Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with a Guru Puja verse on exchanging self for others, Geshe Pema Tsering argues in this 45-minute session that motivation alone determines whether any action becomes genuine Dharma — even studying a Mahāyāna text turns worldly if done for reputation, health, or comfort in this life. He illustrates the difficulty of reorienting the mind toward future lives with a memorable analogy: planting rice and then praying the crop becomes an apple tree. After tying this to the three Lamrim scopes, the session moves to methodical coverage of the twenty secondary afflictive emotions — belligerence, resentment, concealment, spite, jealousy, miserliness, deceit, dissimulation, haughtiness, and harmfulness — each defined with brief practical examples. Suited to practitioners already working through the Four Noble Truths in a structured study context.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 ST3 2003 03 27.mp3
UUID: 27d04fcf-3557-4d3e-96db-954015239f39
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-03-27
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~3,206
In the Guru Puja by the first Pänchen Lama, in the Lama Chopa — Lama Chöpa — it says: In brief, ordinary beings labor only for their own end while Buddhas work solely for the welfare of others with the mind understanding the distinctions between the failing of one and the advantages of the other we seek your blessings to enable us to equalize and exchange ourselves for others now what this means is that as ordinary beings we concentrate on the pleasures, the brief pleasures that we may get from saṃsāra and put great effort into achieving those brief pleasures and by doing so also keep ourselves chained to saṃsāra by creating more negative karma that we then have to experience the results of. Whereas the Buddhas work solely for the benefit of others and because they have no self grasping and then they have no reason to create negative karma and therefore they don’t abide in this situation and what we are actually asking for their blessings for is that we can practice the practice of exchanging self for others and by doing this practice equalize experience equanimity with regards to whether good things happen to ourselves or others What this quote means when it refers to our own end or for their own end that it ordinarily leaves labour only for their own end for their own benefit this doesn’t mean that we should give up our own benefit completely it’s referring specifically to working towards things that will be a benefit to us in this life it doesn’t mean that we give up our own purpose for retaining a good rebirth or our own purpose for achieving liberation and our own purpose for achieving Buddhahood what they’re referring to is the things we do for our own self grasping and our own purpose in this life that only give us, as a result, very short samsaric pleasures.
Usually when we are following a sūtra path, we start with this process of renunciation and then that’s the urge to strive for liberation for ourselves but the Lama Chopa or the Guru Puja is actually talking from a vajrayana or a Mahāyāna point of view and in these parts our own liberation has actually become something that we need to abandon usually and generally speaking our own liberation is something that we work towards something that we practice in order to achieve we first achieve renunciation and then we walk towards liberation and then eventually Buddhahood but in order for it to become a Mahāyāna path and for us to achieve that final Buddhahood before our own liberation then we must abandon our own purpose completely and start working for the purpose of others and that is we do this by meditating on compassion so by the power of meditating on compassion and developing compassion then we are getting rid of our own purpose and working for the purpose of others and then developing Mahāyāna Because on the Mahāyāna path, this thought that we are working towards a liberation for ourselves actually becomes the opponent to or negates our meditations on compassion.
The definition of is wishing all sentient or the definition of great compassion is wishing all sentient beings to be free from suffering. If we’re only working for our own liberation, then we’re only thinking about ourselves being free from suffering. We’re only thinking about our own liberation. It becomes an obstacle to our meditations on compassion and becomes the opponent of those meditations. So, even if we put that to the side, any type of merit that we create, none of that can be based on this life whether it’s for our own benefit or for the benefit of others anything that we do that is creating a root of merit or a store of merit has to be have as focused at least the next life if possible Buddhahood if not Buddhahood then our personal liberation if not our personal liberation then the next life but it can’t be focused on this life but actually getting these thoughts in our mind that we’re going to concentrate on the next life or liberation or enlightenment is actually very difficult because most of the thoughts that we have in a day actually are about whether we’re having the right food or having the right house or something involved with this life and one of the main reasons for this and why it’s so difficult for us to try and change our mind and concentrate on the next life future lives or liberation or Buddhahood is because we actually came into this life because of throwing karma and that throwing karma was to be born into a human body now the throwing karma that sent us here into a human body and the completing karma that came along with that meant that we were set up in a situation where we were because of the power of that we were going to be have our mind focused on this life.
We got brought brought into this life because of that karma and then that karma also means that our concentration will be on this life because we had the karma to be born into this human realm. It doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for us to turn our mind away from that strong, karmic imprint that we have and the results of it because people have obviously done it. But we need to develop levels of realization in order to be able to stop our mind naturally going towards these samsaric pleasures that are so ingrained in our mind stream It’s the same as if we planted rice and we planted a seed for rice and we’re given that seed water and nutrients and everything and then it’s grown and then when we’ve got the rice rice plants grown then we decide that we don’t want rice we want apples and we’re going to sit there and pray for that rice plant to turn into an apple and pray really hard because we’ve changed our mind, we’ve put all the conditions and the causes in there to get rice, we don’t want rice anymore, we want apples. So because we’ve got we’ve been this was the end result of the causes what we put into action for us to change our minds around and not be thinking about this life to start thinking about the next life or trying to practice Dharma properly becomes very difficult it’s difficult because we’re experiencing the results of the karma that we put in previously.
So we really have to put a lot of effort into concentrating on whatever it is we’re going to do and thinking may this be a cause for me to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings, and if we can’t manage that, either it may be a cause for attaining my own liberation or a cause for having a good rebirth in the next life and not going to the lower realms. So so any action that we do, any karma that we’re accumulating has a choice of either becoming Dharma or it has a choice of becoming worldly. That’s what it has to go between. Now, if something’s done with the motivation of the next life or liberation or Buddhahood and it’s done with that whatever it is, if it’s done with that motivation it becomes a Dharma. And now if something’s done no matter what it is and it’s done with a negative motivation or motivation focusing on this life then whether it’s prostrating or it’s meditating or trying to meditate on emptiness or meditating on compassion or saying mantras or doing any kind of practice that we’ve been told to do.
Those all become a negative thing they all become a worldly pleasure sorry all become a cause for worldly existence and don’t become actual Dharma practice There’s many different reasons that people do things that are considered to be Dharma practice which aren’t a positive motivation which aren’t because of the causes putting in good causes for the next life or future lives or or liberation or Buddhahood. They do things so people will think they’re a good practitioner. They do things so people will assume that they have wisdom. They do things so people assume that they have realizations. They do things so we do things so we can have less illness in this life, so we can have less suffering in this life.
All of these things are worldly and they make any Dharma practice that we do actually a worldly practice and not a Dharma practice. So likewise, the difference between the beings of of low, middle, and upper capacities that all relies on their motivation as well. Whether what someone’s practicing is Dharma or not relies on their motivation. Whether what they’re practicing is a lower vehicle or higher vehicle practice depends on their motivation and what type of being of the three different types of beings they are depends on their motivation. So therefore the motivation is so very very important.
So for example studying the seventy topics, the seventy topics itself is not only a Dharma text, it’s a Mahāyāna text and not only is it a Mahāyāna text, it’s a Mahāyāna text that came from the mouth of Maitreya Buddha. So therefore it’s a very important text. But even a text it’s based on sorry it’s based on the words of Maitreya Buddha. Even a very important text like this studying it or reading it only becomes a Dharma practice if someone’s motivation for reading it or studying it is a good rebirth or liberation or achieving Buddhahood. If they don’t have that as their motivation, then even studying this text isn’t Dharma.
It becomes a worldly pursuit. So if that when someone’s reading this text or studying this text, they’re doing so with the motivation that this will act as a cause for them to have excuse me act as a cause for them to have a positive rebirth and not go to the lower realms in their next life then they are it becomes a practice of their lowest scope of people of person and if they’re doing it with the motivation that they’re studying in order to achieve their own liberation, then even though it’s a Mahāyāna text, it still becomes a Hīnayāna motivation and a middling person motivation. The best type of motivation to read this text is and the type of motivation that accords with the Dharma that is being espoused in this text is to have the motivation of doing it for the benefit of all sentient beings to separate them from suffering and in order to do that to quickly attain Buddhahood. So yeah, the way that we decide whether someone is fits into either of three scopes of beings is by their motivation, not by the things that they’re practicing and not by the texts that they are studying.
So if we wanted to abide in the highest vehicle, then we have to work really hard at our motivation because we don’t naturally go that way. Our mind doesn’t naturally go towards the higher vehicle because we’ve had since beginningless time self grasping and self-cherishing in our mind stream. It’s much easier for us to have the motivation that we’re doing it for our own liberation. That we’re doing it so we can cease experiencing suffering ourselves. In order for us to think about all sentient beings is very difficult thing.
In order for us to do it we have to put in a lot of effort. It’s a very difficult thing. So this is why in this the quote that we talked about at the beginning that they encourage us to do the practice of exchanging ourselves for others because by the power of that practice then we can have a greater understanding of other people’s plight and therefore it’s easier for us to develop the highest of motivations So in Bodhisattva’s minds, the only time they have their own benefit think of their own benefit is as a result of thinking about other people’s benefits. Their own benefit is only to benefit others. So working for their own benefit for their own benefit’s sake is something that they abandon and working for the benefit of others is something that they practice.
So what we have to do in order to develop this mind that’s looking towards others is a lot of mind training. We have to train our mind in this way of thinking about others and exchanging them for ourselves and then understanding them more deeply and they’re understanding their plight more deeply and therefore having more compassion for them. And after we have more compassion for them then we should think that whatever we do in this instance studying the seventy topics should become a cause for us to attain enlightenment. After studying it and then putting it into practice, we will become Buddhas for the sake of all sentient beings and do that as quickly as possible. And this is the mind that we should try and meditate on.
So today, we can pretend to be experts about the twenty secondary mental — I can’t remember how to say it. I’m not pretending to be an expert very well. Yeah. The twenty secondary afflictive minds, which are within the and the section on the Four Noble Truths which instructs on the object of observation so we were going through the Four Noble Truths and we were on the well that comes first in terms of cause and effect the truth of the origin of suffering which is divided into true origins and afflictive emotions and we’ve gone through the six root afflictive emotions and then got a bit stuck on the twenty secondary afflictive emotions Okay, so the first one being belligerence is a mind similar to anger, but belligerence relies on the person or object that we feel anger towards being not in the room but in our environment, and it’s the wish that comes up to harm them. If it’s just in our mind and it’s not based on an external object, then this emotion or afflictive emotion is simply called anger.
But if it actually has a place to a place or a person or a thing that is causing it, that’s in our environment, then it’s belligerent. The second one, resentment or holding a grudge, is when this belligerence or anger keeps coming up in our mind and we don’t get rid of it because actually anger is something that we need to get rid of to chuck away. But if we don’t get rid of it and it keeps thinking about it again and again and again and thinking I’m gonna get them, I’m gonna get them, I’m gonna get them, then this is what a resentment or holding a grudge is. So the next one denial or concealment is when we’ve done something wrong. We’ve like for example killed a human or a goat and we have this this thought that we’ve done something wrong, but we try and hide that from other people who try and not we don’t let on about it.
We don’t let other anyone else know so it’s the mind that wants to hide the things that we’ve done wrong Okay. The next one, spite, is we had these minds of belligerence and anger earlier. When these minds come up and then after that there’s not just the mind of anger or belligerence towards that, the object is also this mind of wishing to do them harm. Then that’s spite. So it’s a mind wishing to hurt and then also thinking negative things about the object.
The next one is jealousy. Jealousy or envy. It could be either. There’s when we see other people having things, whether it’s physical or qualities and we don’t have a good feeling about that we see them with these possessions or qualities and instead of rejoicing in that we actually have this feeling of not feeling comfortable about that not be happy about their situation and actually almost wishing that they didn’t have those things because it’s not making us feel that good. Okay.
So this mind isn’t necessarily that we want what they’ve got. It’s just that we’re not happy about the fact that we don’t have it and they do. Right. So I remember there’s a distinction between jealousy and envy based on that, but I can’t remember which ones are which. So this is just the idea that because they’ve got it and I don’t I’m not happy about them having it.
And the next one, miserliness, actually works on two levels. The first one is if we know something and we don’t wanna share it with other people, we pretend that we don’t know and we don’t want to share our knowledge with them, then that’s one level of miserliness. The other level that it works at is if we have things and no matter what the other person’s needs may be, we decide we don’t wanna give it to them because they’re ours and we wanna hold on to them, then that’s also miserliness. The next one is called deceit or pretense, and that’s when we don’t have a quality and we pretend that we do have a quality. When we don’t have any wealth and we pretend that we are wealthy or we don’t understand something, we pretend that we do.
Any of these situations where we’re trying to hide our lack of something is included within within this. This one. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
So, the next one is called dissimulation. It’s similar to both deceit and denial because, like denial, it’s pretending that you don’t have something that you have done or, yeah, you don’t you haven’t done something that you have done, but in this case or you don’t have something that you do have, but in this case it’s something that’s positive. So pretending that you don’t have some kind of qualities, which may be of help, or you don’t have some kind of goods that may be of help to other people. And it’s similar to deceit in that you’re you’re pretending the situation isn’t what it is. The next one, haughtiness, is when even though we we only have a little bit of quality or a little bit of, yeah, wealth or knowledge or something like that, we think that we’re pretty happy with our little bit of knowledge or a little bit of wealth, we get very puffed up about our little bit of knowledge or wealth or whatever, and start feeling really good about ourselves and think, Yeah, yeah, I’m alright.
We get this feeling of self-importance coming on really strong. That acts as a precursor to pride. Yeah. So that’s the description of haughtiness. So the next one, harmfulness.
So harmfulness is the desire to to be of harm to sentient beings for some reason, and it’s the opposite of compassion.