Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A student’s question about the difference between arhats and solitary realizers sets the agenda for this 21-minute Q&A session. Geshe Pema Tsering explains why solitary realizers — meditating on the nonduality of subject and object rather than selflessness of person alone — develop greater wisdom and clear gross obscurations to knowledge. He then addresses whether a Hīnayāna practitioner can shift to the Mahāyāna path: a living arhat can do so by cultivating bodhicitta; one who has died cannot. A Heart Sūtra question — does “son of good lineage” refer specifically to Mahāyāna potential? — yields the answer that it covers any awakened or unawakened potential without distinction. The session closes with a broad exchange on whether the Mahāyāna is still developing, answered by contrasting those who work to suppress it with those, like the Dalai Lama, who propagate it. Suited to practitioners already working through the Sublime Continuum text.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 2005 05 26 (2) SC.mp3
UUID: aff911b9-51e0-4f42-812d-867a5e2c516c
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Sublime Continuum (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-05-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 21.5 minutes
Words: ~1,164
Okay. So that’ll be right. He I guess I said, it’s he really likes enlightening potential. I said, so does he like studying about enlightening potential, or does he like the fact that it exists, or what? What do you mean?
And he said he likes waking it up, he said. So if you have any questions yes? Between an Arhat and a Pratyekabuddha. Alright. The distinction between the hearer’s vehicle and the vehicle of the solitary realizers is that because their object is different, their meditation is different, and their realizations are different.
So the that is to say that the solitary realizers not only focus on realizing selflessness, they also focus on developing on realizing the lack of distinction between subject and object. Yeah? The the non duality of subject and object. And by doing this, by focusing on this, they then also not only get rid of the obscurations to liberation, they also get rid of the gross obscurations to knowledge, the gross obscurations to knowledge. So you can’t say that these these obscurations to knowledge are they haven’t got rid of truly gotten rid of obscurations to knowledge, but they get rid of gross obscurations to knowledge through the through developing this idea of the nonduality of subject and object.
Okay. So the main focus of meditation for hearers is the selflessness of the person. Or the object to be refuted in their meditation is the self of person. And the main object for refutation in the meditations and teachings of solitary realizers is duality. They have a different object for meditation, they have a different result.
He said they have more wisdom. Okay. They develop more wisdom, but you can’t say that that’s a direct result of their having more merit. They have more wisdom because of what they meditate on and what they’re focused on. They’re said to be the So it’s said to be the middle vehicle, and the beings who follow this vehicle are said to have middling capacities.
Can I can I translate that as more than an arhat? Yes. Yeah. Really? Yeah.
Yes. Okay. So that they say that they’re Okay. So there’s said to be two different types. Right?
So basically, they say that if you are either a stream enterer who’s a Hinayanist or an arahat who has attained nirvana with remainder, which means that you’re basically not dead yet, yeah? Then you can change from the Hīnayāna path to the Mahāyāna path by either creating the causes to develop bodhicitta or meeting a Mahāyāna teacher or something like that. Right? If you have become an Arahat without remainder, you can’t. That means if you’ve died.
You can’t change then from a systematic point of view. So so in the earlier stage, you still have all three potentials of being a Hinayanist, and you can’t change up to You can’t have all three potentials. You have one of them. Right? Or none.
So this is where they talk about awakening the Mahāyāna potential. So if you have the Hīnayāna potential awakened and then you become you enter the Mahāyāna path by developing bodhicitta, you awaken the Mahāyāna potential. But when you awaken the Mahāyāna potential, the other one doesn’t exist anymore. So you only have one potential at a time. Okay.
So the same word Sorry. I just remembered something at At the beginning of the Heart Sūtra, it says you know how it says, son or daughter of a good lineage? It’s the same word as the potential or the Buddha nature. And I said Geshe, is that talking about the Mahāyāna potential? And he said, no.
It’s just talking about any kind of potential. So it’s not he said it’s it’s the it can be the unawakened Mahāyāna potential or the awakened Mahāyāna potential either because it doesn’t distinguish between being Mahāyāna potential or not. Just a potential. Potential lineage. I said, can you see anyone else if anyone else has questions?
Because I can’t always see. Oh, Okay. And I see he said, oh, I can tell they’ve got lots more questions. Hiro is here. Is the Mahāyāna still developing?
What do you mean by developing? Changing or getting better or Getting better. Uh-huh. He wants to know who Okay. Geshe-la said that depends on who you’re talking about.
Who? Who? And I said, no. He’s not talking about who. He’s talking about the tradition in general.
And he goes, well, the tradition is the people, so it depends on who you’re talking about. Alright. He said if you look at it from the perspective of who what’s the name of the Chinese premier at the moment? Maybe Jintao or something like that. Jintao?
No. Anyway, Oh, yeah. The the present Chinese president or premier, whatever. He goes, say Mao Zedong, everyone knows him. And, anyway, if you look at it from his perspective, the Chinese president’s perspective or premier’s perspective, he’s working really hard to destroy it, to make it worse, to not have it develop.
And if you look at it from the perspective of the Dalai Lama, he’s working to develop it, to improve it, to make it proliferate. Yeah? So it depends on who you’re talking about because it’s only he said it only exists in people’s minds in continuums. There’s people who wanna destroy it, and there’s people who are developing it and and improving it. Do you mean changing?
Involving the philosophy. I think this is my question has a really wide Scope. Yes. And he’s usually asking wide scoped questions of Geshe’s is a bit like throwing up one of those clay pigeons. Yeah.
Yeah. So it depends on the individuals. Yeah. Yeah. So it means Yeah.
Of course. Is it he Okay. Geshe-la said that he thinks he that the president of Japan or the prime minister of Japan is a Buddhist because he wore saw him wear wearing clothes like you and going into a temple. And I said that I think that that was a Shinto temple. And just because people wear clothes like Hiro doesn’t make them Buddhist.
Yeah. In Japan, you know, Shinto is a very, very old ancient He saw him going into a temple, so he thought that he was trying to improve Buddhism. Because he said he thought because he was wearing clothes like Hiro, he must be a Buddhist. Shintoism or Buddhism is a part of the culture. Mhmm.
And in Japan, Shintoism and Buddhism affect each other. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure.
I’ve gotta explain this a bit in detail, like, by using Tibet as an example as opposed to an analogy. Yeah. Already existent and it can Yeah. But for this, you have to, you know, survive in Japan. Sure.
Sure. It just changes a little. Yeah. Japan — pretty sure that little chunk is John Howard. Johnny, you see, you know?
He thinks he’s Christian. Okay. Is everyone else okay? Yes?