Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 35-minute session, Geshe Pema Tsering opens with a striking contrast: unlike ordinary meditation, where antidotes must be reapplied again and again, a practitioner on the path of seeing applies an antidote only once — the affliction, seeds and all, is permanently gone. He maps the five Mahāyāna paths from accumulation to no more learning, explaining how renunciation and bodhicitta arise together and why calm abiding and special insight must precede uncontrived bodhicitta. He then closes the four truths section with an analysis of cessation, distinguishing permanent abandonments from the path of seeing onward from terminological cessations — like those gained through calm abiding — that can be lost. He closes by urging students to cultivate stainless aspiration now, even if contrived, and to hope big: without hope, there is no practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 ST3 2003 04 10.mp3
UUID: ea62cca1-9645-4754-b362-cda21761c996
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-04-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 35.1 minutes
Words: ~2,348
Doing the mind training of the higher vehicle, of the Mahāyāna vehicle, then at the moment we develop renunciation, we also develop bodhicitta because they come together. If you have true renunciation on the Mahāyāna path, then that is also bodhicitta that is uncontrived. So if in the first if you’re training in the Mahāyāna path, if you develop renunciation in the first moment, then in the second moment, there, you will have developed uncontrived bodhicitta. So this is something that we should actually be trying to practice right now in order to develop renunciation. If we think about both the shortcomings of Sansara and also the difficulty of finding a human rebirth and the ease in losing a human rebirth, then the combination of concentrating on these two is something that we should be practicing in now and something which the end result of which is renunciation.
So if we have this practice, if we’re thinking about exchanging self and others and doing the practices of trying to develop bodhicitta and doing that along with understanding the shortcomings of saṃsāra and the preciousness precious human rebirth, then we’re actually not that far away from entering the first path, the path of accumulation. It’s something that’s quite close because it just depends on these practices. So in the same way that if you want to get somewhere then you have to start walking, and if you do start walking then you get there, then in the same way as that by doing these practices like we’re walking towards renunciation and development of bodhicitta, and the sooner we start walking, then the sooner we’ll get there. So by doing these practices, by concentrating on the shortcomings of saṃsāra and by understanding the preciousness of a human rebirth, then if we do that enough, then the thought of renunciation actually does come up in our mind and it becomes something that’s unfabricated. And then if we have that in combination with the aspiration for the higher vehicle, then we do actually develop bodhicitta and enter the path of accumulation.
Okay. So if we have this understanding of renunciation, if we by doing these practices, we develop renunciation and we develop bodhicitta, and we’ve entered the path of accumulation, then the path of preparation actually becomes a lot closer as well. And then after and then likewise, the path of seeing becomes something that’s very close. If the path of preparation is something that’s very close, then the path of seeing also is something that’s very close. So that becoming an Ārya, attaining the path of seeing is something that we can actually hope for, is something that doesn’t have to be that far away.
It’s not something that we got no hope for. It is something that we we can actually do. Okay. So on the path of accumulation, you develop wisdom arising from hearing from hearing and studying. And then on the path of preparation, we develop wisdom from contemplation.
And on the path of seeing, we don’t have wisdom that arrives from thinking, we see things directly. So once we achieve the path of seeing, then we go through a process of abandoning, first of all, eight things on the non interrupted path as a path of seeing. Now these meditations that people are doing on the path of seeing are not the same as meditations that we do when we try and meditate now. When we try and meditate now, what we’re actually doing is trying to apply antidotes to things like anger and desire and so forth. When you’re on the path of seeing, because you’ve understood emptiness directly, then anytime you apply one of these meditations, you achieve the truth of cessation or the truth of the path, because you get rid of it completely, because you understand emptiness completely.
It s not just a matter of keeping on reapplying antidotes. You apply an antidote once and then it s gone. And then these are not just only are those abandonments gone, but also their seeds gone, so it’s not something that comes back. So if you abandon anger, for example, on the path of seeing, then you abandon it completely, it never comes back. And if you abandon the other things you abandon on the path then they go completely and they don’t come back.
There’s seeds out there. There’s nothing to bring them back and down into the mind stream. So because of this, the truth of the path is the direct antidote to the truth of the origin of suffering and the truth of suffering itself. It becomes the thing that gets at the root of of those two truths of suffering, the truth of origin of suffering. Okay.
So the path of seeing and the path of meditation are both paths of bodhisattvas. Path of no more learning is a path of a Buddha. Apart from Buddhas, there is nobody with the path of learning as a mind, as a consciousness, path of no more learning, sorry, as a mind or a consciousness. So, by the time that people have reached the path of no more learning, then they have abandoned all obscurations to omniscience and all obscurations to liberation. Sorry, all obscurations to omniscience and all obscurations of afflictive emotions or it’s another one where it’s called obscurations to So that’s the most important thing to understand that the path of seeing, the path of meditation, and the path of no more learning are actually the truth of the path.
There’s also a lot of other things that we can say about the truth of the path because not only is there these five paths and these three paths and the Buddha grounds and the Bodhisattva grounds, but then on each of the different paths there is a non interrupted path, a path of release and a subsequent attainments and subsequent knowledges. And then there’s also ten grounds on the path of meditation, but we won’t worry about that. Okay. So the truth of cessation also has four different sections or four different things that are contained within or hang on. It goes the other way.
Four different things that are defined as being part of the truth of cessation. Alright, so they are cessation itself, pacification, auspiciousness, and either definite emergence or another way is translated as renunciation. Okay. So another way of describing auspiciousness is good and nothing but good. Okay.
So there’s no way of dividing the truth of cessation by way of different natures, because all truths of cessation have the same nature in that they are the lack of whatever it was that needed to be abandoned. So, once you abandon something, the lack of that is a truth of cessation. So you could say that there was many, many different types of truth to cessation in that there are many different things that need to be abandoned. On each of the paths from the path of seeing upwards there are things that are completely abandoned. On each of the different grounds there are certain things that are abandoned and all the way up until the path of no more learning there are things that are abandoned.
Abandoned. But because are defined as because the truth of cessation is the negative of whatever it was that was abandoned, it’s like a negating concept. It’s a negation of whatever it was that was abandoned, then their essence, their nature is always the same. So there is a definite word in Tibetan for nature of this, but it means the lack of something, the absence of something, which is what the definition of a cessation is. So other things that become cessation are like the uncompounded space, which is defined as the lack of obstruction, the lack of tangibility, lack of taste, lack of touch, the lack of other senses, the lack of obstruction is a negation like this.
It’s the lack of these, in this case, it’s the lack of the things that have been abandoned, the negation of these things is the actual definition of cessation and as such, negation of something, as the stopping of existing of something is also considered to be permanent. So there’s one division the way that the truth of cessation can be is terminologically divided as opposed to divided by nature, and that is it can be divided into the nature of cessation and the labels of cessation. Although the nature of cessation itself cannot be divided, because every cessation has the same nature, the labels of the things that are ceased can be divided. Okay, so the truth of cessations that are actual truth of cessations by their nature are things that are attained from the path of seeing onwards. The truth of cessation that are like labeled cessation, can be divided into many things and have different natures, are things like when you achieve calm abiding, things to be abandoned of the desire realm are abandoned.
So when you achieve calm abiding, you get rid of the abiding in the desire realm because once you achieve calm abiding, you reach the form realm. Okay. Sorry. So when you achieve calm abiding, you get rid of the abiding in the desire realm and you achieve the form realm consciousness. So that is called a terminological truth of cessation, but it’s not called a truth of cessation by way of nature.
Because it isn’t that it is abandoned forever along with the roots and the seeds of it is that it is abandoned once calm abiding has been achieved, but calm abiding can be lost. So, yeah, so this is this abandonment when people achieve calm abiding, the abandonment of the abiding in the desire realm is only is a truth cessation by way of labeling, not by way of actual nature, right? Because it’s not something that’s completely abandoned like as things are when you achieve the path of seeing. So that’s what the truth of cessation is, and that’s the end of the explanation of the topics with regards to the four truths, which are the object of meditation. So we did all of the four truths today.
It’s like, oh, Joey’s got a question. That’s original. It’s good, though. I don’t know, I’ll ask. Okay.
If I can remember how to speak. The lack of sorry, uncompounded space isn’t a truth of cessation. It’s like the truth of cessation in that they are both negations of something. Are both the extinguishing of something, not extinguishing, that’s the wrong word. They are both negations or yeah.
The lack of they’re describing the lack of something. So in the same way that uncompounded space is the mere lack of obstruction. Right? Then the way that you define the the truth of cessation is the lack of the thing that was abandoned. Okay.
So both of them have something that needs or doesn’t need something that is not happening, all right. So uncompounded space does not inhibit movement. It does not inhibit anything. All right, it’s the lack of something. It’s the negation of something.
And there is something that is being negated. Right, so you can say, when you say the uncompounded space doesn’t inhibit movement, that the inhibition of movement is something that is negated in the definition of uncompounded space, Right? And it’s the same thing with the truth of cessation, because there’s something has is being negated in the definition of the truth of cessation, in that every time there’s a truth of cessation, there is something that has been abandoned that has ceased to be along these different paths. And the thing that needs to be abandoned that is abandoned in Tibetan is one word. So it’s difficult to translate. If anyone can think of a word, let us know.
Did that make sense? We can actually have stainless aspiration now. If every time that we are trying to have an aspirational prayer or have a thought about the future or have the idea of bodhicitta, if we’re always thinking that, we try and think, okay, this isn’t for my own benefit, and in fact, I don’t inherently exist, and none of the things that I am praying for inherently exist, and we have this contrived thought in our mind, then that aspiration becomes Yeah, even if it’s contrived, we just have to keep trying to tell ourselves that things don t exist the way that they appear to us, that they are actually not inherent. They are empty of inherent existence. And not only that, we should also have the idea that we’re not doing whatever it is we’re doing for our own benefit, that it s for the benefit of others.
And we can contrive this mind, then it becomes a stainless meditation. Stainless aspiration. He said it’s not that difficult to get that mind. He said if you don’t think about it, then it’s difficult. But if you actually sit down and think about it and work at it, you can get that state that mind.
Yeah. So we need to have not only developed calm abiding, but also the union of calm abiding and special insight before you can develop Uncontrived bodhicitta, because needs that concentration in order to you need the concentration in order to develop uncontrived bodhicitta. He Okay, so first of all, establish or you achieve calm abiding, and then you achieve special insight. And then after that, based on those two, that acts as a cause for achieving uncontrived bodhicitta. Pardon?
He said, not only do you have to hope, but you have to hope big. It’s important. If you don’t hope, then you don’t practice. And if you don’t practice, then you don’t get anywhere, not even to a good rebirth. How much?
Is that okay?