Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A borrowed image from M. Scott Peck anchors this 45-minute final session: Geshe Pema Tsering argues that our grasp of reality works like a map — accurate maps guide us through life, but most people stop revising theirs by middle age. He frames the seven-week introductory course in terms of skills, maps, and tools acquired for the spiritual path, then leads a three-step guided emptiness meditation on an imagined leaf: the leaf exists only in dependence on its parts, on causes and conditions like water and sunlight, and on the thought that labels it “leaf” — an infant or Martian would encounter no leaf there. He closes by briefly introducing the spiritual master relationship, tantra, and a Lamrim overview. Suited for newcomers who attended the full course.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2002 03 04 Intro to Buddhist Philosophy 4-3-02 (2).mp3
UUID: dce49cf9-3219-4c36-87d6-5ee9556a380a
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: z Intro to Buddhist Philosophy 2002 wk 7 (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-03-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~4,494
So welcome everyone to this the the last of our sessions on the introduction to Buddhist thought and practice. And in tonight, we’ll in the session tonight, we’ll proceed as we have before doing first some adjusting of our motivation and then some meditation and Tantric practice. At the end of that I’ll make a few comments about what about from now on once the course is over. And then of course after that we’ll have there’ll be opportunity for those who wish to stay back and have a cup of tea and of course now those who wish will also be able have a piece of chocolate cake someone has kindly bought. So let’s have a look at adjusting our motivation first.
And I’ve entitled this talk tonight, this adjusting the motivation session, skills, maps, and tools for the spiritual path. Skills, maps, and tools. So the first question, how is it possible that we come to be gathered here? All phenomena, in other words, all objects of our lived experience exist in dependence on the presence of other phenomena. We’ve been talking about this.
And at the beginning of each of the sessions in the course, we’ve considered some aspects of the complex network of causes, conditions which have enabled us to be here. And I want to use this last session to review the ones that we’ve looked at. So on the first night, the first answer we gave to this we come to be gathered here Was that the kindness? Is that having trouble with that the amplifier, is it? I wonder I wonder if it’s some problem here.
Is it going okay now? Off and on, is it? It’s okay now. Is it? Okay.
So the kindness of the Buddha in devoting his life to teaching and that long lineage of master disciple relationships that have come down through the ages And with a huge amount of effort that went on at each one of those steps and which has led to giving us access to teachers today and without whom we wouldn’t be having this course. And then in the second session we looked at our extraordinary good fortune to have a life with so many freedoms and endowments making us a part of the world’s elite without any question and with a unique opportunity for spiritual practice and that we’re only here in this course because we in fact are that opportunity right here and now. And thirdly, the third week, looked at the ever changing and impermanent nature of reality. This constant unfolding of new possibilities which has made it possible for us to be here. And in the fourth week, looked at our unique personalities developed from this base of our innate endowment by means from then on of our decision and action histories that by which we set a course for ourselves into the future and which has led us up to where we are right here and now.
And so thereby making it possible for us to be here. And in the fifth week, fifth session, sense of we talked about a sense of dissatisfaction combined with some inquisitiveness, which prompted us to come and do some investigation as as we’re doing in participating in this course. And without that, we probably wouldn’t have bothered to come. And then in the six session, we looked at the support and the kindness to us of all the other people and living beings in the world. This network that surrounds and creates and maintains us at every moment.
This was on the Saturday course and by whose presence we have our existence really and with without whom we definitely wouldn’t be here. And then the seventh on the afternoon of the Saturday, the seventh session, we looked at our wonderful memories and the associated capacity for mindfulness. And without that great capacity that we have, well well, that capacity ensured that we kept coming to the course, and it made sure that we didn’t get lost on the way here each time. So that is part of what’s made it possible for us to be here. And then last week we looked at the interconnectedness of all the bits and pieces of the world.
Each requiring in a sense including all of the others in its own existence. And forming the background possibility for our existence here. And then mixed with all of that is our consciousness. Which imputes and in one sense creates this total phenomenal world that we inhabit. So there’s an awesome network of physical, chemical, biological, social, and mental factors which have come together to construct the fact of our being here together.
So what might be the significance for us in our being here? Over these last weeks, we’ve learned about some new maps and some new tools, and we’ve learned about some skills of the spiritual path or the spiritual trade, whichever analogy fits best. And I’ll explain what I mean by each of these. Doing a course like this for the first time, if some of you are involved with Buddhism or a course of this detail for the first time, it can it can seem a bit like a a sort of a magical mystery tour. Like having lived all your life in in a deep, dark valley, and suddenly you climb out to the top of the hills and look out and realize this vast perspective out there of mountains receding into the distance and valleys that you didn’t even know about.
And of course, one is tempted in such a circumstance to ask yourself, well, is this all real? Is this a bit dreamlike? However, what we’ve been doing and what we’ve been doing here in this course is not some dreamlike trip together because we’ve done a lot of hard thinking for ourselves over the last six weeks. And in fact we’ve begun to use this process of listening to a point of view to contemplating or studying it to doing some meditating on it and round and round to get our own intellectual power operating in this circumstance. And we begin we’ve begun perhaps to develop a new map of reality.
A new perspective on how things are for ourselves. And I’d like to read a quote from the American psychiatrist Scott Peck, who’s written many popular books. One of his books called The Road Less Traveled has got a nice quotation about this issue of of making maps for ourselves. The more clearly we see the reality of the world, the better equipped we are to deal with it. The less clearly we see the reality of the world, the more our minds are befuddled by falsehood, misperceptions, and illusions.
The less able we will be to determine a correct course of action and make wise decisions. Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life. If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know where we are. And if we’ve decided where we want to go, we will generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, we will generally get lost.
While this is obvious, it is something that most people to a greater or lesser degree choose to ignore. They ignore it because our route to reality is not easy. First of all we are not born with maps. We have to make them and the making requires effort. The more effort we make to appreciate and perceive reality the larger and more accurate our maps will be.
But many do not want to make this effort. Some stop making it by the end of adolescence. Their maps are small and sketchy. Their views of the world narrow and misleading. By the end of middle age most people have given up the effort.
They feel certain that their maps are complete and that their Weltanschauung or their worldview is correct. Indeed even sacrosanct. And they are no longer interested in new information. It is if they are tired. Only a relative unfortunate few continue until the moment of death exploring the mystery of reality ever enlarging and refining and redefining their understanding of the world and what is true.
And then he goes on a page later with the following comment. What happens when one has driven long and hard to develop a working view of the world, which applies to all of us. We’ve all done that in the past. A seemingly useful workable map and then is confronted with new information suggesting that that view is wrong and then that the map needs to be largely redrawn. The painful effort requires required seems frightening and almost overwhelming.
And what we do more often than not and usually unconsciously is to ignore the new information. So in this course we’ve been looking at a whole lot of new ways of looking at reality and at every step of the way in every session it has been confronting for us. I have no doubt about that to varying degrees depending on whether you’ve seen these things presented before but to varying degrees there have been many confronting things that we’ve looked at. And we put already a lot of effort over this last six weeks coming along and and beginning to work at a new version of a map of reality for ourselves. And we can continue to familiarize and update that map in the months and years ahead if we choose.
Or equally, we can simply turn away and because it’s too hard or because I don’t have time or whatever or whatever reason and gradually allow ourselves to slip back again into our old set of beliefs and habitual patterns because they’re very comfortable. We’ve been working with them for a long time. So in this course, not only have we been looking at maps, but we’ve also received a toolkit for the spiritual trade. I don’t know if you’re aware of that but you now have a fairly sophisticated toolkit for the spiritual trade. And it contains lots of powerful items.
In fact each of the meditations and teachings that we have done, each of the meditations and teachings, what fifteen or something in the little set of handouts. Each one of those is a precision instrument waiting to be taken and used in the reshaping of yourself to create something more beautiful. And whether you do that or not, is entirely up to you. But the tools are there. And we’ve also become aware as well as this toolkit.
We’ve also become aware of our tremendous range of natural skills and energies if we weren’t aware of these before. And these things that can be harnessed and focused for this creative effort of our spiritual growth. And it’s not as if we have to try and manufacture new things that aren’t already part of us. So we’ve talked about hooking in and using our underlying wish to be happy. We’ve talked about our intelligence and our ability to familiarize with things, to visualize, to be mindful.
Our inquisitiveness, our ability to learn and to change, and our natural affection and compassion. We have all these skills and energies. We already use them all to varying degrees. So what Buddhism is calling us to do is to both enhance their use and to focus the way that we use them. So with this map and the skills and the tools now at hand we we have here to answer our question the opportunity to courageously begin or perhaps more correctly for us to continue to do this work of the spiritual path.
The work of remaking who and what we are. And when we do that, when we begin to do that, we are realigning our refuge points in life from the outer superficial things that we normally seek shelter in to the deeper inner values, especially centered around our own capacity to grow and awaken. And that’s summed up in the simple formula, I go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The Buddha in the deepest sense of my own capacity, my Buddha nature, this capacity I have to be awakened myself. The Dharma in the deepest sense of my growing realizations, and the Sangha, the community of supportive people who I can’t do it without.
I can’t do it on my own. So as we’ve been doing, let’s let’s recite this verse together if you if you wish to join in. Otherwise, just use it as an opportunity to reflect on on what it means for you, what your refuge points here, what the skillful direction that your life needs to be. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha from the positive potential which I create by the practice of generosity in the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha.
From the positive potential which I create by the practice of generosity and the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha. From the positive potential which I create by the practice of generosity and the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. And so now to some meditation. And tonight in the meditation, we’ll we’ll do the meditation on emptiness.
And this will be the meditation will be focused on the analysis of a leaf, bringing back the thoughts from the introductory session last week. But before we start on that, we will set our most positive motivation, and then we’ll come to our breath. And in setting our most positive motivation we’ll proceed as we have before and I’d like you to imagine again someone new that you haven’t visualized before in front of you, a specific person. Tonight choose someone who’s a stranger to you, but someone who’s in in the group if you can. Try and think of someone in the group that you haven’t really met yet, but you’ve seen this person and you can recall you can remember them, what they look like, what he or she is like.
And we’ll use, this person now to develop compassion and then loving kindness. And then we’ll come to follow the natural flow of our breath. And then I’ll lead you through the emptiness meditation. And in that, we’ll work through the following steps. So what we’ll do is analyze this leaf.
And you haven’t got a leaf in front of you, but you can and there’s one there’s one down the front here. So you’re gonna have to imagine a leaf. It’s nice to have a leaf in front of you to look at first. But we’re going to try and investigate the dependent arising nature of this leaf because we can choose to analyze any phenomena we like. In this case, we’ll choose a leaf to analyze.
And first, we’ll analyze it in terms of its parts and its attributes and see how that if you consider all the parts and characteristics of a leaf, that the leaf you can’t have a leaf without all those parts and characteristics being there. So that the leaf is dependent arising on the basis of all those parts and characteristics. And then we’ll move on to the second point to consider that the leaf is a dependent arising on the basis of its causes and its conditions. So we’ll think about all the various factors in the world physical and bio chemical and so on, that are required for there to be a leaf. There has to be a universe here.
There has to be sun. There has to be water. There has to be clouds. There has to be soil and so on. There has to be biochemical processes.
And so then we’ll conclude about dependent on all those there can be a leaf. And then in the third step, we’ll analyze the more difficult one that this leaf is imputed by thought. And thinking about if there’s no consciousness designating the leaf as leaf, then there couldn’t be leaf at all. And then we’ll ask ourselves some questions about what exactly the leaf is. Is it is it all the parts in that together?
Or is it something imputed that we generate? And if the leaf somehow could exist in its own right by itself, then for a small infant who’s never seen a leaf, it should be a leaf for them. Or if a Martian who’s never seen a leaf before arrives, it should be a leaf for him or her. And then we’ll conclude that it’s also by our imputation that the leaf dependently arises. Okay.
So first, let’s bring our attention to the posture and being aware of our bodies here sitting now. The legs crossed or if you’re in the chair sitting forward with your back straight. Your back gently stretched up as if it’s hanging off a thread from the crown of your head. Your shoulders loose and relaxed, hands at ease, head tilted forward slightly, and eyes downcast. Lips and jaw at ease.
And be aware of any places of tension in your body. And acknowledge those and let that tension melt away. And now to establish our motivation, imagine in front of you this stranger, someone from the group that you’ve seen here but you haven’t really met or got to know this person yet. And imagine this person sitting in front of you. You can see this person’s face and even though you don’t know this person try and imagine what this person’s circumstance might be like, some of the difficulties and problems that he or she may be facing.
And now let’s develop firstly compassion and in loving kindness with the following thoughts. How wonderful it would be if you could be free from suffering. May you be free of all difficulties and discontent, and I want to help you to achieve this, and developing loving kindness. How wonderful it would be if you could be happy. May you be happy and have every contentment, and I want to help you to achieve this.
However, when I look at myself, I realize that I’m not able to do this for you at the moment. I have neither the skill, the wisdom, or the compassion. So I undertake this meditation as a step in the process of developing myself so that one day I might even be able to attain Buddhahood and be of the greatest possible benefit to you and all others. And now with the flavor of this determination in your mind, become aware of the natural flow of your breathing for a minute or two, following the breath as it comes in and it goes out. Just watching.
And when your mind wanders as it will, then gently bring your mind back to the breath. And now let’s move on to the analytical meditation. Emptiness and dependent arising. And the purpose of this meditation is to investigate the dependent arising nature of phenomena and thus to realize that they are empty of the inherent existence that we instinctively project onto them. Imagine that you’re holding a leaf.
Just imagine that you’ve gone outside and picked a leaf and brought it back, and here you are sitting with this leaf. And you’re looking at it, and you can see all of the different things that it’s got, all of its parts and characteristics, and go through some of them. It’s got a stem and a tip, veins, edges, thickness, a green color, a curved shape. It’s got a central part and an outer part. So it’s got various parts and various attributes like color, shape, weight, and length.
And imagine what would happen if you, one by one, took all of these parts away. If you took away the stem and the outer edge and the tip and the veins and the small little bits and pieces left over. What’s left? Or if you took away its shape and its color and its weight and its length. So see that the leaf is a dependent arising, existing on the basis of all of its parts and attributes and that you cannot have a leaf independent of those things.
Now bring the mind to the breath for three breaths. And secondly, let’s analyze the leaf’s depending arising on the basis of its causes and conditions. Let’s think of the causes and conditions which led to the existence of the leaf that you’re imagined holding here. What are the substances and the energies that are required? Think of the water, the nutrients, sunlight, and air.
Imagine each one of these things coming together in the process of producing this leaf. And think of other conditions that have to exist in order for there to be a leaf. There has to be a tree to grow on. There has to be the correct climate in which it can grow. Think of the more subtle conditions which have to exist, like the laws of biochemistry, which allow it to be a functioning living thing, a genetic code which instructs how to make it grow.
And see that it’s impossible for the leaf to exist without these causes and conditions. And take any one of these causes, for example, the water, and think what are in turn the causes and conditions which lead to the water being available to the tree. Things like the weather, the clouds, the sun heating the earth, the oceans, the atmosphere, the chemistry of water. So see that the leaf is a dependent arising, existing only on the basis of the presence of all of its causes and conditions. There can be no leaf that somehow exists in its own right, separate from all of these factors.
And pause to take three breaths. And now the third step of analyzing the leaf’s dependent arising on the basis of it being imputed by thought. Consider that if there were no consciousness designating the leaf as a leaf, then leaf would not exist. And ask yourself these questions. Would leaf exist as leaf if there were no humans to label it as such?
What is it to a caterpillar who is gradually eating it? What is it to a bird who’s making a nest with it? What is it to a Martian who’s never seen a leaf before? Or an infant in the crib? Become aware of that leaf as a part of your lived experience.
It’s a part of your phenomenal world. It’s an object in conjunction with you, the subject. And it’s only in the context of your thought, language, and culture that the leaf as leaf is there. So see that the leaf is a dependent arising, existing in dependence on it being designated as leaf by thought, and that there can be no leaf which exists somehow from its own side independently of this labeling process. In other words, the leaf is empty of inherent existence.
The leaf is there, but it is not inherently there. And having undertaken this meditation, we’ve generated a lot of very skillful potential, creative energy, virtuous merit. And so imagine this: that your heart is in the form of golden light, And the golden light flows out and fills your body with well-being. This work, this meditation is for my own benefit. And now recall the person that you visualized in front of you, and let the golden light flow out to that person, and be a benefit to him or her as well.
And let it flow out to each of the people that you’ve been visualizing at the beginning of the sessions, some six or seven people now. Let them all be filled with the golden light of this positive energy that you’ve generated. Let it spread out to the group here tonight and out to the people of Adelaide. And let it thread gradually around the world so that this work and this energy is to be a benefit for all others as well as myself. And being aware that myself and this energy and all the people that I wish to benefit, even though we are here conventionally, that none of these things are inherently existing.
So let’s conclude with a little verse of dedication from our meditation outline. May I quickly attain the state of an awakened spiritual master, and may I lead onto that state every being without exception by these skillful actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakened heart, which has not arisen, arise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more. So perhaps it’s time for a stretch for a minute or so. Yeah.
Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Was it? Is that low, is it?
Twenty point five. Yeah. It’s better. Okay. So our topic tonight is the spiritual master and tantric practice.
Two topics, really. So during this talk, I’ll look at five things. Firstly, review the course so far that we what we’ve done. And then talk about some details about establishing a relationship with a spiritual master. And then give a brief introduction to the topic and practice of tantra.
And then we’ll we’ll sort of then do an overview of the Buddhist system of spirituality by looking at our graduated path to enlightenment sheet. And then I’ll make a few comments about what comes next after the course. So first to review what we’ve where we’ve come so far. In in this course, we’ve investigated five issues. These five are our death, the results of our actions, the second one, the dissatisfactory predicament we’re in, the third one, the fourth one, the nature of our relationships with others, and the fifth one the nature of reality.
And we’ve seen that by undertaking these three activities of listening, studying and meditating we can proceed through sort of a pattern where you do some investigating and this leads you to a new insight and perhaps some associated new emotional responses and that can then generate some new determination about what you want to do and that can lead to some new behaviors and some further investigation. And it’s possible that that’s the sort of pattern that you might have already been in that led you to be here without even realizing that that’s what you were doing. But certainly over the last six weeks, we have been working in that way.