Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The greater hero, Geshe Pema Tsering argues in this 87-minute commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Letter to a Friend, is not the soldier who defeats armies but the practitioner who guards the six sense doors against attachment. The session opens with a closing verse from Śāntideva on saṃsāra’s self-created misery, then moves to the main topic of sense restraint, laying out two approaches: temporary watchfulness over what the senses pursue, and the ultimate eradication of afflictions through realizing emptiness. Geshe Pema illustrates attachment’s grip through everyday examples — a cold beer on a hot day, television sports, a bank statement — and closes the commentary with a sūtra image of a wise lion whose roar disperses all afflictions. A Q&A exchange about a chocolate roll lands the teaching with practical warmth.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 2009 03 01 Geshe Pema Tsering Nāgārjuna's Letter to a Friend 010309.mp3
UUID: 155bf89e-7100-4ac5-8c73-72bac8a5d024
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: z Letter to Friend – mulitple years (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2009-03-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 87.4 minutes
Words: ~5,161
And then we start with the preliminary prayers. So we’re going to recite the Heart Sūtra, then we go for the Samantabhādra prayers and so forth. And then at the end, we make sure that we make the proper dedication so that we dedicate all the virtues that we’re going to create here today for the sake of the enlightenment of all beings. And so, again, in this way, we cover all the bases in the beginning, in the middle, in the end, with the power of motivation and the dedication. So we’re just reading a final quote from the Bodhisattva Way of Life on the previous topic.
The previous topic was about contemplating the shortcomings and the faults of cyclic existence in general. And there is just this concluding verse that is given from Śāntideva where he says, In this world and in the next and in the future lives, all of us desire beings, give rise, produce our own loss, our own misery. Here, we kill or we are killed you can say or we are bound in chains and we are hurt and cut in pieces. In the future we accomplish what we is the body of a hell being or other miserable migration. So again what the verse is telling us is that the way that we live our lives not only we create misery in the present life, we also create misery in future lives.
This way that we have been living is based on this desire, this wish, this pursuit of one’s own happiness alone. And we have been acting in this way, have been living our lives in this way, literally every life. Since time immemorial, we have been living this way, pursuing our own happiness, pursuing our own desires. And it hasn’t accomplished us any real, lasting, reliable happiness. And again, if we continue to act in this way in this present life and future lives, we’ll continue destitute.
We remain destitute of any happiness. We remain miserable. We remain without profiting in any real sense. Remain losing happiness, real happiness. Geshe was saying again, these desires that we pursue, the word that’s being used as desire, which Elias explained, he also makes reference to another word, which is grasping or craving or grasping.
And Geshe lah is explaining again, this mind of grasping, there is nothing that can satisfy it. There is never enough. It will obtain what it is craving, what it is grasping, and it will always want more. There’s never a point for such a mind which is in the nature of grasping, where it is enough. So to illustrate that, to give an example, For example, let’s say take for example a nice tasting meal.
Again, might be hungry and then you enjoy a nice tasting meal and then you think to yourself, Okay, I’m satisfied. That’s enough. But you know, after the next moment, after one or two hours, again, you’re thinking about food again. And you haven’t attained any lasting stable satisfaction whatsoever. And again, it’s not only food, this applies to every and any object of desire.
Anything that we desire, the same principle applies to it. And in order to obtain those things or to keep those things or to maintain those things that we desire. Again, we engage in all sorts of actions. Again, we go to our jobs to earn money and we do all sorts of misdeeds. We deceive people, we tell lies, and we engage in we create so many negativities because of those things that we desire in order to attain or maintain those things that we desire.
So in order, out of this grasping and this craving for food and all the other things that we desire. Again, we work, we earn our money, and we want more and more and more. We never stop craving and wanting, grasping after those things that we desire. And we engage in all sorts of actions in order to obtain and maintain those things, any action, and in the process motivated by mind of desire, this distorted mind, this afflictive emotion, afflicted mind. And we engage in all sorts of misdeeds or non virtues.
And in this way, we create, we produce ourselves all the sufferings of saṃsāra in the present life and in the future. Again, of killing and being bound and cut hard and so forth. And again in the process of acquiring and maintaining those things that we desire, once motivated by the afflictive emotions and creating all these negativities, if the non virtues are very strong, then again we end up being born in the hell realms in the future. If they are of an average strength, again we are born in the Preta or the hungry ghosts hungry ghost realms. And if the negativity is weaker, not not too strong, then again, we we end up being born in the animal realm of existence.
And then we are told, that’s why we are told in the last of that verse that in the future, in the other lives, again, is with regards to the other lives, one is accomplishing a miserable rebirth, or one is accomplishing due to attachment, due to this desire, attachment, grasping, what one accomplishes is one’s miserable rebirth in the lower realms of existence. So again, just emphasizing how harmful attachment can be and how important it is that we avert attachment, that we diminish and try to eradicate it. Then we move on to the next topic of the commentary of this verses, of root versus of the letter to a friend. And the next topic is about contemplating the benefits of restraining the senses, the sense doors, the six sense doors. And we read the next root verse in regards to that, which goes, One whose fickle senses are controlled, the six that never cease to dart at things, and one who’s fought and conquered many foes, the first is truly brave, the wise have said.
So this verse is about averting the afflictive emotions and perceptions. Generally speaking, are two main ways of averting the afflictive emotions. One is an ultimate way, an absolute way, where one can completely eradicate any and all afflictive emotion conceptions. Can you hear me all right? Can you maybe put the volume up?
And this ultimate way, this lasting way of aversion and afflictive emotion, eradicating them, is the realization of emptiness. And another way, another general way, amounts to diminishing them or stopping them from arising from the beginning. So this is a temporal way. It’s not an ultimate way. So again, just briefly said, again, have then this ultimate way of averting the afflictive emotion concept, which means by the force of realizing emptiness, we can completely uproot them.
And then we have these different temporary ways of dealing with the afflictive emotion And one of the main ways that we are advised to apply to handle the afflictive emotions and senses is by watching over the sense doors, the six sense doors. So we have the six senses of sights and taste and smell and so forth, and we have the six sense objects, again, of smells, taste, the tactile sensations, so forth, tactile objects and so forth. And we are to watch the sense consciousness that arise and depend on this sense object. And Geshe-la was going through the second line of the verse which is saying, which was translated here, saying that this sense consciousness, they just dart towards their sense objects. So the mind is always, never staying put and is always wandering away, it’s always running away towards its sense object.
So when a pleasant visual form appears, again the mind immediately wanders towards it with attachment and when a nice aroma or taste arises again the mind immediately runs towards it with attachment. And it happens all so fast and so quick we are very much unaware of it and we don’t even know that it is attachment and that there are faults and shortcomings to it and that harm can ensue from it. Again, with regards to that same line, Tibetan words are saying always at all times, never staying, always wandering away, always moving towards its objects. And the last line of the verse is telling that the wise ones, the wise teachers, they say that from these two types of people, the ones who fight and conquer their enemies and those who watch over their sense doors, the first one is the greatest hero. Hero.
The second one is the greatest hero. The one who watches over his sense doors and finds afflictive emotions. How this person who is watching over his or her sense doors is the real hero amongst these two types of people. Because if this person can accomplish what is being taught here, that person is then averting the arising of all afflictive emotions and conceptions. And in this way, the person is averting any and every future suffering because suffering arises out of contaminated actions and afflictive emotion conceptions and of the two, again, actions come forth in dependence on the afflictive emotion conceptions.
So if you avert the afflictive emotion conceptions, you stop yourself from engaging negative actions. And in this way you stop, you’re cutting, averting all the causes of suffering, which are these negative actions, these negative non virtues. And in this way you can avert the future, the whole future of saṃsāra, the whole future suffering of saṃsāra. So again, just going from the commentary, and the commentary is telling us again that we, worldly beings, in general, our sense power, such as sight, eyes, eye sense power and so forth, they wander, they easily, and at all times they scatter away towards their sense objects and it will be a visual form and other objects. And in this way our sense power, our sense consciousness are very fickle, always scattering away and we always come under the power of those sense consciousness and their objects.
Our sense consciousness then just immediately scatter away, wander away towards their respective sense objects with either attachment or with aversion or hatred or any form of afflictive emotion conception. Again, it happens also quick, we are very unaware of it. As it says in the very end, in the very last clause, it’s saying, again, come under their power, we come under their influence. And we’re completely unaware of what is happening and that what is happening is is actually harmful, that those physical and emotional conceptions are harmful to us in any way. And again the commentary goes on to say that in regards to that, people or those beings who then avert this this overt desires towards the objects of the sense consciousness and by applying, by relying on the excellent antidotes, and then destroy them, and then combat and conquer these afflictive emotional conceptions.
And between these sort of people and the people who are conquering all or how to say, being victorious over the whole collection of enemies of their of their country. The scholars tell us that the first one of those two is the real hero, the real conqueror, the real victorious one. In the last two little sentences of this commentary they’re telling us that even amongst animals there are those who conquer their enemies. And we are told that worldly wise call those who conquer their enemies, we refer to them as conquerors or victorious ones or heroes. But we are told that even amongst animals, there are those animals who conquer their enemies.
But there are no animals who can conquer, who can be victorious over their sense consciousness, over their senses. And basically, again, the whole point is that we have to watch over our senses. We have again this five sense consciousness pertaining to the body and one pertaining to the mind, to mental objects. And with regards to each sense object or each sense consciousness, there can arise attachment, it can be attachment towards a visual object or an auditory object and so forth. And the same for all the other emotions, pride and aversion and hatred and ignorance and so forth.
They all can arise with regards to each of these sense objects. We have at least five six of each with regard to the six sense objects, six forms of can arise, six forms of aversion can arise. Geshe-la was saying, so we have to avert them, we have to watch over the sense doors with diligence, relying on mindfulness and guarding alertness. And if you can then succeed at doing so, you can succeed in this practice, you can bring this practice to perfection, then you are already a foe destroyer. You are an arhat, and you have attained peace, your own personal peace.
And Geshe-la is just illustrating how we should go about it. In the case of something, Geshe-la was talking about beer. So for example, in a hot day and you see a nice cold beer and immediately you think to yourself, how nice it will be to have a beer. And Geshe-la is then saying, so that mind, in that moment, that mind is attachment. That is attachment.
And the way to go about it is, first of all, to recognize it as such for what it is, attachment, and then contemplate the fact that that mind as for what it is is harmful. Attachment is harmful. And you deal them with that mind, that attachment. One has to contemplate it. If I if I were to if I am then to drink this beer in this way with this attitude, then again that there faults there will be faults coming about in this life and faults in future lives.
It’s going to harm me in the present and in the future. And and Geshe lah is explaining, so then if if we give in to that attachment and we go on and go ahead and drink the beer, have to contemplate that again, the the temporal shortcomings that we are going to meet with, the temporal faults of drinking. First of all, we will get drunk, we will get intoxicated, we will lose our awareness, we will lose our discernment, and we will be very much, much more susceptible to engaging in negativities even minor ones or greater ones we can easily have a car accident, can easily kill someone if we are intoxicated in this way. So it’s not difficult to see all the temporal shortcomings of drinking in this way out of attachment. And Geshe-la is then saying that even even if you don’t get drunk on the beer, you still waste a lot of money because it is not cheap, and there is no real lasting benefit coming of it at all.
There’s no real benefit at all to one’s health or anything of the sort. On top of all that, it is harmful in an ultimate sense, in the sense of our future lives, because it is going to cause us to be born in the lower suffering realms of existence by drinking out of attachment in this way. And and and, food itself is already enough of an object to create a lot of harm because out of our desire for food, our attachment for food, every time we are eating, every time we think about food with this mind of attachment, we are getting more and more habituated. We are just increasing that momentum of this grasping habit. And this habit just becomes more and more powerful, more and more strong.
And again, are no inherent benefits or inherent goodness in the food. There is no lasting goodness that is going to be provided out of it. Only by increasing, if we give in to grasping and attachment blindly in this way and increasing this momentum, what we create is more causes of suffering again in this life and in future lives. So again, every time that we see attachment arising, we should contemplate it in this way. We should contemplate the shortcomings of giving into attachment.
Contemplate that we do not need the beer. The beer is not necessary. We can have a cup of tea for the sake of nurturing the body, for the sake of sustaining the body and maintaining a good health so that we practice and live a proper life. Again, we can have a cup of tea, can have milk or soda or whatever, we just don’t need the beer. The same for the food.
Again, so we don’t need any particular expensive or it doesn’t have to be always a tasty meal. Have to cultivate this attitude that whatever I have or whatever there is to eat, it’s okay. One shouldn’t fuss about it. It’s only for the sake of maintaining the body, sustaining the body, and not to indulge in lust and attachment and so forth. We cultivate this attitude of contentment with what we have and say it’s okay, whatever I have to drink is okay, whatever I have to eat is okay, and so forth.
Then in this way we, at the very least, we stop the afflictive emotions from increasing, from gaining any more power and strength at first. Then we a starting point to work with them and diminish and eradicate And then, but we usually, the way we go about our lives, we do not think in these terms, as Geshe has been teaching us. What we usually do is that we allow ourselves to to be overpowered by attachment. We almost voluntarily and deliberately go under the power of attachment. And when attachment arises, we just go along with it for whatever reason, in relationship to whatever object.
And we really do not have and this, again, is a difficult translation here, but I’m just going to use this word in English we do not have any free will here, because we are we are being completely powered, governed by attachment and the other afflictions. And so again, so we are slaves of attachment. We have been, again, since time immemorial, have been slaves of attachment, and we will remain slaves of attachment until the day we attain arhatship, until the day we become foe destroyers. Now if we start developing this attitude of contentment with regards to what we have and whatever comes our way, then we have a working basis, Geshe lah, I was saying, we have a working basis. And we stop attachment from gaining any more momentum.
And from this point, we can working towards eradicating it. And Geshe-la was saying, again, regards to attachment, and how how very much it pervades our entire lives, and just this the television alone, something that we all enjoy, and Geshe-la was saying, all these images of all these hundreds of thousands of things that we desire, we crave and we grasp after are always appear in the television, and we always subject to that attachment at all times. And then when we see a concert or sports match on the television, see all those people cheering, and then they all have these smiles on their faces and all that. And Geshe-la boldly says, It’s all attachment. It’s all attachment.
Of course, it’s possible that there might be amongst all those people. There might be some some arhats or some Bodhisattva or some Buddhists. But, you know, for the most part, they are all overpowered by attachment. All slaves of attachment. So it is very important that we become aware of this situation, and how very harmful can be.
And then it is important that we start then to work towards averting it. So we apply the antidotes to attachment. And then to conclude this section of the text, this commentary, then have a quote from one sūtra. And it’s saying, and let me see if I can get this in a nice way in English, but it’s saying that, dear, right? So it’s saying that all the Just give me an example.
For example, all the deer and all the forest animals, they fear the roar of the lion that is sitting on top of the hill. And in the same way, And also, in the same vein, that lion person who has attained the perfection of wisdom, then the roar of that person then dispels. So there’s two ways to read it in Tibet. Geshe was giving you two readings. So first of all, it’s all the afflicted people fear the roar of such a wise person.
On the other hand, Geshe-la was then saying, another take, the roar of such a wise lion person, lion king, then dispels away the fears and the afflictions, again, of all the afflicted world, the people. So again, lion person, that lion hero who has realized emptiness, again, depends on that realization that person can scare away, dispel all the afflictive emotions and perceptions. This realization of emptiness is the knowledge of the natural state or the actual way of existence of every phenomena, whatever phenomena one one may be in contact with. So and knowing in which way a phenomena actually exists, then one does not have any fault because having then this correct perception, one has no fault in one’s mind, and one engages in no faulty deed. And again, Geshe-la is, reiterating, we are right now, we are all ignorant of the actual way in which phenomena exists.
And again, we should always just say ma rigpa, which is translated as ignorance or to ignore, to ignore something, to ignore the actual way of existence, not know, to not understand, to not realize the way of existence Geshe-la was explaining. So as it is, we do not know the way that phenomena exists, this natural state of phenomena. And Geshe-la was saying, the same way that we one day did not know the letter A of the alphabet, the first letter of the alphabet. But later on, we were taught to identify, to read, write, and so forth. And then we know, we gained the knowledge of what is the letter A of the alphabet.
And so in the same way, eventually, we can gain this realization of what is the actual state of existence, mode of existence of phenomena, or what is the actual natural state of phenomena. And when we have that knowledge, and again, we won’t have any distorted conceptions about a phenomenon. We will know it for what it is, and nothing else, nothing more or nothing less. We won’t superimpose our conceptions on it. We won’t denigrate it in any way.
We will know it for what it is. We have this correct mind. And if we have a correct mind then, in this way, then what happens that attachment and aversion and anger and pride and so forth, which are the result of this distorted conception, this conception of true existence of phenomena, they do not arise anymore. So, all the afflictive emotions cease to arise because you do not have their foundation is not there anymore. Okay?
So, the cause, the very cause, the very root of all the afflictive emotions and conceptions is ignorance. If one realizes emptiness, again, is realizing that which is directly opposite to ignorance, to that ignorance, and one then completely eradicates that ignorance. If one has eradicated the causes, then the result, which are all afflictive emotions, do not come about anymore. And in this way one has attained freedom. So again, we have to engage in every way avert every way we can to avert different emotion conceptions, all these temporal ways and all these ultimate ways.
Eventually, by cultivating temporal ways, cultivate the right circumstances so that we can realize emptiness and start then to completely uproot it. Then we attain a path of seeing. We engage in the purification, in the elimination, the eradication of more and more subtle misconceptions through the path of meditation. And eventually, when we have completely eradicated not only all the manifest forms of the afflictions, but even the imprints, even the habitual imprints themselves. And eventually, when we have eradicated all of them, we have attained the state of foe destroyers, an arhat.
Wondering if you if you if you have questions, if if you think that you probably have many questions. Yeah. You can ask questions. You’re free. Nothing.
Do I hear you? Do you have questions? Talk about it. That’s a very good point. I was just was being very brief and short.
I was saying, look, you’ve told a lot about attachment and how pervasive it is and how when you’re in a soccer match or something like that, there’s all these people who we see smiling on this television that are actually of a power by attachment. And we regard that, we all regard that as being happiness. And Geshe-la will say, yes, that we call happiness. In this life, worldly wise, we call that happiness. But that attachment, however, is an obstacle to the attainment of liberation and enlightenment.
So, in this life, in this context of this life alone, we call it happiness. In the context of ultimate liberation and enlightenment, it’s a hindrance. And Geshe-la was saying. So, again, in the context of this life, yes, we think there are many qualities to it, many good qualities to it. But in the context of ultimate liberation and enlightenment, again, it is a hindrance, it is an obstacle.
But in actuality, when you watch that soccer match, for example, that we are watching, you know, and we are enjoying so much, if you really stop to think about it, there is absolutely no good quality to it whatsoever. There’s no inherent good quality to it whatsoever. If you stop to investigate it, to analyze it, there’s nothing from the side of the soccer match which is inherently good or which is inherently beneficial. So in the case of the soccer match, for example, again, whilst we are watching the soccer match, we are enjoying, of course, if our team is winning, we are enjoying it. And then the soccer match is over, and that enjoyment is over.
Out of that, we think one is good, one situation is good, and the other is bad. And out of that, all sorts of confusion come about. And we know that from our own experience. And the same with the bank. If we get our how do call that?
Statement. Yes, thank you. If we get our statement and we see we have some more money in the bank, then we are happy about it. And if we see less money than we expected, then we are unhappy about it. And we start seeing all sorts of faults and shortcomings and stop blaming, complaining, all that.
And it’s all very there’s nothing there from their own side, from its own side. Again, we keep on waiting for the next day when we’ll see more money in the bank account or, in the future, we’re expecting and we have this we nurture this grasping, this craving, this attachment, and there’s no good quality from the side of the objects that we are relating to in this way. And in the first place, there’s nothing there. And so, know, we are either going to work to make money or, you know, we are watching a performance, a show, the Fringe Festival or something like that. And in this way, we get busy with this life, and there’s no time spare for liberation in we just don’t see the faults.
We don’t see fault in cyclic existence. We don’t see fault in all of this. And I was just saying, we believe from the depths of our heart that it’s all good. It’s all happiness. And Geshe-la says, yes, we believe from the depth of our heart.
It is all happiness. We don’t want to hear about any of it being suffering, any of our enjoyments being suffering. We just don’t want to hear. And Geshe-la was saying, all this talk about the faults of money and all that, and you might think, or he’s saying that because he doesn’t have any money, you know, and he might just want you to leave it. But it is not the case.
There are there are real faults to it. Yes? Oldest son bought some chocolate chip Easter bun. It’s my favorite. Choc chip?
Yeah. The the Easter bun. It’s it’s very it’s my favorite. One of my favorite. What what?
It’s a chocolate bread. A bread. A my mind and eye of the attachment. Yes. So I restrain myself from having it for lunch, and because I couldn’t have anything for dinner.
And normally in the breakfast, I’ve had oats. But this morning You had chocolate. Had it. And I when I when I reflect about my mind at that time when I ate the bun, I found that I have great attachment. Yes.
So even though that I restrained myself from from eating them yesterday, but this morning, I still ate them with great desire. So Geshe-la was then saying, look, what what you’re doing is is already good. You you know already that it is attachment. You know already that there are faults to it. And it’s not that you you cannot eat eat muffin.
It’s a muffin, right? Roll. Chocolate roll. It’s a chocolate roll. Okay.
It’s not that you cannot eat your chocolate roll. This is about a principle, an overarching thing. It is. You have to what you have to do is you have to you have to eat. You have to eat food.
You have to nurture your body. You have to have a healthy body so that you can practice and and do virtual and so forth. You have to contemplate that, okay, I’m going to eat this chocolate roll, you know, to nurture my body. It’s good for my body, it’s healthy and so forth. Chocolate is good for you.
Come on. We all know that. Chocolate is good for you. So you eat it in this way. The whole point is not to be overwhelmed by the mind of attachment.
It’s not about what you are eating, but it’s about the mind of attachment that is thinking, oh, this is the best chocolate roll in the whole planet, you know, my life depends on it and all stuff like that. Know, I’m I’m enlightened now. I’m eating chocolate roll, so I’m gonna become enlightened. It’s just so good. I’m in heaven.
That’s the point. Okay? Okay. Yes, sir. Yeah.
Okay.