Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 17.5-minute Q&A session, Geshe Pema Tsering opens with a question that catches many people off-guard: can you practise patience and still act to stop someone from doing harm? His answer is yes — patience means a clear, anger-free mind, not passivity. The session moves through audience questions on handling ingratitude (using maternal care as an example), parental love (reframed as a genuine quality best expressed by teaching compassion from an early age), and working with anger — not trying to intercept it before it arises, but catching it quickly and reflecting on its costs. He closes by reframing expectations: focus on what people are capable of, not what they should do, and let their self-absorption become an object of compassion rather than resentment.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 PT 2005 07 30.mp3
UUID: d69ecb39-ca50-4987-9320-fd5bc511f651
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Public Talks (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-07-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 17.5 minutes
Words: ~1,320
Yeah. Uh-huh. So Being patient doesn’t necessarily forcefully acting on something doing something. You don’t in order to be patient, you don’t have to not do anything. You can be patient and stop someone from doing something negative.
Alright? So you can be practicing patience, practicing forbearance, and still act, still do something to stop people being negative. The thing is that you need to be able to look at it with a clear head and decide what is going to be the best for that person in that situation. And if stopping them from doing what they’re doing in some way is going to be best for them, then that’s the best thing to do. And if just taking it because there’s nothing you can do about it anyway is the best thing to do, then that’s the best thing to do.
But if you’re not reacting with anger, then you can be calm about it and make a clear decision. Anger doesn’t enable you to do that. I need to translate that. It’s good. He thinks that you’ve got questions, he’s just not putting hands up.
Yeah. Mhmm. You think only Western people do that? No, not that. Alright.
Alright. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I just Okay.
Yeah. Okay. Sure. Okay. Yeah.
Did everyone hear that? Yeah. Said that the idea would be to be patient patient with their ingratitude. Yeah? And the way that he thinks the best idea to work with when you’re being patient with their ingratitude is how sad it is that they haven’t recognized what you’re doing.
It’s like they don’t have the insight to see how much help you’re giving them. So you can think, Oh, well, they just think that’s what mothers do. That’s just what they do. And they don’t click that there is actually something that’s really important that’s going on there. So if you have this idea of being patient with them, but being patient with them with this understanding that they haven’t figured that out yet, that they haven’t figured out that what you’re doing is so important.
So they’re so they don’t recognize it. So patience with their lack of recognition. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
I said that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sure. Yeah. Sure. I’m wondering what you think is about. Yeah.
Okay. Sorry. Oh, he thinks it’s really good. He said that it seemed very natural for him and not something that you would be seeking an antidote for. He said that this idea he said that you you want things to be best for your child, and if you’re seeking to make things good for your child, then that’s nothing you should worry about, he said.
So if you have a lot of love for your child and you wanna do it, then that’s really good. The only thing he said that maybe you should make sure that what you’re doing is for your child. That’s the only thing. You need that kind of thought, though. No.
So he actually thinks So he said that he thinks that this idea of wanting to look after a child is a quality and not a negative thing. Even if it’s very powerful, it’s still a quality, not a negative thing. And he said that if you really want to help though, a really good thing to do is to try and impart these ideas of loving kindness and compassion from a really young age. Because that if you were to really wanna help your child, then that may be one of the best gifts that you can give them. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Does anyone else got oh, yes. So the idea isn’t so much to try and intercept the anger before it comes because it does happen so quickly. It’s to recognize it as soon as it does.
And if you start recognizing it as soon as it does and think, oh, what was what was I doing for? Anger doesn’t help anything. Anger just makes causes more suffering. And the quicker that you can get at recognizing it, the less the less the habit towards anger will happen. So when it comes up, think, well, causes suffering.
It pretends to help me, it’s not helping me. So if I really want to experience happiness, I need to not be angry and think about the faults of anger and positive qualities of patience. And that can stop you feeling angry very quickly. And the other thing is to think about why you’re angry. You know, to look at, oh, okay.
What made me angry? And if you can start processing why you’re angry angry, then that can stop you getting angry at the same thing. If you think that what was the reason, there’s no reason for getting angry. Yeah. That’s alright.
I was just wondering how we promote the expectation of getting something Uh-huh. Uh-huh. He said, well, stop giving. But I had to try and explain it a couple times because he’s going, what? Okay.
I have to explain Geshe-la’s last comment first because he thought I meant like, said, for example, if I give you the keys and you don’t give them back to me, then I’m supposed to get angry at you. And that’s why he was saying don’t give them in the first place. Because if you’re not gonna get angry at them giving you back. Don’t give them in the first place. Anyway, saying, no.
No. A more general statement about if you try and help someone, you try and do things for them, you try and give to them as much as you can, and they just keep getting angry at you or not doing anything back for you. They don’t give you anything back. How do you stop expecting them to do something? And he said, you your it’s not the idea of focusing on what they should be doing, but on what they’re capable of doing.
Alright? So if you think about what they should be doing, then that’s like setting up expectations for yourself and them that aren’t there. But what they’re capable of doing and if they’re not capable of giving you back what you gave to them, then you should try and remind yourself or to try and remind yourself that they’re not capable of doing that because they’re so engrossed in their own self-cherishing. Yeah? So people can only give as much as they’re able to think of others.
And if they’re not able to think of others and they’re focused on themselves, then this is something to have compassion for someone for. If someone’s so engrossed with themselves that they don’t have the capacity to notice or to give to others, then this shows that they, haven’t had the chance to develop compassion and, love and kindness. And so to have this idea of of they could develop that, that would be great. So this happens in two different you you get two different ways that you can check this. And the first one is through other people.
So even though this person may not recognize that you’re encouraging them, that that you’re doing something positive for them, then other people will. So you know for yourself what’s happening, but you’ll also find other people will react to that situation. And even if that person doesn’t give to you, then other people will recognize what you’re trying to do and support you in trying to be kind and they’ll recognize that this person’s not being so kind. Oh, yeah. This one.
Yeah. Yeah. I said, I think time’s up, and guess what, it’s. But more importantly, is everyone okay if they have questions? And I was like, I think so.
But if you have quite another question, it’s Just finish. Finish. Okay. Because you don’t answer. Oh, yeah.