Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. “What would you do if you arrived on a planet with no other sentient beings?” That thought experiment anchors Geshe Pema Tsering’s 88-minute commentary on exchanging self for others, drawing on verses from Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland, Śāntideva’s Bodhisattva Way of Life, and the Seven-Point Mind Training. Geshe-la builds the case that self-cherishing is the root of all suffering while others are the source of every happiness, down to one day’s food or shelter. He then explains why even meditation on emptiness or deity practice deepens attachment when the motivation remains self-benefit alone. A Q&A closes the session, addressing whether helping while expecting reward is genuine generosity, how many lifetimes the training requires — Geshe-la offers his own fifty-plus years as the honest measure — and how to catch small habitual selfishness before it hardens.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 2007 02 25 Geshela Sunday 25 Feb 072 – Track 1.mp3
UUID: 61d42182-fd6c-4368-b586-4d084e5f6938
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Sunday Geshela Teaching (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2007-02-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 88.1 minutes
Words: ~6,387
So then, Geshe-la, I’m just saying that we have to give rise to proper motivation. The good motivation will be then that if we study, to listen to the teachings, and train our minds for the sake of benefiting all sentient beings. Okay? So then in the same way we make our dedications at the end of the teachings, dedicate all the matters that we have accumulated for the sake of all sentient beings also. May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all sentient beings never be separated from the happiness that is free from suffering. May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from desire for friends and hatred for enemies. Teaching prayers, page twenty. So then we we we continue still in the chapter that refers to the teaching on exchanging self for others.
And so we continue now with with a quote from the Precious Garland of Nāgārjuna, which says, may all their evil ripen upon myself, and may all my virtue ripen upon them. And then, I guess, I was just explaining that evil here means means everything that is bad. You know? One’s good karma and and whatever sufferings there are. So may may all the evil and bad karma and negativity that they have accumulated and the sufferings that they experience ripen upon oneself.
And may everything that is good, may all virtue, may everything may every happiness and every excellence and every good quality then ripen upon them or the other sentient beings. So then I guess then now this is this is a very challenging very challenging teaching because, usually, all of us, we think of us we think that we ourselves alone need need happiness, and and other people, you know, we we we don’t care if they suffer or not or if they have happiness or not. Yes. Then, Geshe-la says that this verse has has has a lot of truth to it because in fact in all sentient beings all other sentient beings they are actually very important way more important than oneself alone and every good quality, every good virtue, every good experience that we have comes in dependence on other sentient beings. And then also on the other hand, ourselves, then they are the source ourselves alone, they are the source of of every suffering and every negativity and everything that is bad in the world.
So because of that, then we we wish every suffering and every negativity for the self and everything that is good for all the sentient beings. And then we then follow to another verse from the Bodhisattva Way of Life of Śāntideva, which is telling us, I should give myself to others and apprehend others as myself. And I think I was then explaining, so then one should give should give oneself, dedicate oneself to others. And others here doesn’t mean only just a few two or three people. It means all sentient beings, all other sentient beings without exception.
And then Geshe-la Geshe-la is explaining, but when we think about others, all these when we say all the sentient beings and we refer to all sentient beings without exception and Geshe says that we think it is actually a huge number of beings. And and Geshe-la says I lost I lost the train. But then all this this huge number of sentient beings, all of these sentient beings, they are very important because it is it is depending on them that we get everything that is good, that we experience everything that is good. But we do not understand that. We keep on believing that we are the only thing that is important, the only ones that are important and that every happiness that we get, we get in dependence on our own efforts alone and we remain ignorant of ignorant of the fact that they are very kind to us.
All other sentient beings are extremely kind to us and that every happiness we get, we get because of them. For others, when we talk again about others and all other sentient beings, then there are all sorts all sorts of relation relationships that we have with different beings. So there are amongst amongst all other sentient beings, there are those who are our enemies. There are those who are our friends. There are those who are neutral.
There are those who we like, and there are those who we dislike. And then but then Geshe-la says there is there is no one who remains the same so our our enemies they they do not remain always enemies they are not enemies every time and any time and our loved ones also they are not loved ones they do not remain loved ones they’re not loved ones at any time and or every time and again even our parents they’re not always our parents so if we if we think about what Geshe-la says, then we will understand that this is not this condition, this this conditional relationship that we have with these people is not permanent. But there there are known there there there is no no being who is not actually of benefit to ourselves. And there is no one amongst our enemies who is not beneficial for ourselves. And there is no one amongst our loved ones who is not beneficial for ourselves.
There is no sentient being whatsoever who is not very kind and beneficial to us. So we must then reflect upon this and meditate and ponder a lot about this and understand if we do if we put the right effort we will come to understand that there is there is there is no sentient being whatsoever who is not beneficial to us. Even one day’s food or the mere enjoyment of one day’s shelter came in dependence on innumerable sentient beings it was only possible because of the work or the kindness of innumerable sentient beings But then we we think, no. This this this I obtained out of out of my own effort. This I obtained out of my own work with my own money and so forth.
We think to ourselves, I have a very good education. So then I did a good job. Then I got and then I from my own efforts, I got hold of of the car and the food, the house, and everything, and this was all because of myself alone. That’s how we think. And still we never come to understand.
We don’t actually understand how it is that everything that is good depends on others. But then it is so. If we think about it we will come to see that it is actually so even when we are gaining our education then we got our education in dependence on somebody else and when we got our job we got our job because of somebody else and when we get our money we get someone else’s money. And everything is the same. Our house, our food, our car, everything we got in dependence on somebody else.
And then in this way we remain holding on to the illusion that we ourselves have accomplished all that and we never acknowledge that, we never truly see that everything that we got was was in dependence on others. And then Geshe-la says: But we never think about it. We never think how everything comes in dependence on others and believing that we are the only ones who accomplish all these things then we we don’t give any thought to whatever happens to others be it suffering or happiness or whatever we just don’t give any thought at all then, Geshe-la was now saying that if we think about it, if we think carefully about it then we will understand this reality, this fact that all all sentient beings are actually very kind to us in this way and that everything that is good depends on other sentient beings. Geshe-la says we have to meditate about it. If we don’t do anything about it, if we don’t sit down and meditate then we will remain ignorant of this fact.
But if we are to put the right effort, then we will understand this fact. And it is not as difficult as understanding emptiness, for example, a very which is sort of a hidden thing that we have to discover. This is something that we can relate to our own experience. So if we if we settle minds with, we will understand. Then Geshe-la is saying now when we come to understand that everything in this life that we experience right now depends on other sentient beings, everything that is good depends on other sentient beings.
And we can extrapolate that and we can see that not only in this life but in every life, at any point in time whatsoever and every happiness and everything that is good that we have experienced came in dependence on other sentient beings and all the way to liberation and enlightenment itself. Liberation depends on other sentient beings. We can only get liberated in dependence upon other sentient beings. We can only get enlightened, attain the ultimate enlightenment. Again, in dependence on other sentient beings.
So there is there is absolutely no happiness whatsoever. There is none attained that is not in dependence on other sentient beings. To illustrate the importance of all sentient beings, Geshe-la gives us a beautiful exercise, an interesting exercise. Geshe-la is asking us to imagine ourselves suddenly arriving at a planet or a land where there is absolutely no other sentient being whatsoever and then think ask to yourselves what can you do? What is it that that you will do then?
You cannot do anything. So in in a place like that, where there is absolutely no other sentient being whatsoever, and we’re not talking about only human beings we’re talking about no sentient being whatsoever no living creature whatsoever there is nothing and if we have an animal if we find an animal then okay we eat the animal it’s okay we remain alive but we completely rely on other sentient beings in order to remain alive, to survive. Then without other sentient beings, cannot do anything. We can only die. We won’t even learn how use our own resources, our own body.
We won’t have the knowledge. We won’t have anybody from whom to acquire the knowledge. If we think about it, if we think carefully about it, we understand that this is so, there’s nothing that we can get that doesn’t come in dependence on others. And Geshe-la says but still we remain holding on to ourselves to that selfish attitude you know I need this, I want this. I need that for myself.
I need this for myself. And and we keep on holding to that. Then Geshe-la says we remain with this selfish attitude and this self absorbed attitude and thinking okay I need everything that is good for myself, I want everything that’s good for myself and we don’t care whatsoever what happens to others if it’s good or bad we just don’t care what happens to others and we remain with this attitude never understanding how other beings are kind to us are so very kind to us and Geshe-la says this is all a huge delusion, actually. So then we we we need to meditate on this on these topics. Need to meditate about these things and then if we meditate about these things then we will understand how everything comes in dependence on others and we will even then be able to develop the mind of enlightenment and eventually attain enlightenment itself but if we don’t study or reflect about these things at all, then we we will never come to this realization.
And Geshe-la was Geshe lais is was explaining all that to to to show us that there is a reason for what Śāntideva has said in the verse that was quoted right right before this discussion started. I guess, I’m quoting the verse again. So I should give myself to others and apprehend others as myself. And furthermore, may they may all the, how to say, evil or may may, ripen upon myself and and may every goodness and happiness ripen upon them And those are these are the reasons why why this this master say such such things. So then Geshe-la is saying, so then these these reasons that were given to us to explain why this master say such things they are correct reasons they are correct statements and Geshe-la says furthermore all buddhas they are omniscient they know everything.
So they can they can also they also teach us that those are the reasons and and these teachings are correct because of that too. And but but Geshe-la says but we have been used to this self absorbed attitude, self grasp and self-cherishing attitude since time immemorial for such a long time that now it is very difficult to think in a different way. So then that’s why that’s also the reason why we need to make a serious effort in studying and meditating about these these topics. And is explaining further explaining the meaning of of the first line of the verse which reads, I should give myself to others. And Geshe-la explains it is not when we talk about giving oneself to others, it’s not merely, how to say, serving them with with physical labor or becoming their slaves or anything like that.
It is more like a mental attitude it is more like whatever it is that you are doing it doesn’t matter what it is but whatever it is that you are doing, you develop the genuine intent of doing that because you want to benefit other sentient beings and you want to bring them to the state of ultimate bliss and happiness which is the state of enlightenment so the real thing the real giving oneself to others is developing this attitude this wholehearted attitude so I do my work I will do my job for the sake of benefiting bringing this this bringing sentient beings to the state of enlightenment because they are so they were they were so very kind to myself. So for such a long time, they were always so very kind. Because of that, I will I will dedicate this work, this merit, and whatever it is that we are doing for their enlightenment. And this is what we mean by giving myself to others. We have been since beginningless time doing doing everything that we do for the sake of benefiting ourselves alone and this is again this is a mistaken, it’s an erroneous consciousness and erroneous understanding as against delusion so then we have to change that attitude to the attitude that wishes to do whatever we do for the sake of benefiting on the sensational beings, bringing them benefit.
And then as for the second line of that little verse, which is saying, and I shall apprehend others as myself and that is to say right now in this self absorbed state of mind that we are the self-cherishing attitude that we have then we hold ourselves very highly we cherish ourselves very highly more than others and we wish only happiness we do not wish any suffering for ourselves and we want to meet only with happiness in the future we do not want to meet with any suffering for ourselves so we have what the text is suggesting as I explained is that we change and put others there and then we do we wish happiness for others and we wish them not to experience any suffering and to meet with happiness and its causes and to be free of suffering its causes in the future and so forth and then in this way we change places with them we take also unto ourselves because of that and we take on ourselves every suffering and every non virtue and every cause of suffering that they might have gathered accumulated and we take all of these onto ourselves.
And we give we give away to them every every happiness, every excellence, every good quality, every cause of happiness, and we give all of it to to other sentient beings. In English but still we have been so used to this self-cherishing attitude that thinks only of one’s own benefit alone and doesn’t care about others whatsoever. Since again since time immemorial, since millennia we have been used to this attitude that is so difficult now to change it and even in this life since we were born and up until now we have only been thinking about our own benefit our own welfare our own profit and when we go to work we do our jobs because we are thinking of our own benefit, our own profit, and so forth. And all the way until we die is that that’s how we do. That’s how we behave.
So because of that, we’re so used to this attitude that it’s very difficult to change places than with others. And if if we were to how to say? If if we had we had we been training ourselves in in in this exchanging, in this exchange with with others and cherishing others, more than oneself from the beginning of our lives, then by now we would have been enlightened already. Is that that real? The whole thing is that real and consistent that the buddhas, all the enlightened beings, all the buddhas, they have trained in this way, and they have accomplished enlightenment in this way.
So then in is reading the next verse, which is from the mind training, seven points mind training text. And this next verse is reading: So then this the self or this I is is the root of of every evil evil action or every evil karma. And and it the Dharma the Dharma practice related to it is a Dharma of throwing it far away and completely and completely ridding oneself of it. In others, they are actually the source of enlightenment itself, source of great enlightenment.
And the Dharma related to it is the Dharma practice of embracing and holding them tightly close to oneself, close to one’s heart. So then Geshe-la was briefly explaining. So then this I, the self, which is just this mind, the I, is the root of every evil action, every evil karma, and the cause of every suffering that we experience. And then that is a dharma there is a dharma that we have to completely rid ourselves of and throw far away. Just how to say?
I had it translated the same. So, yeah, just throw far away. And then in the second half of the verse, it’s telling us that others are the root of enlightenment. And for enlightenment here, Geshe-la explains, obviously, it’s not only just the full enlightenment of a Buddha, but we’re also referring to to the liberation itself.
So then they are the causes of every real stable and lasting happiness there is, both liberation and enlightenment. And and because of that, because they are the causes, they are the source of all this happiness then we we hold them we hold them tightly and close to our hearts yes And then we read another verse, which is from Lama Atisha, which is then saying, when we are in the imminence of being disturbed by attachment and hatred, then we should then we should we should train in the mind that exchanges oneself for others. And says that we are we are constantly disturbed. We are actually we are actually we are constantly disturbed by both attachment and and and hatred or attachment and aversion. And in this life, since from the moment we wake up early in the morning, we are readily doing all those things only that that we that will bring give us pleasure and give us little happinesses and we do that we’re doing all that out of attachment and immediately when we meet with something that is undesirable that is unpleasant, then we have aversion towards it.
So we are constantly actually over overpowered by this by this too. So Geshe-la is explaining that as a matter of fact we are constantly and uninterruptedly overpowered both attachment and aversion but because it is not always a strong attachment or a strong aversion then we do not always understand that. So only when it is a very strong attachment then we have a chance to the stage where we really see and understand that we are overwhelmed by attachment but most of the time it’s just this small attachment and only when we have a stronger version of hatred then that we can see that we see for ourselves that we are angry, we are overpowered by hatred but usually it’s just smaller versions. It’s more little things that we do not wish for that we just oppose bit by bit. And then so then Lama Atisha is telling us, okay, we are when we are in the imminence of being disturbed disturbed by attachment and aversion then we should train our minds in exchanging myself for all this and then Geshe-la is explaining so then we should we should in order to to arrest both this attachment and aversion.
And we should we should reflect and meditate and contemplate, exchange self for others just as Geshe-la has been explaining today. And then so then we we engage in all sorts of activities, even even the so called Dharma Dharma activities. And we meditate we meditate on cause and effect we meditate on karma we meditate on emptiness we meditate on I’d say calm abiding meditations and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings and concentrations and all that and we’re doing all that because we want happiness for ourselves and it’s very difficult to actually turn these things into the causes of this practice turn this practice into the causes of of actual liberation and enlightenment. And even even emptiness which is such a high teaching and a high realization then even that if one is meditating on emptiness and one’s motivation is one’s own happiness alone and one is not thinking about accomplishing the benefit of others or accomplishing the potential the abilities that will allow oneself to benefit others then those will become even even the meditation on emptiness itself will become causes only or cause only for attachment, for more attachment. And it’s not Krishna said, it’s not alright to meditate on such subjects with this attitude.
And then even such meditation practices as meditation on Chenrezig, Avalokiteśvara, who is the deity of compassion, embodiment of compassion and deities as Tārā and Vajrasattva and whatever deities. We find ourselves meditating on these deities and praying to these deities only to obtain happiness for oneself alone and that’s not all right. One will be gathering again only causes for more cyclic existence more attachment so then the purpose of all these practices is actually to to attain enlightenment so the best way to meditate is again just as was said and everything that one do one does with whilst exchanging self for others and one does his meditations and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings also whilst exchanging self for others and if one is doing engaging in activity meditation or anything else whilst one is exchanging oneself for others then whatever that activity is it will turn into the causes of enlightenment and whatever activity it is be in the meditation hall or outside the meditation hall in temple or in the streets if you’re doing that with the intention of exchanging self for others then that becomes a Mahāyāna activity that becomes the cause of enlightenment praying or whatever mantra one is reciting whatever is it one is doing and one should be doing for the sake of accomplishing the benefits of others accomplishing the welfare of others and if one engages in this and especially in relation to the deities to the buddhas and if one is praying to them and reciting their mantras whilst aspiring for one’s own benefit alone Geshe-la says that is actually quite shameful because these beings, they are fully enlightened beings.
They are Buddhas. So they they have accomplished the welfare of all sentient beings. And to to go to them and ask them to to give benefit only for oneself, Geshe-la says is quite shameful, actually. And then so Geshe-la is reading through another verse of Lama Atisha, which is telling us is instructing us then to give to others every happiness in bliss and then to take from others every suffering there is. And then not only that, but to give to others every profit and every victory and also to take onto ourselves every loss and defeat.
And then Geshe was explained. So then understanding that others are actually the the the the source of every happiness, then we we give them happiness. We wish every happiness for them. And then understanding that the self, the self-cherishing attitude, the self-cherishing mind is the source of every suffering. Then we take on to it every suffering there is.
And, again, every profit and every victory, again, we we wish and we give away to others. And every every loss, again, that comes only because of the self, because of the I, the self-cherishing mind and attitude, then again, every loss and every defeat, then we take on to it. And this is it’s very difficult, isn’t it, to give to give to give away one’s own profit or others, isn’t it? Yeah. So then because of of this, we can understand how how the mind of enlightenment is something which is which is not easy accomplish.
Right? If I was saying that there are there was a monk who used to say that amongst he wasn’t sure about the mind of the mind of enlightenment itself and he thought that because somebody who has a mind of enlightenment a bodhisattva does not accomplish anything for him or herself alone, then he would think that this person is probably very poor. And so then this monk, he was thinking that because this such a person wouldn’t accomplish anything for him or herself, then he would end up poor. And, yes, Geshe-la was gonna say, so we we we all think very much like this monk, don’t we? And we think we all think that such people that are very successful in in the world then that accomplished and successful wealth and rich and so forth and we all think oh this is a smart person and and we all hold these people highly in high regard and people who are are poor, then we all think that they are they are unsuccessful unsuccessful, and and they are not worthy or or something like that.
And but then Geshe-la says, but we do not actually know, now do we, who is a bodhisattva and who is not a bodhisattva. And Geshe-la says, because we cannot know because it all comes down to the person or the that being holding him or herself highly or not. So we cannot we cannot tell. So then what we have what we what what what is for us to do excuse me what is for us to do is then how to say to to reflect on the fact that we have been working for our own benefit and our own welfare for such a long time and we haven’t accomplished anything we haven’t accomplished any stable lasting happiness whatsoever so then and then reflecting upon what has been taught then we start considering that there is a possibility that we might actually accomplish some real lasting happiness if we start working in order to benefit others, to accomplish the welfare of others. And then we have as a proof of that we have all the buddhas and bodhisattvas who have developed perfected this intention this exchanging of self for others this intention of working for the benefit of others and accomplishing the benefit of others and and they have attained full enlightenment and now they experience only happiness and no suffering whatsoever.
So we have this in our favor in order to to develop our meditations and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings. And Geshe-la says, so then if we can accomplish just one minute, only one minute of a wholehearted genuine intention of giving rise to a wholehearted intention of accomplishing the welfare of others and bringing on the success of enlightenment and so forth if we can just one minute of that and the merit that is generated by this one minute of this wholehearted meditation on the welfare of others The merit that we create by this one minute of meditation will surpass even if we were to cover all the planet planet earth with with the most precious offerings, all of it with the most precious offerings. It will surpass in value even that. We we will stop here today, and asks is asking you to please contemplate these teachings and meditate in this way. So then if you have if you have any questions, yes.
If you don’t have any questions, he will drink his tea. Yes? When when we try to do beneficial things for the others, we sometimes expect the reward from the others. I think it is more selfish selfish. I’m I’m not sorry for sorry.
Can you repeat that? Yeah. Often when we do things for others Yeah. We expect something back. Yes.
A reward. Yeah. Yeah. Reward. Yeah.
Okay. And that’s selfish. Sometimes I sometimes I think it is more selfish. You know? If your motivation is not right.
Yeah. Yeah. If you do something and the motivation is not right because you’re expecting something back, it’s very selfish. Yeah. So then this is yes this is selfish because if when we’re doing this service to someone else and we have in mind is some profit or some benefit for ourselves then this is our motivation we engage in the action with the intent of obtaining benefit for ourselves or profit for ourselves alone so it doesn’t matter what the action is if the intention is to attain profit for oneself then that is that is selfish yes so guess what I’m saying so then whatever job we have whatever work we are doing and if we if we do our jobs we are going to get we’re going to get money anyway so if we are doing our jobs and we are doing it properly and we inevitably are going to get our money or we’re going to get our paycheck so Geshe says all we have to do then is to develop, not think about money because it is going to come automatically, but not thinking about money we develop the intention of benefiting others.
We think to ourselves I’m going to do that in order to accomplish virtue for the sake of benefiting all other sentient beings. And with this in mind, only think of this, only thinking of this, we turn our our job, whatever work we are doing, we turn it into a religious practice, into practice. And we’re gonna get all the benefits of having a job. You know? We’re gonna have the products and the money and everything else without even thinking about it.
So then it is it is all independence. It all depends on one’s mind. So we have to look at our minds and see for ourselves what is our motivation, what is our intention. It is one hundred percent dependent on our intention our motivation that our actions or our practice will become Mahāyāna practices whereas again one hundred percent dependent on our intention our motivation and actions, practice will become practice of of lower vehicles of so to speak. Yes?
So then usually we do our jobs and thinking only of our own profit and our own benefit. And then if we can change this attitude and think that we are doing our jobs for the sake of developing the ability to benefit all sentient beings, then we are accomplishing these teachings that have been taught today of exchanging self for others. We are actually accomplishing that. You want to ask something? Yes.
Bearing in mind, you know, that we are sort of selfish beings, how many sort of lifetimes Well, it all depends on how much you practice. So if you meditate constantly and uninterruptedly every day, every minute, every time, day and night, then it will come very fast. If you don’t meditate at all, then it won’t come at all. And if you meditate intermittently, meditate sometimes and you don’t meditate other times. You don’t reason and reflect about everything that was taught.
And then it will take many, many years, many, many lives. Not easy it is very difficult to accomplish that and Geshe-la was giving himself as an example he has been reflecting upon these topics and meditating upon these topics for more than fifty years now and there come times where one is ready, one has accomplished it but it’s actually very difficult to come about and to maintain that constant intention of benefiting others and bringing welfare to others, it’s very difficult to accomplish that. And it and it is it is very difficult to accomplish it because most of us, we meditate very little. We reflect upon these topics very little. We meditate very little.
And most of the time, we don’t actually think about it at all. Of course, it’s very difficult. You want to ask something, Nancy? When we realize that we are doing things for our own benefit rather than others, and we meditate on it, It’s the big things that sometimes stand out. And as we meditate on those, we realize there’s lots of small things as well.
What are some of the practices or ways of actually becoming being able to change the reaction, our reaction, or change our motivation so that we are more aware of those small things as well. So it is not is not Geshe-la says, it’s not a matter of what practice to do. The practice that we have to meditate about, the topics that we have to meditate about are just the topics that have been explained today. And they are no different. There are no special, no secret teachings for that.
It’s just what we have been going through today. The point, the real point is, as Geshe-la explains, is that we have to practice more. And the more we practice, the more familiar we will get with these with these attitudes, with these feelings and the feelings that come with these attitudes, the more familiar we will get and the more constant they will become. And it’s all about really about becoming familiar with it. The more we familiarize ourselves with it, the more easy it will become to develop it, the more easy it will become to keep it, the more easy it will become to bring it back when it goes away, when we lose it.
And it’s just about practicing. It’s just like when we were learning the ABCs, as Geshe-la was explaining, just like when we were learning the ABC in the beginning was very difficult even to write A. And now we write even we don’t think about it anymore. And it’s just the same principle. It’s just about how much we familiar ize ourselves with it.
And it is also in this fashion that we will attain enlightenment itself. It is by familiarizing ourselves with these topics, these meditations and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings and teachings and refining our understandings and generating more subtler understandings and more powerful minds that will eventually, through familiarity, through this effort, and we will attain enlightenment itself. It comes down to paying attention, doesn’t it? To the moment when you see these things. And what Nancy was talking about, you know, just if you’re paying attention, you recognize things while they’re small.
So, yes, we have always to keep guard of our minds. So then, yes, we have to watch over our minds and we have to see what is that that that is going on in our minds if our motivation is for ourselves alone or if our motivation is for the benefit of others and we have to keep on thinking about this topic and strengthening the intention of benefiting others, the thoughts of benefiting others and keep keep watch. And there are many reasonings to establish the statements such as we have been studying today and others are more important than oneself and oneself is the cause of all suffering, and and and others are the cause of all happiness and so forth. So there are many, many reasons, and we have to go through these reasons again and again and become very familiar with them. And then eventually, if one if one becomes proficient in these reasonings, right, in all these reasonings, the one will be able to establish to oneself that the self, the I, that self grasping, self-cherishing mind is the enemy and that others are actually very kind to us.
And we’ll be able then to accomplish wholeheartedly and one hundred percent this meditation, which is exchanging self for others. And then and then if if we if we can do that, and when we can do that, like, one hundred percent, we’re completely proficient and all that we can accomplish that exchange, definitely, then we attain both. Okay. Yeah. So we do the dedication prayers page.
Morning prayers, page twenty six. Geshe-la says we and now we have to dedicate properly. Oh, yeah. Good. Good.