Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Wrapping up months of commentary on the seven points of mind training, Geshe Pema Tsering works through the final seven pieces of advice in this 45-minute session — from sustaining practice without interruption, to single-pointed focus, to vigilance about destructive emotions, to resisting the pull of praise and reputation. He then reads three verses from the Guru Puja that encapsulate the entire seven-point system, pairing them with a visualization in which five clear-light nectars purify obstacles to carrying all circumstances into the path. The second half pivots to special insight: the step where loving kindness and compassion crystallize into personal resolve, and where Geshe Pema Tsering explains why only a fully enlightened Buddha can truly guide all beings to freedom. A brief Q&A on responding wisely to criticism closes the session.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14 SoP 2004 11 07.mp3
UUID: 47b8f0e4-7abb-4986-beff-6bf3b40ed605
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Stages of the Path (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-11-07
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.7 minutes
Words: ~3,597
So in order to establish all sentient beings who have been mothers in past lives, in a state beyond sorrow, in order to lead them to the state of a Buddha, then we first need to become Buddhas ourselves. So if we develop them, if we can have the motivation that whatever positive actions we do, that this will act as a cause for us to achieve Buddhahood in order to be of benefit in its way to all sentient beings. So this is the precious mind of bodhicitta. If we have this mind, or that we have developed this idea, it s precious bodhicitta. Please, with this motivation, with this intention, think that today you re going to hear teachings how to train your mind, that you’ll be able to train your mind in accordance with those teachings, and through training your mind in this way, develop bodhicitta, and through developing bodhicitta, become Buddhas.
So the next we’re going through pieces of advice on how to train the mind from the section of the graduated path on how to develop bodhicitta. And session amongst that that we were up to was the two pieces of advice for training the mind. And from amongst these, we were up to number sixteen. We’re up to number sixteen.
So now the sixteenth piece of advice is to continually protect and train in no, hang on. To continually protect your training in being engaged in practice. Interruption. And now there are two different ways that we can look at this. The first is that when we are following the path to Buddhahood, we need to continue along that path and not break off our practice going from one thing to another and then back again.
So that means that if we are whatever instructions we get from our teacher, then we need to engage with them. If we are told to do one thing, like, for example, if we’re told to do certain Tantric practices, that we shouldn’t stop those and do other practices. And if we are told to do told to do practices focusing on emptiness or compassion, then we should focus on those. It means to continue to do what you’ve been instructed to do and to do it in a consistent manner, so to not break off from one thing and start practicing another, even though you don’t personally know properly what you’re doing. The second way that we can look at it is that we should do things all the time, that we should continually engage in practice, and that we shouldn’t think, Okay, I feel like doing a bit of practice today, so I’ll try and work with my mind, but on another day, I don’t feel like being a good person today, so I’m not going to do it.
There are two different ways of looking at it. One is that we shouldn’t interrupt our practice by confusing it with other things and going off on tangents, and the other one is that we should, terms of time, be continuous with our practice. The next piece of advice is that we should train with a single pointed mind and not be distracted. So what this means is that if we are focusing on mind training, then we should be focusing on mind training. If we are half heartedly focusing on mind training, then we’re not going to accomplish anything.
If we are going to focus on mind training, then we that’s exactly what we need to concentrate on. So the next thing is to be vigilant or to investigate again and again to make sure what to to check whether we have afflictive emotions, and if we do have afflictive emotions, to abandon them. So The way that we can try and abandon afflictive emotions is three different ways. If we have the ability, then we can neutralize it just by focusing on it. If we don’t have this ability, then we should try and apply antidotes to it.
If we’re struggling with applying antidotes, even if we distract our mind with something else, then that can help us from being overcome by afflictive emotions or destructive emotions. If we have one specific destructive emotion and we find that harming us, then we can try and focus on anything else in order to get us away from that. So, this is what we need to do, but in order to be able to do that, we need to be aware of when we have destructive emotions. Oftentimes, we not aware we don recognize when we experience anger and attachment and so on. So the most important thing is to be vigilant in our analysis of our mind, to be aware of what it is that we are thinking, so we can apply antidotes to negative emotions..
Okay. So the next one is sorry. Okay. So the next thing is not to the only way I can think of translating is not to lay trips on other people or to guilt trip them. So or to make them feel bad.
So this means that we shouldn’t be going around saying, look, I’m working to develop bodhicitta for the benefit of all of you people, so be nice to me. Or we shouldn’t be thinking that we shouldn’t be thinking that, oh, look at these people, they’re not they’re they’re not even appreciating that I’m developing bodhicitta for their benefit. Alright? It’s not as if they owe us something because other beings owe us something because we’re developing bodhicitta for their benefit or because we are working towards enlightenment for their benefit. It’s not that they owe us something, it’s that we owe them something.
It’s our responsibility to work for the benefit of other beings. To because of the kindness they’ve shown us in the past to work for that. So there’s so we shouldn’t we shouldn’t lay that kind we shouldn’t lay that on them. We shouldn’t be expecting anything from them in order to because we’re doing this. So this this doesn’t work anyway because in order for us to attain our ultimate goal we need other people, we need to be working for the benefit of others.
If it wasn’t for others, then we couldn’t develop bodhicitta and without bodhicitta, then we don’t have the impetus or the intention to become a Buddha. So in actual fact, in order to achieve our own goals, in order to fulfill our own potential, then we need to be working for the benefit of others. Therefore, we can’t say what we’re doing means that others owe us anything, because what we’re doing actually, in order to gain our own goal or achieve our own goals. We need to rely on other people. We need to develop a mind working for towards their benefit or for their benefit.
So the next piece of advice is to not come up with a to not retort, I guess, the slightest bad words. So what it means is don’t answer back to the slightest bad words. This is the way that we tend to behave. If someone says something even a little insulting to us or a little disrespectful, then we tend to respond to that. And what happens then is they say something little, we say something as a retort to what they’ve said, and then they say something stronger, and then it gets worse and worse and worse and we end up fighting.
So if we’re able when there’s words that are only a little bit bad, if we’re able to practice patience when we are slightly insulted, then that stops the situation in its tracks. Whereas if we are slightly insulted and we retort to that, then we have a comeback for that. Then the situation can get worse and worse and we end up fighting. So try and practice patience. Don’t have a comeback to the slightest insults.
So the next piece of advice is to train in and not allowing ourselves to be influenced by positive feedback, fame and praise about our Dharma practice or about the fact that we’re trying to do positive things. So this is something that we really need to keep an eye out on. It’s easy to be very pleased or very happy about the fact that people say we’re a good person, or that people say, Oh, they’re practicing Dharma very well, or Look how much they know, or whatever it is that they may be praising us for. So as soon as we are motivated by that, however, what we’re doing isn’t Dharma. As soon as we are motivated by someone, by the praise that we’ll get from someone, as soon as we’re motivated by the respect that we may get from doing a Dharma practice, then what we are doing ceases to be Dharma and it becomes a worldly action.
So we need to be very careful that whatever our motivation is for doing something accords with Dharma and isn’t isn’t for our our worldly motivation. Okay. So the last piece of advice, the twenty second piece of advice, is that we shouldn’t start off by practicing the Dharma and get a little bit develop a little bit of understanding or do something that’s a little bit virtuous, and then think, Okay, I’ve done my bit now. I’m going to stop. This the way that we should try and practice.
We need to keep going going keep going and keep going. We shouldn’t be satisfied or we shouldn’t be too self congratulatory with what we’ve done. So if practice for a little while and then think we’re getting somewhere and then stop, then there’s no point of having practiced. So we need to keep going and not to think that this is enough. We need to keep going until we are Buddhas, not just until we ve done something a little bit virtuous or had one insight.
So if we do this, if we constantly do this, then our training will become stronger and stronger and stronger, especially if it s not interrupted or if we don’t only do it sometimes. So this has been a description the practice giving and taking meditation that is based on the exchange of self and others, or based on the exchange of cherishing self for cherishing others. It is developed through what are called the seven points, or the seven points of mind training. Now, if we are unable to completely, even if we are unable to complete this practice in this lifetime, even if we do one session or one time, and do kind of practice, then we are creating imprints or a tendency towards wanting to practice this, do this practice in our future lifetimes. Even if we can’t accomplish the goals that are set out in the Seven Points of Mind training in this lifetime, it’s a really good idea to even look at it occasionally because as that that way we are familiarizing our mind with it, and it will become easier to us in the future.
Okay. So we’ve been spent a lot of weeks going through the seven points of mind training, and they are encapsulated in this prayer from the Guru Puja called Reviewing the Stages of Path in verses ninety six, ninety seven and ninety eight. So that says, Should even the environment and the beings therein be filled with the 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 seeing them as causes to exhaust the results of our negative karma. 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 two bodhicittas, to the practice of the five forces,, the essence of the entire Dharma, and thus attune ourselves solely to the bliss of the mind.
So it says, and as to attune ourselves solely to the bliss of the mind, which doesn’t seem to me to be what it says in in Tibetan. I asked Geshe-la what it means. And he said that it means to work towards getting rid of negative states. So the more that we get rid of afflictive emotions or destructive states, the happier we are. So it means that we should try and be happy all the time and work towards this state of not having any suffering.
So it’s another way of saying that we should get rid of suffering by getting rid of our destructive emotions. Okay, then the last verse is from this section says, whatever we occasion to meet, we seek your blessings that we may adapt it to our meditation by the skillful means of the four acts, or the four practices of purification and collecting merit and making offerings to Dharma protectors and destructive interfering spirits. Then it says, may we render this life of liberties and endowment infinitely meaningful by putting into practice the advice and commitments of the training of the mind. So then he goes on to review the visualization that accompanies this prayer, and that is that we visualize the deity inseparable from the teacher in front of us imagine that from this deity inseparable from the teacher, five clear light essences or the five clear light nectars come down and enter into the mind stream of ourselves and all sentient beings. And in doing so they purify any obstacles that we may have or any obscurations to perceiving reality in this way that is, that we will develop that ourselves and all sentient beings develop the ability to take all things, all all occurrences into the path, turn them into the path, and practice mind training without any obstacles or obscurations.
So that was the description of the practice of mind training. And the purpose of mind training is to develop the ability to cherish others as opposed to what we usually do, which is cherishing ourselves. Based on that practice of mind training, the next thing that we do is to develop that into the idea of special insight into bodhicitta. What we ve developed through the practice of mind training is the idea that we want to work for others and not focus on our own benefits. The next thing that we need to work towards from that state is the development of bodhicitta, which is preceded by what s called special insight.
So, in the same way as we were doing for the previous ones, we think, in the same way that my teachers have developed this understanding, then I, too, am going to work at developing this kind of special insight in bodhicitta. So I start off by remembering that all sentient beings have been my Mother, focusing on their kindness, remembering their kindness, seeking to repay their kindness. Through doing these practices, those kind of meditations and teachings, we end up with what’s called the loving kindness that finds all sentient beings dear. Based on that sense of loving kindness towards all sentient beings, we then start practicing what we’ve just been discussing, the mind training, seeing that treasuring ourselves or cherishing ourselves is actually the cause of all faults, and cherishing others is the cause of all positive qualities, is the cause of all happiness. Then we start practicing mind training, or the exchange of self and others based on that.
Having done this, we see that cherishing Mother sentient beings is a greater jewel than our wish fulfilling jewel it’s the greatest jewel that we could possibly have, because of all the benefits that it can get us. Looking in this way on mother sentient beings, or beings who have been our mothers in past lives, which is all beings, then we want to practice patience and kindness without leaving any sentient beings out of this focus. We develop this strongly through the practice of mind training. Through practice of mind training based on this loving kindness towards all sentient beings, then the compassion that we develop makes it unbearable for us to perceive sentient beings suffering without doing something about it. So the next step from these meditations and teachings on loving kindness and compassion is this development of special insight.
Now, what special insight is, is the idea that we ourselves are going to get all sentient beings out of suffering. We ourselves are going to make all sentient beings happy, are going to show them how to be happy. Up until now, we’ve been focusing on these two things: the development of loving kindness and compassion through meditation. The development of love and kindness comes through the idea that all sentient beings have shown us great kindness and that we want them to be happy. So this side of the of the idea that we want people to be happy is what we call love and kindness.
Now the other side of that is this idea that in order for them to be happy they need to be separated from suffering, and the wish that sentient beings are free from suffering is the definition of compassion. So we focus on these two things again and again from these two different angles: wishing sentient beings to be happy, wishing them to be free from suffering, which are actually the same thing but a different angle to look at it. But then after that, if we go one step further and think, Okay, if this needs to happen, if sentient beings need to be free from suffering and they need to experience happiness, then how can this happen? Then we think, well, maybe I need to do something about it. Maybe I need to work towards bringing this about.
When we move on to this thought special insight. Sometimes I think sometimes it translates it as a universal responsibility as well. Okay. So then we we we may develop this idea. We think, yes.
I really want all sentient beings to be free from suffering. I really want all sentient beings to be happy. And then I and then we think I I’ve gotta do something to bring this about. But then we’re stuck because we don’t know how to do that. So we think, okay.
Do I have the power to make all sentient beings be free from suffering and show them happiness. And then we have to go, well, no. I can’t even make myself happy. So so it leaves us at a bit of a a a short end. So, then we need to think, Okay, who can do this?
Who can show sentient beings and work towards sentient beings becoming free of suffering and experiencing happiness. We can look at the arhats. Arhats are beings who have completely gotten rid of all of their experiences of suffering and have completely eliminated all of their destructive emotions and experience nothing but happiness. But even they aren’t able to lead sentient beings to this state, and they aren’t able to work for the benefit of all sentient beings in a constant way. They’re able to help some beings, specifically the few beings that have connections with them, but they aren’t by their intention, they are not constantly working for the benefit of all sentient beings.
So if we want to have the ability to establish all sentient beings as Buddhas, as completely enlightened Buddhas, then what do we have to do first? And the answer is that what we have to do first is that we have to ourselves become fully enlightened beings, fully enlightened Buddhas. In order for us to lead other sentient beings into the state of Buddhahood, or lead all sentient beings to the development of Buddhahood, then we ourselves need to have gone there first. We can’t show other people how to do something that we haven’t done ourselves. So we can stop there.
And if you have questions, you can ask. Oh, yeah. Yeah? I I think he’s not keen to he said, if someone says something bad to you, make sure you say something back. But I think it was a joke.
Geshe la said the first thing to do is to make sure that they’re not right. It’s by investigating, looking at the situation and seeing if they’re right or not. If someone says something insulting to us, then we need to check out to see if they’re right. If they are right, then we should say, I’m really sorry. I want to accept your criticism, and I’ll try and do something about it.
That’s the first thing to do, and to make sure they’re not right. The second thing to do is then, if we’ve decided that they’re not right, then perhaps we can say, Look, I hear what you’re saying. I can’t actually see the fault you’re talking about. I I at the moment. But I will investigate more to see if if what you’re saying is true.
So this is the second way that we can deal with it. Oftentimes we find that if we do respond in this way, then they’re going to think twice about the insult that they have have that they said to us. Then they’ll think, they they took that very well, and they’ll think again about what they said to us. Mhmm. Okay.
Geshe-la said, compassion and loving kindness, can stop.