Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with Śāntideva’s claim that all suffering arises from self-interest and all happiness from caring for others, Geshe Pema Tsering traces why self-cherishing generates negative karma. In this 45-minute commentary, he makes the argument vivid: a pampered Australian dog has food, shelter, and servants but wastes its potential — exactly what we do when human intelligence serves only comfort. He stresses that the precious human rebirth gives us rare capacity to reason and choose ethical action, and should not be squandered. The session then turns to verse 95 of the Guru Puja and its Tonglen practice of giving and taking — absorbing all beings’ suffering while giving away every trace of one’s own merit — with frank discussion of why this is so hard when most of us struggle to part with half a good meal.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 SoP 2004 08 01.mp3
UUID: d36d2f51-4365-4fdc-9096-a5023daec90c
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Stages of the Path (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-08-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.9 minutes
Words: ~3,897
Oh, yeah. In the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Śāntideva said, All of the suffering in the world comes about from working for our own benefit, and all the happiness in the world comes about from working for the benefit of others. What this is referring to is that we all know about suffering, and we all have experiences of suffering, and we can see how beings suffer in different ways, but we need to recognize what the cause for that suffering is, and we also need to recognize what the cause for the happiness that comes about when we don’t have suffering is. So in this way, Śāntideva points out that every time that we experience suffering, it’s because we re experiencing the results of trying to work for our own benefit. And every time we experience happiness, we experience that happiness because we’ve done something good.
We’ve focused on others in the past. So, we all have this idea of wanting to be happy and wanting to create the causes for being happy. If we watch our minds, see that we do this all the time. We’re constantly trying to work towards making ourselves happy. The problem being that if we have this as our motivation, if we work from the idea that we want to make a solidly existent us happy, then everything that we do with that motivation actually makes us miserable.
If we work from the perspective that we’re focusing on ourselves and we’re not taking others into consideration and that we’re just trying to get whatever we want from life, then everything that we do actually creates a cause for us to be unhappy. And we may have an idea sometimes, or people may have this idea that they are working for others, but it’s usually working for others on the basis of attachment. We work for others that we consider close to us, or their happiness makes our life more enriched or that their happiness makes us happier. So if we’re working from this premise, then we’re working on the basis of attachment again. Any time we work from attachment or from the motivation of attachment in performing an action, we’re not creating the causes.
We’re not doing something that’s going to positively enrich our mind. In actual fact, if it came down to it, if we keep cultivating this habit of focusing on ourselves and not thinking of others apart from in a very selfish way, then what happens is we become more self centered and more self centered and more self centered, and eventually we have this idea that even killing others or even getting rid of others, we gladly give away others bodies or lives to protect ourselves. So if we watch our mind, then we actually have this tendency in our mind. If it came down to someone else’s life or ours, who would we choose? But, on the other hand, if we start focusing on others, and if we start thinking about how we can give to others, and how, by giving to them, we will make ourselves happy.
So if we start truly looking at how to make others happy instead of grasping at how to make ourselves happy, then it’s much easier for us to be happy. If we’re focusing on others and how to enrich their lives, how to lead them to true happiness, then anything that happens to us is okay. Anything that happens to us, if that’s our motivation, means that we’re happy about. This way, we actually get happier and happier, even if it comes down to giving away our life. If we re actually truly focusing on others, we re okay with that.
That makes us happy as well. So if we re able to focus on others and to care less about what happens to us, then in actual fact, our happiness grows more and more. So, if we look at this, then we can see that Śāntideva was right. That if we have this idea of working for others, then we’re going to experience less suffering because we’re not caught up in what happens to us. If we’re working for others, we’re constantly creating the causes for positive results, causes for happiness, and we are not disturbed by little things that happen to us.
If, on the other hand, we’re focusing only on ourselves and not thinking about others, then every little thing that happens to us is a problem, and we’re also creating the causes for suffering. So basically, on one level it comes down to karma. If we do something negative, we experience the results of that. If we harm others in order to get something positive for ourselves, or if we neglect others because we’re focusing on ourselves, then we’re creating negative karma. If we are focused on others and we’re trying to benefit others as opposed to being selfish, then we create positive karma.
The results of negative karma are to experience suffering, and the results of positive karma are to experience happiness. If we plant wheat seeds, we get wheat. If we plant apple seeds, we get apples. karma works in a similar way. So, mainly, we should focus on karma.
We should think about karma. We should think about the consequences of our action. And because we’re thinking about the consequences of our action, we should try to forsake negative actions and to practice positive actions. If we continually do more positive things, we’re going to experience more happiness. If we continually do more negative things, we’re going to experience more negative results.
So we should try really hard to focus on the accumulation of positive karma, then we can work towards a more positive existence, a happier existence. We should also try and remember that this is a choice that is not open to all beings in all the different realms. The conscious choice to try and act positively needs the mind or it needs the basis of a human or a god. So, especially in the human realm, because the human realm is a result of positive karma. There’s all different types of karma that we can accumulate.
To be born as a human with a good ability for reasoning means that we’ve accumulated all different types of positive karma. We’ve accumulated good throwing karma, good establishing karma, and good completing karma. So, this means, as a human, with this intellectual ability that we possess, which is much greater and sharper than beings born in other realms like animals and so forth. We have the ability to process information that we encounter or process information that we receive, and to analyze to see whether what we’re doing is a positive action or a negative action, and then to try and stop ourselves from doing negative actions and try and produce positive actions. So, in this way, we should also take advantage of this unique opportunity that we have to try and establish the causes to experience Buddhahood as opposed to being reborn again and again in Samsāra.
We ve already experienced being reborn again and again in Samsāra up until now. We ve had many different lifetimes in many different types of existence, and very, very few of them have given us the opportunity to practice Dharma, to do positive actions, to consciously perform positive actions with the right intention. So we haven’t obviously used those opportunities to their best advantage. Otherwise, we wouldn’t still be in saṃsāra. But we have the ability at the moment to try and make the most of this opportunity that we have, having attained the human rebirth, to work towards that final goal.
If we don’t use this opportunity to logically reason, to look at our existence, try and move towards a greater understanding, then we might as we have the same technically, although we re humans, basically have the same rebirth as Australian cats and dogs. Because Australian cats and dogs seems to get so. They have all the food they need. They have a nice place to sleep. They have lots of slaves running after them.
Everyone looks they have constantly all of their needs are fulfilled, their physical needs are fulfilled, but they re not doing much else with their lives. So if we donit use this opportunity, if we just use this opportunity that we have now to feed ourselves, to shelter ourselves, to relax in a luxurious manner, then we might as well be an Australian Cattle Dog. This is we need to emphasize difference between our existence and the life that these animals have. We need to take advantage of this and work towards final happiness, which is Buddhahood. We need to use the opportunity we have as a human to reason, to meditate, to put into practice what the Buddha said.
And if we can do this, if we can work in this way, then we’re making the most of this lifetime, this opportunity we We can do this on different levels. The first thing that we really need to emphasize is our ethics, that we are behaving positively. We are trying to abandon the ten non virtuous actions and practice the ten positive actions, and we do these with the intention of with the motivation that that becomes a cause for us to become Buddhas in the future. We do this and then we also try and understand the Buddha’s words because if we don’t understand the Buddha’s words, there’s no way we can put them into practice. So what we need to do in order to take the most out of this lifetime, in order to focus ourselves in the most beneficial way, is to make sure that our motivation for doing any positive action we do is the motivation of achieving enlightenment to benefit all sentient beings.
We know that if we’re focusing on others, then that’s more beneficial than focusing on just ourselves. If we have this motivation of achieving Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings as our motivation, then that is the strongest motivation with which we can do any action. So if this is our motivation, whether we’re performing an ethical action, whether we’re trying to understand the Buddha’s words by listening to teachings and reading, reading, whether we re trying to put those things that we ve learned into practice, whether we re meditating on what we have been looking at. Any of these things become incredibly powerful if our motivation is to become a Buddha in order to benefit others. I left out two things: if we’re prostrating, if we’re making offerings, that was in the group of positive things.
And if we do any of these things with this motivation of achieving enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, then we’re really getting the most out of this opportunity we have as a human. So, this means that the right motivation you actually have for listening to teachings on this Graduated Path teaching, that Graduated Path text, is that you’re listening in order to gain understanding, in order to be able to put these things into practice, develop an understanding of these stabilized by meditation, and then realize it and follow the path towards becoming a Buddha. So that should be the motivation for listening to the text, the best motivation that you can have for listening to the text. Geshe-la said you don’t need to meditate on that at the moment though because he thinks you will meditate this morning. What?
He said, you did, didn’t So we’re up to the verse from the root text in the Guru Puja. It’s verse number ninety five. Geshe-la said because this prayer is part of the Guru Puja, then what you actually imagine is that your teacher, inseparable from the deity you’re meditating on, you visualize them in front of you, and you think that they re giving you blessings in order to develop this realization, and not only yourself but also all of other sentient beings who are sitting with you. The realization that they were trying to develop that says, Therefore, O venerable, compassionate Guru, bless me that all karmic obscurations and sufferings of mother migrators ripen upon me right now, and that I may give others my happiness and virtuous deeds in order that all sentient beings have happiness. Because because it s a text or a practice that s based on entreating the teacher, and you re imagining your teacher in the form of one of the visualization deities, then you re requesting them, and also with them what’s called the merit field, which is all of the teachers and all of the different meditation deities and everything all in one group together.
Imagine that all of these beings and all of these ideas are giving you, are blessing you, or purifying your mind stream as you are praying in this way. You are asking that all karmic obscurations and sufferings of other sentient beings, which they’ve translated as mother migrators, that that ripen upon us right now, that all the negative things ripen upon us and that we give away all our happiness in order that all sentient beings are able to experience happiness. So, what this verse is, in general, referring to is a practice of giving and taking, or Tonglen. In this practice, you give away all your happiness to other sentient beings and take on all of their sufferings. The idea of this is something that s very difficult for us to develop at this stage, hence the fervent prayers to the teacher to be able to develop this understanding and get rid of all obscurations to this understanding.
It s difficult for us to practice. It s the main practice or it s the focus of Bodhisattvas or the Bodhisattvas. I there s a pun that doesn t translate because the word Bodhisattva in Tibetan is literally the heroes of the enlightened mind. So it’s the it’s the it’s the the practice of the heroes. And so this is something that’s very difficult for us, right?
And We may think that it’s an easy meditation to do, but Geshe la said, think about it. If we’re sitting there with a headache, we go, Oh, get rid of this headache. I don’t want to experience this headache. Here we’re actually asking to experience all the sufferings of sentient beings. Can we cope with that?
He doesn’t think so. We re actually praying to develop the mental strength to be able to deal with it. Because we re talking about here, we re not talking about one headache. We re talking about the suffering that beings experience in hells, suffering that beings experience in ghost realms and in the animal realms. This is a myriad of different intense types of suffering.
And we’re saying, instead of sentient beings experiencing that suffering, may we experience it now. But we’re like, Oh, I’ve got a headache. I’m going to the hospital. So, this is talking about a meditation process where we’re giving away all our happiness and taking on all other suffering. And the reason that we do this meditation practice is to strengthen the mind, to develop mental bravery so that we re able to accept suffering in order to be a benefit to others.
Now, the thing is though that if we re sitting there thinking, I’m taking on the sufferings of others, I’m taking on the sufferings of others, it’s not actually going to happen. We can’t take on the sufferings of others unless thinking about taking another’s illness doesn’t make us sick. The only way that we can actually be sick is if we have the karma to experience illness. So, there s a trick to it. We can think, I m taking on the sufferings of others, but it s not really.
If we sit there thinking, I’m going to take on the sufferings of others, but not really, it’s just a meditation, we re not going to strengthen our minds. Though we know that we can’t actually take on the sufferings of others, we have to fully imagine ourselves doing it. We have to fully imagine ourselves experiencing the suffering of others in order to free them of their suffering. And in this way we re able to strengthen our mind. It s not enough to say, I m doing this because they say it s beneficial, but I m not really going to feel anything yucky.
I don’t know. Not good. So in the same way, in the same way that taking on everyone’s suffering is a difficult concept for us to get our heads around and this is why we need to do this meditation practice to develop that ability. Also, giving away our good qualities is difficult for us. If we think about it, giving away our positive qualities and the causes we have in our mind stream for positive experiences, like the merit that we have accumulated that could cause us to experience happiness.
If we think about giving away all of that to others, it means that we’re not going to experience anything but suffering for the sake of other beings. So we’re giving away all the happiness that we could possibly experience to other beings. This is hard. Geshe-la said it’s hard for us to give away half a yummy meal to others, let alone all of the happiness that we may be going to experience or have accumulated the causes for. This idea of giving every happiness that we have away to all these beings who have shown us great kindness in the past, it’s difficult for us to get our head around.
If we look, if we watch the way our mind works, giving away half a plate of food, really nice food when we re very hungry is difficult. This is because of this insidious self-cherishing that we have in our mind stream. And this is what we’re trying to get rid of. This is what we need to start being able to have the courage to look at it. And if worse comes to worse, we may even have the habit of, okay, you need half my food, you can have the not so good half.
And I’m gonna keep the yummy half. This is the way that we tend to be, and this is the way that this self grasping makes us So it s this nasty affliction that we ve had and this habit that we have acclimatized ourselves to since, like, longer than the concept of time that I don’t know if that makes sense. I m sick of saying since beginningless time. But anyway, since forever, right? We ve developed this habit looking after ourselves, of cherishing ourselves, of thinking that we are an inherently existent thing that needs to be looked after and seen as being the most important thing.
This habit that we’ve developed is the cause for all of our suffering, is the cause for all of our negative behavior. This is where it all comes from, this idea of self-cherishing. Because of this self-cherishing, the stronger this self-cherishing is, it s difficult for us to do tiny positive things for others in a selfless way. So, Tonglen, this practice of giving and taking, is a way of reversing that, is the enemy of this self-cherishing. So Because this is so hard, because we have such an ingrained negative habit of cherishing ourselves and forgetting about others, this is why this visualization process is described like this.
We’re thinking about the positive qualities of cherishing others and not cherishing self, and seeing how difficult it is to get rid of self-cherishing. So we imagine that all of these beings that we have respect for and faith in are blessing us in the form of different types of light. Light nectar, which still doesn’t make any sense. Anyway, light nectar comes into our Okay, cool. This is a word that they usually translate as nectar or amrita or everything, and what it’s supposed to be is like a tool that gets rid of all the obscurations.
It doesn t necessarily have to be liquid. Geshe-la said it’s a tool, so it s a light that s a tool. Anyway, it comes down from this collection of beings that we have this great faith in. This light comes down and obliterates all of the obscurations to cherishing others, all of the obscurations, which is mainly this thing that we were talking about, the self-cherishing, self grasping. It completely gets rid of that in all of our being, and in doing so, it also develops what are the main tools for getting rid of this obscuration, which are bodhicitta, and loving kindness and compassion.
It develops these at the same time as getting rid of self grasping in all of our being. And not only in all of our being, but in the mind stream of all other beings that are surrounding us. It completely gets rid of self-grasping and develops compassion. We imagine this light doing that. Do you have a pen, It’s me practicing mindlessness again.
So if you have any questions. Yeah. Yeah. You’re a pretty Tibetan student. You’re not allowed to say, Tonglen, I’ll hit you.
Tonglen. It’s the first one. Tonglen. Yay. Okay.
Tonglen. Yeah. For a specific person that Right. It benefits both the person that is being prayed for and the person that is doing the Tonglen practice. The person doing a Tonglen practice visualizing themselves taking on the suffering of the person that is experiencing suffering.
In this way, they are creating a positive karma for themselves. They can’t actually get sick from someone else s suffering, though, because it depends on causes and conditions. They need to have causes and conditions there to experience illness, so it s not like they are going to experience the illness instead of the other person. By visualizing themselves and taking on that illness, they are creating positive karma that can help themselves. If they then have this idea of melding their positive karma with the positive karma of the person who is ill and also the positive karma of all sentient beings and praying that that be a cause for all sentient beings to achieve enlightenment, then this acts as a positive force for the person who is ill as well because you are praying that by the force of their positive karma, they are able to get rid of this illness.
It’s praying that their positive karma acts as a cause for their illness to benefit them in terms of you being a positive influence on them. I guess I said, Did that make sense? No, not really, because I don’t understand how you could get rid of other people’s suffering. Otherwise, Buddhas would have gotten rid of our suffering. And he said, Well, they can’t completely get rid of your suffering, but if you have turned yourself into a completely wholesome cause, then obviously you’re going to positively influence anyone that has anything to do with you.
Okay. Yeah. So the Tonglen practice is something that you can