Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Identifying self-cherishing — not external demons — as the most harmful force we encounter, Geshe Pema Tsering works through four practices for turning suffering into progress. In this 45-minute Lamrim commentary on verse 96, he explains: offering illness or loss back to the Buddhas as a patience-building gift; purifying negative karma through the four powers (refuge as the base, regret, restraint, and a positive remedy); making offerings to whatever beings create hardship — with a practical note that any food can substitute for the traditional barley-flour torma in Australia; and requesting Dharma protectors to allow only those difficult experiences that will help develop bodhicitta. He closes with the counterintuitive argument that suffering is indispensable — beings in the god realm, unchallenged by hardship, never think to practise dharma. Suited to practitioners already working through the Lamrim.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 SoP 2004 09 05.mp3
UUID: 92576b3f-9d51-473f-830a-87525df2c142
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Stages of the Path (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-09-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~3,891
Please try and develop the right motivation for listening to your teachings this morning. So the best motivation that you can have for doing anything, is that you’re doing it in order to become, a Buddha, and therefore to be able to benefit all all other beings. So the the way to think about this is to then think, well, I’m experiencing suffering, and I don’t wanna experience suffering, so I need to know how to create these causes to experience happiness. And that’s the same for all other sentient beings. They they are all suffering, and they don’t wanna experience suffering.
And so in order to help, them stop experiencing suffering and for in order to stop myself experiencing suffering, I need to, become a realised being a Buddha. So in order to bring this about, then I need to develop bodhicitta. So the mind of enlightenment, the thought to become enlightened for the benefit of all sentient beings. And so by listening to these teachings today, may I become a Buddha may I sorry. May I understand how to develop bodhicitta, go on to develop bodhicitta, by that, become a Buddha.
So with this thought in mind, then please listen to the the teachings. With this motivation, please listen to the teachings. Okay. So we’re actually up to verse going through verse ninety six, of the, text, and that says, should even the environment and the beings therein be filled with fruits of their karmic debts and unwished-for sufferings pour down like rain, we seek your blessings to take these miserable conditions as a path by seeking them as causes to exhaust the results of our negative karma Now with regards to this verse there’s three different sections The first of which is the way to know this the way to know that this is the case The second is the view with which we should do this And then the third is the actual practices that you can engage in in order to bring this understanding about. So one we’re up to today is the practices that we can engage in in order to take it it the practice first describes what we call taking suffering or taking negative conditions onto the path, turning them into a path.
So in actual fact, it’s the third aspect of early practice, how to practice or how to bring what practices to do to bring negative conditions into the path. It also relates to the first two lines of the next verse, which says, In short, no matter what appearances may arise, be they good or bad, we seek your blessings to transform them into a path ever enhancing the bodhicittas. So, this is a brief description of our practising the four practises, doing the four practices. So the four practices, mainly since then, are to purify negative negative actions, to create merits, to, make offerings to, difficult spirits and also to protect us. So the first thing that we’re looking at then is how to turn sufferings that we experience into an offering, how to turn any illness, anything that we may experience into actually being an offering to others, like a gift to others and a gift to the voice.
So the way that this can be done is then every time that we experience suffering, and we experience different types of suffering in our lifetimes, whether it’s illness, whether it’s a loss or something we treasure. So any of these things, can actually think of them and first of all, make an offering of a mandala to, the Buddhas and teachers and so on. And then after that we can think, okay, if it’s best for me to be ill, then let me be ill. If it’s best for me to die, then let me die. If it’s best for me to recover and to get well, then let me recover.
So in this way then, we’re turning our illness into an actual practice of trying to benefit others as opposed to thinking about ourselves. So the so the way that we can do this here in more detail is that whenever we experience suffering, whenever we experience things that we don’t want to experience because we all want to be happy and we don’t want to experience suffering, but we always experience suffering anyway, because we’ve created the causes for experiencing suffering. So when this happens, when we experience illness, when we experience the loss of something, then the practice that we can do that this verse describes is that we think, this suffering that I’m experiencing, this loss of something, this illness, whatever it is, is actually a gift from my teacher in order for me to develop patience. It’s a gift that they’ve given us in order to develop patience, in order or from the Buddhas in order to develop patience, in order to develop, other different qualities, compassion, and so forth. So, therefore, I’m very glad for it.
So the if we’ve if we thought about, if we think about suffering in this way, if we think about experiences of illness or suffering that we may have in this way, then we could think then, well, thank you very much for this. And then in as a gesture in return, make a make offerings or a mandala offering to the Buddhas and the teachers and so on. So this is the first thing we do and then we can request them or we can ask for their blessings that whatever happens to us will be what we need in order to develop towards becoming a Buddha or a an arhat, someone who’s realized nirvana. So in this case, we’d say we’d say some we’d make this prayer like, if me getting ill enables me to develop my potential, develop my qualities and work towards nirvana and Buddhahood, then let me be ill. If me if recovering lets me from this illness or lets me, or give me the conditions to work towards nirvana and work towards becoming a Buddha, then let me recover from this illness.
If dying enables me to work towards becoming a Buddha and work towards, achieving nirvana, then let me die. And if not dying will give me the opportunity to work towards becoming a Buddha and work towards achieving nirvana, then let me not die. So we have any of these experiences that we can have that are negative, we can actually turn them into an opportunity to create merit or create positive karma because, we want to develop bodhicitta, in order for us to develop bodhicitta, we need, positive karma. We need the conditions to do it. And so this is one way of turning negative situations that we have into an opportunity to develop bodhicitta.
So the second way that we can turn experiences of suffering into the path or into a a way to develop ourselves is through purifying negative karma that we’ve accumulated in the past. Now, any experience of suffering that we have or we may encounter is we are encountering because we have created the causes for experiencing it. And so if we don’t want to create if we don’t want to experience suffering, we have to stop creating the causes for experiencing suffering. So the only people as well as well as the only people that can create the causes for suffering is ourselves. The only people that can get rid of the causes for suffering are ourselves.
So, we need to, purify the negative karma that we’ve accumulated in the past in order not to experience, suffering in the future. So, the we’re given the instructions for how to purify things from the teacher, we can’t actually appreciate these until we experience suffering. So experiencing suffering can be a reminder for us to purify the causes of suffering. So if we don’t know about suffering, then we’re not going to want to purify it. We’re not going to try and stop creating the causes for suffering or get rid of the potential for suffering that we have with the negative karma that we, that accompanies us.
Now the way that we purify negative karma is by applying what are called the four powers. The first, Okay. So the first the first of the four powers I was trying to remember the the, where the first two went. The first of the four powers is this idea of a base. You have to have some kind of, place to start with in terms of, in terms of, purifying anything.
You have to have something that you can focus on in order to do this. And the basis from the Buddha’s point of view is the Three Jewels and bodhicitta. So this means that you start from the point of view of you go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha, and you want to retain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. So this gives you your reason why you want to purify negative karma, and that’s the base from which you work from. The second part of this purification is the power of regret.
And so what this is talking about is developing regret for all the negative things that you’ve done in the past that will cause you to experience suffering now and in the future. So this regret is in how you’ve harmed others and how you’ve created the causes for experiencing suffering. So having developed strong regret, you then apply the third power, which is the power of restraint. So that means you think, I’m not going to do that again’, even if you can’t do it forever, if you don’t do it for a day or for an hour. Then the next thing is to do is to apply a remedy remedy, and that is to do some positive action that you think by doing this positive action may that and get rid of the negative causes that I’ve created in the past.
And so this purification process isn’t something that you do once and then you’re fine. It’s a purification process that you continue in until, you continue in until you become a Buddha. You continually you continually make mistakes, regretting the mistakes, and and trying to be more positive, and you do this all the way up until you’re a Buddha. So the third practice that’s involved with this idea of the idea of getting rid of self-cherishing is this one of making offerings, and it says making offerings to harmful spirits. Now, any suffering that we experience may come about from a whole bunch of different things.
Geshe-la said that sometimes it may come from these spirits or whatever it is, but the main cause for us to experience any kind of suffering is actually our self grasping, our self-cherishing. So if we want to think of the harmful spirits as being our self-cherishing, then that’s probably a very good reason good way to think of it, because it is the main source of our problem. It is the worst spirit that we come into contact with. The most harmful entity that we come into contact with is our self-cherishing and self grasping. So any difficult situations that we come into contact with because of beings or because of ourselves, then we should think that this has given us a wonderful opportunity to develop patience and compassion.
If we didn’t have patience and compassion, we can’t become Buddhas. So we should be very grateful about any kind of difficult situation that’s created by other beings or by ourselves. Then and then think through the because of this kindness, I wanna make an offering to these beings that create a difficult a difficult situation for me. Now it actually says in the text to offer a torma, which is a an offering made from tsampa, which is barley flour. And because there isn’t a lot of barley flour around in Australia and we don’t know how to make tormas very well, then Geshe-la said it’s it’s fine just any kind of food that you have.
If you just it’s it’s it’s the intention behind it to make a to make an offering to the beings or to the causes that have created this experience of suffering or difficulty. Because through this experience of suffering or difficulty, then you’re able to develop patience, compassion and so forth. So thank you very much for this opportunity to develop patience is the actual is saying thank you very much for this opportunity to develop patience is what the actual practice is about. So the traditional the the actual text here and the traditional interpretation of this is that there is a there there are harmful spirits that can interrupt our us wanting to to do practice or to a to get anything positive done. So this this could actually is actually refers to an, another being.
Now it may be very difficult for us to think that every time another being harms us, that it is actually the fault of self-cherishing. So we need to put a bit of effort into seeing how this comes about. So, for starters, because we’ve created causes through performing a negative action, then we experience the results of that through others harming us. If we harm others, they harm us at some stage. So this is the first thing.
But we could also look at it in terms of the fact that it’s not as if we are solid entities that are harmed by another solid entity because of no reason. The reason that any other beings, whether they’re spirits or whether they’re humans or whatever they are, would harm us is because of their self-cherishing, because they consider themselves to be more important than us, so they’re trying to, get some gain, from harming us. And this it’s the same with us. The reason that we would harm anyone else is because of our self-cherishing, thinking that by harming others, we can have happiness ourselves. When in actual fact, by harming others, we’re only creating suffering for ourselves.
So it’s a strange thing because we think, why would myself cherishing why would looking after myself be a cause for me to experience suffering? Alright. This this may seem like a strange thing to us. Why would cherishing myself be a cause for me to experience suffering? But the fact is that if we’re cherishing ourselves, we do so at the exclusion of others.
We’re not focusing on others. We are seeing what’s right for ourselves before seeing what’s right for others and therefore we’re going to do things that harm others. And if we do something that harms others because we’re focusing on ourselves, then we have to experience the results of that. You can’t have have a negative cause without a negative effect. So in this way, our self-cherishing, even though we think of it as self-cherishing, is actually harming us.
And by thinking of others, then we can help ourselves. So having keeping all this in mind, then anytime we experience this situation of harm from another being, then we should think, then we could do this practice and offer them, something, a torma traditionally, and and say, thank you for this opportunity to you’ve given me to develop and I make this offering as a a way of showing my gratitude. And now this the last of these, four practices to do to, to aid in the development of bodhicitta through exchanging yourself and others is to make offerings to what are called Dharma protectors. Now Dharma protectors, now we can what we’re asking they’re the beings, including the the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, that help us to develop ourselves mentally, beings that try and help us to work towards Buddhahood and enlightenment. And so every time, every kind of experience of happiness that we have actually is a result of their kindness because they’ve shown us how to develop the causes for experiencing happiness.
So what we’re asking of them in this case is to help us create, to grant us or to bless us with the causes to develop bodhicitta. This doesn’t mean that we’re asking them to stop us from experiencing any kind of suffering. What we’re doing is asking them if the suffering we’re experiencing is going to help us to create bodhicitta, it’s going to create compassion, to develop wisdom and courage, then we are asking for those kind of experiences. If the experiences we have aren’t going to help us create wisdom and courage, then we don’t want those experiences. Compassion, wisdom and courage, we don’t want those experiences.
So we’re asking them to protect us, but to protect us in a way that will help us to develop, not protect us in a way that won’t give us any opportunities to develop. Oh, so So so we’re asking them to, if there’s a situation that will harm our self-cherishing, harm our self grasping, then don’t stop that from happening. But if there’s a situation that will that will harm us but won’t harm the self-cherishing, then we don’t want that to happen. That makes sense. So if we think about it, right, all suffering may be caused from our from our self-cherishing.
But in actual fact, we kind of need suffering, because if we didn’t have suffering, there’s no way we would think of dharma. There’s no way we would think of others. If we were all happy and blissful all the time, we would not be thinking of ways to get rid of, saṃsāra. We wouldn’t be thinking of how to help others, because we would be concentrated in our own happiness. Now this is because this is what happens to beings in the god realm.
Like, there’s this realm of existence where everything’s blissful and happy, and they never think they never think of dharma. They never think of trying to get out of saṃsāra because they have no suffering to manifest suffering to contend with that would stop them, that would make them wanna get out of saṃsāra. And we don’t even have to think of them. We can look at people or we know or see people and think about the ones that have nothing go wrong for them, that everything goes right for. They’re always happy.
They’re, not always happy because of external situations. And those beings don’t usually think of practising dharma. They don’t usually think of practising compassion. They have no reason to. If we experience suffering, then we’re reminded why what we should be doing.
We’re reminded of our situation. We’re reminded of where we could end up. If we don’t experience suffering, if experience nothing but our happiness all the time, then we won’t get anything done. We won’t be reminded to develop compassion and patience and so on. So in this way, we kind of need suffering to develop ourselves.
So we shouldn’t necessarily think of suffering as being all bad. Because through suffering, through these different experiences we may see as negative, we get the chance to develop ourselves. So these practices, especially the the last two practices, all of the practices include taking suffering onto the path. If you have habituated towards them, you will taking suffering onto the path will be easier and easier and easier and easier. But that said, this practice isn’t for people who aren’t brave.
It’s a very brave practice. And if it seems too full on or too difficult and people don’t have the courage to do it, then they should content themselves with the practice of creating positive causes and purifying negative causes through this idea of if you’ve purified negative causes through these four powers and you accumulate positive causes, then you create an experience for happiness, and you’re not creating an experience for suffering. So in this way, you’re reminding yourself of karma. And then through doing this, then you could also think, may I be blessed to be able to achieve or to attain the Dharma at some type of stage in the future. So this practice isn’t supposed to be people with a for for the this practice is supposed to be one for the brave, and it helps to develop bravery, but it also can be very difficult for people who are afraid of it.
Now this practice of the of taking suffering onto the path or taking negative situations onto the path has been called many other things. And it says it’s in the towns of the land of snows. So that basically means places in Tibet. So in Tibet, in the past, it’s been called many things, the author is saying. It’s been called the I know.
I was just cracking up because there’s, like and there’s all these different names for it. Right? And I was and I was just reading it going, yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. And there’s this word that in Tibetan both means taste and corpse, depending on the context. So I was thinking it was saying the practice of remembering that everyone’s a corpse.
And Geshe-la said, No. It’s the practice of remembering everything is one taste. But you could actually read the text in two ways, so it’s good that this is why we have an oral tradition. The first practice is the practice of one taste, experiencing all things as one taste. Not anything to do with corpses.
The second is the practice of seeing the faults of the eight worldly dharmas. That’s another way that it’s been described. Another way that’s been described is the way of carrying happiness and suffering onto the path. And another way is the practice of the, ultimate result, taking whatever you experience, onto the path. And so there’s many different ways that it has been explained in the past, it’s explained in many different texts in many different situations.
Given this importance that it’s given in all of these different texts, then it said that the in the same way that it was described by the person described as the second Buddha, which is another way of saying Lama Tsongkhapa, the way that he described it then put in a lot of effort to develop an understanding and belief in this practice, and this will give you the ability to to to do it properly or strongly. From the bottom of your heart. So we can stop there for today. Any and if you have a question, you can So if anyone’s got questions, you ask. If you don’t, Thanks for the patient listening.
Really easy to translate. That was trying to explain why it’s. Yes. Because the thing is if you if you develop the habit of it as opposed to just thinking about it once, it actually is something that stops you experiencing suffering. It’s a way to stop yourself experiencing suffering as well, not just being good.
He said, yeah. Well, he’s not gonna argue that. Yes. Okay. This sounds good.
And loving kindness out there. But I guess, Sure. Mm-mm. Needs too? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah? Yeah.