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 a Vinaya Sūtra passage comparing ethics to fertile ground — without it, no practice bears fruit — and walks through how motivation determines what monastic, lay, Bodhisattva, and tantric vows actually ripen into. He applies the same logic to studying the Seventy Topics, illustrated by his candid account of studying as a young monk mainly to win debates, and why that left him exhausted rather than inspired. A brief gloss of the Tibetan word becha (“pieces of explanation”) reframes what texts are for: not information intake but mind transformation. The session then works through the eleven divisions of observed objects of Mahāyāna Achieving, covering definitions and examples of virtue, non-virtue, neutral karma, the five aggregates, and Ārya concentrations.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 ST4 2003 05 29.mp3
UUID: 911d4201-2c56-424f-9ec1-93594a9eb9d9
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-05-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.9 minutes
Words: ~3,430
The Buddha said in the Vinaya Sūtra, one of the Vinaya Sutras, that if you want the if you want to establish the power to abide in nirvana, then you rely mainly on your vows or your ethics. So what he meant by this was it doesn’t matter if he tells us what the teachings are or not if we’re not relying on our ethics or we’re not keeping our vows, protecting our vows. Whether he tells us how to achieve happiness or not isn’t how we actually achieve happiness. We achieve happiness by keeping good ethics. And if we just go around doing whatever comes to mind or doing all sorts of different things then we can’t expect to have happiness in this life and we certainly can’t expect to have it in the next but if we if we keep our ethics clean and if we keep protect our vows then we can we will experience happiness in this life even and but definitely in the next So this isn’t the kind of thing that he always said in the different teachings, but he was giving a teaching on ethics.
He was giving a teaching on Vinaya. So this is why he specifically focused on the vows and the ethics of his disciples. So what this means is if someone has left worldly existence and become a monk or a nun, a Gelong or a Bhikśu or Bhikshini, or a what do you call them? Non-Bhikśu or Bhikshini monks? You know, novice.
That’s what I was looking for — novice monk or nun, then they should keep their vows as well as they can. And also people who have lay vows or refuge vows should try and protect those vows to the best of their ability. So ethics is important. Ethics are described as the basis for all good qualities. Ethics are like if we’re trying to grow things, ethics are like the field in which we grow them.
Now, if the field isn’t good, then we can’t grow anything. No matter how good the seeds we have put into the field are, we have to start with a good a good field. It’s the same with ethics. If our ethics aren’t aren’t clean and we don’t pay attention to ethics, no matter what type of practices we do, they won’t bear fruit. Okay.
So there’s there’s different places that the Buddha talked about. He talked about ethics. They weren’t just when he was talking to the monks about vows. In a lot of different texts or in a lot of different sutras, the Buddha spent a fair bit of time talking about ethics he talked about it in terms of Vinaya which he was doing in an instance of this quote also when he was talking to his disciples about Bodhisattva vows or trying to become a Bodhisattva he also placed a lot of emphasis on ethics and also with the Tantric vows Tantric vows came with a lot of teachings on the ethics of keeping the The tantric vows, also, samaya are incredibly important to keep. He also stressed how destructive it could be if people broke those vows.
So these vows that we have, Geshe la said from his side trying to keep his monks’ vows. And also, if we have lay vows for ourselves some people have five lay vows some people have four or three or two or one if any of these vows, these things that we’ve agreed to give up, we should be holding to them as tightly as we can because their purpose isn’t just any old purpose that will serve us a little bit in this life. The purpose of taking those vows was that we can set in motion a cause for us to attain liberation and enlightenment, so they become very important. There’s a very important purpose behind them, so we shouldn’t be drawn into worldly things and think that our vows aren’t important or not as important as some kind of temporary pleasure or happiness that we can get in this life. Those vows are there so we can keep steadfast in this life and hopefully in future lives be able to attain liberation and enlightenment.
Okay. So when we have take any if we had taken any of these five vows of laypeople’s five vows then whether they become a cause for good or whether they become a cause for more suffering in the future depends on our motivation when we when we take the vows and also when we keep the vows So if we keep the vows with the motivation that, Oh, I’ve got these vows because I’m a good person and I’m better than people who don’t have the vows, and makes me people will think that I’m onto it or I’m good, then that’s not a very good motivation for keeping the vows. Apart from getting a little bit of praise and status perhaps in this life, then it doesn’t help us out very much. But if we have the idea that we’re taking these vows because they’ll become a cause for us to take rebirth as a god or a human, then they will ripen as a result. If we keep the vows thinking, I’m keeping these vows so they become a cause for me to achieve liberation, then that will be the result of keeping the vows.
Our motivation is that keeping these vows and protecting these vows will become a cause for us to attain complete enlightenment and be of benefit to all sentient beings, then that’s what they become a cause for. So whether we waste having these vows or whether we use them to our greatest advantage depends on our motivation. It’s not just with the vows that we should be thinking this. It’s with everything that we’re doing. Like, for example, we’re studying the seventy topics at the moment, and the seventy topics are Mahāyāna Dharma.
They’re incredibly important and very almost holy things that we’re studying. So if we come to these, however, with this idea of, Man, I really don’t want to do this. I’m tired. I’ve had enough. I’m not getting anywhere with it.
Then that’s not really going to be of very much benefit to us studying the seventy topics. Likewise, if we come to it with the idea that by studying this, I’m going to become an expert and people are going to say, Wow, they know a lot, and I’m going to get fame and regard in this life, then that’s not a very good motivation for studying it either. Apart from the limited We may get a limited result from that effort, but it’s not going to be anything that will ultimately help us very much. This is a Mahāyāna text, So if we want to study it properly, we should have a Mahāyāna attitude. We should be thinking, and by studying this text, may I achieve enlightenment and become of ultimate benefit to all sentient beings?
May I be able to help them as quickly as possible? So if we don’t start off our studies or start off something with trying to have the motivation of using it as a cause to achieve enlightenment, then it can be very dangerous because if we naturally tend to go on to other things when we start studying. It’s difficult for us to maintain a motivation. And if we haven’t started off with it, then we don’t we don’t go from good to worse. We go from bad to worse.
So even though we may start off with a motivation, well, I’m doing this to achieve enlightenment, halfway through the different pages, sometimes it comes up, yeah. If I know this well, then I’ll be able to explain it better, or, yeah, if I study this, and if someone comes up and argues me with me that isn’t a Buddhist, I can put them in their place. We have these different things come up in our mind that we associate studying with. So it’s difficult for us to keep that motivation steady, so it’s really important that we start at the beginning with very strong motivation. Okay.
So the word that means text in Tibetan is becha, and that literally means pieces of explanation. That’s the word they use for text. So this means that when we’re reading text, when we’re studying text, we should be taking them on and bringing them all into our minds and starting to work with our minds because they’re giving us different bits of ideas that we need to work on with our mind. They can’t be just words on the pages. They have to be things that we bring into our practice and bring into our way of thinking.
So this means, for example, if we’re studying something about refuge, then we don’t just think, Oh, yeah, this is about refuge. We think, Oh, that’s how they’re explaining that. I can think of it that way, and then we can start going through the thought processes in our heads of how they’re explaining it in the text. We can start thinking in the same way, and then we can deepen our understanding and our practice from reading the text. It’s not just about taking in information.
It’s about changing the way our minds work. So Geshe-la says that when he was a little kid, he had he he know he said he knows about reading a text to get some instant gain out of it because when he was a kid, he had to study a lot. But when he was studying, he wasn’t thinking, how can I work this into my mind? How can I work this into my practice? He was thinking, oh, if I know that bit, then when the other guy says this in debate, then I can answer him with this.
And and then I know this other bit, oh, good. When they say that, I’ll really get them. Yeah. So he that this was the way that he was he was reading texts when he was younger, and he said that it made him tired. He wasn’t enthusiastic about it.
There wasn’t there wasn’t a an inspiration coming to keep going with the text. But if you start working with your mind and you start seeing how the text can affect you, then you are inspired and you have this enthusiasm to keep to keep studying. He said, it’s true. I used to spend all my time thinking, if I just figure that out, then I’ll win that argument. I’ll be able to answer that question well in an exam.
And and that it wasn’t really helping him very much. He wasn’t he wasn’t feeling any better for it. But then he started to try incorporate the text into the way that he was thinking and he was doing his practice, and then he could see that doing that sort of thing can be of enormous benefit to the people that are studying it. So if if we have if we if we start meditating on what we thought, what we’ve studied, and what we’ve read about, we start thinking this will be a cause for me to achieve enlightenment. If I study this and I understand this, this will leave me a great greater insight into my mind, and I I can use this in terms of developing my analytical meditations and my placement meditations, and this will be an enormous benefit to me.
And because of that, I can achieve enlightenment and have enormous benefit to other beings, and it will it’s a gradual path a gradual sorry, a progression from this to that to this. If we think like this, then it becomes an enormous benefit. If we think like this and we do study and we do put effort in, then that can be a cause for us to develop realizations in this lifetime. So if we’re when we’re starting anything, we should have this idea that this will get help me to have an understanding of of my mind and therefore be able to progress along the path towards enlightenment. And when we’re thinking about this, if we need encouragement for ourselves, then we should think that like me all sentient beings don’t want to suffer they want to be happy and I need to reach enlightenment as quickly as possible so that I can help them become happy and not suffer so in order for me to reach enlightenment I have to understand the seventy topics that all the things that they have in the seventy topics are the path to enlightenment, so I need to be able to understand this in order to achieve enlightenment.
So by studying this, may I develop the cause for me to achieve enlightenment, and may that cause, along with the all the virtue sorry, may the the stores of merit from this practice, along with the stores of merit of all the six different types of beings, May those stores of merit together be a cause for me to attain, enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. And with this this thought in our head, then we should meditate and concentrate on studying the seventy topics in order to achieve enlightenment. Okay. So we’re up to the observed objects of Mahāyāna Achieving. What Mahāyāna achieving is is a path of a Bodhisattva.
So in the seventy topics, these are the next four after the observed objects of Mahāyāna Achieving. So therefore, the object of intent, achieving through armor, achieving through engagement, and then achieving through collections, what is the way that these different paths are described or these achievements are described. And the definition of an observed object of Mahāyāna achievements is a basis of elimination of superimposition by a Mahāyāna Achieving. So a Mahāyāna Achieving is a path. Which is what?
Yeah. And this path and the elimination of superimpositions is getting rid of grasping at true existence. Okay. So it is mutually inclusive or it’s the same thing as an object of knowledge. An object of knowledge is any existent or phenomena.
And this one? So there’s eleven divisions of this. It actually includes all phenomena. So there could be an infinity of different — well, maybe not infinity. There’s a number of different divisions you could have, but these are the ones that are mainly focused on.
And because these observed objects of Mahāyāna achievements is the things that people focus on in order to achieve Mahāyāna paths, then there’s eleven major groups that includes the things they focus on. So so the eleven the the division of eleven are the first is virtue, non virtue. The second is non virtue. The third is the unspecified, which is neutral phenomena. And the fourth is the five mundane aggregates, the five worldly aggregates.
The fifth: the four super-mundane concentrations are the four Ārya concentrations. The five contaminated appropriate aggregates is number six. Number seven is the four uncontaminated close placements of mindfulness. The next one is — now the translation says the three compounded realms. Geshe la says the three realms and the compounded phenomena in them as two things.
Number nine but yeah. But he said to say they haven’t made a mistake. It’s just he has a different interpretation. Anyway, number nine is uncompounded suchness or emptiness. Number ten, the four uncommon concentrations.
And number eleven, the ten exclusive powers of a subduer. And now I’m gonna say the same thing. The translation is subduer, but I wouldn’t say that. I would say, like, the victorious one or the Buddha. This one?
Yeah. Okay. The first one is virtue. The definition of virtue is that which is included within that which is included within things that have a positive outcome as was described by the Buddha in scripture. So there’s many different ways we can get divide virtue.
The usual way that virtue is divided is into virtues of speech, virtues of mind, and virtues of body or physical virtue. So examples of physical virtue would be prostrating or off making offerings. Examples of virtuous speech is reciting mantras and reading texts, that sort of thing. And examples of mental virtue is meditating, analytical and placement meditation, and analyzing or contemplating on teachings. So the definition of nonvirtue is that which is included within negative negative no.
That which is included within the sphere of negative things which have a negative outcome as described by the Buddha in scripture. So non virtue, likewise, is described is divided into body speech non virtues of body, speech, mind. Examples of body bodily non virtue is beating people up and stealing from them. Examples of our non virtues of speech is saying mean things or negative things. And Geshe-la says that examples of negative thoughts are things that he thinks most of the time.
He said it happens. So the unspecified or neutral karma, the reason they say unspecified because the literal translation of it is not mentioned in scripture or not shown in scripture. That means that the Buddha did not say that it was a positive or a negative thing. He just didn’t mention it. So examples of unspecified or neutral phenomena are things like the five aggregates.
Five aggregates can be used for positive or negative things, but their actual nature is that is of the nature of neutrality. Five mundane aggregates are the five aggregates of ordinary beings. That is non Ārya beings. So there are five the the form, feeling, discrimination, compounded compounded well, compounded things, compounded thoughts, whatever, and consciousness of ordinary beings. That compounded one means basically anything that doesn’t fit in the other four categories.
So that’s what it says in the. So the five aggregates, it starts off with anything that’s like a it comes together into a bump. It is of a lump of matter is form and anything so that’s the first one the second one is a mental factor which differentiates between suffering and pleasure that’s feeling The next one, which is discrimination, is a mental factor that discriminates good, bad, blue, yellow, back, forward, those kind of things. That’s discrimination. The next one that’s sometimes translated as compounded or combined elements or compositional factors or yeah.
Compositional factors, compounded factors, compositional elements. I’ve heard all of these. It basically is anything that doesn’t fit in the other four, and that includes because the word the lit the word literally is is a synonym of of phenomena. Yeah. So it’s anything that doesn’t fit into the other four.
And the the fifth one is consciousness, which is a main mind. So the others aren’t main minds. Form is obviously not a mind. There there there’s two that are mental factors, and consciousness is a main mind. And the other one is the rest.
Okay. The next one, the four super mundane concentrations are the four concentrations or the four meditative concentrations of Ārya beings. Now what this is referring to is there are four levels, four main levels to the form realm. Now these minds are those four different concentrations, although they are minds of the form realm, but they are not in the form realm because they — they don’t go to the — they are not reborn in the form realm. So it’s those four different concentrations which they use to engage in meditations on other things.
That’s Aryas that do that. Okay. The next one, the five contaminated appropriated aggregates are the aggregates that are form, feeling, discernment, compounded things and consciousness that are taken on because of karma and delusion of samsaric beings. Therefore, there are the five aggregates as acquired in saṃsāra. Okay.
So the four So the four uncontaminated close placements of mindfulness are close placements of mindfulness on body, feeling, mind, and Dharma or phenomena. They’re a form of analytical meditation where the meditator focuses on the essence of the things he’s focusing on in terms of self and in general. But they’re not single point of concentration. So the three now it’s translated as the three compounded realms. The way Geshe la is explaining it is compounded phenomena and the three realms.
So the compounded phenomena is a a synonym of a functioning thing or a impermanent phenomena. And and the three realms is the desire realm, the form realm, the formless realm.