Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A translation puzzle sets the tone for this 44-minute discussion: the Tibetan word möpa, rendered in the study text as “belief,” turns out to carry a richer meaning — something like finding a quality so attractive that you want to cultivate it. Geshe Pema Tsering works through this distinction live with students, then walks the three classical types of faith: clear or longing faith (appreciating the Buddha’s qualities), believing faith (developing conviction about the path), and certain faith (acting without doubt or hesitation). The session’s longest exchange tackles “devotion” as a translation problem, arguing that the passive, surrendering connotations the word carries from Western religious culture misrepresent Buddhism’s actual requirement: practitioners are impelled to investigate, and faith grows more stable the more rigorously it is examined. Suited to students already working through the Sublime Continuum text.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 2005 06 02 (2) SC.mp3
UUID: fe2cf2ed-2356-4909-9a17-538e1f57fb67
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Sublime Continuum (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-06-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 43.9 minutes
Words: ~2,824
I need to be a second. Tricky even when it’s just about five. Yeah. But if you have questions if if you guys are on sale of the century, who would you say was first? Right.
Alright. Vasubandhu was a was a Hīnayāna practitioner who then became a student of his elder brother, Asaṇga, and changed to the Mahāyāna. Yeah? There’s all I know it’s trying get you that I’d also read one about a, there was a yogi from Tibet who went to what’s that? Red.
Red? It means batteries needed. It’s on, but the batteries aren’t that cool. Yeah. Yeah?
Okay. Can you hear now? Yeah. That’s good. Alright.
So, yeah, so he was a he went to take ordination in Magadha, and this was at the time when all the Tibetans were going to India. And when he got there, they said, we can’t give you ordination because you’re an Arhat. Yeah? But he said he wanted ordination in the Mahāyāna so he could practice, and then no one could give him ordination. So he had to ordain himself in order to become a Mahāyāna practitioner.
Uh-huh. Mm-mm. Okay. So I guess this is that he thinks that he had a very strong desire for his own his own liberation from from Samsāra. And then through meeting a qualified Mahāyāna teacher like Asaṇga, Asaṇga was able to point out to him the faults of having that motivation.
Yeah. Yeah. I used to probably go. Joking. Yeah.
Is it no. Is this the it was more like the word that they’ve translated as belief. Yeah. I I was having doubts about whether it should have been translated as belief. So I asked Geshe-la for what his idea of the Tibetan word is that they’ve translated here as belief.
And he said the word möpa Okay. The the Tibetan word which is, is he his his understanding of his meaning was to like something so much that you wanted to develop it. So, to be interested in something enough that you wanted to engage in it. I just recognize from this English word belief Mhmm. Which maybe doesn’t match with the The Tibetan?
Tibetan. Mhmm. But what I recognize is awareness without a clear realization for Awareness without a clear realization. Mhmm. Or clear vision because, you know, what I imagine belief Mhmm.
Developed by accumulated Okay. Said yes because he said belief is when you don’t have a clear perception of something, like a direct perception, but from your experiences and from your analysis and the way you looked at it, you think it’s that’s the way it is. Yeah? You think that’s the way it is. Yeah?
But a clear realization is when you see something directly. So at the moment, we prob we have faith or we have belief in the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha, but we don’t necessarily see them directly. And he said, but there’s other things that we do see directly, like we see we know how to prostrate. We know how to do a prostration. Yeah?
And that’s something that we can see. We can realize how to do a prostration. Yeah? So we can Or how to make an offering. We can see those things clearly.
Yeah? And we can recognize them directly. But we don’t there’s other things that we just have belief in at the moment that we have from our experience and from our analysis, we’ve come to the conclusion that that’s the way it is. So that’s the diff yeah. Because belief doesn’t arise to be on the I don’t the truth doesn’t arise.
The truth doesn’t arise depending on our belief. Depend on our belief. That’s what I think. I think I know what you mean. So truth doesn’t depend on just what we believe.
It depends on it is something external or is something different to ness. You know, a lot of people I don’t know. Lots of people say, I believe, blah blah blah, but that’s conventional reality. Ah, yes. Okay.
Okay. Geshe-la said that he thinks it’s it has to be both. Before you can see something directly, you have to believe in it. Right? So he said be so for example, we’re seeing ultimate truth.
You first of all have to believe in ultimate truth, and then do a lot of analysis, a lot of familiarization, and a lot of meditation on ultimate truth as you believe it to be. Then you’ll see it directly. Right? But without believing in it first, you won’t be able to see it. You mean the?
Yes. Mhmm. Alright. So he’s Mhmm. That he thinks there’s more to faith than just believing, because faith has also has this idea that comes along with it, is aspiration.
So to have faith in something isn’t just to believe in it, but you want to achieve it. Really? Really? Yeah. You wanna achieve it.
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Conviction that it’s a feeling that you’re not sure.
Sure. Okay. Okay. So Geshes said that they they usually talk about three different types of faith. Right?
There’s clear faith, believing faith, and certain faith. Right? And he said that so if you if you think about faith from these three different perspectives, then you have the first one is it’s it’s called clear or longing faith. Yeah? Is this idea that I really like that.
I I I really wanna focus on that. That’s really good thing. Yeah? This is appreciation. Alright?
I I like the qualities of the Buddha. I like I I really I wanna focus on that. Yeah? And then the next bit is coming to The believing faith is becoming certain about that. Alright?
Knowing how it is that you get there. Yeah? Knowing how it is that that this comes about, developing that understanding, developing like the belief, the conviction in it, the developing part. Yeah? And the last stage which is called certain faith is what he thinks you were talking about.
Right? Is this idea of it’s gotta be done, knowing exactly that it has to be done, having no questions about that, and just getting on with it. So that’s like one that’s the the final type of faith when you’re talking about these three different types of faith. Okay. So I guess you said there’s a bit of a difference because this word here has this idea of seeing something and wanting to engage in it and joyous effort is actually being happy about the doing of it.
Right? As opposed to the kind of the attraction to it. Yeah. Yeah. Will lose something.
Yeah. Yeah. Be denied. I’ll suffer. Average I have that all the time.
Yeah. Yeah. But not really. Yeah. They don’t wanna do it so they don’t have this this interest or this, you know, longing.
Hang on. I just wanted to ask up a follow-up to that because I I’ve because sitting in a position where you’re in between the two cultures, I think that this word is one of the most confused and confusing, especially when it’s translated as devotion. Yeah. And again, Uh-huh. Yeah.
Mhmm. Okay. Sorry. I was just saying to Geshe-la because I’ve seen I think from this position of being in between two cultures, I think that this word devotion and how it’s interpreted has been a source for a lot of confusion and weird stuff. Right?
And and so and it’s this word, or the two of them, the dependence or the the this interest that is it. And I tried to explain this where the context of devotion comes from to Geshe-la and this idea that it’s a it’s it’s like a Christian word. Yeah. And it has this connotation of surrendering, but also surrendering your responsibility in a way. Alright?
Because it’s it’s like I’ll do what I don’t have to take responsibility for my own thoughts and actions anymore. I just do whatever I’m told. Yeah? And this can be very problematic. Geshe-la said that the idea of working with a teacher is not that — there’s a word for that which is — he said that he would describe that as not paying attention.
Or or or if if you just think I do what I’m told, I don’t question it, I don’t I don’t try and incorporate it, I don’t I don’t try and understand what’s being told said, I just listen for instructions. Yeah? I listen for what I should do and shouldn’t do. That’s yeah. He’s he says lack of attention or lack of Yeah.
So, you know, actually, you just if you’re not trying to incorporate, if you’re not trying to if you’re not trying to understand, then and you’re just accepting things, then that’s not the process that you’re supposed to be going through. And then pardon? Passive. Yeah. And I said, like, you give them your responsibility.
You’re saying, I don’t take responsibility for myself. I’m giving you Oh, He said it’s the same as Tibetans going to teachings. Oh, no. He said, I listen to the Tibetan. Okay.
So Geshe-la said that Tibetans, when they go to teachings, they go to listen to Dalai Lama teach. It’s ostensibly to listen to Dalai Lama teach, but they spend most of their time having a picnic and chatting to their neighbors and finding out what the person down the road is doing and not paying much attention to what’s being said at all. They go home and go, that was a really good teaching. And this is what he would call inattentiveness. Sorry.
Because you Geshe was bringing on to veterans, and I was saying, you know, there’s this this word devotion. It’s just completely surrendering, completely giving giving, completely being passive. And so it can be problematic for people if they take it at face value what it means and the and, yes, it’s like, what are you talking about? And I say, well, for example, I have to edit these books and the, you know, Tibetan teachers don’t teach in their own language. Right?
They teach in if they’re teaching in English, they’re not teaching in their own language, so they say weird things. Right? And then they don’t make you know, it’s difficult to speak in another language. And I’ve changed some things and they go, what is the words of the precious teacher? And I was like, but the precious teacher isn’t making any sense.
You know, because of the structure in the sound gets a little bit this, you say to the teachers, you know, is it alright to put it this way? And they’re like, why are even asking? Do it, you know? But the students can be like, you know? And then I heard that one time, Situ Rinpoche went on a tour of the the West, and he found people waiting outside the toilet when he went to the toilet because they’re wondering what it meant for him to go to the toilet.
And Geshe-la said, maybe they thought he doesn’t need to go to the toilet. Needs to pull that. What’s he doing in there? It seems to me that it it’s the it’s the use of the word. Like, you’ve you’ve you’ve sort of focused on that that very narrow use of the word, you know, devotion.
Yeah. But we use that. It’s like the word love. We use it In many different ways. Like, you know, devoted to it.
Devoted to God. Yeah. Devoted to your football team. But we say to your mother, devoted to your children. But you’re saying devoted then and not devotion.
Devotion has different connotation, I think, devoted, the way people use it. Yes. Yeah. Suppose that’s that’s the action, but the word’s still the same. But the meaning that this What I feel for my football team is devotion.
Yeah. Like, I feel for my work is devotion. Devotion. Still then it has religious connotations that are very strange. It’s true.
It’s they it is used in those context, but I think that it seems to have taken on some other weird That is because it’s in this context of religious activity. And that’s I think that’s where it came from. But I think in I think the the Tibetan, you know, when you’re translating it, it seems from what’s been said tonight that the word belief, devotion, focus, interest, enthusiasm. It it’s more in that The quotation, this word that you’re translating as as being devoted. But if someone says they are devoted to their football team, that’s doesn’t ring alarm bells with you?
If someone said that to me people. Yeah. I think But that’s part of the Christian tradition as well. This woman came to Sogyal Rinpoche who’d been in a strict Christian church, and they told her that in that church, if she thought for herself, she was going against the will of God. Right?
And that was devotion. Yeah. Yeah? And this has been this was part of the the Christian tradition, like, well, the the or, the church’s tradition. Yeah.
For for hundreds and hundreds of years. And I think that that’s that’s why I think this word can have a problem. Alright. So, I explained to Geshe-la that concept and he said, It’s the opposite in Buddhism. You are impelled to investigate.
You’re impelled to think for yourself. It’s a it’s it’s an essential part of the process. And, like, last night, Khensur Rinpoche was saying, if you don’t investigate, you don’t get faith. If you don’t question, you don’t have faith. It’s only through questioning, it’s only through investigating that you get faith.
And I said to Gesh, you know, the Christian tradition, there has been this history of saying don’t investigate. Yeah. If you investigate, you’ll lose your faith. Yeah. So this could be a dangerous thing for people to get caught up with.
And Geshe said, well, depends on who you have faith in. He said, anyone was silly enough to have faith in me and they investigated, they’d lose it quickly. He said if people have qualities and you investigate them, then you become certain of your faith. And if they don’t have qualities and you investigate, you lose it. Marty, now you’re taking me Who?
Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s intellectual figure. Yeah. Christian devotion doesn’t.
Some does. But Very little of it. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not generalized.
You’re accepting in Christianity. Some it it’s not it’s not all, but there is that tendency, and there has been a historic tendency, but not all of it by any means. But that but that girl freaked me out because I grew up in a Christian family. She came along. She said they had told us not to think.
And I was like, what? But I also remember that people, when I stopped going to my parents church came up to me and said, your parents shouldn’t have got you to think so much. I I remember that. I remember just, okay. That’s scary.
They taught you to think too much. Yeah. I remember them saying, it’s a bit it’ll be hard for you because sometimes, yeah, if you investigate if you look into things too much, you lose your faith. Yeah. But I was gonna say, I also have to say, like, my dad’s really sick and he has spent all his life he’s a Christian, he’s just spent all his life investigating his faith.
And now at this time, because he’s done all that, it’s like sorted, you know. He’s like, yeah, yeah, I’m gonna die, whatever. And Geshe-la said, well, you actually have Sorry. And Tibetans as well. There’s some that investigate and their faith becomes strong, and there’s some that don’t do that, and they can have unstable faith.
Yes. We we say key key key means go back, and a dependent. Go back. Go back. Go back to Buddhist.
Depend on Yeah. Depending is good. Depending? Yeah. Go back, sir.
I don’t understand that one. That’s what how we write. Yeah. No. No.
I I understand. Was thinking, why does Adam go back? I’m I I have to think on that. I’m gonna do a I’m gonna do a a hero. I have to go away and think about that.
It’s It’s interesting because when I was translating that, the word for home in Tibetan is, like, inside. Yeah. And the word for Buddhist is insider. So it was like the for the insider to go inside. Yeah.
So he liked it a lot. And he said that there’s this idea also in Buddhism when there that there was going outside the fold and coming inside. And so it was to come inside. Maybe we can start saying and say. Oh.
Oh, yeah.