Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute teaching on Lama Chopa, Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen breaks down the two branches of bodhichitta—the wishing mind and the engaging mind—and their relationship to the six perfections. The core teaching traces how aspiration alone to attain Buddhahood for all beings is hollow without actual practice; the speaker then walks through the first three perfections in detail. Generosity is reframed as an attitude of the mind, not the amount given, and is perfected through meditation on giving away body, possessions, and virtue to all beings. Ethics comprises three types: restraint from harm (including observance of vows), cultivation of skillful actions, and active compassion for others’ welfare. Patience is presented as an undistressed mind in the face of harm, hardship, and the slow work of practice itself. Throughout, the emphasis is on rooting external actions in bodhicitta and emptiness-awareness. Suited for practitioners already familiar with Mahāyāna Buddhist concepts.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1992-11-13 – 19A – KR.mp3
UUID: 9a1020be-610d-4583-9ff3-5c3470069502
Teacher: Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen
Collection: Guru Puja – Lama Chopa
Date: 1992-11-13
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,470
Go to space quickly, quickly attain the fearless, complete, perfect state of Buddhahood. In that state, I would then lead all living beings to a state whereby they have eliminated all their suffering and have attained complete happiness. To achieve that end, I will listen to, reflect, and meditate on the quick path of practice of universal vehicle Dharma, that of Guru Yoga. So as we just mentioned in developing our motivation that developing the aspiration to seek Buddhahood quickly, quickly for the sake of all living beings. This aspiration is, as was explained last week, the aspiring mind generation or wishing mind generation.
Then in order to actually achieve that, engage in the actual training in the vast deeds of the bodhisattva, the offspring of the Buddha. And this is termed the practical mind generation or engaging mind generation. So there is first the committing oneself to the attainment of Buddhahood in terms of intention, the wish to attain that end, which is the wishing or aspiration mind generation or the awakening heart. Then in order to actually bring that about, the actual practical mind generation or practical awakening heart generation where one begins to take up the actual practices of the training of the bodhisattva.
These actual practices are to be seen in terms of the vast deeds of the bodhisattva and the profound view. That is to say, the view of the middle way. So there are these two aspects to the actual training, the vast deeds and the profound view. So within the the vast deeds, there is the way of training in the six perfections. That would be the way of training in generosity, ethics, tolerance, joyous effort, meditative stabilization, and wisdom.
So if though one has developed mind generation, that is to say the awakening heart of the universal vehicle, if one does not train in the vast deeds, if one does not enter into the various trainings, then there is no way to attain Buddhahood. In order to attain Buddhahood is, let’s say, to accumulate the two collections of creative potential and wisdom. That is to say, we actually have to practice and what we are practicing in order to accumulate the collection of greater potential are the various perfections such as generosity, ethics, tolerance, and joyous effort. Then to accumulate the collection of wisdom, meditative stabilization and wisdom. Rinpoche is quoting a verse from the bodhisattva Śāntideva’s text engaging in the bodhisattva’s deeds, the bodhisattva’s way of life.
Where he says that once having, in developing mind generation, that is to say the awakening heart, one is committing oneself to freeing all living beings from all of their suffering and leading them to happiness. And if one, having committed this in, does not engage in the various methods whereby to bring this about, or if one does not take hold of the methods the means to actually bring this about. One has deceived them. That one has actually promised one has in fact deceived them. And this has detrimental consequences.
For example, if you said to one person, they said, I’m going to help you out. I’m going to benefit you and you promised. But you didn’t uphold your promise. You just threw it aside and you didn’t help them. This would be extremely negative.
This would be really in a way harming this person. You committed yourself to helping them and you actually didn’t follow through on your promise. What to say if one were to commit oneself and promise to benefit all living beings? You know, we can’t even talk about the consequences in terms of the dangers of the type of rebirth that we might take take as a consequence of having made this promise. Then deceiving all living beings, having said you commit yourself to their welfare and not following through with their commitment, have, as it were, deceived all living beings.
I knew the power of having deceived all living beings in that way. Would be under the force of that deception. We would take a bad rebirth in the future. We would experience great suffering. No matter what type of rebirth we took, what type of embodiment, we would experience a great fear.
So the deeds of the bodhisattva are extremely vast. We can condense them down to the practice of the six perfections, that is to mature one’s own mind stream, and the four means of cultivating the minds of students as a means of maturing the minds of others. One engages in the practice of the six perfections, and these six perfections are graded as to the difficulty beginning with the easier practices of the perfection such as generosity, ethics, and moving toward the more difficult. So it’s necessary that you’re gaining some proficiency in the previous perfections in order to be able to enter into more difficult practice of the latter perfections. Beginning with the first practice, the practice of the first perfection of generosity.
This is the giving. The discordant attitude of giving is miserliness, so overcoming our miserliness through our practice of generosity. But simply really by giving, we cannot bring to completion the perfection of generosity. Why is that? Example, the arhat, the destroyer has abandoned all the afflictive emotions.
They have abandoned miserliness but they have not brought to completion this perfection of generosity. So it’s not a matter of just giving away things whether it’s food, clothing. What is it? The nature of generosity is an attitude of giving. We are seeking to increase this attitude of giving to its perfection.
No matter how many things we may give away, that is not, the perfection of generosity is not dependent on giving away lots of things, but increasing the mind of giving. Generosity is a mental factor. There are minds and mental factors, and amongst these mental factors one of these is generosity. So it is an attitude of the mind. Is an attitude.
Its nature is an attitude of giving. The various things that we give, whether it be food, drink, our body, all our various possessions, enjoyables, these are simply the substances of giving. They are not giving. So the perfection of giving attained in terms of development of this attitude of giving, not in terms of things. In order to increase this attitude of giving, we do give various substances.
We give away our body, our various possessions, and our roots of skillful actions. These are the substances of giving in order to increase the mind of giving. Looking at verse number one zero one where it says, We seek your blessings to complete the perfection of generosity through the guideline teachings for enhancing the mind that gives without attachment, namely transforming our bodies, wealth, and collection of virtue over the three times into objects desired by each and every sentient being. So we’re going to, as a means of practicing the perfection of generosity, giving away our body, our various objects of enjoyment, food, clothing, etcetera, and our skillful actions, the three times, that is say the past, present, and future. This would also include all our various realizations of the grounds and paths, all our excellent qualities of mind.
We’re going to give all of these away. We can imagine that these all are initially in the form of a wish fulfilling gem which radiates out light. Upon touching all living beings, they attain a complete perfect embodiment. We then present them each with wish fulfilling gem which by means of possessing this wish fulfilling gem, any type of object of enjoyment they wish they can have. Then finally, the wish fulfilling gem radiates that light and upon touching them, they gain all the various realizations of the paths and grounds and all the excellent qualities.
But it’s necessary if our practice of generosity is in any way associated with attachment, then it’s not a practice of generosity. So we have to develop a mind of giving from the very depths of our heart with perfect motivation. This would embody the act of generosity. We try to develop a motivation of the awakening heart, wishing for the sake of all these living beings that I’m going to give away my body and my possessions and all of my skillful actions over the three times in order to attain Buddhahood for their sake. In order for it to become perfection of generosity, it must be motivated by a awakening heart, but it also must be accompanied by wisdom, in this case the wisdom of the emptiness of the three spheres that the giver, the substance being given, and the receiver of the gift are all empty of natural existence.
In this way it becomes a perfection of generosity. In our practice of equalizing and exchanging self with others, where we are engaged in meditating on giving and taking. When we give away our body, our objects of enjoyment, our possessions and our skillful actions, this constitutes the practice of generosity. So the perfection of generosity to be practiced mainly in terms of the mind and the mind is the attitude of giving. It’s not necessary to actually give away actual things in order to practice the perfection of It can be done in one’s meditation through an imaginative process where we are giving away those who are without happiness.
We give them our body, which brings them happiness. We give them objects of enjoyment which brings them happiness. We give them skillful actions which bring them happiness. So the practice is done in terms of the mind. This practice should be without any sense of attachment, that we are letting go.
Whatever will bring these happiness, I will give them. It is by the power of this development of this giving attitude that one practices the perfection of generosity. Then the practice of the perfection of ethics and with the lama meditated at the crown of one’s head that one develops the motivation that for the sake of all living beings in order to quickly, quickly lead them to a state of complete happiness and free them of all suffering, I will attain the state of the Buddha. In order to achieve that, I am going to engage in the three types of ethics. This becomes the motivation for the practice of the perfection of ethics.
The three types of ethics are the ethics of abandoning the harming of others, the creation of engaging in skillful actions, and bringing about the welfare of sentient beings. The nature of ethics is the attitude of guarding, of protecting the mind. No, not the mind. The attitude of protecting. Looking at verse number 102 where it says, We seek your blessings to complete the perfection of moral discipline, ethics, by working for the sake of sentient beings, enacting virtuous deeds, not and transgressing the bounds of pratimoksha, bodhicitta, and tantric vows even at the cost of our lives.
So the first of the types of ethics is the abandoning of harming of others, but this is here spoken of in terms of ethics of restraint. Yeah, that’s good, restraint. Here the restraint is in terms of, let us say, we are stopping the mind which would bring about harm. We are restraining that mind. We’re holding it back.
For example, this is in terms of the various levels of vows but also includes the 10 unskillful actions. If one would wake up in the morning and thinking that I’m not going to allow myself to engage in any of the 10 unskillful actions, that they’re extremely negative in thinking about all the various faults and over the course of the day developing this motivation, I’m going to restrain my mind from engaging in these 10 unskillful actions. But also in terms of, as it says here, in terms of or the vows of individual liberation, whether one is a lay person having taken any of the precepts or a novice or a fully ordained monk or nun, the observation of those vows, that is committing oneself to restrain, to confine oneself to the observance of those vows. And also the vows of the bodhisattva and the vows of secret mantra, the observation of these vows constitute the ethics of restraining. Yeah, binding and restraining.
So the bodhisattva is engaging in extremely vast activities. These vast activities are included within the six perfections. It can be condensed or included within the six perfection. And it is this which is the ethics of creation of skillful actions. So it is the six perfection.
The practice of six perfection is the second type of ethics, the creation the skillful actions. And then finally, the third type of ethic, is the bringing about the welfare of others. That would be the attitude of mind which aspires to liberate living beings from their problems, from their suffering, which is to free them from their suffering, free them from their anxiety, to liberate them. This attitude of mind which wishes to bring them happiness is the third type of ethic, the ethic of bringing about the welfare of living beings, of other living beings. So in the practice of exchange of self for others, in the context of compassion, take on the suffering of others.
In the practice of giving and taking, on others are undergoing harm and we take on that suffering. This taking upon the suffering of others would constitute the ethics of abandoning harming of others since taking this harm on oneself one abandons harming them. Verse number 103. Should even the myriad beings of the three realms without exception become angry at us, humiliate, criticize, threaten, or even kill us. We seek your blessings to complete the perfection of patience, not to be distraught, but to work for the benefit in response to their harm.
This is outlining the perfection of tolerance or patience and one should, having the motivation for the sake of all living beings in order to free them from all suffering and bring them complete happiness, will read it quickly to bring it back. I will bring to consummation the perfection of tolerance. There are three types of tolerance, three types of tolerance. First of all, there is the tolerance of not returning harm. Then there is the not returning harm for harm.
The tolerance of willing accepting difficulties and suffering. And thirdly, voluntarily taking on difficulties and suffering, and thirdly the tolerance with respect to Dharma practice in pursuing the various practices and development of all qualities and the development of faith and trust in order to bring these to completion, abiding in the practice of meditating, etcetera, in order for the practice of one’s Dharma. The nature of tolerance is an undistressed mind.