Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 41-minute session, Geshe Pema Tsering opens with a verse from Langri Tangpa’s Thought Transformation in Eight Stanzas — the instruction to watch one’s mind in every action — using it to show how unnoticed afflictions silently generate negative karma and drag practitioners along like servants. After a brief motivation through refuge, renunciation, and bodhicitta, the teaching continues the Seventy Topics, working through the eighteen unshared attributes of a Buddha: six behaviors (no mistaken action, no meaningless speech, constant mindfulness, unbroken meditative equipoise, non-dual perception of the two truths, ceaseless engagement with all beings), six unshared realizations, three enlightened activities of body, speech, and mind, and three unimpeded wisdoms. The session then begins the nineteen principal Bodhisattva applications — the practices required to attain those qualities — covering seeing emptiness in forms, irreversibility, definite emergence, and the absence of ultimate increase or decrease. Dense doctrinal content suited to practitioners already following the series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 ST8 2003 09 04.mp3
UUID: b73f79c9-7d62-48a7-b4c6-77e5c86d48af
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-09-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 41.5 minutes
Words: ~2,831
Someone typing? Yes, sir. Chris. In the Thought Transformation in Eight Stanzas by Langri Tangpa, he said, examining my continuum throughout all actions, as soon as an emotional affliction arises that endangers myself and others, by facing it, I shall strictly avert it. The first part of this verse says: examining my continuum throughout all actions.
What this means is whether we are asleep, we are sitting down, whether we are going somewhere, eating, whatever we are doing, then we should constantly be watching what is that we are thinking. We should constantly be mindful of what it is that we are thinking. If we start constantly looking at our thoughts during the actions that we do during the day, then we’ll start to notice that most of our thoughts tend to be emotional afflictions, negative thought patterns. We will notice that most of the reasons we do things, most of the things we think about, are to do with this. And what we need to do with these things is to stop them.
We need to stop the patterns that we have of negative thoughts because what they do is they harm us, and not only us, they harm others. Most of the time, we don’t pay attention to what it is that we’re thinking. And not only do we not pay attention to what it is that we’re thinking, we also don’t stop any of the things that come about because of what we’re thinking. We don’t know what we’re thinking, and because we don’t know what we’re thinking, most of our thoughts are afflicted or delusional. Most of our thoughts have these emotional afflicted emotions.
Because of those afflicted emotions, we do things. We create negative karma, and we don’t even realize that we’re doing it. We become like a slave or a servant to these emotions, and we get dragged around by them. What we need to do then is we need to stop our negative emotions and try and create virtuous actions, try and create virtue. This is the procedure that we need to go through.
Then we may ask the question, what is it that we need to do in order to accomplish this? First of all, we have to look at our situation and recognize what that situation is. Then we have to have some kind of faith in the in the Three Jewels. We have to develop some kind of faith in those. After we’ve developed some kind of faith in those, then we need to go for refuge to those at the beginning.
So then we need to develop an understanding of the sufferings of all of saṃsāra and decide that we need to turn our minds away from saṃsāra and develop a mind that is working towards liberation, is working towards the release from suffering. Now this mind that’s working towards a liberation is called renunciation or it’s called definite emergence because we if we’re constantly focusing on that release of liberation, then we will definitely achieve that. We have to focus on that. Once we’ve developed some kind of mind resembling that, then we need to start thinking about bodhicitta, trying to develop the the mind of bodhicitta. In order to develop this mind of bod bodhicitta, what we need to do is to recognize that just the same as us, in the same way as we don’t want to experience suffering, all sentient beings don’t want to experience suffering either.
They want to be completely free from suffering. It’s not enough for us personally to develop this mind of renunciation. We need to develop a mind or a state from which we can help all sentient beings. In order to develop this state, we need to achieve Buddhahood. So for the sake of all sentient beings, we need to quickly achieve Buddhahood.
So we need to develop we need to work towards this our Buddhahood. We need to develop a mind of bodhicitta in order to achieve that Buddhahood, in order to benefit all sentient beings. So what we should then do is to think of our personal stores of merit being mixed with the merit of all the five different types of beings, and by the store of all those merits put together, may that act as a cause for us to quickly attain enlightenment to benefit to in order to be able to establish all beings in a state beyond suffering. So we should so we should meditate on that idea for a few minutes. Okay.
So we have to do more of seventy topics now. Geshe-la — is — you said it’s very difficult, which is probably why no one’s here. No. Before you guys came, there was three people. There’s this expression in Tibetan, which is short nosed, right?
Which means they can’t cope with much. They if they use it to if someone gets agitated quickly or something, they say they have a short nose. And he just said, the other guys have got a short nose. They haven’t showed up. Because they got it’s like, they’re easily rile.
They’re easily agitated. So you guys have got the longer noses. So we were up to the eighteen unshared attributes of Buddhas, which is included within the thirty nine aspects that are an exalted knower of all aspects that are uncommon. It’s the fourth section in that. We should remember that when we are thinking about these qualities, it’s very important and it’s very good for us to be able to think about these qualities, because we are talking about the qualities that Buddhas have, so that can help us in many different ways.
The first of these unshared attributes of Buddhas — the six unshared behaviors. Now the first of these is that they don’t have any physical mistaken behaviour. That means that every physical action that they do is perfect and isn’t mistaken in any way. The second is that they don’t engage — or everything that they say is meaningful, hence nothing they say is senseless chatter. Everything they say is understood by those listening to them.
The next one is not having a decrease in mindfulness. Mindfulness is the same word in Tibetan as memory or remembering. This case, Geshe la said that it means that they don’t forget things. Is not like us. Learn something and we forget it, or we hear something.
Instantly, forget it. The Buddhas aren’t like this. Every time they know something, they know it properly and never forget it. The fourth one is not having a non-engagement of mind, which means that they abide in meditative equipoise at all times. The next one where it says not having a discrimination of difference, what this is referring to is the difference of the two truths, the conventional truth and the ultimate truth.
The Buddhas managed to see the ultimate truth and the conventional truth non separately because they understand that the essence of the ultimate truth and the essence of the conventional truth are the same thing. Hence, there’s no separation in their understanding of these things. The next one, not having the indifference of not investigating individually. The other another way you could say that was not having the indifference of not investigating individuals. What this is referring to is that they don’t have any moment where they’re just being equanimous.
They’re not we’re not equanimous in terms of not equanimous in terms of near and far, equanimous in terms of not being engaged with beings. Yeah. At all moments, they are engaged. At all moments, they are seeing. They have are investigating what can be done to help the individuals that they are coming into contact with and investigating all phenomena.
They don’t have a moment of non engagement, shall we say. Indifference, this word indifference is the same word as one that’s used for equanimity, but here because it’s referring to saying that it’s not I guess, let’s say, we sit here and just don’t think about much. Buddhists never have those moments of not thinking about much. There’s a purpose for what they’re doing. They’re investigating in order to help these.
So the ones we just went through, what are called the six unshared behaviors. The next six are what’s called the six unshared realizations. The first of the six unshared realizations is a non decrease of aspiration, so their aspiration doesn’t decrease. This word aspiration means something very similar to a wish. The word for a wish or a positive desire, if you like, is almost exactly the same thing as aspiration.
The next one, not having a decrease in effort, means that they joyous effort, and it doesn’t decrease. Likewise, their mindfulness, their memory doesn’t decrease, their meditative stabilization doesn’t decrease, their wisdom wisdom doesn’t decrease, and their liberation doesn’t decrease or degenerate. Right. Now the the next three are what’s called the the three unshared enlightened activities. Three unshared enlightened activities of the Buddha is enlightened physical activities are preceded by exalted wisdom and followed by exalted wisdom.
All actions come out of exalted wisdom and cause exalted wisdom. Enlightened verbal activities are preceded by exalted wisdom and cause or followed by exalted wisdom. The same with mental activities. There are three types of enlightened activity. There’s the enlightened sorry.
There’s the enlightened activity of the of the physical, the the body, the enlightened activity of the speech, and the enlightened activity of the mind. There’s also the three unshared exalted wisdoms. There’s unimpeded, which means nothing stopping it, and it can’t be obstructed, exalted wisdom regarding past, future and present. Unimpeded also means unattached. Okay.
So all of these, the last three, the aspect of Dharmakāya — there is an aspect, an aspect of Buddha, we actually did in the beginning because in Tibetan, they come in the beginning. Okay. So we said them before. They have been explained. The next point that we have, number two, is principal applications explicitly indicated in this context.
Now what context means is in reference to the qualities of the Buddha that were explained in the previous section. In the text, it just explained what the qualities of a Buddha are. Yeah. So now we understand what those qualities are. We need to know what practice it is, what we we have to do, what yoga is it is that we need to do, what application in order to be able to achieve that result of those qualities of a Buddha.
That is why the next thing is the principal applications or the principal practices explicitly indicated in this context means with relation to what was previously mentioned. Right. So the definition of principal application explicitly indicated in its context. Another way of saying that is a definition of a principal the definition of the main practice you need to undertake in order to achieve these qualities of Buddha. So in order to achieve Buddhahood.
So that’s what this is referring to. Now, the main practice is that is, is a Bodhisattva’s yoga, a Bodhisattva’s practice, which is conjoined with or comes along with the wisdom that is the union of calm abiding and special insight, observing emptiness explicitly indicated in this context. What this means is that when you have calm abiding and you have special insight, based on those in the mindstream of Bodhisattva, who are meditating or have the practice of observing emptiness, then with special reference to achieving the goals of the qualities that were set out earlier, then that’s what this principle application is, what this principle practice is. Okay. So, yeah, Geshe la just read through the nineteen divisions of the principal applications.
He’s just he’s now going to go through them individually, but he just in the text, come through, so he just read it out, basically. The first one is the application not abiding on forms and so forth. Now what this is in reference to is the application that sees forms and so forth, or forms in the other four spheres, as being not truly existent. It sees the emptiness of these things. So when it says not abiding, it means seeing as not truly existent.
Application that stops avoidance, what this refers to is the application or the practice that stops the tendency or stops the mind seeing things as being truly existent. On one hand, they’re not seeing things as being truly existent. On the other hand, they’re stopping the mind seeing things as being truly existent. But in actual fact, the meaning of the two is the same. The next two we have is the the application of profundity and the application of the difficult to fathom.
This is referring to the same thing, in that this understanding of emptiness is very difficult to understand because it is so subtle. Hence, are two different ways of explaining the difficulty of this practice. From one point of view, they say this application is profound or this practice is profound. And on the other hand, they say that this practice is very difficult to understand. The next one, application of the immeasurable.
Now the Tibetan word for immeasurable, or what’s usually translated as immeasurable, is literally no edge, no border. So what this means is that, as ordinary beings, we are unable to see the vastness of this understanding or the vastness of this practice that bodhisattvas usually engage in or usually bodhisattvas are engaging in. The next one, the application that attains prophecy. So what this practice is talking about is the practice or application that bodhisattvas undertake, wherein they fulfill the prophecies that have been prophesied by by Buddhas from previous ages. In previous ages, Buddhas said that this bodhisattva is going do this and this, and this bodhisattva is going do that and that.
In this case, the individual bodhisattvas’ practice is fulfilling the prophecies as they were described by previous Buddhas. The next one, the application of irreversible irreversibility means that because the Bodhisattvas have progressed this far along the path and that they have this understanding of emptiness directly based on calm abiding and insight. They can’t be turned back from the end of their path, which is the attainment of Buddhahood. So this means that they are definitely going to become Buddhas, and nothing can stop them from doing that. It’s irreversible.
Okay. The next one. The next one, the application of a definitely emerging. Now this word definitely emerging is the same one that’s usually translated as renunciation with regards to liberation. But in here, it’s talking about the achievement of Buddhahood.
What it means is that it’s assert, it’s definitely going to happen. And not only is it definitely going to happen, but the bodhisattvas themselves have a pramāna understanding of when and where it’s gonna happen. They can see directly. Okay. Sorry.
I was just trying to clarify something. This application of definite emerging is that they have this have this mind that’s engaged in practice, that has a valid cognizing experience, hence it’s an inferential cognizer or it’s a direct cognition of their attainment of Buddhahood. So they understand that they’re definitely going to achieve Buddhahood, but not just as a foggy understanding, but something that they they have a a pramāna of. They have a valid cognition of. Yeah.
Okay. The next thing is that that that that path towards that goal is not interrupted in any way. The next thing is that they have the application of being close towards enlightenment, which means that they’re they’re getting close to their goal. They also have the application of understanding or the practice of soon becoming a Buddha, so their practice can be described as that. They are working for others’ benefit, which is the next one — application of others’ welfare — and thirteen.
The application realizing that ultimately there is no increase and decrease. Now what this means is that from the point of view of ultimate truth they understand that nothing increases and nothing decreases. Anything that is increasing and decreasing can only be said to be doing so from the point of view of conventional reality. They understand that in conventional reality there is decrease and increase, but they also understand that in ultimate truth, there is no decrease or increase. Alright.
Now the next one. The application not seeing phenomena and non phenomena as ultimate. This is a weird one. Right? Because the the word that they’ve translated as phenomena is the word dharma.
Dharma actually has eleven different well, probably eleven different meanings, at least. They’ve chosen to translate it here as phenomena, but Geshe la’s understanding of dharma in this context is for it to mean positive and negative actions, virtuous and non virtuous actions. Way that he is explaining this is that it says the application not seeing virtue and not virtue as ultimate.