Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Three vivid metaphors — the king who secures enlightenment before leading others, the cowherd who gets everyone to Buddhahood first, and the ferryman who crosses alongside his passengers — anchor Geshe Pema Tsering’s 44-minute Seventy Topics session. He traces the causal chain to bodhicitta: renunciation as the foundation, great compassion as its direct cause, and calm abiding as the prerequisite mind-state that places even a desire-realm practitioner into a form-realm mind. He then distinguishes wishing bodhicitta (aspirational, present during meditative equipoise) from practical bodhicitta (engaged, active in post-meditation), and maps four grades of bodhicitta across the five paths and bodhisattva grounds. A Q&A covers whether animals can generate merit, the specific role nagas play in exhausting residual negative karma, and how bodhisattvas’ exposure to lower rebirths closes at the forbearance stage of the path of preparation. Suited to students working systematically through Mahāyāna path-structure topics.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 ST2 2003 03 06.mp3
UUID: 7395c107-0a89-4873-ac37-6288bef64b61
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-03-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.9 minutes
Words: ~2,341
This can actually only come about in a mind of the form realm because it cannot come about in the desire realm, but with a form realm mind, because you have to have developed calm abiding in order to develop bodhicitta. And as soon as you’ve developed calm abiding, then even though you may be in a desire realm, you have a mind of the form realm. So you can’t develop Mahāyāna conventional mind generation until you’ve developed calm abiding. Calm abiding puts you into either the preparatory stage or the actual stage of the first level of concentration of the form realm. So even though you may have a desire realm body, then your mind would be a form mind or yeah. It wouldn’t it doesn’t necessarily mean that because you’re in your body is in the desire realm that your mind is.
So you need great compassion and calm abiding, which means because you have calm abiding, then you have a form mind, a mind of the form realm. We need a combination of those two things in order to achieve mind generation or bodhicitta. Okay. So the direct cause or the main cause of the development of mind generation of bodhicitta is the great compassion. And the direct cause of great compassion is renunciation. So the practices that are involved in generating great compassion for example loving kindness and exchanging self and others these kind of practices although they are part of the practice of developing compassion, they aren’t the direct cause of it.
The direct cause is renunciation. Okay. So the definition sorry. The divisions of the first division of mind generation is intention mind generation and practical mind generation. Now the definition or a description, shall we say — this is not a technical definition — of practical mind generation is the practices of a bodhisattva, which are the the practices of the six perfections and the antidotes to the four maras.
I I haven’t heard that expression before, so I’m just gonna double check it. Okay. Okay. I’m gonna have to get back to you next week with a more definite translation of this because I’ve never heard of it before, until right now. Four the six perfections the practice of the six perfections we said that and then there’s also something called the and the four tamingss of mind something like that alright this is rough okay so put question marks next to it in the notes Four gatherings of disciples, and they are something like giving, speaking gently or speaking nicely, having meaningful behavior, and having a meaningful motivation.
And this one? This? Therefore. Yeah. There’s, like, giving.
Yeah. Having a, yeah, melodious speech, I guess. So the main practices of the the practice of the six perfections and these other four, which is, like, you know, the four trainings of mind or something. Don’t know. If anyone knows them, because I’ve never heard them until right now, and then so that’s yeah like I said the the giving and melodious speech and meaningful actions and meaningful motivation.
But I’ll I’ll do some research and get back to you next week with more about Okay. So, any action that is an actual, direct, is clearly an action of, these, ten, that is the six perfections in the four taming, I guess, then anything that’s a direct action of those is a practical mind generation, and then anything that isn’t a direct action involved in these ten practices is a wishing mind generation. Yeah. So when bodhisattvas are in meditative equipoise, then their mind generation is wishing mind generation, and anything that they do that is post meditative equipoise is a practical mind generation or practical bodhicitta. Is that okay?
So, when when, bodhisattvas are in, post med when they’re in post meditation, then they’re the the mind of bodhicitta and the mind of emptiness are both, they’re both, what you call it, they’re both manifest, they’re both present. And so they’re both being directly experienced, so therefore it becomes a practical mind generation. But when bodhisattvas are a meditative equipoise, their bodhicittas are on emptiness directly and their bodhicitta mind is actually hidden. It’s not being directly experienced. Therefore, wishing mind generation and not a pry practical mind generation.
So the other the other translations for this that I’ve seen, wishing mind generation is like aspirational bodhicitta, and practical mind generation would be engaging engaged bodhicitta, which you probably there’s also another way of dividing bodhicitta that isn’t mentioned in seventy topics which is by way of their aspects. So the first one is called bodhicitta with aspect. The second one is called bodhicitta in conjunction with special insight. The third one being bodhicitta without aspect, and the fourth one being bodhicitta without obscurations. So in other words, the bodhicitta of a Buddha.
Okay. So bodhicitta with object is on the path of accumulation, the path of preparation. And bodhicitta with special insight is on the path of seeing up until the seventh Bodhisattva without aspect is on the grounds eight, nine, and ten. And what do you call them? Obscurationless.
The bodhisattva is on the Buddha ground only. Okay. There’s also another division by way of the way bodhicitta is generated. bodhicitta can be generated by like a king. Can be generated like a cow herder.
And the cows are supposed to be a metaphor for you or the humans that are being, like, looked after in that way or or or like a ferry man. And I couldn’t figure out what Geshe la was saying, so he said, you know, ferryman, taxi driver, anyone will do. So so, yeah, so the the the there are metaphors for the different ways that bodhicitta can be generated. So there’s three different ways of, the of that that bodhicittas generate. The first one, I would say, was by a king in the way that, the king type of bodhicitta generation is if someone decides that the way that they’re going to achieve enlightenment for all sentient beings is to first establish themselves as a Buddha and then lead everybody else to enlightenment.
The second one is like a cow herder in that the the the what cow herders do is that they make sure that the cows are in a a really nice pasture and then they sit by them themselves. So the idea there is that everybody is to get everyone to Buddhahood and then worry about yourself. And the third one is the idea of the ferryman, and the ferryman and the passenger both arrive at the final shore together. So that idea of the way to generate bodhicitta is that that you that you and sentient beings will arrive at Buddhahood together. So Geshe la wants to know when you guys meditate on bodhicitta, do you see yourself as a king who establishes himself first as a Buddha, or do you see yourself as a cow herder or a ferryman?
He thinks you think you’re like a king. He said what? Does he think he’s a king? He said, that’s good. So we can stop there for this evening.
If anyone Yes, so if someone has questions. He said all yeah. This word. Anyone. Any old one.
Yeah. Any old one. Yeah. There’s this one word in Tibetan that is intranslatable, and it’s fantastic. It just means, like, bits of this, bits of that, and all chuck it together and yeah.
Pardon? Bricolage. Bricolage. Don’t know that one. It’s like bits.
Yeah. Different bits in this and yeah. But it’s like or any old as well, like any old person, any old method, you know, it’s got that concept too. Yeah. Whatever.
Yeah. Sorry. You mixed. Yeah. Uh-huh.
Yeah. Sure. Uh-huh. Creating. Yeah.
Okay. Sure. He said that there’s, like, one specific reason that they say that animals are able to achieve bodhicitta and that’s because there is certain bodhicitta that because of previous negativities choose to be reborn as Nagas and then that’s where like getting rid of their negativities is to go through lives as a naga. So it’s talking specifically about nagas in terms of animals that can achieve bodhicitta and I’ll discuss the second part He doesn’t think that that animals inspiring love and being friendly to people is actually merit. He thinks that they’re doing it because they want kindness and food and things off people.
And that they’re that if I’m nice to them, they’ll give me food and things like that. So it’s coming from desire and not from Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. They’re they’re helping the people.
Sure. He said that no, that only is the benefit to the mind of the person that is thinking I wanna help. It’s not necessarily the the the any creation of merit from the side of the animal. And he said that if an animal would They they create merit in that way, but it’s not from their side. It’s because the it’s actually from the side of the object because the side is is a Buddha or a symbol of the enlightened mind or things like that.
So from the side of that object, create merit, but not from their side. Okay. So the reason that they create merit by walking around stupas or walking around Buddhas or things like that is that the Buddhas and the stupas are manifestations of the Buddha’s blessings so because the Buddhas and the stupas that represent them have this idea of being in existence to benefit sentient beings and have this such a strong blessing coming from them. Therefore, the the animals can create merit by walking around them by the power of the Buddha’s blessing and not from their own point of view. So Buddhas have perfected the perfection of prayer in their mind streams.
So they’ve perfected prayer so much that people who even see them get enormous benefit. That wasn’t your question, was it? I’m staring at you for no reason. Yeah. Yeah.
Pretty sure. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. With the direct cause for the great compassion is renunciation.
Uh-huh. Saying that the Seven Point Mind Training exchange — So the direct cause of bodhicitta is great compassion, and great compassion, it is not necessarily that it’s the it’s the cause in that it cannot come about without it and it cannot come about without renunciation that is so that’s how it’s the cause but in terms of their direct cause of their hang on the direct cause of of great compassion that’s the practices that come before it but you can’t have it it’s reliant on renunciation you can’t have great compassion or any of those practices without renunciation so in that way it’s a direct cause So if there’s no renunciation, there’s no way. So the the direct cause of now, right, the direct cause of great compassion is compassion. But yeah. Yeah.
Yo. I can’t see. I have a question, Ruth. Aren’t they supposed to be repeating questions, aren’t they? Yeah.
Okay. So, yeah, bodhisattvas that have just created bodhicitta in their mind streams still have contaminated karma that they have to deal with so that they can become born in the in the lower realms, most of them end up as nagas. But once they have reached the peak part of the path of preparation, they can’t be reborn in lower realms anymore. So they don’t when they get to that stage, can’t take rebirth in lower realms. But they’re not like us because we’re just we don’t have bodhicitta, so we can end up in all different sorts of places.
So so so they can most of them come back as nagas to get rid of their excess negative karma that they had. Because they are as nagas then they have what’s called an unfortunate rebirth. Yeah. No. Up until the okay.
So it’s up until the peak part of the part path of preparation, you can still be reborn in the lower realms. But so it’s like when you get to the part the forbearance part of the path of preparation, you definitely can’t be born in the lower realms. Yeah. Is transformation one’s motivation the main practice for entering the Mahāyāna path? Transformation of one’s motivation.
Right. So good motivation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Is it is it motivations. Yeah. I just yeah. I was trying to think if there was something else there. Yeah.
Entry to the Mahāyāna path depends on motivation. So if we have a good motivation, then we develop merit and enter can enter the Mahāyāna path. You look like you got another question, and it’s just bubbling onto the surface. It sounded like there was there was one to do one to do with mind, one to do with speech, one to do with body, and then there was motivation. So they were sort of giving giving to the mind.
One’s actions and actions are understood in terms of body, speech, mind. So the the the they they seem to be distinguished. Mhmm. There’s three of them, and there’s the fourth one’s motivation. So, Sandra, Okay, so the one about the behavior is basically like walking the walk.
So you have the you what you say, and then you have to make sure that everything that you say is in accordance with what you’re doing. And that’s, in accordance, yeah, with your motivation and your thoughts as well. Yeah. But I’ll I’ll double check these and get back to them before the your discussion group thing because I don’t know what they are. Sorry.
I I I have never heard of them before, so I’ll I’ll get back to that. I’ll get back to you in about ten. Time to do this one. Please. Yeah.
I just Is that okay? Yeah. I just can’t see you. So there’s good karma and good karma that wears out. Yeah?
Sorry. Yeah. I said that. Yeah. Yeah.
Dirty. Yeah.