Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. “The chronic disease of cherishing ourselves” — a phrase from the Guru Puja quoted midway through — anchors this 41-minute session by Geshe Pema Tsering on the Lamrim exchange of self and others. He traces how self-cherishing underlies all samsaric suffering and, crucially, blocks Buddhahood entirely. He then reverses the lens: every happiness — body, food, friendships, spiritual progress — depends on other beings. Concrete karma examples follow: harming others causes illness and short life; generosity brings wealth; showing respect builds power and independence. He closes with Śāntideva’s challenge — if sentient beings are as kind as Buddhas, why treat them differently? — and Nāgārjuna’s confirmation that Buddhahood is simply impossible without them. Suited to practitioners following the Lamrim series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 SoP 2004 06 13.mp3
UUID: 2888863c-c06a-4725-ba9e-9fd2bae817b6
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Stages of the Path (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-06-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 41.0 minutes
Words: ~3,235
Mhmm. And then Lojong is noted at the beginning and end. Okay. So in Lojong, at the different beginning and the end, do two things. So one thing at the beginning and one thing at the end.
Mhmm. So And what is this is this is referring to is at the beginning, Because this is a Mahāyāna text, which is a text based on an altruistic outlook, then we should try and develop a motivation that is in accordance with the text that matches the text. So this means that we should try and develop the mind of bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment for listening to this text as our motivation for listening to this text. So this means that we should be trying to listen to the text the teachings on the text with the idea that we’re doing so to create the causes and to be able to put into practice the causes for us to become a Buddha so we can benefit all sentient beings. So we should think, I’ll listen to this, and then I’ll develop understanding from this, and I’ll be able to put it into practice, and I’ll be able to put it into practice in this very lifetime.
We should try and develop that in a strong way. So first of all, Geshe-la doesn’t think that we need to meditate this morning because he thinks that you’ve already done it because there’s a meditation class and so on. And where we’re up to in the text is we’re actually talking about the development of bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment, through the exchange of self and others. That is, through changing our cherishing of self to being a cherishing of others. We’re talking about the faults of self-cherishing, like how considering ourselves to be the most important things and not thinking about others is actually faulty by nature.
At this stage, it says that if we look at all of the faults of saṃsāra, all of the things that are wrong with saṃsāra, then we can see that all of these come back from our cherishing self by doing things for our own benefit. All of the suffering that we may experience in saṃsāra comes about because of our looking towards ourself and looking towards others. Instead of looking towards others, sorry. Now, if this self-cherishing is really strong, then we focus on what’s going to happen for us in this lifetime. We start looking about how we can we’re constantly focused on how we can make ourselves feel better in the very short term.
If our self-cherishing becomes a little less strong, then we may be thinking about how we can help ourselves in the next life, what we can do to establish ourselves in a good rebirth next time. Even less strong, if we’re focused on achieving individual liberation, we still have self grasping it’s just not as intense or as ignorant. This means that all of these things are achievable even with a sense of self-cherishing or having this idea of thinking of ourselves as more important. But we can’t achieve Buddhahood with self-cherishing. self-cherishing acts as a stop on our achievement of Buddhahood because we can’t achieve Buddhahood if we’re focusing on ourselves.
We need to be focusing on others. self-cherishing diminishes all the positive things we’ve done and stops us from being able to create the causes for achieving Buddhahood. So after we’ve thought on this, on the things that we went through last weekend on the faults that are evidence with self-cherishing, then we should imagine, because this is focused on the Guru Puja. In the Guru Puja, you imagine the teacher inseparable from the deity that you’re focused on and the whole of the merit field in front of you, of the different lineage teachers and so forth. You imagine them in front of you, and you ask them to please bless you to develop the following understanding.
What you’re actually asking them to develop the understanding of in your mind stream is it starts off with this chronic disease of cherishing ourselves. Cherishing ourselves is said to be a chronic disease because it creates so much suffering for us and it puts us in a situation where we’re continually going to create the causes for suffering. We want to get rid of this cherishing self. In this way, said that cherishing self is the no, there’s no stronger disease than cherishing self. There’s no more virulent disease than cherishing self.
The first chronic disease of cherishing ourselves, and the second line is the cause giving rise to our unsought suffering. We may not want to experience suffering, but if we keep continually thinking of ourselves and not others, then we’re going to keep experiencing suffering. Next two lines say: Perceiving this, we seek your blessings to blame, begrudge, and destroy the monstrous demon of selfishness. This means that if we’re able to perceive that self-cherishing is the cause of this different suffering, then we’re going to point the blame at it. It is actually to hold a grudge against it, to think, ‘Okay, you’re the thing that’s creating all this suffering,’ to not forget it, forget that that’s the reason why we’re experiencing suffering, but to hold a grudge against this self-cherishing.
And through these ideas of blaming it for what the problem is and holding a grudge against it, then we want to destroy it because it’s the reason we’re experiencing all this suffering. So it says destroy the monstrous demon of selfishness. So then after we’ve thought on this verse, we then imagine that lights or light nectar descend from it. Okay. Therefore, we imagine that all these it’s called nectar or amrita comes down from the deities that we’re focused on in front of us and in different colors.
So this can either take the form of like water or of like light rays that are in different colors. And it comes down from the thing we’re focusing on in meditation and it enters into our body and bodies of all sentient beings. It does so, you imagine that it’s getting rid of all of the obscurations to developing this understanding, of the things that stop us from seeing that selfishness is the main problem in developing understanding. So these lights come down or this water is actually nectar comes down and wipes all that out from our system and from the mind streams and the bodies of all our sentient beings. So that was the description of what the faults of self-cherishing were, and now we’re going to talk about the positive qualities of focusing on others.
When we’re talking about the faults of cherishing self, we’re basically talking about the faults of this mind that’s continually going me, me, me, me, and not focusing on others. And here, we’re looking at the positive qualities of thinking mainly of others. So the main focus for this development of understanding the development of the mind realizing that sentient beings are our mothers, and having shown us great kindness and focusing on their benefit as opposed to our own selfish benefit is based on the idea that every single happiness that we experience, every pleasure that we experience, or have experienced, or will experience actually comes about because of other beings. It doesn’t come about from ourselves. Because of this, we need to look at the real cause for our happiness, and that is others and not ourselves.
We need to then look at being able to repay those that have given us happiness, and that is others and not ourselves again. If we get rid of this idea that we’re the most important things and start focusing on others, then we’ve gotten rid of the cause of many faults and we’re able to develop the cause for many positive things. The idea behind this meditation practices or the development of this ability is that we’re able to eventually be able to see other beings’ lives as being more important than our own. So we are trying to work towards developing the understanding that all the suffering that we experience in this lifetime and have in others and will in the future comes about because of our cherishing self, the idea that we are the most important beings in the world or in the universe. All of the happiness that we experience actually comes about through cherishing others or comes about in dependence on others.
We’ve already talked about the way that all of the suffering that we experience comes about through self-cherishing. Now we’re looking at the way all the positive things that we can experience come about from others, and therefore we should cherish them. So if we just even look at the short term, if we look at our temporary situation, then any of the positive things that we have in this life time or we have in saṃsāra in general, it comes about because of other sentient beings, because of the kindness of other sentient beings. Even, in fact, the very body we have comes about because of the kindness of sentient beings. Our parents gave us this body, so even the base that we have to experience different happinesses comes about from other beings.
Whether we develop the positive karma to be born into a positive state, like a god or a human, is actually dependent on other beings, whether we’ve done good things for other beings and therefore created the right karma. The food that we eat, the things that we drink, and all of the material things that we possess in this life all come about because of other beings. Other beings have developed them, made them, and so forth, given them to us, whatever it is. Our long life, if we have a long life, our long life depends on other sentient beings to sustain it. Our our body having a good body depends on other other beings.
Any power that we have is dependent on other beings. And in brief, all of the good things in Samsāra are said to come about only through the kindness of other sentient beings. So, okay, we need to look at the way that this happens, how we develop happiness from other beings, how we experience happiness because of other beings. The first thing is to look at the consequences of harming others and the positive consequences of helping others. So if we are to go around killing people or to try and shorten their lives their lives in a certain way, then the extreme consequences of that action, if that’s the main thing that we do in life, then the extreme consequences of that action is to be born into a hell like existence to have to experience the karmic consequences of bad actions.
Or even if we are able to achieve a human rebirth because that wasn’t the main focus of our existence, killing and harming others creates the causes for us to experience a shortened lifetime or a great illness or many harms or different types of external things may be able to harm us. That’s the way to say this is the consequences of us cherishing self and not focusing on us, not thinking about the well-being of others and not trying to help others. We experience this intense different types of suffering. But on the other hand, if we start treating — it’s calling all sentient beings our kind mothers, right? And so if we start focusing on how all beings have been our mother in one lifetime or another, we should treat our old mums with a lot of respect and try and help them to have physical well-being, then that acts as the cause for us to experience a long lifetime, to have a good body, to have nothing but happiness.
So from treating other beings with respect and kindness, then we’re able to experience nothing but happiness ourselves. But by harming them, we experience suffering. So in this way, by treating them with respect, we experience happiness. So therefore, the happiness we experience from that is dependent on them being there so we can respect them and be kind to them. So the other thing is if we are miserly and we steal from others, then we don’t give them material things.
That’s creating a situation where we’re going to experience the inability to get wealth or the inability to have enough to sustain ourselves. The consequences of not giving is not to receive. That means that if we treat others harmfully or don’t think about others, then the only experience that we can actually take from that is to experience suffering through not getting material possessions or food or whatever it is that we need. On the other hand, if we think about how we can benefit others, if we are focused on how we can help them, how we can do things to give to them instead of taking from them, then we’re doing nothing but creating the causes for happiness, for experiencing happiness. So this basically all comes down to our motivation.
If we have the motivation that we’re doing something to benefit ourselves and we’re ignoring the needs of others and we’re not focusing on the needs of others, we’re actually setting up the causes for us to experience suffering because we’re performing negative actions. And if we’re focused on others, we’re focused on how we can help others, how we can benefit others, then every action that we do, depending on our motivation, action that we do is actually creating the causes for us to experience happiness. So if by ignoring others, we create the causes for suffering, and by focusing on others and not focusing on ourselves, then we create the causes for happiness. Okay. So the other thing was that by disparaging others and talking about their faults all the time, we set up situation for ourselves to be we were born in a negative state like an animal realm because there we don’t have the qualities that we were disparaging in others, if that makes sense.
There s all different other ways we can treat others badly. We can look down on those who are in a lower situation in life to us. We can not give away things that we have. We can take a lot of power for ourselves and not treat those in difficult situations in a positive way. By doing this, we’re setting up the causes for us to experience being born without any personal power or independence or ability to do anything in a future existence, and therefore, from not giving to others or not helping those in a lower position than ourselves, we’re creating the causes for suffering.
On the other hand, if we are respectful to all beings, if we are patient with all beings, and then we we are setting up the causes or setting up the situation where we will experience a good body with good status, with independence and all of the positive attributes of power that we can have in a lifetime. So there’s nothing that happiness that can come about from respecting other beings. This one? This? Oh, yeah.
So in short, this means that all the suffering that we experience in saṃsāra comes about from cherishing self and not thinking of others. All of the positive things that we experience in saṃsāra comes about from focusing on others and not cherishing self. That’s the short term benefits of having this mind that cherishes others and getting rid of the mind that cherishes yourself. There are also long term benefits because achieving Buddhahood also relies on our mother sentient beings. If we don’t focus on our mother sentient beings, then we don’t have a reason to develop bodhicitta.
And if we don’t have bodhicitta, then we can’t become buddha. So the actual development of the mind or the idea of working towards Buddhahood depends on the concept of all sentient beings. Then also the positive actions that we need to do in order to take us along the path, like the perfection of generosity and the perfection of ethics and the perfection of patience. All of these things also depend on all sentient beings. We can’t practice patience, we can’t practice generosity, we can’t practice ethics if there are no other sentient beings to interact with.
We need sentient beings in order to develop bodhicitta, we need sentient beings in order to practice the perfections. Therefore, achieving Buddhahood is impossible without other sentient beings. This way, sentient beings are not only responsible for all the positive things that we experience in this lifetime. They’re also responsible for us being able to achieve Buddhahood. So it’s like Śāntideva said in his Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.
Sentient beings are equal in their kindness to Buddhas. In order for us to become a Buddha, we need both sentient beings and Buddhas. So why is it that we are very respectful to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and aren’t respectful to to sentient beings? Why do why do we behave like this? Yeah.
This one. So and that’s with the way that Śāntideva explained it. I sound very strangely. Yeah. Yes.
Anyway, Nāgārjuna says that in one of his texts, which is actually called the Commentary on Bodhicitta or the Commentary on the Mind of Enlightenment, he says, in dependence on sentient beings, we achieve Buddhahood. It comes about because sentient beings have shown us the way. Also, all of the attributes we have as a God or a human, our friends, our power, our strength, all of these also come about from sentient beings. Without sentient beings, we wouldn’t have any positive experiences. So why how can we possibly not like, or how can we possibly not respect sentient beings?
Oh, yeah. That’s. So we can stop then. Got questions. So we questions.
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yes. Had it.
So he said, did that help you develop bodhicitta? He’s hoping that you don’t think that it’s easy to get rid of this idea of self-cherishing and start focusing on others because he thinks it takes a lot of hard work. He goes, but just think of all the hard work that you’ve done because of self-cherishing in the past, yeah? And so, everything you’ve done up until now, you’ve been working really hard since, like, before, you know, beyond the concept of time, and all of that’s been self-cherishing. So it’s like you’ve done all this hard work for that.
Now you have to put in hard work to get rid of that. So yeah. So does no one have questions? I can’t believe that. Woah.
Yours are white again. Oh, yeah. So you said if you don’t have questions oh, was that no? No questions. Wow.
Yeah. That’s the first time I’ve had to translate without questions. I’m a bit stunned. Yeah. But I guess he thinks that, you know, you guys must be clever and get it.
It’s okay to have questions. Okay. Oh, no. It’s me again, isn’t it? Yeah.
Oh, yeah. The other thing you said, you don’t have to ask questions, but please try and get rid of self-cherishing. Right.