Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute closing session of Geshe Pema Tsering’s Seventy Topics series, the enumeration of a Buddha’s special qualities reaches completion: the ten powers (including knowing the consequences of actions and the exhaustion of all contaminations), the four fearlessnesses, three unguarded aspects of body, speech, and mind, and the enlightened activities of the dharmakaya. A numerical mnemonic helps students hold the full seventy-topic structure in memory. The Q&A that follows explores how Tibetan practitioners sustained faith under Chinese occupation: Geshe Tsering explains that deep karmic imprints resist years of adversity, that Tārā can support individuals through personal faith but collective misfortune requires collective causes to shift, and that the validity of refuge rests not in a statue but in the practitioner’s view and intention.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 10 ST10 2003 11 13.mp3
UUID: ba5402f4-50f5-403c-b60e-40856ac266d9
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-11-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 43.9 minutes
Words: ~2,937
From a positive action, a power of knowing an action that’s going to lead to a positive result or a negative result. And the power of knowing the consequences of actions is number two. So that means that they can see what the consequences of any action that they’re going to engage in will be. The third one is the power of knowing various mental inclinations, which means they know what tendencies people have towards things and are therefore able to instruct them to enable those tendencies to be cultivated properly. Properly.
The fourth one is knowing is the power of knowing various mental faculties, which means the knowing the abilities that people have and how to instruct them based on that ability. The the this one. Sorry. Okay. Sorry.
There’s there’s number four. Right? Power of knowing various it says in translation, various mental faculties. But it means Geshe-la said it means the rebirth that people have taken, so what their tendencies are towards. In other words, are they a Mahāyāna, Hīnayāna, and are they a human, are they a god, or anaga, all of those things.
Able to instruct and help people based with in order to attune with what their state is at that time. The fifth one is said to be the power to know the various degrees of intelligence of beings, which is said to be difficult to their different to their faculties. Okay. Okay. So number six is the power of knowing the paths towards all goals.
Geshe la says, So that means if they wanted to go to Varanasi, they know exactly how to get there. And if they want to go to the center of Adelaide, they know how to get there. He goes, But I think it’s in general you’re referring to getting towards enlightenment and liberation. The the number seven, the power of knowing the ever afflicted and purified phenomena. Now this means that they know exactly what it is that needs to be abandoned, the things that needs to be get gotten rid of in terms of negativities that have been done and negativities that need to be stopped that we need to refrain from doing.
Then they also know what needs to be practiced and what and what has has to be so what has to be practiced and what has to be abandoned. Okay. So number eight is the power of knowing past lives. Number nine is the power of knowing death and rebirth. That means when they’re when they when people will die and when they will be reborn.
And number ten is the power of knowing the exhaustion of contaminations, which means they have become and They have got completely gotten rid of all negative qualities. Sorry. Not negative qualities. They have completely gotten rid of all afflictive emotions. Okay.
So the four four fearlessnesses, which is the next thing, is the the first one is complete and perfect getting rid of all afflictive emotions for oneself. So there’s no fear from afflictive emotions for oneself. Yeah? And then there’s number two is completely perfecting the accomplishment of knowledge, completely perfecting all knowingness after the purpose of self, which means, sorry. Okay.
When it says fearlessnesses, it means that they can say these things without being scared of the ramifications. So other beings can’t say that they have realizations if they’re not manifesting as a fully enlightened being because there’s negative things that can come apart can happen from that. But a fully realized realized Buddha manifesting as a fully realized Buddha can say that they have complete and perfect extinguishment of all negativities for the purpose of themselves. That means that they are in arhat. They have completely gotten rid of all negative emotions.
Number two that they’re allowed to say is that they’re complete and perfect accomplishment of knowledge for the purpose of self. So they’ve gotten rid of all negativities for the purpose of self. And number two, they know everything for the purpose of self. Number three is they they are come they are able to reveal paths and antidotes for the purpose of others. And number four, they are able to reveal.
For the purpose others, they are able to explain what needs to be eliminated. So the next thing, number fifteen, is the three unguarded aspects. So that means the physical, mental, and verbal actions of a Buddha are said to be unguarded because they are perfect, and therefore, then it doesn’t need be any effort put into making them free of negativities. The next one, the three close contemplations. The three mindfulnesses of a Buddha with regard to students is that they avoid attachment towards those who listen respectfully, avoid hatred towards those who do not do not listen respectfully, and avoid indifference towards those who do neither.
Okay. So number seventeen is non negligence of the purpose of sentient beings. So it’s saying that they’re not they don’t they don’t they’re not not negligent. So then hang on. I’m going to give you guys this copy of all these stuff.
Right? But there’s some things that are just whack in the translation. So number seventeen, for example, in the translation don’t write this down, but translation, it says, non negligence of the purpose of sentient beings. And Geshe la said that and and and and it’s pretty clear from Tibetan that it means the emptiness of the emptiness of the body, speech, and mind of a Buddha, which is free from effort with regards to that sort of understanding the emptiness of the body of their own body, speech, and mind without any effort, which has nothing to do with the translation. Okay.
So number eighteen is a complete elimination of latencies of the three delusions. So they go completely having gotten rid of all of the the tendencies in the mindstream, all of the imprints towards perceiving things as being truly existent and sort of in a truly existent way. And then my and then number nineteen is great compassion. I don’t know why they said three delusions because it’s not in the Tibetan. Anyway so, yeah, number eighteen, complete elimination of latencies of inherent existence.
Number. Okay. So the next one, number twenty, is the eighteen unshared qualities of a Buddha, which we did. So you’ll have to repeat them now. We did them in Abhisamayālamkāra.
Okay. Now number twenty one. Mhmm. Number twenty one is the three wisdoms of a Buddha, which is the gnyen po’i basis and gnyen po’i aspects. It’s the application of the aspects in that that talks about the eighteen things that are peculiar to a Buddha after the thirty seven ones that are peculiar to that are shared with Buddhas and bodhisattvas.
Yeah? No idea how I made that. This one. And the border for that the border for the the wisdom and truth body, the DhaDharmakaya. Yes.
Okay. So the dharmakaya is only present on the ground of a Buddha. Okay. So next thing, the last one of these, the definition of the enlightened activities of the exalted wisdom truth body is an extremely positive quality arising from the empowering condition of an exalted wisdom truth body which its respective cause, which basically means that what happens when you have an exalted wisdom truth body, or a dharmakaya, is that you have enlightened activity. Through the dharmakaya being there, there has to be enlightened activity to benefit all sentient beings.
So so the that means that the cause for the enlightened activity is the dharmakaya or the enlightened wisdom and truth body. Okay. Right. Now the the in general, when these enlightened activity is divided one more second, sorry. Okay.
So in general, when enlightened activity is divided, there’s said to be two different types of enlightened activity. The enlightenment activity of the object and the enlightened activity of the agent. The agent for enlightened activity is the Buddha. When you have enlightened activity existing in the object, it means enlightened activity existing in the continuum of sentient beings because enlightened activity and virtuous actions are said to be synonymous. So now the reason that all of these are said to come from the empowering condition of an exalted wisdom truth body is that all virtuous actions come about through the the empowering condition of an exalted wisdom truth body.
That is, if there’s no Buddha, there’s no virtue. Alright? When we talk about When we talk about conditions, there’s said to be four conditions for things to come into existence. There’s said to be the condition of the object, the condition of, I forgot. Okay.
So they’re said to be a causal condition, a a causal condition, an object condition, a governing condition, and a immediately preceding condition when we talk about governing conditions that is only said to come about in the form of consciousnesses so we have governing conditions that bring about understandings so in this instance we’re talking about the governing condition. The thing that brings about the understanding of the beings the beings who are doing positive actions and the Buddha’s doing positive actions is the wisdom body wisdom truth body of a fully enlightened Buddha. Uh-huh. Okay. So it says when divided in detail, there are twenty seven.
Now this twenty seven division is is is easy. They are the five paths of the three vehicles. Yeah. The ten, no, sorry.
The five paths of the three ten grounds of the Mahāyāna path of seeing and meditation. So that’s twenty five. Then that which is not ripened, which is like the moment before reaching Buddhahood and the and that which is ripened. So that’s twenty seven. So the the boundaries of this these I understand.
There exists from prior to entering the path until the ground of a Buddha, and it is said to exist in all sentient beings’ continuums. So then there’s a way to remember that there’s what’s called a it’s like a little rhyme in order to remember what’s in the seventy topics. So in order to the little rhyme to remember the seventy topics is the seventy the in summary, the seventy meanings are ten, eleven, nine, eleven, eight, thirteen, four, and four. From that, you’re supposed to remember it all. Oh, yeah.
In summary, the seventy meanings are Ten? Yeah. Just doing a prayer I guess I was just reading the prayer that’s at the end of the text. Okay. In summary, their meanings are ten.
Yeah? The first bit, ten, then eleven, then nine, then eleven. And this one. This. Oh, yeah.
Then eight. Alright? Yeah. Yeah. Then thirteen, four, and four.
The four is Yeah. Okay. So Four five six. The the it says four and four at the end, and that the last four refers to the four bodies of the Buddha, and the previous four refers to the momentary applications at the end of the continuum. Yeah.
So I’ll but that’s the that’s the fourth division, that ninth division, isn’t it? So that’s seventh. One two three four five six seven eight. Eight. It’s fast.
Oh, yeah. Okay. If anyone had we finished. So if anyone has questions That’s the end. That’s it.
I have a script. Oh, yeah. I am listening. Here. I’m sorry.
There’s risk there’s I love that. There’s have you I I have been going on a rampage because I’m so tired and snapping people’s heads off when they ask illogical questions. That’s okay. Go for it. The Tibetan’s practices.
Anyway, go on. Yep. The other thing is Yeah. Yeah. Given the Chinese invasions.
I’m just wondering how they sustain their their faith and belief in their practices. Mhmm. Which Tibetans? Like like practitioners, not just any old Tibetans. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Under that sort of force. Uh-huh. Okay.
Okay. So the Chinese in Tibet said that religion was meaningless and pointless, and they described people who practice religion or practice Dharma as being lazy because their definition of work is actually doing something with an immediate physical reward. When people were studying and listening, they just said that that was just laziness, so they were trying to get them to work in terms of doing things that they could see immediate results from. But the problem with their logic is that if they kept saying, You need to do work in order to get the results, then that’s still reinforcing the idea of cause and effect. Then these people could see through that even in that state.
There was no logic to what they were saying because they say you need to work in order to get results, so they’re saying there’s a cause and there’s an effect. So people who had faith in the Buddhist teachings could see through what they were saying because it was illogical. So even when they were preaching what they were saying was a part of Dharma, but it wasn’t all of it. Does that make sense? And he said, in general, they couldn’t get rid of the people’s from the practitioners and people’s faith and aspiration because it takes more than a few years of adverse circumstances to get rid of imprints that have been put there over hundreds of years or more than that.
So it’s the imprints that make them have faith, and they does that doesn’t get that doesn’t get destroyed by someone telling them it’s not the case. He said that they still remain their faith in Tārā, because the causes that brought the Chinese into Tibet were not outweighed by their praying to Tārā. If people actually believed in Tārā and asked for prayers to Tārā, then they would help that individual in that situation. But the cause for the Chinese to come into Tibet was a community cause. It was a collective cause.
Therefore, Tārā would help individuals in different circumstances through their faith, but there wasn’t the causes there for all all the beings in that area to be protected by Tārā. So there needs to be more than just a prayer to Tārā, for all beings. There needs to be more than just a prayer to Tārā for Tārā to work. There has to be clear faith in Tārā because having faith in Tārā is one more condition. Yeah?
But you need other conditions as well for that faith to come about for that results to come about. So the Chinese people used to throw down statues and break them in front of people and say, this is where you’re going for refuge. How the hell is that gonna help you? And I throw the So so they throw the statues down on the floor and then smash them all up and then go, look. The statue can’t even get up itself.
How come you’re going to refuge for something that can’t even get up itself? What’s wrong with you people? The soldiers used to say that to the people. They used to break their statues in front of them and say, you’re taking refuge in something that they can’t help you. Can it get up?
Can it help you? And they used used to say, yeah, that to them all the time. He said the Chinese say lots of things. They’re crazy. Geshe la says, yes, you look at the things and you think, okay, this statue is the power of the mind.
This statue is Tārā. This Tārā statue is Buddha. So you’re looking at that with that intention, but it’s not the statue itself it’s the intention, it’s the view that creates the idea, not the metal or the wood itself. Okay. So Geshe-la said, it is a very hard thing for us to conceive, it’s a very difficult thing for us to even conceive of all our previous lives, let alone where the first Buddha came from.
So he thinks that that would be a difficult thing. Because it’s the last night, and I’m not gonna argue with him too much, I said, yeah. It makes you think that maybe we’ve got enlightenment in our continuum. We just don’t realize it. Hey.
And he said, oh, like that. And and then he said he said that we have the Buddha potential. And once once we’re since all sentient beings have always had the Buddha potential, then at some stage, they had then then they always had to be because there’s Buddha potential, they had to the the essence of the Buddhas. So that that’s how it came about. Asking about other people finding out about other people isn’t necessarily idle chatter.
Yeah? It depends on the motivation. If the motivation is desire, anger, hatred, any of those things, then it’s idle chatter. And if the motivation is knowledge, it’s not idle chatter. Curiosity is not idle chatter.
Depends what Okay. So if if it’s curiosity, it’s not necessarily idle chatter, but it can be. Right? If it’s if it’s curiosity in order to make something out of it for yourself, like to get something out of it in in terms of because of grasping at something or because of anger or because of manipulation, then it’s idle chatter. If it’s curiosity because it’s finding out in order to help, finding out in order to do something positive, it’s not idle chatter.
Yeah. I said it’s difficult when you’re a layperson because of the different motivations. And he said all of these, all of the actions where the negative, positive rely on motivation. And translating.