Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using Greece and Tibet as paired examples, Geshe Pema Tsering opens this 12-minute talk by challenging any idea that national grievance is compatible with compassion: the moment we think “they harmed us,” he argues, we are practicing self-cherishing, not loving-kindness. He traces the toing and froing of nations through history — Tibet once invaded China; Greece likely invaded Turkey — to press the point that genuine compassion must be all-inclusive, not partisan. He then addresses whether Buddhas and bodhisattvas can be insulted, explaining why both suffering and self-concern are absent at those levels. The talk closes with a striking aside: in Tibetan, “to be insulted” and “to conceptualize” are the same word, making the experience of being insulted identical to noticing a thought arise in meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13 SoP 2004 11 07.mp3
UUID: 5b33edb6-6668-4cb2-b299-121fc373c3ed
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Stages of the Path (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-11-07
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 11.8 minutes
Words: ~1,382
The problem is that we don’t practice compassion and love and kindness well enough and equally enough. So we have this idea of compassion and love and kindness in a in a very limited way, in a in a in a way that focuses on one side to the exclusion of the other. So the way that we look at things is that these people have hurt us us in this way. And the instant that we say these people have hurt us, then we’re not practicing loving kindness and compassion. We’re practicing bigotry in a form.
This word that means a one sidedness. Right? So Geshe la said whether it’s Greece or whether it’s Tibet, it is it’s a similar situation. The way that we look at things, if we are looking at a situation and thinking they harmed us, then we aren’t looking at it properly. We’re looking at it from a point of view of self.
We’re looking at it as a point of view from there’s two things that are supposed to be the the root of all suffering. That is a sense of I and a sense of mine. Now, when we talk about my country, that’s why we’re talking about mine. Seeing Greece as being opposed to someone else or seeing Tibet as being opposed to China is looking at things from a point of view of self-cherishing. So if we look at the thing the idea of one army or invading one country, then we’re looking at it from a limit limited perspective because Greece isn’t the only country in the world that’s ever been invaded.
No. No. No. Hang on. You gotta let me finish.
Otherwise, I forget. Alright. Greece isn’t the only country in the world that has been invaded. And and Greece isn’t the only country in the world you know, in and at this this this stage in history isn’t the only stage that Greece has lived through, the four hundred years. So before that, Geshe-la said that he assumes, at some stage, Greece invaded Turkey.
Yeah? And he said because he knows that if you he this is the way that we look at it in terms of he said that you’re probably looking at from the point of view of being Greek, and he looks at it from the point of being Tibetan. And it’s the same process that we have, that Tibetans will get very angry or agitated about the the Chinese invading Tibet and the things that have done. But they completely forget that back ages ago, Tibet invaded China and and and wrecked whole cities. So there there is this this toing and froing between countries and situations that we tend to forget about, and we tend to look at things from one point of view.
Now anytime that we look at a situation and think, this is someone harming me or mine or my country, we’re not practicing compassion. Alright? Compassion has to be an completely inclusive, not exclusive practice. So every time that we think, how can I practice patience? How sorry.
How can I practice compassion? How can I practice love and kindness? We’re looking at things from a one-sided perspective. Compassion is so inclusive and so widespread that we take into account all sentient beings and all situations. So anytime that we have this idea, how can I do that?
Then that’s an that’s a a mark or an indicator that we are practicing self-cherishing and not compassion. He said, doesn’t think Buddhas, bodhisattvas and arhats get insulted. Uh-huh. He said that if you’re focusing on a a, if you’re an arhat or a Buddha, you don’t have suffering.
And it means being insulted is suffering so they don’t have an insult. And b, if you’re a bodhisattva and you’re focused on the welfare of others, then you’re not interested in whether you’re insulted or not. Not getting insulted isn’t that hard even for us. We made, like, in the in the beginning when someone insults us being insulted, but it doesn’t take that much effort to work on it and not be insulted. If we can look at it and think why did they say that and investigate and then look at why they’re saying it, there’s no point getting insulted if people are are in are saying things to us through ignorance.
And if they aren’t saying it through ignorance, if there’s something that they say that’s true, then we need to take that on. So there’s no there’s no reason to get insulted. Wow. I just realized something. Okay.
The word for to be insulted in Tibetan is the same word as to conceptualize. Alright? So if someone insults you and you have then you say, I’m insulted, it’s just and it’s the same word that you use when you say when because I guess you said it’s the same thing as when we start doing calm abiding meditation, that we notice our thoughts or our concepts. Right? Because it’s the same word in Tibetan.
I was like, oh. So to be insulted in Tibetan is the same as to have a concept. Right? So it is Someone insults you, you have an idea. An idea comes up.
Right? And it’s the same as in when you when you are meditating, you have an idea come up. Yeah? Or a or a thought a formed a formed thought. Yeah?
So if someone insults us, a formed thought comes up. And if we are meditating, then we notice that we have a lot more thoughts. Right? These are, like, ideas about things. Yeah?
So I guess I said, if someone insults you, yeah, you you recognize something, right, which you hadn’t recognized until they insulted you. Yeah. You have you a thought comes up that you can recognize. Alright? It’s the same as when you start meditating, all sorts of thoughts come up, and you have the opportunity to recognize them.
Up until that point, you hadn’t noticed them because you hadn’t been sitting there watching your mind. Alright? So, in fact, someone insulting us and having a chance to meditate and see what we think is the same process, you see. Because we’re both it’s giving us the opportunity to recognize our thoughts. But I don’t know.
I’m not sure if that translates because it because it these ideas the ideas that we have in English of insult and concept are completely different, but in Tibetan, they’re actually the same thing. So if someone insults us, we recognize something in ourselves. Yeah? And if we are meditating, that’s what we’re doing. We’re recognizing our thoughts.
We’re recognizing how our thoughts work. So it’s exactly the same process. Up until that point, we don’t recognize what what they what has been pointed out to us. We don’t have an idea about what’s being said. But then once we get the chance to look at it, then we get the chance to dissolve it or to to work with it.
So Geshe said, no. He doesn’t agree with well, he didn’t he said, I don’t I don’t understand that. I would think it would work this way. Right? And the way these things would work would be, if someone insults you, it can be completely untrue, but you need to look at you need to look at, first of all, to investigate whether it’s true or not, and honestly, investigate whether it’s true or not.
So for example, if someone said someone called Geshe-la a thief. Alright? First of all, he would need to look at whether that was true or not, and then the next thing he would need to look at would be why that person was saying this. Alright? So it’s not enough just to look at whether you think it’s true or not, but you need to look at why they would be saying that and try and see it from their point of view as well.
So if you’re looking at it from their point of view, then you are less involved in your reaction. Oh, now it’s me again. Right. Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. Twenty-six. Morning prayers. Okay. So dedication prayers and short long life prayers.