Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 30-minute commentary, Geshe Pema Tsering takes up a counterintuitive instruction from the Thirty-Seven Practices of the Bodhisattvas: that whoever harms you is “extremely kind.” Drawing on a verse from the Bodhisattva Way of Life and Lama Atisha, he explains that any harm we experience is ripening karma — blaming the other person reflects a failure to understand how phenomena work. The harm-doer becomes the very basis for practicing patience, and in meeting the situation patiently, past karma is exhausted. Geshe-la then covers Atisha’s instruction to abandon attachment to wealth, fame, and honor, before closing with a direct challenge: investigated honestly, most practitioners will find they are far less spiritually established than their self-regard suggests.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 2007 04 01 Sunday Am 1st April 2007 – Geshela Mind Training.mp3
UUID: 7f6d997c-0bf5-4bf6-ab96-73ac33a2dc14
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Sunday Geshela Teaching (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2007-04-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 30.0 minutes
Words: ~1,910
Yeah. So I was hi. Yeah. Is that working? So I was I was asked to mention here that for those who do not know yet, the program of Buddha House, it was mentioned that there was going to be a school holiday from the thirteenth of April until the thirtieth of April.
And then next Saturday and Sunday seventh and eighth of April is going to be teaching on the Mahāyāna four establishments of mindfulness. And Geshe-la is going to give a teaching on both days, Saturday and Sunday. And also there’s a request for the older students to assist any newcomers and make them feel at ease and at home when they arrive here at Buddha House. Also there’s going to be a Vajrasattva permission to practice ceremony. Those also who haven’t registered and would like to do so can please contact the office and leave email address or contact numbers and so on.
Okay? So, Geshe-la is then instructing us to generate a good motivation and then with the intention of of bringing also to the state of enlightenment, when one oneself must attain enlightenment. In order to attain enlightenment, then one is going to listen to the teachings and study well the teachings. And in this way, attained enlightenment for the sake of benefiting all sentient beings. Yeah.
So start with the morning prayers, page twenty four. Free from desire for friends and hatred for enemies. Follow on from where we stopped last week which was on the teaching on the thirty-seven practices of the bodhisattvas on the topic which is bringing loss onto the path. The commentator is then quoting a verse from the Bodhisattva Way of Life which is saying, in my past I inflicted the same harm on others. Geshe-la was reading the commentary to that line, saying that, again, in this life when we meet with obstacles to the acquisition of material wealth and honor and fame and so forth, and when other people rob us of our wealth and our possessions or they incite others to rob possessions and our wealth.
When we meet with all such difficulties, and then we instructed, when we meet with any harm we meet with any harm then we instructed to reflect that we have caused the same harm in previous lifetimes onto others and now this just a mere retribution of our past actions. And in this way, thinking in this way, we are we’re instructed to not give in to anger, not get angry. And Geshe-la is in a sense, so then it it is like this, isn’t it? When somebody harms us, we say and we think to ourselves, that person is a bad person and we get angry and start blaming the person for whatever harm has happened to us. And Geshe-la is saying we do that, we say and think such things because we do not actually understand the way that phenomena exist.
Because we do not, out of this lack of understanding of the way that phenomena exist and the way that it works, we go on blaming blaming others for what is happening to us. And Geshe-la is saying on top of what was said in the text Geshe-la then explains that if we have not performed the actions or accumulated the karma so to speak in the past then there is no way that we would experience any harm right now. There’s no way that anybody could cause us any harm without having previously accumulated the causes of that. And Geshe-la says it is independent of many, many causes and conditions that we have the experience that we have right now. We have the experience of harm in this case that we have.
And Geshe-la says that the person who is performing the act which is bringing us harm, that person himself, Geshe-la says, that person is not bad. That person is actually very kind to us. He’s extremely kind to us. And on top of that, if we if we trace it back to its source, shall I explain it, that the real source, the real root of these harms, of these sufferings that we experience, then it all comes down to karma karma and afflictive emotions. To our own karma and our own afflictive emotions.
And the afflictive emotions of the person who is performing the action towards us. And Geshe-la says that that person is either overwhelmed by attachment or overwhelmed by anger or overwhelmed by innumerable amount of afflictive emotions that we suffer with. Geshe-la says, so then it is due to if it comes down, if it boils down, everything boils down to our afflictive emotions and the afflictive emotions of the other person. Without it, the harm wouldn’t be happening. But then we do not think in this way.
So we keep on blaming the other person. We keep on saying that person is bad. That person harmed me. It’s that person’s fault. And we never stop to think, to really think about it.
Honestly, think about it. And Geshe says, If we were to think about it and be honest about it, then we would come to understand what it is all about. Geshe-la was saying that the other party, if we come to think about it, the other party, the other person is then doing what it is doing because it wants to obtain some profit. It wants to obtain some wealth or some material possession. On the other hand, it might be doing it because we, in the past, have harmed, have actually harmed that person and then the person is retaliating for that harm.
It is it it all boils down to afflictive emotions, if you’ll explain. And Geshe-la says, if we by engaging in analytical meditation, then we will be able to understand it. It is by investigating what’s going on in our minds, Geshe-la says, that we will be able to understand it. And Geshe-la says, if we reflect about this if we think over about the situations in this way, then then we won’t get angry. And then so then, Geshe-la is saying, reading the last the last line of that that paragraph of of the commentary, which is telling us is telling us that we have to understand that this applies to all other suffering experiences that we have.
So I think it comes down to our own karma, to the causes that we have accumulated and the afflictive emotions and the conditions that are present and that includes the being or whatever is causing us harm. It all comes down to meeting with all these causes and conditions. The same applies to every suffering experience that that happens with us, that that we meet with. And Geshe-la is reading another quote from Lama Atisha. Lama Atisha is telling us: Do not be angry at harm doers.
If you get angry at them, then how are you going to meditate on patience? And Geshe-la was explaining. Again, those beings or those people who are causing us harm, they are the basis upon which we meditate on patience. Then we have to realize that the karma that brought up this situation, this suffering situation is being exhausted. And we have instead to rejoice and be patient with with what’s happening to us.
And also, Lama Atisha is telling us, wealth, honor, and fame, they should be abandoned. And Geshe-la was explaining. So one should get wealth here, all material possessions, money, and and objects and and so forth. And then honor, fame, and and being praised by others and so forth, all of this should be abandoned. One, Geshe-la was explaining, should not grasp and hold on to these things.
One should not like these things. So one should abandon it in this sense. And Geshe-la explains and then the next the next line is saying, and also, conceit and arrogance should should always be discarded. And so then adding to the commenting on that that verse which is saying, again, we should we should abandon wealth and honor and and fame and so forth. And Geshe-la says, again, we should get rid of this, abandon these these things because the acquisition of of great wealth and such as money and so forth, then makes it a condition, a favorable condition for the arrival of attachment.
And then if that happens, then one won’t be able to practice Dharma properly. Then also with fame and honor. For fame and honor are a favorable condition to the arrival of pride and conceit and so forth. And then when we look down on others and behave in this conceited way. And again, that makes for obstacles to the practice of good proper proper Dharma practice.
And also reading the next line of the of the little verse which is saying that we we should always also arrogance and conceit should always be discarded. And with regards to to conceit, again, is something which is very difficult to abandon, is we all already regard ourselves as very important. We hold ourselves in very high esteem. We think, oh, I have a lot of learning. I’m I’m very learned.
I have I have done this. I have accomplished that, and I have this house, and I have this car. And we we keep on thinking in this way, and and Geshe-la says it’s very difficult to get rid of this of this attitude. It is difficult to to get rid of this conceit, isn’t it? There’s no no.
None of us would think I I am I am bad and I’ll do it. And says saying that whilst we are overpowered by this this self-cherishing attitude, then we think, oh, I am I am good. I am, you know, I I’m well off and stuff like that. And Geshe-la says if we if we were to to investigate, if we had this this analytical mind engaged into understanding this, what’s going on really, then we won’t we would understand that this is not actually so. We are not actually in a very good situation, actually.
It’s quite a a poor situation, so to speak. And Geshe says if if we are to to investigate, to to analyze, right, what is our actual situation. Geshe-la says that if question ourselves about how well how established we are in the refuge so to speak which is the first entrance door to the Dharma. If we are honest about it we will see that we are not actually very well established on it are we? If we look at our minds and we will see that most of the time we are thinking and and working, motivated for the sake, for the things of this life alone.
There’s always this life this life this life, and rarely if ever we think about the future lives. So we we we keep on thinking that we are well off. And and the real the people who are really well off, the beings who are really well off are those who who have established themselves in a lasting happiness and have rid themselves of suffering. Those are real qualities, Geshe-la says. And we think that we have qualities, but those are the actual real qualities.
And we do not have those qualities. We are still completely overwhelmed by karma and afflictive emotions.