Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The session opens with a striking comparison: we and arhats share one thing — neither fears saṃsāra — but for opposite reasons. Arhats have destroyed it; we simply don’t understand it. In this 45-minute commentary, Geshe Pema Tsering uses this image to press home the urgency of knowing our situation, then traces our predicament to self-cherishing and ignorance of karma — illustrated with an aside about making confident plans to visit Kangaroo Island tomorrow without any sense of how quickly things can change. He outlines the antidote: cultivating loving-kindness to weaken self-grasping, building through great compassion and universal responsibility toward bodhicitta. The second half resumes the Seventy Topics text, covering the ten exclusive powers of a Buddha and the definition of “achieving through engagement” — the Mahāyāna path taking bodhicitta and the four Buddha-bodies as cause and effect. Suited to practitioners already working through structured Mahāyāna study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 ST5 2003 06 05.mp3
UUID: cdc666a8-692d-4188-95a9-1b098df4f80c
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-06-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~3,299
We have to develop an understanding of what Samsāra is. We have to understand how it is just a case of suffering and that we need to free ourselves from this suffering. There is one thing that we actually have in common with arhats. Arhats are beings who are out of saṃsāra and the thing we have in common is that neither us nor arhats are scared of saṃsāra. The reason that they’re not scared of Samsāra, however, is because they’ve destroyed it.
An arhat is literally a foe destroyer, someone who’s destroyed their delusions, destroyed their connection to Samsāra. So, after having destroyed it, they’re not scared of it. We’re not scared of it because we don’t know what it is. Even though we’re both not scared of it, the reason for us not being scared of it is very different. So in a lot of ways, we act like an arhat.
You know, arhats are people who are, like, pretty happy with where they’re at because they have achieved nirvana. And that, you know, they are happy about where their situation is and thinking that they are really happy. We do the same thing, we relax, we think that we are really happy where we are. The difference is they actually know what’s going on and we don’t. Because we don’t know what’s going on, we don’t try and get out of the situation, we don’t see how suffering is in the situation.
Since beginningless time up until now, we have taken countless rebirths and in those rebirths we have experienced so many different types of suffering, we couldn’t fathom it with our minds. What suffering we’re going to experience from now on, we don’t know. Because we don’t know what’s going to happen, we’re not afraid of it. If we knew what our situation was, if we knew how much we’d suffered and how much we could suffer more, then we’d be terrified. So we don’t even know what’s going to happen tomorrow.
Geshe la says that we’ve made these plans to go to Kangaroo Island tomorrow at twelve o’clock, and we’re leaving at twelve o’clock. But from now until twelve o’clock tomorrow, don’t know what’s going to happen. We could die, we could end up really ill, we could get, like, some pestilence come and get us. Any of these things could happen in up until that time and we wouldn’t be able to go, but because we don’t understand what could happen, then we make we we go about making plans to try and plans for the future, and we don’t even know what’s gonna happen tomorrow, let alone in the longer term future. Should we be applying the logic of karma in our minds and doing analysis of this?
If we did this, then we would understand that we don’t know what’s going to happen to us because we’ve accumulated all these different karmas in the past and don’t know which ones are going to ripen for us. So, if we knew that, if we understood that, we would make tentative plans to go to Kangaroo Island tomorrow instead of being absolutely definite about it. But because we don’t understand karma and because we don’t have any insight into the way that things can change so quickly, we don’t think we don’t have insight in terms of we haven’t realized that, then we tend to make plans very definitely, say, Okay, I’m going to go and do this. We don’t tend to make tentative plans, we tend to make solid plans. So because if we could control karma, if we could control the outcome of karma, then things wouldn’t go the way that they do go, things wouldn’t happen the way they tend to happen.
If we could control karma, we wouldn’t experience sorry, if we could control the results of karma, we wouldn’t experience any suffering, because we don’t want to suffer, so we want to be happy. So, if we didn’t want to experience the results of negative karma as suffering, we could stop karma, then we would not suffer. But this isn’t the case, even when we are happy. This is one type of suffering and it invariably turns into the suffering of suffering. The same as if we could stop it, we wouldn’t grow older.
If we could stop it, we would stay young forever, but that comes about because of karma and we have no choice in that matter. And the same as if getting sick, we wouldn’t get sick if we could help it, but we get sick because of the karma we’ve collected, so something else that we can’t stop. So, we can see that actually while we’re in saṃsāra, we don’t have any independence, we don’t have any free will when it comes to what’s going to happen to us. Everything we do is a result of our previous actions so therefore we are like a slave to our karma and we are stuck in Samsāra. All sentient beings are the same as us in that they are stuck in saṃsāra and they are suffering and they don’t have a way of getting out unless they try and follow the way of liberation.
The thing with liberation is there is a way for us to get out of the situation we’re in now and experience true happiness. But unless we follow that path towards liberation or nirvana, then there is no end to our suffering. We have to follow the path that is shown to get out of this situation that we are in. But the problem is we don’t actually get that the situation we’re in, we don’t understand it properly. So, we don’t understand it properly, we don’t actually look for ways out, don’t actually strive to get out of Samsāra, we spend most of our time being very comfortable in Samsāra because we don’t realize what it is.
But the other thing we have to remember is that the liberation isn’t the end. After we’ve achieved liberation or nirvana, then our mind streams go on and if we need an example of this, then we can look to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who have achieved liberation and then have been able to teach us the way out of here. So, from their kindness, we actually have a route out of Samsāra, a way of getting out of Samsāra. It’s just that we don’t feel the necessity to use it because we don’t understand our situation properly. If we spend a lot of time thinking about it, then we understand that our situation here isn’t that good.
If we spend a lot of time analyzing our suffering and thinking about the different ways that we suffer, then we can come to an understanding that our situation isn’t the best and that we should be striving for something more. But there’s a difference between developing some doubt about the situation we’re in now through analysis and actually seeing clearly what our situation is. If we could see clearly what our situation was, we would completely refrain from any negative actions and be striving single pointedly towards achieving liberation. The problem is we only develop these little bits of doubt that come up in our mind and they’re not strong enough to get us completely on the path towards liberation. What they tend to do is we get a doubt about our situation coming up and think maybe this is suffering then our self grasping, self-cherishing is much stronger than that doubt and tends to override it so we may spend a lot of time developing a little bit of analysis we may spend a lot of time analyzing our situation and developing a doubt about our situation, but then the self-cherishing would overtake that and we’ll start thinking about worldly things and start running after our worldly desires and stop thinking about our situation again.
So it’s not like that we don’t have the capacity to work hard to achieve something because we spend a lot of time striving after the things we desire because we think if we get the things we desire, then we’ll be happy. So, we spend most of our time engaged in an effort to make ourselves happy and to try and keep suffering away. What this does though, because we don’t understand our situation properly though, is it increases our suffering because all our striving for the things we desire doesn’t actually give us happiness, it just gives us more suffering. So because we have this grasping itself and that we consider ourselves really important and that we want to make ourselves happy, then we tend to spend a lot of time creating negativities or sometimes even positivities, but they’re all coming from a sense of grasping as self. So, what happens is sometimes we can be kind to people and sometimes we can be mean to people and get angry at them, but if we look at the reasons we’re doing this, most of the time it’s because we think if we’re nice to that person we’ll get something in return or if we’re angry at that person then that will protect ourselves.
All of it’s coming from self grasping. Because we’re grasping in ourselves, we don’t think of others. If we think of others, then we can have the opportunity to create merit, but the grasping itself stops us from doing that. So from all of this, we can see that the main problem is grasping at ourselves, a sense of self, or holding ourselves to be very precious, self-cherishing attitude. Because this is the main problem, then we need to rely on the antidote to this in order for us to stop making negativities.
So, the direct antidote to self grasping is actually seeing emptiness directly. That gets rid of self grasping and its seeds or its imprints. But, up until that stage, the way that we can harm self grasping, the way that we can eat away at it and in the process create merit is by substituting self-cherishing for cherishing others. Cherishing others is what we call loving kindness and it acts as a very powerful antidote even though it’s not the direct antidote towards self-cherishing. Problem is, as there’s always a problem, problem is that this is difficult.
It’s difficult to think of others. We naturally think about ourselves. If we even sway for a moment from our concentration on trying to think of others, our mind comes back to ourselves. It’s something that we’ve habituated ourselves towards. But, just as we’ve habituated ourselves towards cherishing ourselves, we can also habituate ourselves towards cherishing others.
So, if we keep practicing it, keep going over again and again in our mind that we should be cherishing others, then it is possible for us to start doing it. Even though this is this is the practice we should be doing in order to try and eat away at our self-cherishing, when we are actually meditating on something it shouldn’t necessarily be on cherishing others. It should be more clearly on to be of working towards the enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings or bodhicitta. That should be our main focus of meditation. The thing is, if we don’t have loving kindness, we can’t develop bodhicitta.
So it acts as like an aid or a friend to us trying to develop bodhicitta, this idea of cherishing others. In order to do real damage to our self grasping, however, we have to have developed bodhicitta, but it works both ways. If we want to develop bodhicitta, we have to do real damage to our self grasping. If we want to do real damage to our self grasping, we should develop bodhicitta. Two things work together.
So in order for us to develop bodhicitta, if we work backwards, then we can see how cherishing others comes into play. Before we develop bodhicitta, we develop something called universal responsibility. Before we develop that, we develop compassion or great compassion. Now, what great compassion implies is that we want all sentient beings to be free from suffering. After we develop this mind of great compassion, the next thing that comes is this idea of universal responsibility or the thought that we will make all beings free to live free from suffering.
We will do it ourselves. We won’t just think of it as a good idea, but we will take it upon ourselves. Now, we can’t have that idea come up if we’re grasping at ourselves very tightly. Our focus has to be on other beings. The two things act as oppositional forces.
They can’t exist at the same time very intensely. So, what we need to be meditating on is that in order for me to achieve enlightenment to be of benefit to all sentient beings, then I need to get rid of my self grasping. So, in order for me to get rid of my self grasping, I’m going to meditate on achieving enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. So, if we can try and get that thought in our mind and concentrate and meditate on it for a few minutes. Okay.
So beforehand, we were doing the observed objects of Mahāyāna Achievings, and Geshe la didn’t remember what the ten exclusive powers of a Buddha were. Do you guys remember? Did you guys find it? He wants to know. Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, so guess so I can tell you now. Okay. So the first one of these ten powers is the exalted knower or the knower of a Buddha that has the ability to differentiate between that which is abiding and that which is not abiding. Now in the mind of a Buddha that which is abiding is the virtue and that which is not abiding is non virtuous.
Non virtuous thoughts and non virtuous actions. So, in the mind of a Buddha, if there is something that will be of benefit to sentient beings, then that is something that exists in the mind of a Buddha. If there is something that won’t be of benefit to sentient beings, it’s gotten rid of. It’s not there. It’s the non abiding in their mind stream.
So therefore, the first power is to know the difference between abiding and not abiding. So the next power in the continuum of the Buddha is the power to be able to the power to know when the results of karma when and how the results of karma will ripen. So, for us, we can’t tell which way karma will ripen. Even if it’s an action that we perform, we can’t tell what the outcome of that action is. But the mind of Buddha, a Buddha is able to know what the result of every single action is.
And this is one of the this is the most difficult thing to understand, but the Buddha is able to know it. Therefore, this is the second power of the Buddha. Okay. The next one is that the Buddha has the ability to be able to know every thought. So anything that anybody’s thinking at any time, the Buddha can know.
Right. The next one is that okay. Buddha has the ability to know all spheres. So whether it’s spheres as in terms of the realms, all the different realms, or whether it’s spheres in terms of the eye sphere and the nose sphere and the ear sphere, it’s the same word in Tibetan. So, he has the ability to know all spheres.
Buddha also has the ability to know the faculties of all beings. Some beings have very sharp faculties, other beings have more dull faculties and Buddha has the ability to differentiate between the levels of different beings, all different beings’ levels of capability or ability. The Buddha has the ability to know every single path to liberation and omniscience. That’s number six. Number seven is that the Buddhas have the ability to know everything that is to be abandoned and everything that is to be practiced.
Buddhas also have the ability to know all their past and future lives, all of them. The number nine. Number nine is Buddhas have the ability to know every action that any being has done and will do. That means, if you think about it, how many things do we do in a day and how many beings are there, so that’s pretty big knowledge or that’s like a lot to know. The last one is that they have the ability to completely eliminate all contaminations.
This one. Is that okay? So the way we’re up to from last week was achieving through engagement. He said, I just went back to tell you the ten the ten powers because I wasn’t able to say it last time. Okay, so the definition of achieving through engagement is: a Mahāyāna yogi practicing an application of some type of Mahāyāna cause and effect doctrine mainly through joyous effort.
Now, the first that comes in the Tibetan is Mahāyāna and so that means that we should differentiate between this and any of the other vehicles, paths or minds. This is only exclusively on the Mahāyāna path. Cause, when it talks about the cause and effect doctrine, the cause they’re talking about here is any path, mainly any path in the mind of a Bodhisattva but it also includes minds such as compassion and the Four Immeasurables and things like that in the mind of the Bodhisattva, that’s what they mean by the cause. The effect is the All-Knower, the Knower of all aspects, the Buddha or achieving Buddhahood and the four bodies of the Buddha. So that’s what they mean when they say the cause and effect of Mahāyāna cause and effect of Mahāyāna cause is the path of bodhisattvas, Mahāyāna effect is the bodies of a Buddha and omniscience.
So any type of doctrine or any type of practice that includes these two things, this cause and effect of compassion and bodhicitta and the results of the bodies of a Buddha is included within achieving engagement, all the different types of practice. The main cause for this or the main propelling force for doing these practices is of course joyous effort and and when it says ‘a yogi practicing an application’, a yogi is the same as a synonym for achievement or achieving, and it’s also a synonym of a path, it’s like a practice that someone’s engaging in, a mind engaged in a practice. Is that alright? Did you understand? The first one where it says the concentrations and formless.
Concentrations refers to the four concentrations of the form realms, and the formless refers to the four levels of the formless realm. So these are the concentrations that are minds akin to the minds of the form and formless realms and what this is actually referring to though is the practice engaging in these concentrations. What this is referring to is that the different levels of concentrations in the form and formless realms are minds or practices engaged minds that are practicing hang on minds that are meditation, right? Concentrations of meditation that are employed by Bodhisattvas in order to focus on emptiness. Because what happens is, as you go through the different levels of the Form and Formless Realms, then the minds associated with these realms become more subtle and subtle and subtle and subtle.
So, by the time that a Bodhisattva is employing a mind that is equivalent to the mind of the highest of the formless realms, then their understanding of anything they focus on then becomes incredibly subtle.