Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The observation that aging sneaks up on us — arriving so gradually that if it happened overnight we would die of shock — opens this 45-minute session from Geshe Pema Tsering in his Seventy Topics series. He uses it to examine why we fail to recognize the moment-by-moment disintegration of our being, and how this blindness extends to suffering broadly: like a child mistaking poison for candy, we pursue pleasures without seeing their painful nature. A brief reflection on all sentient beings sharing the wish to be free from suffering leads into the doctrinal core: a careful mapping of the Three Jewels — causal versus resultant refuge, conventional versus ultimate — culminating in the practical point that reciting the refuge prayer should train the mind to turn toward refuge whenever suffering arises.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 ST3 2003 04 10.mp3
UUID: 9854c09a-01ab-4ee8-8f9c-9aeffe1c6140
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-04-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.9 minutes
Words: ~3,042
So Tibetan teacher Gungthang Tenpai Dronme has said in his text — the text is called Advice — that getting old sneaks up on us. It comes secretly behind us, it sneaks up on us. If getting old happened in one moment, we wouldn’t be able to survive it. This is because we would get so shocked that we’d have a heart attack or we just would get so frustrated with how it was dealing, we couldn’t cope with it mentally. This is true, this is actually the way it is.
When we wake up in the morning and when we go to sleep at night, don’t realize how much we’ve aged in a day. We don’t see how much we age day by day. It’s something that happens as a gradual process. But if went to bed one night and we were a child and we were all pretty and everything, and then we woke up in the morning and we were old, we’d either have a heart attack or we’d cry or we’d die or something would happen. So I guess I said that if I was eighteen, and I went to bed feeling like I did when I was eighteen and I woke up in the morning feeling like I did now, then I I would have it would have been a big shock.
I would have been so shocked by by that happening that it would have been ridiculous. But it it doesn’t didn’t happen like this. It happens it sneaks up on you. Getting old sneaks up on you. You don’t realize it.
And because of this this this sneakiness, we don’t pay attention to the fact that it’s actually happening. So we have this idea that we aren’t going to die even up until the point of death. We don’t think about dying. Actually, in actual fact, in every moment, we’re very slowly dying, but we don’t understand that. We don’t see it in the same way that we don’t see ourselves getting old in a hurry.
So, we don’t see ourselves getting old, we don’t understand the moment by moment disintegration, moment by moment dying of our being. So, we don’t think about death, not even up until the moment we’re actually dying do we think about death. When we get sick, we think, I’m going to get better.’ It’s not until we’re actually at the moment of death that it actually hits us that we’re going to die. Up until that point, we still have some hope of getting better. So in the same way, we can’t understand death and impermanence properly unless we analyze it and we go through analytical processes in our mind to try and understand it.
We don’t understand it naturally because we don’t experience it in each and every day. We only see its gradual impact over a while and don’t think about it. What we need to do is perpetually acclimatize ourselves, familiarize our minds with this concept of death and impermanence so we incorporate it into our understanding. So, in the same way, we don’t understand the truth of suffering very well either if we actually suffer if we have the suffering of suffering if our body aches or we’re experiencing some kind of intense illness then we understand suffering we understand that suffering we can appreciate it to be like that. Or if we have a big loss, if we have something that we’ve completely lost that we held dear, then we understand suffering.
We understand how painful it is to ourselves. Likewise, we don’t understand birth properly, illness properly, aging properly and death properly. So, we don’t understand that the actual nature of life, once we’re born as a human being, is that we are born, we get old, we get ill, we die. We don’t understand that that’s the true nature of our existence, that our existence is actually suffering. But because our existence doesn’t have so much out and out suffering, then we spend most of our time not concentrating on the actual illness and the death process.
So we wake up in the morning, we meet someone else and say, How are you? And they say, I’m good. Then they say to us, How are you? And we say, We’re good, but in actual fact, we’re not. We’re suffering, we’re in the nature of suffering, everything about our being is suffering and we still say we’re good.
So because we don’t understand that this body and being born into this existence means we’re going to get old, we’re going to die, we’re going to suffer, we have illness. Because we don’t understand that that’s our true nature, we say, I’m good this morning. How are you? So not only ordinary beings, not only beginners, but all beings born because of karma and delusion. And they suffer because of karma and delusion, and they die because of karma and delusion.
So, in actual fact, if we look at it, all the things that we consider to be really good about our existence are actually just forms of suffering as well. Our house is a form of suffering, our car is a form of suffering, our new clothes are a form of suffering, everything that we have is actually another form of suffering. It’s just that we don’t have the ability to see it that way. So we’re kind of a bit like there’s three or five year old children that they don’t understand the way things are properly, and they see something that’s like a sweet and they think it’s a lolly or a sweet or something and want to eat it, but they don’t actually realize that the sweet or the lolly is actually poison. So there’s little kids that actually die at age three or five from eating what they think is a lolly and it’s actually poison and it kills them.
And they are only three or five. So we’re kind of like these kids if we are someone who is in Samsāra and we are like these kids in the fact that we don’t know what’s good for us and we see something that we think is going to give us pleasure and in actual fact it’s going to cause us more suffering but because it’s not the suffering of suffering, like it is in the lower realms, then we don’t recognize it as being suffering. In the lower realms, suffering is the suffering of suffering. The suffering of suffering is everywhere and so their existence is bound up in this kind of suffering. So just like us, the beings in this in the lower realms are just like us in the fact that they they don’t want to be suffering and they don’t they don’t choose to have this suffering.
They would rather not be abiding in that kind of suffering. They’d rather not experience it. In that way, they’re exactly the same as us and sentient beings have this same disposition. Don’t want to suffer and they want to be happy. And because they’re like this, then we really have to strive towards enlightenment in order to benefit all of them.
So, all sentient beings don’t want to suffer. All sentient beings want to be happy. And in order for this to happen, then we need to concentrate our energies and practice Dharma in order to achieve enlightenment, so we can be of the best benefit to all these sentient beings. So, with this thought in mind, we should concentrate on developing this thought and then meditate on it. Before we do any meditation or any practice, if we develop our meditation so that we understand all these beings are suffering and then we think about the stores of merit, the good things that all the five different types of beings have done and the good karma they’ve accumulated from this.
If we think about that merit and then we think about the people, the beings that are suffering, especially if we think about all the people that have died in the war and the people that will continue to die and the suffering that they and their families are in, Think about them and all the rest of the people, the beings that are suffering and then we think about the good things that the five different types of beings have done and if we think of may all those good things be a cause for me to attain enlightenment, may that act as a a cause for me to quickly, quickly attain enlightenment so I can be of the the most benefit. And if we have this mind before we try and do anything, and we think may this be a cause for that, then then whatever we’re doing becomes something that’s highly meaningful. So if we meditate on that now. So we were up to the precepts which instruct on the basis of the Three Jewels. And what this is actually referring to is any time that the Buddha spoke about the Three Jewels, he said the Three Jewels existed or talked about their qualities.
Any of these is included within precepts which instruct on the basis the Three Jewels. So the the Buddha the Buddha taught on the the Three Jewels, and then the bodhisattvas taught on the Three Jewels, and then other teachers teach on the Three Jewels. And if they are teaching from the perspective of the Mahāyāna path, then that’s included within this, because when talking about Mahāyāna precepts in this instance and not not all teachings, just the Mahāyāna precepts. Okay. Okay, so when we’re talking about the Three Jewels, there’s different aspects to the Three Jewels.
For starters, the Buddha jewel can be described as causal Buddha jewel and the resultant Buddha jewel. That was also described in an earlier thing as the resultant truth body. So the resultant truth body is the resultant Buddha jewel. So you have the resultant Buddha jewel and the causal Buddha jewel. Now it also is divided into the ultimate Buddha jewel and the conventional Buddha jewel.
The conventional Buddha jewel being the form body of the Buddha that is the enjoyment body and the emanation body: Nirmānakāya and Sambhogakāya. The ultimate Buddha jewel is described as the Svabhāvikakāya and the Dharmakāya, or the nature body and the exalted wisdom truth body. Then there’s also divisions within the Dharma jewel. Dharma can mean phenomena in this case.
And also, there’s divisions within the Okay, there’s another way of dividing the Dharma jewel into ultimate and relative Dharma jewel. The ultimate Dharma jewel is the true paths and true cessations in the minds of Ārya beings or supreme beings. And the relative Dharma jewel is the practices of the six perfections, the two lower paths that is the path of accumulation and the path of preparation, and other practices that ordinary beings do are all considered to be the conventional Dharma. So with the Dharma jewel, the conventional Sangha jewel is the Ārya beings. And the conventional Sangha jewel is those ordinary beings who hold in their continuum vows of individual liberation. There’s also a presentation of the Three Jewels in terms of the refuge, which is causal refuge, and the refuge, which is result refuge.
Causal refuge is the Buddhas, the Dharma, and Sangha that are separate from us. That is, Chenrezig, the Dharma, Buddhas like Śākyamūni Buddha, the Dalai Lama. Any being that is considered an object of refuge that is a Buddha a Buddha Buddha jewel, the object of refuge that is other than ourselves, called the causal refuge. The fruition refuge, the resultant refuge, is our own potential to become a Buddha. Okay.
So there’s also different ways of explaining it in terms of Buddha jewel, which is the final Buddha jewel, and the Buddha jewel, which is the Buddha jewel for right now, the temporary one. Final Buddha jewel that s a causal final Buddha jewel is that they are Buddhas the Buddhas that we see outside ourselves, and the final result in Buddha Jewel is ourselves becoming a Buddha. So we say the final Buddha jewels and the temporary ones, but the temporary ones aren’t exactly known as Buddha jewels. Labeled it, but their definition isn’t exactly that. So when when we say I go for refuge to the Buddha in the Buddha prayer, then we shouldn’t just have in our mind Śākyamūni Buddha. We should have all the different Buddhas, the different Buddhas that we can possibly imagine.
And amongst those different Buddhas that we can possibly imagine, we should definitely have the concept of ourselves having reached full enlightenment, because ourselves having reached full enlightenment is a Buddha of the future. So we should have that amongst our images of what the Buddha jewel is. So our own Buddha coming into our own Buddhahood should be our resultant refuge, refuge, and the other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas that we take refuge in — sorry, the other Buddhas that we take refuge in should be the causal Buddhas that we take refuge in. So the reason that we call Buddha Śākyamūni and the other Buddhas that are outside ourselves, are separate from us, the reason we call them the causal Buddhas is because in dependence on the Dharma that they taught, which showed us the path to enlightenment, we can achieve enlightenment for ourselves. So they act as the cause for us to achieve enlightenment because they have shown us the teachings.
Therefore, they are called the causal refuge, thing that we go for refuge to as a cause. Our own enlightened minds will happen in the end based on the practice that we put in based on the teachings of the Buddhas. So, based on the teachings of the Buddhas, we ourselves become enlightened, and this is the result of that practice, the result of the teachings and us putting the teachings into practice. Therefore, that is called the resultant Buddha body sorry, the resultant Buddha refuge. So these these people that act as our teachers, teachers are cause for us to be able to practice the path and become Buddha.
They act as a temporary refuge and a causal refuge for our practice, but the ultimate refuge is ourselves having achieved Buddhahood at some stage in the future. So the teachers that teach us the bodhisattvas and the teachers that teach us the Dharma, they then act as what is our temporary refuge, because they are the ones that show us the path that we should be practicing. From another point of view, they become the temporary refuge, and our ultimate refuge is our own Buddhahood once we’ve become a Buddha. So they may be temporarily showing us the path, temporarily, but ultimately it’s ourselves that we have to rely on, and it’s ourselves that we have to go for refuge to. So likewise with the Dharma jewel, and the true Dharma jewel is the true paths and true cessations in the continuum of Aryas, and that’s the ultimate Dharma jewel, that’s what’s considered the ultimate Dharma jewel, and that’s something that we need to go for refuge to. But because we don’t have these realizations in our mind stream at the moment, then our conventional Dharma jewel should be our own source of merit and the own good deeds that we do, so we should go for refuge in that, as well as in the ultimate Dharma jewel, which is these true paths and true cessations.
So for all of the Three Jewels, should also be thinking about the causal refuge and the ultimate refuge. So, in each case, the causal refuge would be those qualities in other beings, that is, other Buddhas, other true paths and true cessations in other beings’ mind streams, and the other beings who have these true paths and true cessations in terms of the Sangha jewel. And that is the causal refuge. But the ultimate refuge is our realization of those things and our becoming Buddha, our having those true paths and true cessations in our mind stream. Okay, so that’s the description of what the Three Jewels are, and there’s a definition for the Three Jewels.
And I guess I said it really quickly, I had no idea what he said. And he saw my face and he said, that’s okay. We don’t have to go into that one. So so the most important thing is that when we’re saying this refuge when we’re saying the refuge prayer, when we say I go for refuge to the Buddha, go for refuge to the Dharma, I go for refuge to the Sangha, that we know exactly what it is that we’re going for refuge to, that we think about the causal refuge and we think about the ultimate refuge. We think about the results and we think about it from a conventional point of view and we think about it from an ultimate point of view.
Sorry, I just had to make that clear. I kept saying ultimate instead of resultant, in terms of it being the end one. But they’re two distinct words in the Tibetan, so you’ve got causal and result, conventional and ultimate, and they’re different things. So what the purpose of saying the refuge prayer is, if we’re thinking about the qualities of the Buddha and we’re thinking about what it is we’re actually going for refuge to, in the fact that we’re going for refuge to our own potential, the thing that we can achieve in the future, as well as in the other Buddhas and bodhisattvas. And we think about the things that the Buddhas have done since beginningless time in order to help beings, and they’ve had this mind of constantly trying to help since beginningless time.
And we practice this while we’re doing the prayer we think about it. Then we are training our mind so that anytime that we have a difficult situation, anytime that we have suffering, when we think about suffering, the next thing we think about is refuge. So, this idea