Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A verse from the First Dalai Lama’s praise of Tārā — that doing anything for others rather than oneself turns any action into Mahāyāna practice — opens this 44-minute Lamrim session and grounds the whole commentary in motivation. Geshe Pema Tsering then reviews the four doors through which negative action enters (ignorance, disrespect, carelessness, neurotic thought), develops the image of ethics as jewels stolen by negative emotions, and identifies anger as the most destructive of the three poisons. A Guru Puja verse — “having abandoned the mind that views this unbearable prison of cyclic existence as a pleasure grove” — introduces renunciation before the session closes on the three higher trainings and the seven jewels of the Aryas, with emphasis on how practitioners can engage with approximate forms of each quality even without full realisation. Suited to those already following the series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 SoP 1994 03 28.mp3
UUID: 2ab67e56-d5d0-475a-8059-eb605b8a7cd5
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Stages of the Path (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 1994-03-28
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.6 minutes
Words: ~4,170
Mike. Okay. So in the Mhmm. In a text In a text that he composed in praise of Tārā, can you go and get get used to the sunglasses? I mean, sunglasses.
Reading glasses. They’re on the table in his room. Okay. The in a text that he composed in praise of the meditation deity Tārā, the first Dalai Lama, Gendun Drup, said, we should be working for the benefit of others and not working for our own benefit. So we should be thinking of others and not be focusing on what we need ourselves or what we desire ourselves.
If we’re able to develop that mind, if we’re able to develop the idea that everything we do is for the benefit of others and not for our own benefit, then anything that we do, any practice that we do, any action that we do becomes what’s called Mahāyāna or altruistic altruistic Dharma or Buddhist practice. So this all relies on our motivation, not necessarily the action that we do. So this means that any action that we can do can have absolutely no benefit, it can have a great benefit, and it can have a little benefit. The benefit that we derive from any action we perform comes from the motivation with which we do that action. So this means that we really have to be careful when we do things about which motivation we’re doing for what reason we’re doing things.
So this means also that before we listen to teachings, should try and develop the right motivation or the best motivation. So this means that we need to develop the right motivation before we perform any action. And if our motivation can possibly be that we are doing whatever it is that we are doing in order to achieve enlightenment to be a benefit to all sentient beings, in order for all beings to achieve unsurpassed enlightenment, then that action that we perform becomes enormously beneficial. And so we should try and develop that motivation. And if we do develop that motivation, whatever we are doing is said to be Mahāyāna Dharma.
Oh. I was just breathing. Okay. So the after we develop this motivation, then we need to perform the action with that with that intention intention. By performing the actions with this intention, and then they can become enormously beneficial.
Sorry, I forgot he threw me. I forgot something. But there was also the fact that if we’re doing something for benefiting ourselves in this lifetime, then that’s a very small outcome that we’re working towards. We’re not working towards something that’s very beneficial at all. Something that has a very, working towards something that has a very small benefit.
That isn’t to say that if we are working towards enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings that we won’t be happy necessarily happy in this lifetime. Because if we have this motivation and we are able to do even a day of practice, then that will make us very, very happy. Our meditations and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings and our different practices we do will make us very, very happy. It’s just that that shouldn’t be the goal for our practice. That shouldn’t be the goal for our for the things that we’re doing.
Now we should make our goal that we’re able to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. So this means that we should listen to this graduated path teaching with the intention that we will be able to understand it and having understood it, we will be able to put into practice what is it explaining. And having been able to put into practice, we will be able to meditate on it, on what it is that we need to develop understanding of. And through developing that understanding through meditating, then meditation, then we will be able to become a fully enlightened Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. So we don’t need to meditate on that at the moment because that’s the thing that you’ve done meditation this morning.
So last week we were talking about the three sorry, the four different doors through which we can perform negative actions that cause us to experience suffering. And they were said to be through not knowing, through being disrespectful, through not being conscientious, and through the arising of many different neurotic thoughts. So through we fall into performing negative actions. Those are the four things that we need to be very mindful of and stop from occurring. So the way that we are able to be mindful of these and stop them from occurring is through three different things.
The first of which is said to be a conscientiousness of mindfulness being aware of what it is that we are doing. And when we’re aware of what it is we are doing, if we do something negative, then we have two things that will stop us from doing those. The first one is said to be personal conscientiousness that is that because we ourselves know that we’re doing something negative then we will want to stop doing that ourselves. We want to stop performing negative actions because we can see ourselves that they’re negative. The other one is that because other people will be able to point them out to us and other people will be ashamed of performing a negative action that other people know about.
The positive pressure that others put on us in order to perform or to behave well is said to be the sec the third thing that can help us from performing stop us from performing negative action. So this is likened to a thief. These negative things that we need to stop doing and the actions that we need to perform are said to be like the watchmen that make sure that thieves don’t steal their things. It’s said that our ethics actions or the the way that we keep different vows, way that we maintain our vows or maintain positive practices or positive behavior, these are These are said to be like our jewels or our precious things that we need to protect. And the negative emotions or the neurotic thought patterns that we have come along like a thief and steal from our ethics.
It’s like our ethics is said to be something that is very precious to us and can cause us to experience great happiness and if we let our negative emotions or our neurotic thought patterns steal in and cause us to let go of our ethics or damage our ethics in some way, it’s a bit like we’re not protecting our wealth and thieves can then come and steal it. Because if the thieves have stolen our wealth then there’s no way that that wealth can be a benefit to us. In the same way, if our neurosis has overtaken us and we are not being ethical or we’re not being practicing positive actions, then those positive actions that haven’t been performed can’t help us in any way. So for us, this is a very difficult thing to bring into being because we’re so under the sway of our neuroses. We may try really hard to perform positive actions, and we may actually do a lot of virtuous or helpful actions.
But it’s very difficult for us to maintain those positive actions without being distracted or surpassed by sorry, or usurped by a sway of negative emotions. So these negative emotions come out of the blue for us because we’re unable to keep our mind steady. And because of these negative emotions, we may actually destroy the positive things that we’ve done or we may not be able to perpetuate or increase the positive things that we are doing. Now out of the negative emotions, three main ones are said to be anger, attachment, and attachment and ignorance and out of those anger is said to be the main one for destroying or the most powerful one in terms of destroying our positive actions. That is because anger is very potent in its force and it has the ability to get rid of our wish to do anything positive.
So the anger is very, very strong in this. In the same way that any positive action we do can have an enormous positive benefit, then any negative action that we perform because we’re under the influence of neurotic thought can cause us to experience many negative results. So we have to be very, very careful in terms of what it is that we’re doing and make sure that we’re not swept away or swamped under by neurotic thought patterns. So it’s very difficult for us to control our mind or to protect our mind from these negative thoughts or these neurotic thoughts because especially with regards to desire we are very habituated into having desirous thoughts or having grasping thoughts or craving thoughts and so that makes it very difficult for us to concentrate on anything. So we may have the idea to do something positive.
We may indeed follow through and perform that positive action. But while we’re performing the positive action and even maybe while we’re thinking of performing a positive action, then at the same time this grasping or craving mind or our grasping or craving mind comes into effect and we may find ourselves thinking of things that are going to benefit us in this lifetime, thinking of things that will make us happy in the short term, thinking of things that we want, thinking of things that we think we need, focusing on things that will make us happy in the immediate future rather than focusing on anything that will actually act as a cause to make us truly happy. So because our mind is so habituated to this craving or this grasping, then it’s difficult for us to concentrate it be concentrated on doing a positive action. So what we need to be able to do is to be aware of what it is that we are thinking and saying, and we need to be conscious of the fact that it’s very difficult for us to perform positive actions and not get carried away by our grasping mind. Therefore we need to be very conscientious of that fact.
And what we need to develop is a discipline, a mental discipline that will stop us from performing negative actions and focus on performing positive actions. If we have a mental discipline, then we are able to understand what it is that we should do and what we shouldn’t do and what it is that’s going to bring happiness and what is that’s going to bring suffering. And by focusing on that discipline, focusing on what it is we need to do and what it is we shouldn’t do, then we are able to establish the causes for real happiness. So in order for us to have this ability, in order for us to be able to discipline our minds and control our minds so that we are not under the control of the tendency we have towards grasping, then we need help because it’s difficult for us to do this. It’s difficult for us to protect our minds in this way.
It’s difficult for us to practice discipline in this way. So what the text then says to do is to have this idea of the teacher being inseparable from the deity and then this being, the teacher inseparable from the deity, then blesses us to give us the ability to have the discipline in order to behave in this manner. Okay. Yeah. So having this thought or having this thought that maybe we have your blessings in order to be able to develop this discipline, then we should just we should think about the verse from the root text that is reviewing the stages of the path from the Guru Puja, which is having abandoned the mind that views this unbearable prison of cyclic existence as a pleasure grove, we seek your blessings to partake of the treasure of Ārya’s jewels and the three higher trainings and thereby to uphold liberation’s banner.
And so, the first line of this verse says, having abandoned the mind that views this unbearable prison of cyclic existence as a pleasure grove. What the unbearable prison of cyclic existence is referring to is any of the experiences of saṃsāra. So this not only includes the sufferings of the lower realms and the sufferings of human existence but also the things that we perceive as being the happiness of this existence of human existence and the God realms or the bliss realms. To have to see that the grasping towards these things and the craving that we have towards these things is actually not something that will give us happiness. And to understand that the only way to get happiness is to achieve liberation or to achieve nirvana.
Now this mind that thinks about things in this way, this thought that we wish to achieve liberation and to get rid of saṃsāra is said to be renunciation. So through this renunciation, through our renunciation, then we’re able to see that Samsāra isn’t the pleasure grove or the nice place to have a picnic that we think it is. So through the garden or any of these things that we may perceive saṃsāra existence to be, we will understand that it’s not this. And this mind, understanding that this is saṃsāra the saṃsāra doesn’t have any positivity in it is is a mind of renunciation or definite emergence. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Right. So we have this idea that the things that we’re going to make us happy in this lifetime are the things that we need to strive after, the things that we need to look towards. And we need to get rid of that idea because in actual fact striving towards things that make us happy in this lifetime is striving towards creating saṃsāra, towards creating suffering. This is the way that we usually do things at the moment, not perceiving what it is that is actually going to make us happy.
We spend a lot of time and a lot of effort making ourselves miserable, creating the causes for experiencing misery in saṃsāra. Once we’ve understood that we really need to start creating the causes for nirvana and get rid of our craving mind, we are able to start working towards nirvana. So this is when it says in next line, or in the last two lines of the translation with the next line of Tibetan, anyway, we need to develop what’s called the Ārya’s jewels, the seven types of Ārya’s jewels and the three higher trainings. Now the three higher trainings are said to be the higher trainings of the higher trainings of discipline, meditation, and wisdom or subduing the mind, meditation, and wisdom. So through these, then we are able to develop towards liberation.
And then the text will go on to slowly explain what are called the seven jewels of the Aryas or the seven jewels of those with the realizations. They go through what those are one by one. Through doing this, then we are able to it says to uphold liberation’s banner. So that means that we’re able to develop the mind that is striving towards liberation. And this is actually what we’re asking the blessings of the teacher inseparable from the deity.
We’re asking for blessings in order for this to come about. So the yes. Sorry. I was thinking I’m saying this wrong. For the first of three higher trainings, it’s usually translated as ethics, but it’s the the same thing as subduing your mind.
So while we’re saying this prayer, while we’re saying this line, which said having abandoned the mind and so on that verse. Then while we’re saying this we get the very strong idea in our mind that through the blessings of the teacher which is inseparable from the meditation deity then this is able to come about and the way that we visualize this coming about is that it’s said that there are five different types of light which are inseparable from bliss, There’s a lot of inseparables. Then they come from the teacher inseparable from the deity into our mind stream and they subdue all of the things that may stop us from experiencing the truth of this or the understanding of this this truth and then they develop that understanding in our mind stream but not only in our mind stream but then this light goes out and pervades the mind streams of all beings and in their minds it gets rid of the negativities that may stop or the blockages that may stop them from developing the understanding of this verse and it develops the understanding of that verse in their mind stream. So when we’ve seen all this, when we visualize all this and we realize that all beings have developed this understanding in our visualization, then we have this mind of happiness.
It says we meditate on happiness or we familiarize ourselves with happiness because we’ve seen all these beings cease to suffer because they’ve developed this understanding. So then we have to try and understand what is these three what are these three different higher trainings that we need to develop. We’ve mentioned these before. They were the higher trainings in ethics, the higher trainings in meditation, and the higher training in wisdom. Now, with regards to these, first of all, the higher training in ethics is something that we can actually practice.
We have this idea of keeping our vows, performing positive actions, refraining from performing negative actions. So this is like the higher training in ethics and also the higher training in meditation. A higher training meditation is developing concentration and we can do this through our meditative practice. So although we should perhaps make the practice of ethics our main focus, we’re also able to try and develop the higher training of meditation. And then the third of the third of the three higher trainings is a higher training in wisdom.
Now the higher training in wisdom by definition is the mind that realizes emptiness. While we may have not have this type of understanding or may while we may not have this realization, we by definition, we do have things that are similar to that. That is that we can remind ourselves that things don’t inherently exist. We can remind ourselves that things appear, in a different way to the way that they actually are. So through reminding ourselves like this and through practicing meditation and through practicing ethics, then although we may not have the definition of these three higher trainings of ethics, meditation, and wisdom, we have something similar to this.
And through the practice of things similar to this, then our understanding becomes more subtle and more subtle and more subtle till eventually we have, the definition of these three higher trainings in our So we need to have a base for this practice, though. And the base that we have for this practice is the refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Having refuge in the Buddha and the Dharma and the Sangha, then seek to perform actions which are going to stop us from experiencing suffering and make us experience happiness. So these three higher trainings are things that we can actually engage in even if we can’t engage in them to their full extent or to their perfected state. So this means that we can focus on having gone for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, we can focus on not performing the ten non virtuous actions and trying to perform the ten virtuous actions.
We can focus on this. We can develop an understanding of this. We can also focus on our meditation. We can develop concentration in our meditations and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings, and we can develop our insight into emptiness because in actual fact we have an understanding of ethics and we have an understanding of meditation and we also have an understanding of wisdom. It may not be that we perceive these things directly but we do have the qualities of being able to perceive that negative actions are negative.
Do have the qualities to be able to focus on an object for short amounts of time. And we do have the ability to understand or the quality of understanding that things may not exist the way that we think that they exist, that we may have a misperception of reality and that this thing called emptiness may be the way that things actually exist. So what we need to do then is to start focusing on those trainings. We need to to develop them. We need to develop our understanding of virtuous action and we need to and ethics.
We need to develop our understanding of meditation and our ability to concentrate. We need to develop our understanding of wisdom, and we need that is the wisdom understanding emptiness. So through developing ourselves in these ways, then our the small wisdoms that we have now with regards to these three higher trainings will become stronger and stronger and stronger and eventually they will act as a cause for us to achieve Buddhahood. Through these, if our motivation is that we are doing these in order to achieve this, then we can will be their outcome. So we do things with the idea that we’re doing this in order to attain a good human or God rebirth.
We’re doing this in order to attain liberation. We’re doing this in order to attain full enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. So if we do things with those motivations, the small things that we’ve developed now become greater and greater. Okay. So the next one is what’s called the seven jewels of the Aryas.
Seven jewels of the Aryas are said to be faith, ethics, generosity, understanding, embarrassment, conscientiousness, and wisdom.
So even if, Aryas are really poor and have nothing else, then they’re said to be very rich because they have these tools. So, yeah, so we there’s two there’s, like, embarrassment and conscientiousness. May sound strange as qualities, but embarrassment means that, through their own volition or through their own their own self watching, then they’re able to decide that an action is not positive, that it’s negative, that it’s not helpful, that it’s going to be harmful. So that means that they refrain from doing those actions by watching their own minds. And the other one which is sorry, that’s like conscientiousness, sorry.
The other one, which is usually translated as embarrassment, that they’re aware of the way that other beings may perceive them and what other beings may take from their actions. So this stops them from performing negative actions to benefit other beings as well. Right? So it’s usually translated as embarrassment and shame or but it it doesn’t mean that they’re embarrassed or that shame is that they use embarrassment and shame or conscientiousness not to do negative actions. So this this this word that’s translated as embarrassment actually has two meanings in Tibetan as well.
It’s like if you use it in normal Tibetan, it means, you know, I’m too embarrassed to talk to that person. I’m too embarrassed to do that. I’m too embarrassed to do this. And it’s like the normal way we use it. But in dharma Tibetan, gets transformed and it means that they have the ability to watch themselves and say, okay.
It’s not okay for me to do that, and it’s okay for me to do this. So it has different meaning in Dharma Tibetan from normal Tibetan. So in English, it should have a different meaning than normally when we say we’re embarrassed. Okay. So we need to practice first of all, we need to recognize, sorry, what these seven jewels of Aryas are or jewels of realised beings are so that we can understand what it is that we need to develop and what it is that we need to stop doing.
And so having recognised them, we then need to put them into practice and then we need to develop our mind in the same way as those. So we take them to the limit, in other words. So this first one of recognising them is that we need to recognise that we may have these in small quantities in our mind stream at the moment. We may have these ideas in small quantities in our mind stream at the moment, and we need to develop them. We need to, practice them in order to make them, their strength greater.