Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The talk opens with a concrete distinction: generosity and not-stealing can cause a human rebirth, but not a precious human rebirth with all its liberties and endowments — that requires far more extensive practice. In this 45-minute commentary, Geshe Pema Tsering explains that impermanence means moment-to-moment generation and cessation, not merely eventual death, so this body — difficult to obtain — is always at risk of being lost. He argues that money, comfort, and worldly pursuits are ultimately meaningless since nothing survives death, and urges students to set the motivation to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings before every activity. The second half turns technical: the fourth division of the Seventy Topics, examining how agent, action, and result all lack inherent existence, and how even the seven similes used to grasp emptiness must themselves be seen as not truly existent.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 ST7 2003 07 31.mp3
UUID: b29157a0-0318-4182-8d43-d6022bcc2a5c
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-07-31
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.2 minutes
Words: ~2,146
On the practice of giving the practice of giving or the practice of not stealing. If we don’t steal and we give up stealing completely and we don’t do any any of that and we try and give then that can act as a cause for us to achieve a human rebirth just that action just those that the karma from that that one action first of all we have to have the circumstances and where we can live like that that we can live without stealing and we can live with being able to be generous so but once we have those circumstances then not stealing is a cause for us to be born again as a human it isn’t however a cause for us to be born as a human with the liberties and endowments with all the different characteristics of a precious human rebirth in order to gain that then we have to do a lot more work a lot more Dharma practice a lot more virtuous actions So also in the quote, it says that this body here is found but once, is difficult to obtain, and is easily lost. And now, when it says difficult to attain, we’ve already been through this because establishing a cause for developing a human rebirth, we mentioned, was very difficult.
The next thing, the fact that it’s easily lost. Now, what we have to remember about the human body being easily lost is that in every moment the human body is changing and the the it’s it’s constantly going through a process of change because it’s impermanent so impermanence means changing in every moment other thing is we have to remember that the cause for death is being born so everything that is born has to die and in actual fact this happens in every moment as well in every moment there is birth and then death or there’s generation and then cessation it’s not like things are generated and then wait a while and then disintegrate there’s generation and disintegration in every moment so this is what we mean by impermanence now impermanence means that we are born means we’re going to die so that’s because of this impermanence then if someone says to us can you be absolutely sure that you’re not going to die tomorrow then we have to say no we don’t know that we’re not going to die tomorrow we don’t know for certain that’s not going to happen. So, this is the thing this is what we need to remember and it’s what this quote means when it says that it’s easily lost because it’s easily lost meaning that because it’s impermanent, that death is not that far away.
In fact, there is regeneration and cessation in every moment. So, then the next bit where it says, first of all, says, in the Tibetan, the next bit says, and not be distracted by the meaningless affairs of this life so what this means is that we have to remember that most of our time is actually spent engaged in trying to get some kind of result for this life we spend most of our time engaged in the pursuit of pleasure for this life and we don’t tend to spend a lot of time if we were just without trying working on our next life or practicing Dharma or trying to work towards liberation What we are asking for here is for the teacher to bless us, Lama to bless us so that we do have the inclination to practice Dharma, to work towards the next life, to work towards liberation, to work towards enlightenment. So the reason that it says that the affairs of this life are meaningless is if we think about it, then we spend all our time and all our energy and we focus all our efforts on trying to make ourselves happy we consider everything that’s happening in this life to be really important we think that’s the most important thing that’s going on with us so we do we put in a lot of effort to make ourselves comfortable get things to create circumstances which we are happy in and we focus on that as if that’s the most important thing but in actual fact it doesn’t help us at all if we think about it we’re talking about impermanence and impermanence means that we’re going to die that’s the simple fact and also means that the things we’re getting don’t last forever either so even if we don’t die then they fade away as well so in that way they’re pointless but when we do die we cannot take a single thing with us we can’t take any of those things that we’ve accumulated with us they don’t they’re not they’re not carryable so that’s that that if we think about it in this way then we can see that these things of this life whether it’s our money like because we work really hard we do get a bit of money and if we work really hard towards the towards that goal, then we get a nice place to live.
But this money and this nice place to live, all of these things are pointless. We think they have a point, but they really don’t have a point. They’re really meaningless because their their their terms of reference or their their their the sphere in which they exist in is only limited to this life and we have to leave this life and go on to the next one so there’s no point running after things that are only going to be of very temporary benefit to us. We don’t naturally think in this way. We naturally chase after these things all the time.
But if we stop and think about it, then we’ll see that this is true. All these things are completely meaningless. So then, because we’ve seen that the affairs of this life, the things that we can get in this life are meaningless, then then we ask the teachers to bless us that we get the essence of this life that we make this life as meaningful as possible that we get the true meaning of this life So what the true meaning of this life is is working towards using this life as a platform or an opportunity to work towards liberation and to work towards Buddhahood. That’s what the true meaning of life is. If it’s not towards that end, then anything we do is completely meaningless.
So we need their blessings in order for us to be able to see that. So, in actual fact, what we are asking to do, we are trying to concentrate even from our side, we are trying to concentrate on practicing Dharma. We talk about practicing Dharma or yeah all the time doing Dharma practice all the time but what we actually have to do in order to be able to do this is to focus our efforts towards liberation towards the next life towards liberation towards enlightenment and not be focusing on this life so what that means is it is everything we do before we do it we should try and set our motivation to be to achieve we’re doing this whatever it is that we’re doing in order to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings so if we do something with that motivation then it means that whatever we’re doing not only is a Dharma but it’s Mahāyāna Dharma — it’s a phenomenon of the greater vehicle and therefore it becomes much more meaningful and much more influential in terms of its scope. So we should be trying to think of this as our motivation before we do anything.
So we should be so we’re trying to concentrate on this idea of attaining enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings and then before we do anything we should try and develop this motivation so at the moment we’re about to study the seven topics so we should be thinking okay the reason I’m studying the seventy topics is if I understand the seventy topics then I’ll be able to achieve enlightenment and if I achieve enlightenment I’ll be able to be a benefit for all sentient beings and even if I don’t understand the seventy topics, at least I’m doing a really good thing by putting imprints on my mind in order to be able to understand them in the future so all of this is in order to achieve enlightenment so I can be a benefit to all sentient beings and concentrating on that thought we should try and meditate or familiarize ourselves with that thought for a few minutes yeah. Yeah. The fourth division of the application of knower of bases. Yeah? Right.
Now the fourth division of the application of knower of bases is the application of activity of adhering to true existence by means of apprehending the idea of true existence, and that’s where you’re at — or that’s where you are — — then the practice of not adhering or not being connected to true existence, and so that we’re doing the practice by way of not being attached to inherent existence. This one. Working towards the goal, which is the thing being aimed at. The person doing the work, which is them, the volitional factor, and the result of their work, which is when they actually achieve the goal — all of those three things are not inherently existent. Okay.
But I’m gonna start with what you said in the middle. Okay. The bit that says, it is the nonexistence of the agent. Yeah?
So you’re seeing the nonexistence of the agent as existing as truly existing things. Right? So it’s not only do they exist, but they do truly. So seeing them So, basically, what we have to remember is with these things all not being inherently existent is that the practice is by way of or practice is engaging by way of seeing things as being not true. So you have to see the person that the agent or the person who’s performing the action because all objects have an action that have an agent behind them.
Okay. So the next one is the application that stops adhering to the three. Now what are these three?? First one is the difficult object and intent, but that application is difficult to undertake. That means the practice that is being undertaken by the Bodhisattva.
This is a synonym of knower of bases. Okay. The next one. Right? The same process is happening. There is something that’s being focused on as far as that practice, but that thing that is being focused on also needs to have another practice applied to it, which is the practice that stops seeing that thing as being inherently different and separate from the thing.
Not inherently different. Right? If you have a thing Okay. It’s it’s the opposite way of looking at the previous one. Right?
So in the previous one, we said the thing that we need to stop being inherently existent was the causes that are in accordance with their results. Right? And this one, the thing that we need to see as being inherent not inherently different is that Okay. So the first one was that things are naturally in accord with their result. Right?
This one is saying that the things do not naturally arise from Okay. Okay. So you said it this way. Come about things that are generated in relation to their cause. Right?
But things that are generated in relation to their cause are not inherently. And when thinking about how things are generated in relation to their cause by the end of not seeing them inherently. Are not inherent things that things that aren’t the same as their cause are not inherent. Yeah? So in that idea as well, the inherent is not inherent.
So on the one side, in the the the cause a certain cause will bring about a result that’s in accordance with the cause, and a cause will not bring about the result that’s not in accord with the cause. And both of those Okay. The idea, alright, that things don’t things are not generated that aren’t in accord with their cause is inherently existent. Right? So that idea also has to be negated as truly existent.
So they have So when the bodhisattvas are doing these practices, they use the seven similes that help them to understand things. At the same time that they’re using these metaphors to develop understanding, they have to understand that the metaphors themselves and the understanding that arises from the metaphors are both not inherently existent, and they have to apply the