I thought he was saying is your have you got another question, please? He said, is that okay? Yes.
Okay. So you have the three different levels of compassion that are based that are the basis for bodhicitta. So the first of these is that you have this idea of focusing on sentient beings, compassion for sentient beings, wishing sentient beings to be free from suffering. And this is a in every form of compassion. And there is this idea of wanting someone to be free from suffering.
And then if you develop an understanding of impermanence that all beings are, in a constant state of flux, and there is no permanent being, existing there, then you develop along with that realization if you’re working, if you got compassion as well, you’ll experience what’s called compassion focusing on phenomena. Now, a compassion on focusing on phenomena doesn’t just focus on the idea of a being, it also focuses on the idea of the state of the the state of flux that you’re labeling being. And then once you perceive emptiness, you develop what’s called compassion without a focus. Focusless compassion. So that is recognition that said there is no sentient being, there is no compassion.
Ultimately, there is no sentient being, compassion and no person with compassion. But the thing is that once you develop, what’s it called, Objectless compassion. It doesn’t mean that the compassion focusing on sentient beings disappears. The two things coexist together. Okay.
So so said that though when and so when they’ve developed objectless compassion and compassion focusing on phenomena, then the compassion they have that focuses on sentient beings becomes, compassion that focuses on mere sentient beings. He was first, I think. Yes. There’s a one of how you call this one. In my dictionary, it says, he tried to save his mother.
So try I tried to save his mother from, know, the, you know, he his mother after he his mother passed away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
He became a hungry ghost. hungry Yeah. And he tried to save his mother. Yes. And this means, you know, a man goes like this and then goes.
No? So he’s dead. That’s means actually in the dictionary says, but Is it English or Sanskrit? Sanskrit. And, anyway, this is the So you have a dictionary that it translates from Japanese into Sanskrit?
Some of the the Buddhist language has a Sanskrit. Okay. And I don’t know. But there’s no Sanskrit words that start with Anyway, go on. What’s my question?
So this guy’s hanging upside down that’s got something to do with Maudgalyayāna. Obon / Ullambana is the special event once a year in in Japan. Thirteenth or July thirteenth. Sure. Sure.
Sure. And then I and also, he tried to save his mother. That’s hang on. At Ullambana, do you make offerings to the hungry ghosts? Yeah.
Yes. Is that what you do? Yeah. At Ullambana? Perhaps the and I can’t read Japanese.
When I was child Yeah. Somehow I believed, you know, that spirit coming back to the earth on this time Yeah. Yeah. Thirteenth. Yeah.
Yeah. Dead spirit. Hang on. Dead spirit. By dead spirit, do you mean Ghost.
hungry ghost? hungry Because there’s I’m just saying this because I’m trying to figure out how to translate it right. Yeah. But in Japan, there’s like, in Shinto, they have this idea of the spirits coming back to the that are spirits, the ancestral spirits. Yeah?
Mhmm. Yeah. And that’s not the same thing as a hungry ghost. That’s a different religion. Mhmm.
Yeah. Okay. So you’re talking about hungry ghosts, beings that are reborn as hungry ghosts. I’m talking about the religious time. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is this the time also hungry spirit or whatever coming back to the earth? Or are there any time hungry?
Okay. Yeah. Can I have a look at the numbers? Okay. Okay.
We’re getting there. He knows a bit more story. Right. The top one is a date, and the bottom one is a year. Years?
Years. Yes. There’s a past year and then third year, seventh year. Okay. Hang on.
Wait a minute. There’s not thirty four days in a month. Okay. Yeah. He did.
He’s but he said, I gotta give you this back. Because in the Tibetan tradition, they don’t have specific days for that. He said that they have the tradition that whenever you make these offerings that are called offerings, the spirits come. Whenever? Whenever.
Oh. So you don’t have to do it on specific days. Because you are making an offering to them, they’re always hungry, they’ll always come. Oh, okay. Yeah?
They always come on offerings. Yes. So whenever you can whenever you can offer them, they’ll come. It’s a good thing. And offering is the only solution.
Helping helping. Helping. Okay. So, the main suffering that beings in a hungry ghost realm suffer from, the pretas realm suffer from is hunger and thirst at extreme attachment to things that they they want. So if you give the if the best thing to do to help them in that case would be to alleviate that suffering in some way.
Alright? So that’s why they make these offerings. Okay? Now normally these beings are unable to consume anything that’s offered to them. But in Tibetan culture at least they say before they make this offering, and then they say the Chenrezig’s mantra.
Yeah. Yeah. We we can If you just say that’s even okay, said. Uh-huh. Because is like a a way of saying the body’s the body speech and mind of the Buddha.
Alright? So what you’re trying to do is transform the food into to to make the food blessed. Yeah? So that once something has the blessings of the Buddha, Pretas are able to get some are able to get some nourishment from them. Nourishment.
They’re able to taste it to to relieve some of their hunger. Relief of hunger. Not relief. Yeah. Yeah.
Our offering. Yes. Yes. Yes. Uh-huh.
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. So then in this activity, you’re helping the you’re helping the out. You I keep calling you’re helping them out, right?
Because you’re offering them food. And then if you you’re helping yourself out because you’re performing a positive action. And then if you dedicate, yeah, the positive action of giving and offering to these beings who need something to their enlightenment and your own enlightenment and enlightenment of all sentient beings, then that activity becomes a very vastly beneficial activity. It’s very strong motivation, so it has a strong result for the for the for the pretas as well as for you. So in the case, work as a bodhisattva to be a He said they’re on good cooks because we have this need to give in order to get rid of attachment.
Right? But Bodhisattvas have this idea that whatever food beings need, including their own bodies, they’ll give. So they don’t even have to be good cooks. They can manifest food when it’s needed, but they’re even willing to give away their food to tigers and stuff when they give sorry, give away their bodies to tigers and stuff when they need it. Mhmm.
Okay. He said the other thing is to all that you can do now is to try and benefit pretas in the short term. Right? The hungry ghosts. You can only benefit them in the short term.
Right? By giving them a little bit of food to eat. Right? If you work towards becoming a Buddha, yeah, then as a Buddha or as a Bodhisattva, you can do a lot more for them. You can Yeah.
You can be reborn there and lead them out of that suffering and so on. So now can help them a little bit in the future. You could help them a lot by becoming a Buddha. And your English writing is very neat. Oh, it’s beautiful.
Hang on. There’s someone at the back for Instagram. Yeah. I’m not sure that I understood really correctly the four aspects. For example, the four aspects of true sufferings.
Mhmm. The first one is removing the seeds, etcetera, and then the second one is stable. Mhmm. Do they relate one to one to the sixteen moments? And in the case of true sufferings, the first moment is dharma forbearance.
Mhmm. Is that like a one to one relationship with removing the seeds and then dharma knowledge is relates to stable conventional mind generation. Is that did I understand that correctly? Okay. So what happens is that by from the moment that you have that realization of the first moment of the path of seeing, right?
That is the Dharma forbearance that relates to the truth of suffering. Then you have have eliminated the seeds that grasp at the inherent existence of all objects. So from that moment on, then you have this signs of irreversibility. Now, these signs of irreversibility do not manifest until you’ve come out of meditative equipoise. And the same thing for the second one.
So these things are the direct cause for the signs of irreversibility that manifest in the post meditative wisdom, yeah, of the the Bodhisattvas. But when we’re talking about it here, it’s talking about it from that moment. Alright? So they can’t be they’re called that which accords with signs of irreversibility because they don’t manifest the signs of irreversibility until you come out of meditative equipoise. But there’s a very direct relationship between them.
And so forth through the whole sixteen. Yeah. Because the the sixteen moments of path of seeing are actually realizations of emptiness. Alright? And they’re in meditative equipoise.
But through those realizations of emptiness in meditative equipoise, these irreversible signs are generated that become manifest in post meditative states. So there’s all different things that they are perceiving in these sixteen moments. So you They’re perceiving the emptiness of the things that are related to the truth of suffering, and the things that are related to the truth of cessation. Things that are related to Sorry. The truth of the origin of suffering, and the truth of cessation, and the truth of the path.
So then the realizations that come about as a result of these, sorry, I’m just sorry, I’m getting tired. The signs of irreversibility that come about as a result of these realizations relate to those realizations. And so therefore, realizations of the truth of suffering mean that you don’t grasp at things as inherently existent and you don’t experience the suffering that you you would have in other instances. Realizations of the emptiness of the truth of the origin of suffering mean that you don’t grasp after the things that are the origin of suffering like attachment and so on after you’ve developed those realizations. And these non graspings in these states are the signs of irreversibility that manifest outside of that.
These are the results of those realizations. Mhmm. Yeah. Yes? I just want to know what the significance of moon and sun cushions are.
Left field. No. R. You were right the first time. There’s moon and sun cushions, so they are.
That’s cool. Method and wisdom. Okay. So method and wisdom or bliss and emptiness. But he said the two, you can say from the Sūtra point of view, method and wisdom, and from the Tantra point of view, bliss and emptiness, but they’re actually both, terms for the same thing.
Mhmm. But there’s lots of things to say about them, he said. He’s not saying he’s not saying any of them. Uh-huh. Mm-mm.
So the fact that there’s mats also implies that they are cushions implies that they are stable. So there is a because it’s so there’s a lot of things to get to then because you’re talking about as it’s a resultant vehicle, you’re talking about the stability of the method and wisdom and or the bliss and emptiness. There’s there’s lots to say. Mhmm. Okay.
Again, he says there’s a lot to say about it. So you could also say that the sun is represents heat. Alright. So that’s used in terms of method. And so it’s generating heat that burns away negative states.
Yeah. But then the moon represents coolness. So that is the coolness that pacifies the illusions through wisdom. Alright. So in this way the heat is it is linked to a method and the the coolness of the moon is linked to wisdom.
And the the combination of these two, the balance of these two, is also symbolized by the sun and moon cushion. They’re pretty he said they’re probably very warm themselves. He said he’s just joking. Okay. So some deities are more focused on one more focused on one practice than another.
So for example, there’s some manifestations of Chenrezig that is sitting on a sun cushion because they’re more manifestation of method. And there’s other deities that are more focused on the development of wisdom, so they’re sitting on a moon cushion. He thinks that that’s probably a difference. But he hasn’t studied a lot about the cushions. It can you do a whole lot of stuff?
No. Not especially. But in each of the different deities, they explain why they have those cushions. If you go through the commentary on the deity. So there’s different different, commentaries to each of the sadhanas.
And then when they get to the section about the cushion, they’ll say why it’s that kind of cushion. But he doesn’t think there’s a a cushion book. But it depends on each of the different sadhanas. Oh, yeah. So for each of the practices of each of the deities, you have a generation stage and a completion stage.
So when the commentary is dealing with the generation stage, then they will go through and give it in detailed description of each of the different objects in that meditation, including the cushion.