Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Pema Tsering opens this 32-minute Stages of the Path session by grounding all spiritual qualities in the teacher, anchoring the point with a verse from the Lamrim review prayer about making offerings to the guru as a “supreme field of merit.” He then addresses a sharper question: what should a student do when a trusted teacher appears to act badly? His answer: investigate thoroughly before — not after — accepting someone as a teacher, since that commitment means treating apparent faults as one’s own misperception. A fool’s-gold analogy supports a broader claim: because our minds grasp at inherent existence rather than seeing things as they are, our perceptions are never fully reliable. He closes by distinguishing mistaken thoughts from incorrect ones and sketching the path from study through contemplation to direct realization.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 SoP 2004 02 01.mp3
UUID: c8f8a3c1-5d79-4fa5-b961-094ced2b121e
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Stages of the Path (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-02-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 31.6 minutes
Words: ~2,645
How much they can benefit us because they can take us all the way to being a completely perfected being, to being someone who has completely gotten rid of all negativities and completely developed all qualities. That is like the ultimate kindness. That is the ultimate way to develop ourselves. And it works the same way as if we’re in school or if we have teachers in in a worldly sense or in a more material sense, then however many qualities we develop actually depends on the qualities of what we’re taught, on the qualities of the teachers that we have. If we don’t have very good teachers, we don’t learn very much.
If we have very good teachers then we can learn a lot and we can take a lot of qualities into our future lives. It works in a worldly sense as well. So in that way, if we rely on what the teachers say and if we’re able to develop ourselves according to what they say, then we have a lot of qualities. If we don’t listen to what they say, if we don’t take on what they say, then don’t use that opportunity that we have to develop all those qualities. Okay, so in this way, then we should think that from a spiritual perspective any of the benefits that we have or the qualities that we have all come from the teacher.
They’re like the field that grows our qualities. All of the good so there is one that is like, any benefits that we have come from the teacher. Any of the wealth or attributes that we have, the root of all of those is the people that have taught us and instructed us. All of the qualities, all of the genuine qualities that we have, their base is the teacher. So we should be thinking that this teacher is actually like the Buddha themselves who have come to teach us in order to be able to take us out of the situation that we’re in now.
So in that way we should have respect for them, we should praise them, we should request their blessing, we should make offerings to them of any physical things that we have or any mental things that we can conjure up. We should try and do whatever they tell us to do. And if this were able to do these things, then it will be beneficial for us. So in this way then we should think that the the, I was like, oh man. How do I translate that?
And then he’s like, it’s in the it’s in the prayer. Just read it. Okay, so says so all of this I guess all of that he’s been explaining based on this text comes from this first verse of the prayer that’s reviewing the Stages of the Path where it says, Through the power of having made offerings and respectful requests to you, O holy and venerable Gurus, supreme field of merit, we seek your blessings, O protectors, and root of well-being and bliss, that we may come under your joyful care. You know what? You’re right.
Yeah. No. This is I I just saw it and it said final lamrim dedication prayer, I like, that’s the one, but it’s not. There’s a forty-seven. Yeah.
No. That’s the dedication prayer for this bit. So I made a mistake. That happens in the well, happens a lot, but it happens especially in the first day of translating some. Page what?
What’s on page twenty? Foundational. No. I’ll get to this one. That’s another one.
But we can we can photocopy it for you for next time. But this is the only bit that we did. Okay? So listen closely. Through the power, right, through the effect of having made offerings and respectful requests to you, oh holy and venerable gurus, don’t know about the translation but it’ll do.
As a supreme field of merit, like the place where you stick the seeds and good things come, we seek your blessings, o protectors and roots of well-being and bliss, like the cause of well-being and bliss, that we may come under your joyful care. That’s the only thing. He said that there’s heaps of these books outside so everyone can get a copy and have a look in the next week. But we are but today we only And we can make copies, but it’s only like one one verse today, so no stressing. Oh, yeah.
So and that was I stuffed up because I don’t know this very well. And I thought, yeah. It means an offering. And so in this case, when we’re talking about the Guru Puja, it means making an offering to the to the guru, to the teacher, who’s, yeah, who’s the embodiment of compassion. Because you like?
Oh, sorry. So after thinking about how much the teachers benefit you, you wanna give something because you like them, you wanna give them something. So this Puja or this offering ceremony is based on that idea of giving back, of trying to make an offering. So parents and teachers are considered the very, very, very important and sources of or or places where we should be venerable towards or, like, people we should be should venerate. So anything that you can do to help your parents or your teachers is considered a very good thing.
Okay. Can you briefly tell me what the debate is quickly? Because I have been in India. Did everybody hear that? He said it’s very, very difficult, but there is one way of dealing with that in terms of if if you’ve seen someone as a teacher for long time and then this sort of thing comes up, you really have to do a lot of mind training and think okay, this is the way to keep that idea pure.
This is the way that I perceive this is happening but I have a dualistic mind so this is what seems to me to be happening but I don’t understand things so that you have to keep the idea of the lama pure even in those cases but he said it’s very, very, very difficult, So you think okay that’s what I heard but I don’t understand things so this is what I’ve heard, that’s what I’ve seen but I don’t understand things so that’s what I’ve seen because I have delusions and I’m seeing the teacher in this way. He said but the most important thing is to not get yourself into that situation, to make sure that you investigate completely thoroughly before you see someone as your teacher. You listen to what they say, you see what they do, you investigate them completely so you have faith in them before you start seeing them as a teacher because after that you’re in a difficult situation and you have to do a lot of mental gymnastics or mental work to keep seeing them in a pure way. A teacher can change, yeah? And also, maybe Okay.
Once you’ve taken someone as a teacher, then you have it it means the same thing as seeing them as being a Buddha. Alright? So you’ve gotta be convinced someone’s a Buddha. So working from that premise that you’re convinced someone’s a Buddha, anything that they do, yeah, that appears to be negative, you have to see as your misperception. Right?
As your mind, as your your sorry, as your mind, as your obscurations, your negative negative thoughts. So so you think, I’m an ordinary being, so this is appearing as negative or negative actions to me. You have had to have seen someone as a Buddha and to have seen them as to be your teacher. So from anything they do from that point on, you have to think of it to turn it into a mind training exercise for yourself and think of it as your misperception of a situation because as an ordinary being you don’t see things the way they really are anyway. You haven’t perceived the true nature of reality, so you don’t see things as they are anyway.
Because in actual fact, when we think about it, every single mind that we experience now is mistaken because we don’t perceive things the way that they truly are. We have this idea of things being inherently existent. We’re grasping at things as being external objects as being things that can help us or benefit us. Because we see everything as being mistaken we have to keep reminding ourselves of that and so if we’re in a situation we turn it around into a process where we can use it as an exercise to develop deeper understandings by recognizing that all our thoughts or all our minds are actually mistaken. We use that situation to develop our understanding that our minds are mistaken and to develop develop the understanding of emptiness in order to see how things really are because all our minds are mistaken, not just these ones of seeing the teacher in this way.
It’s but it takes a lot of effort, he says, but not to be in that situation. Okay, so because the way we look at things is incorrect even from the start, right? So anything that we come up with is incorrect and it’s the same similar situation as if for example if we had gold in our hand, right? Or we have what we thought was gold in our hand and we’re thinking oh this is good, is gold, this means I can do this and this and this this and I’m gonna use this gold in a certain way and do this and this because we’ve established that it’s gold, right? And then we have one expert who knows more than we do come up and say, that’s not gold, that’s fool’s gold.
And then we think, oh, I don’t know if he’s right because there’s one expert saying it and then we go to like the the best gold expert around and say okay is this gold and they go no that’s not gold and then our mind changes because we our understanding of what that was in our hand isn’t based on its real nature, it’s based on the inferences that we put onto it. So that means that anything that we think, it’s not just the gold, but anything that we think, anything that we establish is based on our inference that we put onto it, not the way it actually is. So whether a teacher is doing something negative or not, we can’t actually tell because we are not looking at what they actually are or what they’re actually doing because all our minds are mistaken. So first of all, have this idea. Okay.
That’s definitely gold. And then one person says it and then we start having doubts and our our understanding is a bit shaken and then if three or four or five people say it then we completely turn the other way and establish it as not gold. But then one person may come back and say actually it is gold and we go backwards and forwards depending on what other things are saying so we can’t establish whether it is or not by our own efforts. We have to rely on other external situations to develop it. So we can’t be sure about anything that we think.
So as as ordinary beings who haven’t developed an understanding of reality, then anything that we perceive is is is most likely to be mistaken because we always perceive most of our thoughts are mistaken. It said yes if you develop an understanding of emptiness and see the true nature of reality directly. Yeah. And so you gotta study a lot and meditate a lot. Yeah.
Okay. So even our concept of faith is is is mistaken in that it’s a conceptual conceptual idea as opposed to a direct realization. That’s what mistaken is. It isn’t that it’s completely wrong. There’s a difference between being mistaken and being completely wrong.
Like a completely wrong thought is one that’s like doesn’t is completely against reality, and there’s ones that are mistaken in that they are still assuming that things inherently exist so there’s a difference between being wrong and mistaken. Faith is a mistaken thought in that we think that it’s inherently existent and we’re still dealing with inherently existent objects and something that’s the way we think it is, but it’s not a incorrect thought. Alright? Because it’s based on something that that makes sense. There’s something that’s gonna stop us suffering.
Alright? So it’s a incorrect no. Mistaken but not incorrect thought. So therefore, it’s a positive thought and it’s something that’s gonna lead to happiness and that’s the basis of determining anything whether it leads to happiness or suffering. Okay.
So we start off with an idea about something, and we keep meditating on it, meditating on it and contemplating it and trying to understand it deeper and deeper until eventually it becomes a direct realization of something. So we start off with a conceptual thought, we end up with a non conceptual thought. Sorry. I probably shouldn’t react to questions like that. Okay.
Mahāmudrā is the seal of the way that things are. Right? This is like the great seal, the thing that stamps the way things are, their true nature. Yeah. It’s like the the thing that shows their true nature.
So that means that everything is not inherently existent. So Geshe la said it has a connection to what he was saying because everything that he’s talking about is not inherently existent. Okay. So what that Yeah. Yeah.
He said it’s tough. But what you have to do is when you first start off, if you start off by listening to teachings, focusing on teachings, then you develop an understanding of those teachings and whatever it is, and then you develop a you think about the teachings, you contemplate them, and you develop a more stable understanding on that. Based on that is usually when you go into a retreat situation, alright, and and you focus on what you’re understanding single pointedly, and you develop wisdom arising from meditation in that instance which means that you’ve seen it directly as opposed to having a conceptual understanding of it. So you follow the process of first studying and learning then contemplating and then meditating on it. But you’re not actually referring to someone going into retreat.
You’re talking about, like, Lama Zopa’s retreat. Yeah? So so in that instance, you’re talking about a situation where he’s actually going to be teaching about Mahāmudrā. So in that way, develop an understanding based on the teachings of Mahāmudrā. And once you develop a full enough understanding, then you contemplate on those and then you meditate on those in that manner.
So yeah. And even if you can’t meditate on Even if you can’t meditate on it clearly because of doubts or whatever, what you’re doing by going to these things is putting imprints like creating grooves in your mind. Yeah? And so that the things Yeah. So you develop an imprint of something that means that you’re helping your mind acclimatize to that and it’ll be beneficial no matter whether you understand it or not.
Yeah. Yeah. But he doesn’t read English. So I don’t know. Okay.
This this this is a commentary by Dalai Lama on the the whole of the Guru Puja, and in the back bit, it talks about the lamrim. If you read this, the the the root text, he said would be beneficial. And apart from that, any books on on the lamrim or graduated path.