Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Adam presents a meditation on the four greatnesses of the Lamrim text, Lama Tsongkhapa’s foundational guide to the Buddhist path. After establishing a proper meditation posture and setting a compassionate motivation, he explains how the Lamrim reveals all Buddhist teachings as non-contradictory, shows them as practical instructions rather than mere philosophy, points to the Buddha’s actual intended meaning, and protects practitioners from abandoning the Dharma altogether. Drawing on classical commentary and lived examples, Adam emphasizes that the Buddha taught many paths suited to different minds—like different medicines for different illnesses—and that genuine understanding comes through study, reflection, and practice with a qualified teacher. This session is foundational for practitioners new to structured Buddhist study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Meditation Adam – Greatness of teachings.mp3
UUID: 05350aa7-fa8f-4b7c-861b-d8a0bc068117
Teacher: Adam – Meditation
Collection: Meditations Basic Program (Adam – Meditation)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~1,756
And you can set the motivation by thinking, the purpose of my life is to benefit all sentient beings as much as I can. So in order to do this, I’m going to engage to work in my own mind for the ultimate purpose of attaining enlightenment and bringing all sentient beings into that state. I’m going just do a refuge prayer. In English, it’s all. I go for refuge go for refuge until enlightened to the the Dharma, and the Sangha assembly.
By the practice of listening to the Buddha, very quickly, by the practice of Dharma, and the Sangha assembly. By my practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I quickly become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme assembly. My practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. Enjoy 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 parted from the happiness that is free from suffering. And may all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment for friends and hatred for enemies. Okay. So find a firm posture, and check that your back is straight.
Put your hands on your lap. Put your right hand sitting on top of your left hand. Your head has bent forward slightly. The tongue touching the top of your mouth. And just let your mind settle.
So the heading of this meditation is showing the greatness of the teachings for the sake of generating respect for the teachings. The Lamrim text was written by Lama Tsongkhapa. Its root text is Atisha’s Lamp on the Path to Enlightenment, which in turn was a compacted form of Śākyamūni Buddha’s teachings. Atisha composed many texts, and A Lamp on the Path to Enlightenment is a perfect compilation. As it indicates, all the points of both Sūtra and Tantra.
It is said to be complete in terms of content, and it makes the gradual taming of the mind its main topic. It was said to be easy to put into practice. So it’s quite an achievement for somebody to have taken all of Buddha’s teachings and put them together in a process which makes it easy for a person to see the complete path and to bring all the points of Sūtra and Tantra together. So I just said that the Lamrim text has four greatnesses. They are, one, allowing one to realize that all the teachings are non contradictory.
Two, it brings all the Buddha’s teachings into view as instructions. Three, it shows one the meaning intended by the Buddha. And four, it allows you to save yourself from worst misdeeds and non virtues. So the first greatness, allowing one to realize that all the teachings are non contradictory. The teachings here refer to everything the Buddha taught.
He is the supreme teacher and the source of the source text. For those who wish to gain the enlightened state, the Lamrim text shows the things that must be abandoned, the things that we should make manifest, and the things that we should meditate upon. Do not commit any non virtuous actions. Perform only perfect virtuous actions. Tame your mind thoroughly.
This is the teaching of the Buddha. So as the first greatness says, that this text allows one to realize all the teachings are non contradictory. To realize or understand this is to see that all the teachings are consistent and harmonious. The Mahāyāna, Hīnayāna, Vinaya, Tantra, Sūtra, etcetera, seem to contradict one another from literal point of view. But they are all either a main practice to take us to enlightenment or a byway leading to enlightenment.
They are therefore therefore consistent. So we must be careful not to criticize, reject, or look down upon any of the teachings, any of the other traditions. There are many different beings with many different mental dispositions. And just like one medicine will not cure all illnesses, different medicines need to be correctly applied to different illnesses. In the same way, the Buddha gave many different teachings to suit many different beings.
And these teachings have been condensed into summary fashion, which had the three different scopes of the lam rim, the smaller scope, middling scope, and greater scope. And we need to be careful not to wrongly view ourselves as a greater scope being, looking down upon middling scope beings. Because unless we have achieved renunciation, unless the majority of our thoughts and actions are concerned with the happiness of future lives, in reality, we do not yet even qualify as smaller scope being. So we must respect all levels, all the different mental dispositions of other beings, all the different paths, and therefore, all the different teachings. So this again is the first greatness.
Through the understanding and investigation of the different teachings, we come to realize that they are non contradictory. The second greatness, which is bringing all the Buddha’s teachings into view as instructions. The Buddha Śākyamūni had already completely freed himself from suffering and achieved a fully enlightened state of mind. He did not teach us to attain wealth. He did not teach us to attain wealth to fame to benefit himself in any way.
He had reached a level beyond needs. So it was out of his love and compassion for us that he expounded the Dharma. The Dharma itself is the means and instructions for us to be free of every suffering, to attain every happiness, and to achieve the fully awakened state of enlightened being. So we need to see the Dharma teachings for what they actually are. Unfortunately, many only intellectually learn the Dharma or merely recite the words and mantras without ever reflecting on or contemplating their meaning and implication.
The Buddha was pointing out our condition, our suffering, our being trapped in cyclic existence, being pulled along by our karmic actions, born again and again, suffering again and again. And he shows that this is possible to overcome this and escape, to free our minds from every suffering and attain every happiness. And every sentient being has this potential. There is not one sentient being who cannot achieve this enlightened state. And you can check this up yourself.
If you pick any time that you’ve overcome a negativity, any time that you’ve overcome anger, an addiction, an affliction, and we can generally find this in small levels that we’ve done this. So if we can do it once, that means it must be possible to do it again and again and again. So if we can remove one one affliction from our mind, can eventually remove all afflictions from our mind. And to do this allows all the true qualities, love and compassion to arise naturally. And this is what the Buddha was pointing out that we need to do.
So we need to put these teachings into practice. We need to rid our mind of this negative pollution. We all want to be happy. And the Dharma and the lamrim are the instructions to achieve this. The great Lama Tsongkhapa said, They have studied much, yet are poor in Dharma.
Blame it on their not taking the scriptures as instructions. We learn the Dharma by putting it into practice. And time is of the essence as that could strike at any time. So make use of this precious rebirth and do not let it go to waste. So the third greatness is showing the showing one the meaning the showing one the meaning intended by the Buddha.
Although great texts, teachings, and commentaries form the instructions for the beginner, the intended meaning is very hard to find. The meaning intended by the Buddha is found through the combination of the Lamrim text, oral instructions and guidance from a qualified teacher, study, practice, and effort on behalf of the student. And a quote from the text reads, a star, a visual distortion, a flame of a lamp, an illusion, a drop of dew, or a bubble, a dream, a flash of lightning, a cloud. See condition things as such. We grasp at the permanence of our outer conditions.
We see things as existing from their own side to our ignorant mind. We develop attachment and aversion when our ego is threatened. Our afflictive emotions such as anger and jealousy arise. So the Buddha was point trying to point out the way things actually exist. The great Tsongkhapa said, the appearance of things are mutually interdependent.
There’s no illusion, but there are those who understand emptiness to be something devoid of this appearance. As long as these two seem separate to you, you will not realize the view of the great one. And I just said that if the Dharma were to form an ocean, the three principal aspects of the path, which are renunciation, bodhicitta, and the wisdom realizing emptiness, would be the jewels within that ocean. The lam rim is like a boat, and the teacher is like the captain. So if you depend on a guru, a skillful captain, and you found a boat, such as the Lamrim, I said that with these, you can quickly find the essence of the Dharma, which is the three principal aspects of the path.
Renunciation, bodhicitta, and the wisdom realizing emptiness. So the fourth greatness of the Lamrim is allowing us to save ourselves from the worst misdeeds. It is said that abandoning the Dharma is the greatest misdeed one can do. As this is what can free us from our condition. And one way in which we can unintentionally abandon the Dharma is rejecting or criticizing any of the parts taught by the Buddha.
Rejecting the lower schools or the middling schools, or being the lower or middling schools and rejecting the higher schools. When one realizes the first two greatnesses, which are the greatness of allowing one to realize that the teaching is non contradictory, and the greatness of bringing all the Buddha’s teachings into view as instructions. This stops us from the greatest misdeeds, which are abandoning the Dharma. Until this time, we need to be careful not to criticize, reject, or look down upon any of the other traditions or paths as it’s been put forth by the Buddha. So this concludes showing the greatness of the teachings.