Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The draft paragraph is ready. It opens with the Pänchen Lama verse (distinctive to this session), moves through the two-accumulations teaching, the Saddam Hussein example, the three-hours-daily practical challenge, and ends with the Seventy Topics technical content — all in order. Let me know if you’d like any adjustments to tone, length, or emphasis.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 ST7 2003 08 07.mp3
UUID: 96de8e9b-5ad4-436a-9656-2c6ec90f2141
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-08-07
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.9 minutes
Words: ~3,091
Okay, so Okay. The name of this prayer is two lines long and very complicated. So I said, well, what is it usually called? And Geshe la said, just say it’s prayer. Alright.
Okay. So in a prayer by Pänchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen — Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen, who’s the same person who wrote the Guru Puja. Oh, Guru Puja. He says in this prayer that he has, he says, Everything that has come together will be separated.
Everything that has been accumulated will be actualized. Everything that is high will become low. Everything that is born in the end will die. And apart from just dying, the time of death will not be known. Therefore, please bless me to know the non-sustainability of things, or the non-abidance of things.
That’s what he said in this text. Now, what this means is everything that’s come together everything that’s come together is all phenomena everything that includes us, it includes all the phenomena that we experience all of these are an accumulation of something, a coming together of certain causes and conditions and they, because of this, have to come apart that coming together has to have its opposite end come about and it has to come apart so we need to understand that the next thing we need to understand is that any karma that has accumulated has a result so anything that has been done has to have a result come about in accordance with that action so we need to understand that not only this but everybody who is high everybody who has greatness about them, whether they’re greatly wealthy, whether they’re greatly famous, whether they’re a high lama, any of these beings at some stage have to come down. They have to experience it coming down in one way or another now the other thing is that every time everything that’s born has to in the end die then not only that but we can’t say when things are going to die so we don’t when we’re going to die so we don’t know how worthwhile anything we do that’s just focused on this life is because we don’t know when we’re going to die.
So it says please bless me to understand the non abidance of things or please bless me to generate an understanding of impermanence. So, then, this definitely the way it is. If we think about it, then for us to come into existence, for example, there needed to be all these conditions that were there we needed to have two parents we needed to have we needed to generate a body from that and we needed all the other conditions to stop us from actually passing away before it actually come about now the thing that causes us to to happen, the thing that causes us to have the experience of this life is our, the karma that we’ve accumulated, the causes that were the results of the causes that we’ve accumulated. So that means that no matter how hard we try if we don’t have the conditions or the karma to have something happen then it’s not gonna happen so if we want something to happen then we need to create the causes for that to happen it’s not as if we can do it ourselves we don’t have the ability to do something that isn’t is outside of the law of cause and effect we can’t make ourselves happen we didn’t make ourselves be born we were born because we had the conditions and the karma to be born so if we want something positive to happen in the future we don’t do it we don’t make it happen by willing it to happen by creating it or making it happen ourselves we do it by generating the causes for it to happen and because something happens because all these conditions comes together then that means that in inherent in that coming together when the factors that make that thing come together cease to be then that thing will dissipate will will separate the the factors come together separate that thing will cease to be in that way so if we look at it there’s nobody in the world that this doesn’t happen to we can’t see anybody that hasn’t we can’t say that anyone will not die at some stage we can’t say that the conditions that bring a life into being for any one person will continue in that way forever so we have to understand that this idea of things that have come together eventually having to separate isn’t a partial explanation for beings.
It’s inclusive. Okay, so the next bit of the quote says that all accumulations will have an effect. Now, there’s two ways that we can look at these accumulations. There’s two different types of things that we can accumulate. We can accumulate physical things or wealth in one way or another, and we can accumulate karma by virtuous and non virtuous deeds.
Now, the first type of accumulation the accumulation of physical things in this life is something that we can see, is something that we can understand because if we work hard for things then we get things we can accumulate different material and things that material objects and things that make us more comfortable but even if we work incredibly hard and become incredibly rich we can’t take those things with us when we die — at the time of death they’re not going to help us — there’s nothing that we can take with us into the next life that we’ve accumulated in this life so even though this kind of accumulation may help us in this life, we can’t take anything with us. We because we can’t take anything with us into the next life, then it’s only a very, very, very temporary accumulation. The other thing is if we don’t have the karma, if we don’t have the the merit to be able to accumulate things no matter how hard we work and how much effort we put into it then we can’t accumulate things anyway. So we can see in this way that we actually are like a slave to our karma or or the the the results of our previous actions in that we can’t make things happen that don’t rely on that law.
So that’s the first type of accumulation which doesn’t really take us very far. The second type of accumulation is the accumulation of negative and positive karma. The accumulation of negative and positive karma places imprints on our mind stream that go with us even after we die, even when we go into the next life. If we’re at the time of death, none of the physical accumulations we have will help us, in fact they may harm us because we will have attachment to them but the imprints that we have in our minds whether they be positive or negative ones will determine what happens to us after that So in that way we see that the accumulation of positive and negative karma or positive and negative imprints on our mind stream is the infallible aspect of these accumulations. The material accumulations, are not infallible.
So, the next line of the verse says that every being that is high in the end will become low and that death will for everything that is born, death will come. Now, the when they say high, it means beings of who have before who have this greatness. So if we’re talking about people who are incredibly wealthy, incredibly powerful, really high lamas — high lamas who are not aryas or don’t have any realizations, ordinary-being high lamas who sit on high thrones, he said. At some stage, all of these beings have to come down low. Their karma will run out and they will end up in a lowly situation again.
For example, Saddam Hussein, who had an incredible amount of wealth and incredible amount of power at his disposal one month, and then the next month, he has nothing. Then on top of that, he eventually has to die as well. So even if he had managed to maintain the wealth his whole life, in the end he has to die, which will bring him down low which will bring any of these high people down low anyway. So when we’re talking about people dying, then we have to understand that there is nobody who escapes death whether they’re an incredibly powerful person whether they’re incredibly rich or if they have an amazing amount of qualities they’re all going to have to die even Buddha Śākyamūni went into parinirvana So there’s no being that we can say on the earth that isn’t going to die. It’s inherent in coming together and in the coming together of birth.
And not only that, but there isn’t any object or any phenomenon in existence that doesn’t isn’t dying and being reborn in every moment because there is no abiding there is one moment the cause for the next moment and then that cause disintegrates which is an aspect of cause for the next moment so there’s no middle area there where there is abiding There is degeneration, there is degeneration, or there is ending, but there is no abiding in the middle there. So in every moment, the one moment acts as a cause for the next moment, but there is no middle ground there. Nothing in the middle. So not only do we have to accept the fact that at the end then we have to die, we also have to accept the fact that the time of death is not certain because we carry within us the cause for death but we don’t know the exact time when that cause is going to come into effect now even the things that we do to protect our body and try and make our body sustain us for longer can be and are the causes for us to die as well we eat a lot we eat food well to protect our body we take medicines to protect our body but all of these things in themselves are a cause for death as well so if we can’t even rely on the things that we use in order to sustain ourselves then we can understand how precarious our situation is carrying with is within us this cause for death So because we don’t understand when death is going to happen, we can’t be surprised when it does.
It shouldn’t be it shouldn’t be something that surprises us. So we need to understand that if we look at it in this way, we need to get it into our heads that if we look at it in this way then it means that nothing that we do none of the things that we chase after none of the things that we try and strive after in this life really have any point it comes down to the only thing that has a point is the practice of Dharma, is creating a positive karma and working towards liberation because only the mind of liberation or only the mind striving towards Buddhahood can actually get us out of this situation and be of any benefit to us. Everything else is of no benefit to us so we need to focus on those things because we have the opportunity in this lifetime to do that. That’s not what we do however we tend to spend most of our time trying to focus focus on things that are going to help us in this life so even if in one day when a day coming down to about twelve hours so it’s a daylight day so in a day if we spent three hours of that time focused on the next life instead of this life then we would be making our life incredibly meaningful and setting up a situation that would, help us in our next life.
And if we can’t do the three hours, if we kept bringing our mind to back to Dharma or back to focusing on the next life or back to working towards enlightenment or liberation during the day, then that would be of enormous benefit to us as well. But we don’t think about it like this. We spend all our time focusing on this life and not focusing very much on the next life or working towards liberation or working towards Buddhahood, which are the only things that will really help us. So when you think about it this way, the only thing that really is benefit, the only thing that we should be focusing on is practicing Dharma. Everything else is is is essentially meaningless with only a temporary outcome.
And what do we mean by practicing Dharma? Practicing Dharma is focusing on at least the next life and then, if we can, on liberation or achieving enlightenment to the benefit of all sentient beings and if we’re trying to be Mahāyāna practitioners then we need to be focusing on achieving enlightenment to be a benefit to all sentient beings that’s the mind that we keep trying to familiarize ourselves with. That’s the mind that we have to keep familiarizing ourselves with. If we’ve already developed bodhicitta, then we don’t have to worry too much. We just have that mind in our we have these thoughts in our mind all the time and we can just relax and get on with it.
But if we haven’t developed bodhicitta then we should try and remind ourselves of bodhicitta as many times as possible to familiarize ourselves with the concept. The concept we’re trying to familiarize ourselves with is achieving enlightenment in order to be of the ultimate benefit to all sentient beings so we are working towards enlightenment in order to be a benefit to sentient beings that thought is the thing that we should concentrate on and if we can meditate on that for a few minutes now or concentrate on that thought for a few minutes now that would be good Okay. Alright. Geshe la said, you’re having trouble thinking how to say it in English — just go into equipoise and then do it. Like, pop.
Just easier. Okay. Now the part we’re up to is the eighth topic in the nine topics of knower of bases, which is in this translation a quality of application of a knower of bases, or in the extended form a quality of a bodhisattva’s application indicated in the context of a knower of bases — which means, with regards to the knower of bases, how a bodhisattva practices in order to understand that mind and that understanding properly. All right. So the knower of bases in this case refers to this separation of duality or non duality and so it’s seeing emptiness with regards to both of these things.
The definition: a bodhisattva’s yoga conjoined with the wisdom that stops adherence to the divisions of bases, definitions, definienda — I thought it was “definienda” or “definiendum” — anyway, objects and subjects as truly existent now okay so bodhisattvas yoga conjoined with the wisdom so bodhisattva yoga is the mind practicing in this way and it’s conjoined with a certain type of wisdom this kind of wisdom is seeing the lack of separation seeing the lack of any substantial separation between the divisions the first division of basis being the division of the two truths so the two truths being ultimate truth and relative truth definitions and definienda — the thing and that which describes the thing yeah objects and objects objects and subjects or objects and object possessor an object being any one of the five sense spheres so form, sound, smell, taste and tactile objects and the subjects being the consciousnesses that apprehend them So and it’s the the knower that stops clinging to any of these things as being truly existent. Okay. Sorry. Then the other thing is it says a definition of equality of a bodhisattva’s application. Now this word equality is the same word as the one that’s used in equipoise.
So when you talk about meditative equipoise, balance, so that equality, you could put dash equality dash equipoise. That is one. Okay. Sorry. We’re just having a bit of confusion because there’s one bit missing from Geshe-la’s text, we’re trying to figure out which ones it was and to try and let him know what it actually says.
Alright. He thinks that they when they were typing the text in that they weren’t watching what they’re actually typing, and they left out a few things. Sometimes they put things in the wrong place. Anyway, so the four definienda, now that we’ve gotten sorted out. Okay.
Now the first division of this is the equality of application which does not misconceive the entity of forms and so forth to be truly existent. Equality of application, quality is the same as equipoise so it’s a yogic equipoise. Application is like a yoga yes so it’s a mental equipoise that they have which is a practice the mind that’s practicing which does not misconceive or does not see as being truly existent. The entity, entity being the nature of form and so forth. The nature of form is that it is suitable to be form.
So this suitableness of form they don’t conceive this as being truly existent. And likewise with sound the nature of sound is that it is suitable to be sound and they don’t perceive that as being truly existent either and so forth. Okay. The second one, the quality. He said do they understand so I haven’t translated yet but it was okay the next one the quality of application which does not misconceive the definitions and oh, I can’t even pronounce it.
The the I thought it was definite. Definienda. I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before. What does Jampa Nyen say in his?
Because I thought it was they used deafening, and that wasn’t quite right, but it did do. That was the the the theory that I’d heard on Sungrab or how it’s translated. I’d seen before, but I’ve never seen this word. Looks like a plant. Definiendum.
Yeah. Oh, so definienda is the plural of definiendum. Yeah. Like it’s a phenomenon phenomenon. Right.