Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute session, Geshe Pema Tsering opens with Śāntideva’s deceptively simple definition — effort is liking virtue — and uses it to map three distinct forms of laziness: chasing samsaric goals under the illusion of being productive, doubting one’s capacity to progress, and procrastinating through insufficient reflection on impermanence. He argues that the antidote to all three is sustained familiarity with bodhicitta, and gives candid practical guidance: do not abandon bodhicitta practice out of boredom and drift to emptiness meditation, but instead shore it up by revisiting its causes — renunciation and the contemplation of suffering. The session then pivots into the structured doctrinal portion of the Seventy Topics course, enumerating the twenty-one divisions of a Buddha’s omniscient mind and beginning to unpack the first group, the thirty-seven limbs of enlightenment, with particular attention to the four close placements of mindfulness on body, feeling, mind, and phenomena. Suited to students already following this Abhisamayālamkāra-based series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 ST10 2003 11 06.mp3
UUID: 7d9c9bee-408a-44e0-8602-006ca0704d46
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-11-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.8 minutes
Words: ~3,049
Might be him too. Nine. Yeah. Nine years. Okay.
So in the effort chapter of the guide to the bodhisattva’s way of life, Śāntideva said, what is effort? Effort is liking virtue. The opposite of this should be abandoned. Now what this means when he says, what’s effort? Okay.
We’re trying to understand what joyous effort is, what it entails so we can continue to work. What effort is essentially is liking virtue, liking to being attracted to or connected to the idea of doing virtuous actions. The opposite of this is laziness or laziness or distraction, chasing after things that are unbeneficial. So this is the opposite to effort. Effort is the antidote to laziness.
Effort is the antidote to being attracted to things that are not helpful. And what is effort? Effort is liking virtuous things. So if you like virtuous things, you’re not going to be attracted to things which are non virtuous and are harmful. And if you like virtuous things, then you have effort.
You don’t have laziness. So laziness is the thing that we need to get rid of, this wanting things that aren’t helpful, and effort, the liking of things that are helpful, is the thing that we need to generate. Okay. So this is essentially talking about the first of the three different types of laziness or the distraction. This first type of laziness is being too engaged in too engaged in destructive or unhelpful things to be engaged in positive things or things that are helpful or lead to liberation.
So if we’re too distracted by desires, by getting caught up in saṃsāra, then we’re not going to be able to practice properly. So this is the first type of laziness as such or distraction. The second type of laziness is the belief that we’re not actually able to do So if we think, I wasn’t able to do this before, why should I be able to do it now? If I haven’t achieved enlightenment by now, why would I be able to do it now? Why would I be able to start doing it now?
That’s the second type of laziness. The third type of laziness is basically procrastinating and saying, Yeah, yeah, I know I need to practice, but I’ll do it tomorrow or the next day or next month or next year. So that’s the third type of laziness. So the one that we most seem to be caught up with is the laziness that’s being distracted. The way that we run after things that are not necessarily helpful to us in terms of trying to work towards achieving liberation, achieving enlightenment, achieving a good rebirth.
Most Most of the time we spend, most of the things we do, we’re engaging in these kind of actions. We’re trying to chase after samsaric things. We’re investing effort effort and energy into achieving things that aren’t actually that helpful to us. And the other thing is that we don’t necessarily see this as being laziness. We see it as being productivity, and so we don’t recognize it as laziness.
Okay. So this is the if we if we watch it, most of the actions that we do are actually based on this first type of laziness. Most of the reason we do things is because we want to get things for this life. We want to make ourselves happier in this lifetime. And if we’re doing things with that motivation, then it’s this type of laziness, not focusing on path.
The second type of laziness, most people have that also, this idea that I’m not able to achieve enlightenment. Hey. In order to overcome this, it’s like we need a little bit of arrogance. We need to believe in ourselves enough to go, I can do this. And most of the time, we don’t have that idea.
So the third type, procrastinating. Most of us have this as well. And what procrastinating is is the fault of not understanding impermanence properly. If we’re not thinking about impermanence enough, if we’re not concentrating on impermanence enough, that means that we are going to procrastinate. If we don’t think about how death can happen any moment, then we’re not going to be thinking about the fact that we should be practicing.
If we keep thinking about the fact that death could happen, then that will stop us procrastinating. So in order for us to get rid of these three types of laziness, what we need to do according to Śāntideva is to develop a liking for virtue. If we have a liking for virtue, then we will put in effort. And not only we will put in the effort, we’ll be happy about it. Because if we if we like virtuous things, if we like doing virtuous actions, it’s not difficult to to put in the effort to do them.
So if we have effort, we can achieve Buddhahood. It’s that easy. If we have joyous effort, we can achieve Buddhahood. Because if we have joyous effort, if we’re being engaged in actions and being happy about being engaged in virtuous actions all the time, then there’s no reason why we can’t achieve Buddhahood. If there is no faults in our efforts, there’s no reason why we can’t achieve Buddhahood.
There’s no reason why we can’t become an arhat, a hearer, or a solitary realizer. There’s no reason why we can’t develop. There’s no reason why we don’t can’t develop renunciation. All of these things come about because we have effort. And the way that we develop effort is by looking at the positive qualities of virtuous actions.
If we watch even from the point of view of this life or if we examine even from the point of view of this life, the things that we’ve gotten in this life came about because we put in effort to get them. The things that we cherish in this life came in because we put in effort to get them. If we look at what where we were when we were a kid and we didn’t have anything, and then and what what the things we’ve got now, the qualities that we’ve developed now, have come in because we put in effort to get them. And it’s the same thing if we’re dealing with the next life or trying to develop realizations or whatever it is. If we put in effort, if we do virtuous actions, if we have this liking for virtuous actions and put in effort, then we create the causes to have a precious human rebirth.
We create the causes to we create the causes to achieve realizations. They all come about based on our effort. If we don’t if we have the effort, they happen. The same as when we were a kid, if we put in effort to get somewhere, it happened. So have to understand that it’s based on our effort whether we achieve things or not.
So how we develop effort is by developing our motivation, and our motivation should be that we are seeking enlightenment in order to establish all sentient beings in happiness and in order to free all sentient beings from suffering. If we have that as our motivation, and based on that motivation, we are able to put in effort and have this have this joy about doing virtuous things, then we will definitely become a Buddha. Even if we say, I’m not gonna become a Buddha, we will still become a Buddha. So if we have this effort, if we’re able to develop this this attitude and the motivation that enables us to have this effort, then we can achieve any of these things. Effort is incredibly important.
Having this having joy it’s joyous effort, being happy about doing it. And if we have that, then everything’s, everything is possible. So that means that we should try and put in as much effort as we can to develop that motivation. So we should try and think about bodhicitta as much as we can. Whenever we’re able, we should remind ourselves about bodhicitta.
We should dedicate everything that’s positive that we do towards developing bodhicitta in order to in order to realize enlightenment. So bodhicitta, familiarizing ourselves with bodhicitta is the most powerful thing that we can do, the most important thing that we can do. If we are able to keep familiarizing ourselves with bodhicitta, then the results are immeasurable. Even in this life, if we get a little taste of bodhicitta, we become so much happier than what we are now. Everything becomes a lot easier for us, even if we have our mind developing towards bodhicitta.
So we really need to meditate or we need and or familiarize ourselves with bodhicitta as much as we can. We really need to keep focusing on it as much as we can. We need really need to keep reminding ourselves all the time. I may or or dedicating everything all the time. May this be a cause for me to attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings.
By doing this, may I be able to lead all sentient beings from sorrow and establish them in great happiness. We should constantly try and remind ourselves of that. At the beginning, this is very difficult. It’s very difficult to familiarize ourselves, to meditate on bodhicitta. All these things are a bit difficult at the beginning.
But if we constantly put in effort we’re constantly reminding ourselves of bodhicitta, constantly thinking about bodhicitta, then it’ll come up into our mind all the time. We’ll constantly think about it, and it will become part of our way of thinking. And then it’ll become easier there. And through it becoming easier, then we become happier. So we really should be focusing on trying to develop bodhicitta.
We develop bodhicitta, then we can we can really get somewhere. A lot of time, we have this idea of, well, you know, I’ve been trying to meditate on bodhicitta for a while now, I haven’t developed it yet. I’m a bit bored of it, so I’m gonna try and do another meditation. So and this isn’t really good — this isn’t effort. We’re not putting an effort to try and develop it.
A lot of the time people seem to think, oh, okay. Didn’t develop bodhicitta yet, and I’m a bit bored, so I’m gonna meditate on emptiness, or I’m gonna meditate on impermanence, and then and just forget about bodhicitta because that was too tricky and I’m bored. So this isn’t this isn’t the way it works. We have to just keep going and going until we develop bodhicitta. And if we’re having problems developing bodhicitta, then we look back at the causes of bodhicitta, the causes of bodhicitta being thinking about suffering, thinking about renunciation.
This is how if we focus on those to strengthen our bodhicitta, then that’s still bodhicitta practice. But we need to to focus on bodhicitta and not get bored and move on to something else and then get bored of that and move back. But it’s difficult to at the same time, It’s difficult, though, because we don’t usually put that much time aside to develop developing bodhicitta. If we think about it, if we added up the times that we think about bodhicitta during a twenty four hour period, they wouldn’t add up to much more than an hour. So if we if we really wanted to develop it, we’d be trying to think about it all day every day and be in retreat situation trying to do that, like Milarepa who was constantly thinking about bodhicitta in retreat in order to develop it.
So if we did that, if we were that intense, we would be able to develop it. But because we don’t do that we can’t do that all the time, then it’s difficult. But we should stick still keep trying to remind ourselves and familiarize ourselves with it. So so therefore, we should meditate on bodhicitta. We should think in order to take all sentient beings out of suffering, in order to establish them in happiness beyond suffering, then I myself must achieve Buddhahood, and we should meditate on that idea for a few minutes.
Oh, yeah. Okay. So we’re up to the exalted knower of all aspects pristine awareness being reality. And there’s one? No.
Some of them. Mhmm. Yeah. So reality or relative is is what’s called the the variety, let me say. There’s no way of saying relative truth in the mode, I guess.
So and it’s the divisions of this these are the are on the ground of a Buddha only. They when they divide the twenty one divisions, and they’re called uncontaminated exalted wisdom, uncontaminated means being, not contaminated with either obstruction to omniscience or obstruction to liberation. Okay. The twenty one different groups. The first one is called the thirty seven auxiliaries to enlightenment or the thirty seven they sometimes say the thirty seven aspects of.
Yeah? So thirty seven, the nine absorptions.. Number five is the ten exhaustions. No. Yes.
It is. The ten exhaustion. Number six is the eight, the eight overpowering bases. Number seven is the concentration without desire. Number eight, knowledge of one’s object of aspiration.
So the thing that you’re aspiring the the knowledge of what people are aspiring to do. Number nine, six extrasensory perceptions or six clairvoyances. Number ten is the four specific perfect understanding or the four discriminatory understanding. Number eleven, the four purity. Number twelve, the ten forces.
Number thirteen, the ten powers. Number fourteen, the four fearlessnesses. Number fifteen, the three unguarded actions. Number sixteen, the three close contemplations. Number seventeen, the non-negligence of the purpose of sentient beings, like not giving up on sentient beings.
Number eighteen, complete enlightenment, getting rid of latencies of the three poisons, getting rid of all imprints. Yeah. Number nineteen, great compassion.
Number twenty, the eighteen unshared qualities of Buddha. And number twenty one is the three wisdoms. That is the wisdom of past, present, and future. Okay. So alright. Now these these first group that we have within the the twenty one different aspects of the mind of a Buddha, the first ones of these are called the thirty seven, also called the thirty seven limbs of enlightenment.
Thirty seven limbs of enlightenment were mentioned earlier on page twenty seven of the of the translation of Jampa Gendün’s translation. And they called the thirty seven aspects that are exalted knower of aspects similar to those existing in hearers. Alright? That’s the first one. The twenty seven, it starts listing them, and the description is on the bottom of page twenty six.
So it says, on the bottom of page twenty six, the thirty seven aspects that are exalted knower of aspects similar to those existing in hearers. Yeah? But they’re also called the thirty seven limbs of enlightenment, or the thirty seven branches of enlightenment. Okay? Is that cool?
Everyone got that? Okay. So the first of these is what’s called the four close placements of mindfulness. It refers to a path that thoroughly investigates objects in the continuum of a superior. Now, this isn’t only Buddhas that have this understanding.
It is all beings on all paths that have this understanding. Anyone, even if they’re on the path of accumulation, have these understandings, and they’re very difficult. Close placement of mindfulness on body, for example, is not only understanding the impermanence of the body, but understanding that all forms. For example, if we think about the impermanence of our body. We’re not just thinking about the impermanence of our body.
We think about the impermanence of all physical things, all physical bodies. Yeah? So there’s those two mindfulnesses that are happening at the same time. Alright? On top of that, then there’s the understanding of the emptiness.
There’s a mindfulness of the emptiness of the body, the mindfulness of the emptiness of all bodies. Yeah? Then there is a mindfulness of the selflessness. So there’s a there’s mindfulness of all the different aspects of the physical body, both in general and in particular, depending on which object that the being is focusing on. And the same for feelings, mind, and phenomena.
So so the the general way we look at it is what’s called the mindfulness of the base. That is mindfulness of the the base object for which we’re dealing with, and then we talk about mindfulness of particulars. So for example, with feelings, an example would be if the general mindfulness remembering that feelings are, for example, impermanent and empty with regards to all feelings, and then with regards to which would be remembering the base of feelings, and then with regards to a feeling of happiness, to remember that that is both impermanent and and empty as well. So for example, mind, we have to remember that if we’re dealing with minds, then we would think about a mind particular mind we’re experiencing and say, this particular mind is is impermanent, for example, and a characteristic of mind is that it is impermanent, and also the base is also impermanent, that is, all minds are impermanent. So those two different aspects would be focused on remembered at the same time.
Okay. So the first one we had of these, the close placement of mindfulness on bodies, is not just referring to physical bodies, it’s referring to all physical phenomena. Yes. So all forms. And and that definition of forms is not forms as in physical form, as in visual form.
Yeah? But forms as in or phenomena that we encounter in terms of through the senses. Yeah? So that’s what the first body is referring to. It’s not just a physical human body.
Okay. Now the final one of these phenomena, what that’s referring to. It’s like, I haven’t finished. The the I’m trying to say it slowly so it sinks in. Now the the the fourth one, the close placement of mindfulness on phenomena, this phenomena is referring to all mental factors that aren’t feeling.
Right? So the first the feelings it was referred to earlier, minds