Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Why does developing a good motivation feel so hard when it takes only five minutes? Geshe Pema Tsering opens this 45-minute session by answering directly: self-cherishing and habitual distraction crowd out even brief efforts to cultivate bodhicitta. He walks through the three valid levels of motivation — bodhicitta, aspiration for personal liberation, and the wish for a positive rebirth — explaining why actions without one of these remain limited to a single lifetime. The talk then introduces two methods for developing bodhicitta from the first Pänchen Lama’s Lamrim prayer: the seven-cause-and-one-result sequence (seeing all beings as past mothers) and the exchange of self for others. Combining both, he explains, intensifies compassion and loving-kindness, leading naturally to superior intention and then bodhicitta itself. A structured Lamrim review closes the session, with the meditation on mothers announced for the following week.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 SoP 2004 05 09.mp3
UUID: 6c0820f2-a607-4471-a9fd-1f5226aba6d3
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Stages of the Path (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-05-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~3,848
In the seven points of mind training that was noted down by Chekawa, then he said that two things, in the beginning and in the end. One in the beginning, one in the end. Now what this is referring to is that before we perform any positive action then we have to make sure that we have the right motivation for performing that action and in the end we should have the idea that we are going to dedicate that action towards the positive outcome of that action towards a certain goal. So in the beginning, before we perform an action, we should look to see if our motivation is correct. We should look to see why we’re doing something.
And if we’re doing what we’re doing, we want it to be a positive dharma action or a positive religious action, then we need to make sure that we have one of three motivations. The best motivation that we can have is bodhicitta, either bodhicitta that is the mind of enlightenment, either spontaneous, unaffected bodhicitta or a cultivated bodhicitta that we can develop in ourselves. If we are unable to develop this kind of motivation, then we should try and develop the motivation to seek personal liberation, that is liberation for our own selves. And if we’re unable to achieve or cultivate either of those motivations, we should try and develop the motivation to be saved from the suffering of the lower realms, to create the causes not to be reborn in the lower realms. So we motivate ourselves with either one of the any one of these three thoughts.
If we don’t have this motivation, if we don’t have the motivation of bodhicitta or liberation or to achieve a positive rebirth, rebirth, then whatever it is that we’re doing, the benefits of that action will only be limited to this lifetime. If we do anything with the focus of this lifetime, the results will only be felt in this lifetime and they will be quickly exhausted. What this means is, for example, if we do everything in a day to day manner and we think, “I’m doing this in order to feel a bit happier now,” or “I’m doing this in order to have something for tomorrow”, that is all we will get from it. We will only be in a happier mood for a few hours or we will only get something that we can use the next day or the day after and then the positive results from that action will be finished they’ll run out. If, on the other hand, we develop the idea that or we cultivate the idea that whatever action we are performing is being done in order to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, then the positive results of that action continue on until we become completely enlightened.
Likewise, if we develop the idea we’re doing something in order to get a positive rebirth, then that will continue on until we get the results will continue on until we get a positive rebirth. The other thing is that developing the right motivation isn’t that hard. It’s not that difficult for us to do. We just sit there and we think, Okay, just like me, all other sentient beings are experiencing suffering. They don’t want to experience suffering.
There’s myriad of different types of suffering they can experience in all the different realms. They may experience everything from the hell realms to the suffering of death as the gods. Because the limitless nature of this suffering I have to develop a limitless motivation in order to be of benefit to these beings. So for the benefit of all sentient beings, limitless in their number I developed the idea of attaining Buddhahood in order to be of the most benefit to these beings and we can do that by just sitting down we don’t have to go and work very hard to do it we don’t have to go for a long walk in order to develop this idea. We can just sit down, think about it a bit.
It’ll take about five minutes, and then we have a good motivation. It’s not very hard. Okay. So it’s not very difficult for us to do, but because of our self-cherishing, because we consider ourselves to be so very important and we have this idea of grasping itself, and then even spending five minutes to develop this motivation appears to be a very difficult thing for us to do. Indeed it becomes a difficult thing for us to do because it’s much easier just to sit there and relax.
It’s much easier to sit there and think I don’t have to do anything and the the idea of not having to do anything is a is a type of laziness called distraction so we have this idea It’s easier for me to go off and do something that will make me happier in the short term than it is to sit here and try and cultivate even for five minutes this idea of achieving enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. We have habituated ourselves towards this idea of self-cherishing so much that it’s very difficult for us to turn our mind away from that idea. So what happens is if we’re not able to stop these destructive emotions that we have that we are so strongly habituated into experiencing then we’re unable to develop the positive states of mind which in themselves may be quite easy to develop. So if we don’t stop the destructive emotions, we don’t have the space to develop the positive emotions. So what happens is because we have become so habituated towards the negative emotions because we have become so frequent the negative come about so frequently in our mind stream then we are under this way of this type of laziness or this distraction that stops us from being able to develop the positive emotion or the right the positive emotion of compassion, which is the right motivation for doing any action.
So please have the motivation that the reason that you’re listening to this discourse on the stages of the path from the Guru Puja is in order to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. And not only this, this text stages the path from the Guru Puja is actually taught from the perspective of the tantra or the vajrayana vehicle. What this means is that the way that you perceive this teaching is that you have the idea of the teacher being inseparable from the meditation or deity. It is granting you blessings that enable you develop an understanding of this text. Okay.
So we’re going through the prayer reviewing the stages of the path from the Guru Puja, which was written by someone called Pänchen Chökyi Gyaltsen, who was the first Pänchen Lama. In prayer, reviewing the stages of the path, Pänchen Rinpoche combines the two different ways for developing bodhicitta together in a couple of the verses. These two different ways of achieving bodhicitta or developing bodhicitta actually come down through what are called the two charioteers of the personal instruction lineages. Now, a charioteer is someone who steers the lineage, so the two founders of the lineages. It comes down from them and then Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen, this first Pänchen Lama, presents them inseparably or mixed together it says though in this text that the commentary on the reviewing stages of the path which is what we’re going through will do them one by one because that allows the writer to go into more detail Okay.
So this lineage came down through Nāgārjuna and people like Śāntideva eventually to the teacher Atisha who took the teachings to Tibet and then they proceeded to be handed down from one teacher to student teacher to student until they reach the first Pänchen lama who is then explaining them here so the first way that he’s the first type of developing bodhicitta that he’s going to explain is what’s called the six cause and one result explanation of the development of bodhicitta. In this, it says at the beginning, we need to develop the idea that all beings have been our mothers and so having realized that all beings have been our mothers we have to have the idea of remembering the kindness of our mothers and then the wish to repay the kindness of the mothers, of all the beings who have been our mothers. There’s three levels to this process, and if you don’t have that according to this tradition, then you can’t develop the more profound ideas of loving kindness that finds all beings appealing and compassion. The process happens that first of all we perceive that all beings have been our mothers, we reflect on the kindness of these beings towards us in the past, and then we think how we really need to repay that kindness.
Then on that basis we develop what’s called loving kindness which finds all beings appealing. Is, the loving kindness sees all beings as being worthy of help or worthy of love. And then after that, if we have a solid basis of this, we then develop this thing called compassion. And after we develop compassion or great compassion, then we’re able to develop the thought of bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment. Okay.
Okay. So that’s basically the first way to develop this idea of bodhicitta. We go through these things stage by stage, focusing first of all on the idea that all beings have been our mothers and shown us great kindness in previous lives and eventually coming out with the idea of bodhicitta following the seven fold process. Now the other explanation or the other way that we can develop bodhicitta is what’s called the exchange of self for others. What Pänchen Lama has done in this text is he’s explained that if you combine these two then the intensity of your devotion to others, intensity of your love for others that finds all beings appealing can be intensified the intensity can be multiplied if at the stage where you are focusing on the and loving kindness that finds all beings appealing that you then practice exchange yourself and others now what the exchange yourself and others means is that and you see all the faults of looking at yourself see all the faults of focusing on self and practicing as and having self grasping of self-cherishing, how self-cherishing can develop all this suffering in our lives, and see all the qualities or the benefit of focusing on others, of working for the benefit of others.
Through this process, then you start to focus more on being able to benefit others and less on being able to benefit self because in actual fact the only real benefit for self is focusing on others so through practicing this what’s called the exchange of self and others being the exchange of cherishing self for cherishing others. This is said to intensify the development of compassion and intensify the feeling of loving kindness towards all beings, which then leads to the development of bodhicitta. So having developed this idea of compassion for all beings, the idea that all beings should be separated from suffering and a loving kindness that finds all beings appealing, the next thought that we need to develop from this or the next stage of this process of meditation is the idea of what’s called superior intention or universal responsibility, which literally translated from Tibetan is the superior thought. Now the reason it’s called the superior thought is because it’s said to be superior to any conceptual thought, any other’s conceptual thought that you can have. So through the combination of exchanging self and others and through this idea of seeing all beings as our mothers and then wishing to repay their kindness, we proceed through the development of loving kindness, then compassion, then on to this sorry.
So you have the idea of seeing all beings as your mother, and then you have the idea of exchanging self for another. Through the combination of both of those, you achieve loving kindness and compassion through those two then you achieve this superior thought or universal intention. Now this universal intention takes loving kindness and compassion one step further and then it has the idea that not only should all these beings be free from suffering not only do I want all of these beings to be free from suffering and have this intense compassion for them but in order to bring that about I’m going to become a buddha if I not going to do it, who is going to do it? So I have to take this responsibility onto myself to achieve Buddhahood in order to be of benefit to all these beings. So from this idea, this idea that we ourselves have to do something to stop all these beings suffering and to make all these beings happy, comes the next level which is the actual bodhicitta when we have to decide what it is that can actually bring this about so if we look at it then we think okay how can I stop all beings suffering how can I experience sorry how can I bring them to experience happiness and the only answer we can have to that is that these beings should be should be led to complete Buddhahood and in order to lead someone somewhere you have to know where you’re going So, in order for us to lead all beings to Buddhahood, then we have to know how to get there, so we have to become our fully enlightened Buddhas ourselves?
So then, if we develop this idea, in order for all these beings who have shown me great kindness, whose happiness is much more important than my own, that can bring much more benefits than my own happiness, then I need to myself take on the responsibility of becoming a fully enlightened Buddha to show them how to stop experiencing suffering and how to experience happiness. Okay, so this idea that we need to develop the mind of enlightenment through the process of first of all viewing all beings as having shown us great kindness through being our mothers in previous lifetimes and then develop the idea that somehow or other we have to repay that kindness and that we have to show them how to be happy and when we have this idea that all beings deserve to be shown how to be happy we have this loving kindness towards all these beings and we can intensify that loving kindness through the exchange of self and others. Seeing that self-cherishing has no positive qualities and cherishing others is an incredibly positive thing to do that brings so much happiness to so many beings. This intensifies our sense of love and kindness towards others and our compassion towards others.
Through the basis of this love and kindness that we develop towards others and compassion towards others, through seeing them as our parents in previous lives, through seeing them, seeing the qualities of cherishing others, then we develop this superior thought or this universal responsibility to bring about the happiness of all these beings, bring about the end of the suffering of all these beings. Through that, naturally comes about the mind of bodhicitta. Through this superior thought, we are naturally led on to the thought of bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment. Now, this process that we’ve gone through in this is said to be the intention or the thought or the way of doing things that the Buddha explained and it was elaborated on and clarified by what are called the charioteers or the founders of the lineage, the people who held up the lineage in times past, especially in this case it is Nāgārjuna, the Indian pandit, and Asaṇga, who is another Indian pandit. And this was passed on from teacher to student to teacher to student, teacher to student until it came to Atisha, who brought it to Tibet.
It was then passed on to Lama Tsongkhapa, and the intention of Lama Tsongkhapa was again explained by the teacher, the first Pänchen Lama in this text that we are now looking at. Okay. Okay. So right. Then then it goes on to a review of the stages we’ve reviewed already.
Does that make sense? Okay, right. So it starts off with this idea that because this practice that we’re talking about here, because of reviewing the stages of the path is talked about in the Guru Puja, then first of all what we should see or visualizing when we’re going through this prayer when we’re doing the Guru Puja is that ourselves our teacher and the meditational deity in the form of the Buddha and the Sambhogakāya form that we’re meditating on. We should imagine that all three of those become inseparable. That is, we are our teacher who is the meditational deity that is the Buddha and they are us, if that makes sense.
The three of us are inseparable. Once we have visualized this, then we do again a review of the stages that we’ve already reviewed, if that makes sense again. First of all, remember that at the moment we have achieved a precious human rebirth which is the only way that we can actually practice the Dharma properly and this is very rare and easily lost so we have to make the most of this opportunity. The next thing we need to remember is death and impermanence. Death can come at any time and nothing that we experience is stable and unchanging, so we can’t put our trust in anything that isn’t going to be around forever.
The next thing after that then we have to remember is a cause and effect. We have to remember the process of cause and effect and in particular we need to focus on the practice of the ten virtuous actions and the abandonment of the ten non virtuous actions. After we’ve focused on that then we also need to remember the shortcomings of saṃsāra. There are many things in saṃsāra that we view as being helpful but they aren’t actually helpful. They cause us suffering even though we may perceive it as happiness.
Having pondered or having contemplated these things, then we are able to develop what’s called definite emergence or renunciation, the mind that turns its back on or turns away from the so called happinesses of saṃsāra that actually inhibit liberation and strive single pointedly for that liberation. So we need to encourage this thought to come about in our minds. After we’ve encouraged this thought to come about in our minds that we should strive for liberation and not be caught up in the things that we consider pleasure in saṃsāra, we then need to practice the three higher trainings. That is the higher training in ethics, the higher training in meditation, and the higher training in wisdom. Through practicing these three higher trainings then we develop the power to be able to get out of Samsāra and experience liberation.
Once we have developed this power however that’s not enough because what we’re talking about in this instance then is only the entry into the Hīnayāna path or the lower vehicle path that only leads to personal liberation. Then we need to contemplate that since a beginningless time up until now, because we have taken so many rebirths in so many different ways, it means that sentient beings have all been our, and literally says in the text our old mums so therefore considering they are experiencing the sufferings of saṃsāra then we need to do something to get them out of that situation we need to do something in order to liberate them from the suffering that they’re experiencing and then it says if not us their only child who will do it we should be terribly ashamed if we were going to leave mothers who have shown us great kindness living in such or experiencing such suffering. So once we have seen this, then we should do whatever it is that we can in order to relieve that suffering. And what we need to do in order to relieve that suffering is to develop through perceiving the qualities of others, the faults in self-cherishing and the positive qualities in cherishing others, that we can achieve the final state of Buddhahood and not slip down onto the lower path which is only focusing on our own liberation.
Oh, and then still not finished. And then after we have developed this idea, then it’s very difficult for us to do this. It’s very difficult for us to actually have the mind of renunciation, let alone the mind or the way of thinking that wants to approach the Mahāyāna, the great path to enlightenment that’s taking on so much suffering of all these different beings and it’s such a hard thing to do. In order to bring this about, we need all the help we can get. So what we imagine then happening is that the deity inseparable from the teacher grants us blessings that are actually light which is by its nature compassion that comes down and gets rid of all our obstructions to being able to have the courage to follow this path and to be able to enter this path, which is very difficult to enter and takes a lot of courage and a lot of clarity.
Well, it sorry. As the Buddha says, takes a lot of courage and a lot of clarity. Okay. Okay. So because it is very, very difficult to bring about the entry into the middle way, there is different explanations for how we need to develop idea of develop the mind of bodhicitta, develop the mind of enlightenment.
The way that it’s explained by the Pänchen Lama is that it’s a combination of these two things. We need bodhicitta. In order for us to develop bodhicitta, which is very difficult and is the entry to the great path, then we need to develop great love and kindness. Before great compassion, we need to develop great love and kindness. In order to intensify these, we can use the exchange of self for others.
Before we have this idea of wanting to do that, then we need to have the idea of seeing all beings as having been our kind mothers in past lives who have shown us great kindness and to be horrified by the thought of leaving them in the existence of suffering that they’re experiencing now. Is the overview of how the two things fit together. Next up comes the explanation of to develop bodhicitta according to the seven causes and one result, which focuses on the meditation on mothers. So we do that next week. So if anyone has any questions.