Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A bribery anecdote from India opens this 8.8-minute segment: Geshe Pema Tsering uses the example of baksheesh to show how the same situation looks entirely different depending on perspective. He then turns to a key pedagogical point — you cannot generate understanding in someone else’s mind; you can only introduce concepts and let the other person work things out themselves. The practical sequence he offers for introducing Dharma to newcomers: first ask whether they are truly, lastingly happy; let them sit with that; then connect to their own experience of suffering before introducing karma — good actions produce good results, negative actions produce negative ones — and from there open the door to saṃsāra. Brief and conversational, this suits practitioners curious about how to share Buddhist ideas with others.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 SoP 2004 08 15.mp3
UUID: a527d009-1c00-4821-b4a4-7989fd3e90ad
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Stages of the Path (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-08-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 8.8 minutes
Words: ~657
From another perspective, you know, this whole concept of baksheesh in India works really well because you get what you want. You just have to pay for it. And so if you’re in Australia and you have to, like, do deal with all the bureaucracy and everything, and it’s like, okay. I have to do this and this and this, and I get stopped doing this and this and this, and it may be all good and well. But that’s only from one perspective that it’s good in another way that if There’s no flexibility.
There’s no flexibility. And he said in India, there’s lots of flexibility because if you have the money, you have the flexibility. You create a lot. Yeah. So from the point of view of the person who wants something done, the whole idea of being able to pay for it or, you you know, bribe for it, benefits the person who wants things done.
From the point of view of the the country as a whole and the running of government, then it’s probably best that we don’t have bribes in Australia as much. As much. Yeah. Every time you have a situation, you have someone that’s that finds it difficult and someone else that finds it easier. And one saying one situation is completely right and the other’s completely wrong doesn’t make sense.
It’s not that hard to say, but for some reason, it’s just coming out as gibberish. Sorry about that. Because I was going he’s like, so we need to develop understanding in our own mind. I’m like, no. In other people’s mind.
How do we develop understanding in other people’s mind? He goes, what? I’m like, how do you develop understanding in other people’s mind? And he’s like, you can’t develop understanding in other people’s mind. So it was like, then how do you explain something to him?
Goes, that’s how we do it. We can’t make you so it was the was I should have understood that. But, yeah, you can’t say develops understanding in someone else’s mind. You can introduce them to something, but you can’t yeah. But, anyway, my fault.
Too long. Gotta go back and study Śāntideva. Right. So oh. K.
That was a hint. So yes. No. Yeah. Purified.
Go on. May all other beings who bang their heads all the time be you know? It’s better. Okay. So we can’t generate.
The outcome of that was you can’t really generate an understanding of someone else’s mind. What you can do is There’s like a bump behind me. Yeah. She was just explaining why I’ve changed my head. Anyway, we can’t we can’t generate understanding in someone else’s mind.
We can, introduce them to the concepts, and then they have to generate the understanding themselves as the outcome of that. So if we want to do that, we want to introduce concepts to other people, especially about the nature of their suffering, the first thing that would probably be the best to do is to ask them if they’re happy. And ask them to think about that. Are you happy? Are you always happy?
Do you experience happiness? When you experience happiness, does it do you stay happy? Or does it just suffering you come back. And then if you’ve done that and then you can relate to their own experience, then you can start you can start talking to them about Right? So, okay, you’re experiencing suffering.
Have you ever wondered why? Have you ever wondered why this happens and so forth? And then you can introduce them to the notion of karma that, you know, good actions cause good results. Negative actions cause negative results. And then through that, then you can start talking about saṃsāra.
This one? After all. Is that this one? Right. Any other questions?
Yes. Sorry. So if we turn to handout four, would we then five?