Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with Candrakīrti’s image of a bucket in a well — no control, just karma pulling it up and down — Geshe Pema Tsering traces the full chain from self-grasping to saṃsāra in this 44.7-minute session. He shows how the thought “I” generates “mine,” which generates desire, and desire triggers anger when thwarted. Anger, he argues, is the worst afflictive emotion because it not only disturbs the mind but destroys accumulated merit — a point he grounds in Geshe-la’s story of once-treasured glasses now tucked wherever and forgotten. He then explains Candrakīrti’s unusual choice to prostrate to compassion rather than to a Buddha or a text, tracing compassion as seed, path, and fruit of the Mahāyāna and connecting it to the arising of bodhicitta. The second half turns to the Seventy Topics curriculum: the “knower of basis,” its four divisions, and how hearers, solitary realizers, and Mahāyāna practitioners each hold a distinct main object of realization.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 ST 2003 02 13.mp3
UUID: 0bf9e34a-02c0-4c27-9b6f-301637c7e77d
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-02-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.7 minutes
Words: ~3,742
How this one? That is one. Oh, yeah. So Geshe-la started with a quote from Madhyamakāvatāra, or the Entry to the Middle Way, by Candrakīrti, and it translates something like: At first we have the thought again and again, I, I and then from this thinking of I, we have the thinking of mine and from this concept of mine attachment grows and from the attachment that grows from the thinking of I we become like a bucket being dropped into and pulled out of a well that is we have no independence. Therefore, for the for the pitiful to the to the compassion for the pitiful, goers in Samsāra, I prostrate.
Okay, so what we’re talking what he’s talking about in the first instance where this thought of I coming up again and again when we think I, this is me, this is who I am and is the basic concept of self grasping. Then from this basic concept of self grasping, we then have the idea of mine. We have the idea that I own something. This is my hand, this is my mother, this is my body, this is my car, this is my house. These thoughts come up and up again.
And from these thoughts that are coming up again and again, we then got the idea of attachment to these objects. I want that car, want that house, this is my body and I don’t want it to leave all these things. And then from that attachment to these objects, then comes the negative states of mind like if I lose that car, I’ll get angry, if I don’t have that car, I’ll get upset and so forth. So then from our attachment to these objects and from our the things we do in order to get these objects or protect these objects, we create karma, we collect karma. And so this karma then starts to take control of us so we become like this bucket that’s being put down into the well and taken out of the well.
We have no control over what’s happening to us because everything that we do comes about because of our karma and is not something that we have control over. The last bit is that for these poor people that are controlled by a karma and have no freedom, to the compassion that focuses on them as an object, I prostrate. Meaning of the last part. So if we think about it, that’s the way it actually works for us as well. At first we have this sort of I and then because we have this sort of I, then the thought comes naturally mine.
And because of this sort of mind, then we put in a lot of effort trying to get all these different things. But this I that we have at the beginning, this sort of I, is actually what they call the root of saṃsāra. It’s the reason that we’re in saṃsāra is what keeps us in saṃsāra self grasping this concept of I and mine. And then from these concepts of I and mine, then we have this desire for things. We want to possess things.
We want to hold onto them. What actually goes hand in hand with this desire for things is an angry state of mind when we don’t get them. Okay, so yeah, if we think about it, then we can see that wherever there’s self grasping, there’s desire, and wherever there’s self grasping and desire, what comes along to help them out is anger because anger goes everywhere that those two go. But it’s not actually really helping them out because it’s not actually a real friend because anger is not a friend to anyone. Anger doesn’t do because real friends help and are a benefit, and anger doesn’t help anyone.
Anger all anger does is destroy our roots of virtue. So, if we look at it clearly, we know that anger doesn’t help any situation. All anger does is destroy our merit, but there’s some people that say that anger is actually a very beneficial thing, like if you come across an enemy or you come face to face with someone that you wanted to destroy, if you don’t have anger, you can’t destroy them. So there’s people that say, well, that makes anger a good thing because it gets rid of our enemies. The root of all these afflictive emotions is actually self grasping as a cause of ignorance, but among the afflictive emotions that arise from that, the worst of them is All of the afflictive emotions are bad, but anger is probably the worst.
Anger is probably the worst because it not only disturbs our mind, the way afflictive emotions do, but it’s also the thing that destroys all the merit that we’ve accumulated. All the things that we’ve tried to store up in order for us to reach our goal get destroyed by anger. It harms those roots of virtues, So therefore, it has it has these two two aspects that make it bad. So, yeah, so if we’re looking at how karma comes about after we have self grasping, we have these two things of desire and anger. And desire and anger are what leads us to be chained through karma.
So desire and anger work in the especially desire works in the way that we think, oh I want that, I really want that, I need that, and in order to get that I’m gonna do a lot of work in order to achieve my aim of getting that, and all that work, all that effort that we put in to get that thing is actually creating non virtues. The people that think that anger is beneficial because if you don’t have anger, you can’t get rid of your enemies and you can’t destroy them, that isn’t actually a really smart way of thinking about it because if we think about our enemies the thing that we are is actually our enemies is not the actual person themselves is their anger and their delusions and their their problems is what is the actual enemy not the person themselves so the only thing that’s actually gonna get rid of that is compassion and loving kindness. So the only way we can actually do something with our enemies is to have compassion and loving kindness for them. If we just have more anger and everything, that’s just feeding the anger and isn’t actually helping them or helping us.
So the plan, so the idea is, what we’re supposed to be doing is that if we have this idea of this desire for things, like, so if we see something we want, for example, we go, oh I really want that. We shouldn’t spend a lot of time trying to get it. We shouldn’t put in a lot of effort trying to get it because what we should be thinking straight after we thought, oh I want that, is it well yeah I want it, but it’s actually just another cause for saṃsāra and it’s not gonna help me very much. Even if we do get it after a couple of days it won’t be as interesting as it was when we first got it and then after a couple of months we may actually chuck it out. So we have to keep thinking in this way when we when this desire, this need to go after things comes up in our mind.
Because the things in saṃsāra don’t have qualities from their own side, it’s just what we label on them. Like Geshe la says, for example, when he first bought his glasses, he thought they were just best. Every time he wore them, he put them carefully away his little container, and he polished them, and he leaves them in a safe place, and and he’d make sure that that they’re well looked after. And then for a couple of months, he did this, and then after a couple of months, he stopped polishing them, and then after a few more months, he stopped putting them away, and now it’s just he tucks them wherever he goes and can’t remember where they are. In the same way, it’s not certain about the things that saṃsāra can bring you joy and everything because they don’t last, they’re not stable, they don’t help you in the end.
So this is the same as everything that all these items of saṃsāra that we desire, Their actual worth comes from the desire that we put onto them. Their actual worth doesn’t come from their side, it comes from our side. Thinking that they are desirous objects, but they’re not stable. They don’t help us in any way. Eventually, they’re not desirable anymore and they and we’ve forgotten about them.
We have to try to understand that this desire for these things in the sensei, the way that they look beautiful to us and everything is actually just our projections onto them. For example, this glass looks really nice right now, but that’s just us saying, Oh, it looks really nice. It’s not actually being really nice from its own side. So after we’ve labeled this glass or whatever it is as being beautiful and nice and desirous, then in order to get that vase that we’ve just labeled that way, we have these negative emotions coming up, this desire and attachment, and then if we don’t get it, then we have anger coming up. All this is coming from our labeling of things as being attractive.
So, yes, and thing with anger is as well that it doesn’t actually help us get anything. So if we’re thinking, oh, I really want that, and if I don’t get it, it’s gonna really I’m gonna get angry, then we have to we have to understand that that’s not gonna actually help the situation. So for example if we want a car and think man I really want that car it’s not and and then get really frustrated about really wanting it that doesn’t help the situation so whether we get angry about the fact that we have the car or not it isn’t gonna help us get the car. So there’s no point to get angry in the first place. Therefore, anger doesn’t help in any situation.
It doesn’t help anything. For example, if someone hurts us, if we get angry we get angry at them, it doesn’t help. So any situation that we come across, we should be trying to bear it, to be able to cope with it instead of getting angry with it. So, for example, this person that’s hurting us, instead of getting angry at them, the better thing to do would be to think, well, they’re only doing this because of their delusion and their karma, and it’s the delusions and the karma that are actually trying to hurt me, not the person themselves. So me getting angry at them won’t help the situation, so the best thing to do is to try and bear So, yeah, in the same way that by our karma and delusions, we can do things that hurt people, when other people are hurting us, we have to think that that isn’t them actually doing it.
It’s because they’re trapped in their calmer and delusions that they’re hurting us. If I start, like cultivating that circle by being angry at them backwards, it doesn’t help the situation. So I have to just see this as a way of trying to clear out some of the things that I’ve done in the past. So and and then the last line is I bow to the compassion for sentient beings, and this is actually a really unusual thing for anyone to say. Most of the time in text, people bow down to all sorts of things.
They bow down to the perfection of wisdom. They bow down to Buddha. They bow down to Mañjuśrī and people like that. They bow down to all sorts of things. But apart from this text, Madhyamakāvatāra by Candrakīrti, there’s not anywhere else that people are bowing down to compassion for all sentient beings, so it’s unusual that he’s saying this.
The reason that it is is because this is that thing that helps all these people trapped in their karma and delusion. So the reason that he’s bowing down to this compassion is that in on the the Mahāyāna path, on the path of the greater vehicle, at the beginning and at the middle and at the end, compassion is really important. It’s one of it’s the it’s essential, and it’s So at the beginning, it’s like the seeds, in the middle it’s like the path, and at the end it’s like the essence of the result. It’s the essential core of each different stage of the Mahāyāna path. It’s this compassion for sentient beings.
Or it’s called compassion for limitless sentient beings or the compassion the great compassion. At the beginning, before we can even start on the different paths towards Buddhahood and start our way towards Buddhahood, we have to develop compassion for sentient beings, to develop a reason for wanting to achieve Buddhahood, and that comes about with this compassion. In the middle, all the paths from the path of accumulation all the way up to the last moment of a sentient being’s continuum, They are all based on compassion. If there’s no compassion, these paths in the minds of these bodhisattvas and Aryas, they don’t exist. At the end, when you become the resultant Buddha, if you don’t have compassion, then there’s no point to being there.
So everything you’re doing is for the purpose of others. So, at the beginning, we have to try and develop this bodhicitta motivation, and the way that it’s usually suggested that this is done is by trying to see all beings as our mothers, because since beginningless time, we’ve been through so many rebirths that at some stage or other, most beings were our mothers, so from seeing them as our mothers, we want to have this thought to have them free from suffering, and that thought that all beings be free from suffering is actually what they call great compassion. So this thought that all sentient beings be free from suffering is the great compassion, but what naturally arises out of this great compassion is: how do we get all sentient beings to be free from suffering? The answer is for us to achieve Buddhahood.
Thought, May I achieve Buddhahood so that all beings can be free from suffering, is bodhicitta. So with this thought in mind that we try and achieve all of our aims for all sentient beings who who have been our mothers, the the the the best way to do it is to try and concentrate on not only our own store of merit, but the merits of all beings, of the five different types of beings and of of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and so forth, and reliant on the that those collections of merit, may I achieve Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings is the thought that we should be carrying. Oh, I don’t blame you. And so and we should meditate on this. I forgot to say last week that we’re gonna do it for a year.
Did you but you told me around that year. Was like, oh, of course. Yes. So we’re gonna relax with these seventy topics a bit. Supposed to speed through it.
Okay. Okay, so last week we were talking about the knower of paths. We went through the definition of knower of paths and the divisions and we were up to, from what we can ascertain, the border of a knower of paths. The border of a knower of paths is the Mahāyāna path of seeing through to the Buddha ground. So then the next part in our overview is called the knower of basis.
That is the third category. The definition of the knower of basis is an exalted wisdom abiding within a lesser vehicle class of realizations conjoined with the wisdom directly realizing selflessness in the continuum of a person who possesses it. So the bit that says an exalted wisdom abiding within a lesser vehicle class of realizations conjoined with the wisdom directly realizing selflessness. This basic what this basically means is that if a person has directly realized selflessness, then then the mind’s in their continuum. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that mind, but any of the minds in their continuum.
The previous one, the knower of paths, what that was about was that if somebody had understanding of emptiness in their continuum, so that’s the emptiness of all phenomena, then the minds that that mind helped out, the way they’ve translated it is conjoined with. What it basically means is the minds that they’re helping out, that a direct understanding of emptiness is helping out, are all counted within the knower of paths. What this one’s talking about in the knower of basis is that if someone’s continuum there is their mind that’s realized the selflessness of persons, then any of the minds that that is conjoined with, of the minds that that helps out, is what they call a knower of basis. The difference between the two is that the knower of paths has the realization of emptiness in the continuum, and the knower of basis has the realization of the selflessness of the person in the continuum. Okay, then the last bit that was actually put, hang on, the last bit in the Tibetan, which I think is the first bit in the English, exalted wisdom, it says abiding within a lesser vehicle class, right?
So what they actually mean by that is that there’s three different vehicles you can abide within. There’s the vehicle of the hearer, the vehicle of the solitary realizer, and the greater vehicle. And what they mean by lesser vehicle is either the hearer vehicle or the solitary realizer vehicle. Okay, and this is also mutually inclusive or the same thing as what they’ve translated as an exalted wisdom within a superior’s continuum abiding within a lesser vehicle class of realization. But what that actually means is basically in the continuum of any Ārya being, whether it’s on the higher path or the lower path, any of the minds that are conjoined of the minds that are conjoined with this understanding of selflessness here.
So the two types of mind that can be included within this knower of basis that is the they’re included within the Hīnayāna or the lower vehicle class of realizations is the selflessness of persons. And then the other one is the lack of separation of subject and object. The selflessness of the person and the lack of separation of subject and object are both lower vehicle realizations and the first one being the selflessness of the person being the one that is called a realization of the hearer’s vehicle and the non separation of subject and object is called the realization and the main focus point for the solitary real realizer vehicle. And the main focus point in the main mind of a, of the Mahāyāna vehicle is the realization or the focus on, the empty emptiness of all phenomena. So there’s these three different types of minds that we’re talking about here the selflessness of the person, the non separation of subject and object, and the emptiness of all phenomena.
Even though these three different types of minds are present in the continuums of Ārya or Superior Bodhisattvas and Buddhas. They are necessarily they’re still necessarily contained within the different vehicles they belong. They’re the main focus of. So for example the selflessness of the person the mind realizing the selflessness of the person in the continuum of a Buddha superior. That was a mouthful.
That is still a hearer’s mind. It’s still contained within the sphere of the hearer vehicle and a mind in either a superior Buddha or Bodhisattvas continuum that is seeing that there’s no separation between subject and object is still a solitary realizers. It can still be contained within the sphere of solitary realizers even though it can be within the continuum of a Bodhisattva superior or a Buddha superior. Okay. So the reason that they’re actually divided in this way is that, for example, the solitary realizers their main object of meditation before they achieve arhatship or before they become foe destroyers is the non separation of subject and object.
The main focus of meditation for hearers is selflessness of the person. And the main focus of meditation for Bodhisattvas is the emptiness of all phenomena. So because it’s the main focus for each of the vehicles, they become can they they are terminologically you know, not terminologically, they are sorted let’s say into those three vehicles, but because they’re the main focus of meditation for each of the three vehicles. If that wasn’t clear, you can ask a question later.
So the the the division of the knower of basis is into four. A knower of basis close to the resultant mother, a knower of basis distant from the resultant mother, a knower of basis of the discordant class, a knower of basis of the antidote class. Within these four, a knower of basis close to the resultant mother and knower of basis of the discordant class are synonymous or mutually inclusive. A knower of basis distant from the resultant mother and a knower of basis of the antidote class are also mutually inclusive. Okay.
So the the two that are mutually inclusive that we first talked about, the knower of basis close to the resultant mother and the knower of basis of the discordant class. The knower of basis of the antidote class, right? So they’re both Mahāyāna knowers of basis. The resultant mother that they’re talking about here is actually Buddhahood and the mind of a Buddha or the what’s called the exalted knower of aspects, or the resultant perfection of wisdom, they’re all mutually inclusive. And the reason that this the fourth division, which was the knower of basis