Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute session, Geshe Pema Tsering opens with the Buddha’s comparison: beings with a precious human rebirth are as scarce as dirt on half a thumb set against the whole earth. He illustrates the cost of wasting it with a Tibetan story about a man who borrows money for a Norbulingka picnic, returns sick and in debt, and must repay the karmic bill in future lives. The practical core is motivation: setting a clear intention before work or study transforms any activity into Dharma, while the same action done for money or status becomes non-virtue. The second half unpacks the formal definition of bodhicitta — a main mind whose accompanying aspiration seeks enlightenment for all beings — distinguishes the cultivated semblance from spontaneous mind generation, and explains why renunciation must come first. Suited to practitioners with some Lamrim background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 ST2 2003 03 06.mp3
UUID: 7ec53ee7-0b00-48ca-80eb-78fbb254b86e
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-03-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.8 minutes
Words: ~3,106
So in the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Life, Śāntideva says, if we continue behaving in the way we are now, we won’t achieve a human rebirth and if we don’t achieve a human rebirth, then apart from sorry. They will only I gotta scrap that bit and go back a bit. There will only be sin. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I’m it in a on the run. Okay. There’s only there will only be sin, and there will be no virtue. So from the power of, karma and delusions, most of the things that we do in our day to day life have no focus and don t have a sense of purpose behind them most of the time we don t actually realize this but if we spend a lot of time watching our mind then we will begin to see that this is true So by creating these non virtues, if we continue to create non virtues in the way that our mind does, then that will lead us to the lower realms.
And once we are reborn in the lower realms, then we don’t have any opportunities to create merit. And the only thing that we create there is negativities. So if we look at animals like cats and dogs and animals that we know, they don’t have any concept of achieving a Buddhahood. So they don’t nothing that they do can be done with the motivation of bodhicitta. So therefore, most of they they can’t practice Dharma, and therefore, they don’t have any chance of creating merit.
So if we’re looking at animals and cats and things like that, then we notice that most of the things that they do come from this really intense desire and they also get angry and they fight and they they kill and do things like this out of this sense of intense desire and so none of the things that we see them do could really be taken as being positive Okay. So right now, we have got a human rebirth. And in this human rebirth, we have the opportunity to practice Dharma, and we are practicing Dharma. But if we don’t do it, if we don’t use this opportunity then regaining a human rebirth will be a very difficult thing So in order for us to have achieved this human rebirth, we must have accumulated a great deal of merit because it takes a great deal of merit to be born as a human so if we don’t use this opportunity now and we are reborn in the lower realms after this then we will be very very difficult for us to achieve a human rebirth again. So for example, if we’re looking at animals and things like that, it’s very difficult for them to achieve a human rebirth, so because we can see from their behavior that they don’t do any positive things.
So as the Buddha said that if we compare the amount of people that go from life to life the amount of beings that go from life to life in their lower realms, then the land that they would take up would be the size of the earth, but if we compare that to the amount of people that have a human rebirth, a precious human rebirth, then it would be the size of half a thumb, right? I don’t know if that works as analogies, that’s the comparison between the size of a half a thumb to the size of the earth, then the people with human rebirth would come to the size of half a thumb and the people without them would be the size of the earth. So once we have this opportunity, then we should use it to the best of our abilities, the means of doing this is by practicing Dharma. So the best thing that we can try and focus on is that we practice Dharma for the benefit to achieve Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings and if it’s too difficult for us to think about all sentient beings the concept of all sentient beings then we should be concentrating on trying to achieve liberation for ourselves and if that proves too difficult as well then try and concentrate on obtaining a positive rebirth in the next life that is a rebirth as a god or human. Okay.
So if if we do concentrate on these things and try and create as much merit as we can by concentrating on one of these three goals and putting as much energy as we can into that then we will we have the up because we have a human rebirth now we have the opportunity to achieve one of those three goals but if we don’t concentrate on those then we have to go to the lower realms. There’s no third choice. There’s only the choice of one of those two things. So if okay. If we don’t use this opportunity we’ve got now and we just fritter away our precious human rebirth having a kind of temporary fun then we’re kind of the same as a person who is planning a trip to the Norbulingka which is a place where people have picnics in Tibet. So this person was planning a big trip to go to the Norbulingka to play and have fun but he had to borrow money and he actually got sick because he put in so much effort to go and have fun that by the time he was coming back the people were coming and asking him for their money back and he was getting sick and he ended up being a poor and destitute being because he spent all his money and all his health and all his energy trying to go and have fun in the Norbulingka.
So, if we do, if we don’t use this precious human rebirth and we’re kind of like that person because in our next life, then we have to pay off all our karmic debts that we’ve accumulated by having too much fun or in this life and then we don’t that we’ve wasted our opportunity on something that really didn’t give us a lot of pleasure didn’t give us to a permanent pleasure And so in the next life, we’re just paying off the debts from the waste that we’ve made of this life, and we get and we won’t have, like, health and and well-being and everything that we had in this life in the next one because we’ve spent it all at Norbulingka. So how things become dharma is purely on the motivation. So whatever we are doing, the first thing in the morning we should wake up and try and set our motivation and make it a very solid motivation and then whatever we do through the day and before we start we should try and think about our motivation for doing that and try and make it one of the three motivations that we spoke about before because by setting a proper motivation then whatever we do becomes a source of good dharma or becomes a good dharma to do so that is the most important thing is to pray and to have this motivation before we start.
So whatever work it is that we have to do, before we start doing this work we think the real purpose of me doing this work is so I can achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings then no matter what the work type of work that we’re doing that becomes a cause for us to achieve enlightenment and it becomes a Dharma practice So this is the best way to make it the most use of our day. Of us have to go and study and we’re doing a lot of study and others have to go to work every day. So, if we’re thinking before we go and study or before we go to work that the reason that I’m going to study or the reason I’m going to work is for the benefit of all sentient beings and for the benefit of those beings may this become a cause for me to achieve enlightenment and then after we finished work if we can dedicate or pray that any of the the merit that we’ve accumulated from doing that work all day if that could be dedicated towards our enlightenment and our our enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings then whatever we do becomes highly meaningful So if otherwise, if we go thinking if we go to study thinking I’m going to study this so I become a great expert, or if we go to work thinking I’m going to work so I can get a lot of money, any of these things that we think like in that way, they become non virtues, and that they become a cause for staying in saṃsāra.
So even if it’s the same type of work, depending on the motivation, it can become a dharmic practice or it can become a non virtue so if we have the motivation to achieve to work to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all beings then that piece of work becomes Dharma and if we have the motivation to work to get money, then that work becomes non virtue. So, yeah, the motivation becomes the most important thing that we need in terms of our dharmic practice and the best motivation is that we achieve Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings the next best motivation is that we achieve liberation. And the third best motivation is that we come back in our next life as a god or a human. So, for example, we’re studying the seventy topics and the seventy topics is very special in that it’s a description of the minds of a Bodhisattva. But even if we are studying this and we don’t have the right motivation, this doesn’t become Dharma because the wrong motivation. So, yeah, so if we study it, it’s like the path of a Bodhisattva that we’re talking about here in the seventy topics but if we study it with the mind searching for our own liberation then it becomes a Hīnayāna practice even though it’s the study of Mahāyāna text.
And if we study it with a mind seeking for some some kind of benefit in this life, then it becomes like a a worldly thing. It doesn’t even become Dharma. So now we should meditate and we should be thinking by studying these seventy topics. May the seventy topics, the study of these seventy topics become virtuous by setting our motivation properly, that by studying the seventy topics may the study become a cause for us to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings who are as limitless as space So now we’re going to study the seventy topics, but we should remember that whatever we do, before we do anything, whether it’s studying or working, or whatever it is, the most important thing is that we set our motivations because if we do set our motivations in a good way, then whatever we do becomes good. Oh, yeah.
Positive. Good. So now we’ve reached a good place in the text as well because we’re up to which is another word mind generation is another way of saying. Now the definition of mind generation or bodhicitta, it actually works backwards from the the Tibetan works backwards from the English. Right?
So Geshe la’s description goes from the end of the the definition backwards. It’s opposite. The bit that says, it first of all starts describing that this mind is defined by the fact that along with this mind comes a this mind, which is main mind, along with this main mind comes a mental factor or a a thought that comes that accompanies it. And this thought that is accompanying it is the thought that focuses on achieving complete enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. So that’s the accompanying thought.
So it’s the main mind that has this as accompanying thought. As well as this, the next part of the definition is that is the type of mind that serves as the door to the greater vehicle. Now, this doesn’t mean that it’s only the door to the greater vehicle because the door to the vehicle is only the first moment of the generation of bodhicitta. It’s when you first enter the the path of accumulation. Right.
So so it’s not just that mind but it’s all minds of that type and then so it’s got one mind saying one part of the definition says it’s all minds of this type and then the next part of the definition says it’s only minds of a type and that type that is only minds of is Mahāyāna minds so it’s only Mahāyāna minds it’s the type of mind that is the entrance Mahāyāna paths and it is defined by having a mental factor that comes along with it that is searching for enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. So this mind of bodhicitta that they’re describing in this definition is is is a main mind. It doesn’t it’s not like a concept. It’s something that abides and is a clear main mind. When we’re meditating on bodhicitta in our practice, this isn’t we haven’t entered, if you like, into this definition yet.
But we’re we’re what we’re actually doing is cultivating a a mental factor that would eventually become this this main mind of bodhicitta. So it’s by by meditating on it again and again and again, when it becomes spontaneous and not contrived, then it becomes this this mind generation, this bodhicitta as described in the definition. So what we actually are cultivating when we meditate on bodhicitta at the moment is something a part of bodhicitta. It’s not the whole thing. The process actually happens is if we meditate on something again and again and again, that eventually it arises naturally and we don’t actually have to put any effort into it coming about the same as when we were first learning to write it took us a long time to be able to form the letters and now we can just write without thinking about it it’s the same thing when we’re meditating on bodhicitta at the moment, it may take a lot of effort to get something which is a semblance of bodhicitta in our mind but if we keep doing it again and again eventually it will just come about naturally and clearly.
So before we even develop this bodhicitta or mind generation, what we need to develop before that is a mind of renunciation the way that we develop a mind of renunciation is by concentrating on all the suffering all our experience of suffering with ourselves and then with all sentient beings and see that the way that they’re stuck in suffering and then that develops a mind that it turns away from saṃsāra and sees saṃsāra pleasure as actually being the shortcomings of saṃsāra So once our mind has developed that kind of renunciation to saṃsāra, then we develop a sense of renunciation. And then Geshe la says that if you’re like him, then this idea of developing bodhicitta and all these things, have to put it first to the side for a while because he’s like, forget about that. I’m having enough trouble trying not to be caught up in all the good things about this life and trying to see the worldly pleasures as actually being the suffering of change and trying to see the food and the drinks and the things that I like as being a manifestation of suffering. That’s hard hard enough for someone like me to do, as Geshe-la said, let alone trying to develop bodhicitta.
So Geshe says if we’re like him, then we see it’s it’s it’s really difficult for us to try and see that the pleasures of are actually suffering and that because we can’t see that the pleasures of Samsāra are actually suffering, we spend a lot of time creating a lot of negativity and having a lot of afflictive minds trying to get these things, these these pleasures of saṃsāra that are actually only suffering. And when I sit down to meditate and think, may I quickly achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, all sorts of different stuff comes into my head and it’s not often to do with the benefit of all sentient beings. Yeah. You know? But if we keep at it, if we keep being persistent and we keep working at it, then the idea will become subtler and subtler in our minds and clearer so that we will be able to if we put in a lot of effort, we will be able to achieve bodhicitta or generate bodhicitta.
If we think about our own suffering and try and understand our own suffering properly, then we’ll understand better the sufferings of other people, and if we understand properly our own suffering and the sufferings of other people, then trying to generate bodhicitta or mind generation will become a lot easier. Okay. Okay. So when we are meditating on bodhicitta and we have it in our mind, we can we can actually call this mind generation or we can call it bodhicitta, but we can’t call it mahayana conventional mind generation because mahayana conventional mind generation is only as soon as we have achieved that, then we enter the path of accumulation. So what comes about before we’ve developed this Mahāyāna conventional mind generation is that we have to do these practices either the seven point mind transformation or exchanging self and others.
We have to practice those in our minds in order to be able to generate bodhicitta. Okay. So they talk about there being two different types of base for the generation of Mahāyāna conventional mind generation or bodhicitta. They are the base of mind and the base of body and they can actually come about in any of the six realms. The base of body can be one of any of the six realms, so that means that even animals, for example, nagas can develop Okay.
So there’s three they talk about the three different types of realms that minds can exist in, and they are the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm. And we’re talking about the generation of of