Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this guided classroom session, teacher Christele opens with a reading from psychologist Bob Sharples on meditation as an act of loving friendship toward yourself rather than self-improvement, framing the entire practice in compassion and gentleness. She then guides participants through the foundational breath-counting meditation, emphasizing proper posture across all sitting positions and the simple mental task of counting inhalations and exhalations together from one to ten. Next comes a meditation on observing feelings and emotions with equanimity, exploring how aversion (resistance to unpleasant experiences) and attachment (clinging to pleasant ones) create suffering, while direct observation without judgment allows painful sensations and thoughts to pass naturally. Christele offers multiple practical techniques for managing physical pain in meditation—adjusting posture, breathing with visualization, reflecting on impermanence and karma, and reframing pain as temporary discomfort for long-term benefit. The session concludes with a guided visualization of Śākyamūni Buddha followed by his mantra recitation, in which participants first receive purification and blessings, then imagine themselves as Buddha radiating compassion and wisdom to all beings, and finally dedicate the merit according to their personal motivation. Suitable for both newcomers and those with some practice experience.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Christele – DB day s4.mp3
UUID: 1dc7ddcb-4a90-4414-87cb-08589f69c8a6
Teacher: Christele
Collection: How to Meditate (Christele)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~5,431
Now it oh, okay. Everybody’s here now. Sorry. There for one more. Okay.
Okay. Before we’re going to go into stabilizing meditation using breath as a meditation and counting, and I’m going to guide you through that, I just want to this morning, I was talking about this guy, Bob Sharples, who wrote a book about meditation calming the mind. And I just want to read you one one I mean, two pages from his book. As I say, he was he was running some healing meditation classes at Institute in Melbourne. And he’s a psychologist who’s working with seriously ill people.
And it’s about about loving yourself when you meditate and don’t push yourself too much. So I’m going to start with that. So after years and years of practice, trying hard to fix myself, trying to feel okay about myself, I was sitting in yet another meditation course, giving it my best shot again. When I heard the teacher say the word, Meditation is about making friends with yourself. That was all.
Yet a wave of deep relief and gladness floated through me. I’m sure a variation of this word had been spoken often before, but I had not heard them till that moment. Could it be that simple? Meditate to make friends with yourself, the Lama had said. And this was for me then, and remains still, the most eloquent expression of the simple and unaffected grace that can flow into our lives from the practice of meditation.
Don’t meditate to fix yourself, to heal yourself, to improve yourself, to redeem yourself. Rather, do it as an act of love, of deep, warm friendship towards yourself. In this view, there is no longer any need for the subtle aggression of self improvement, for self criticism, for the endless guilt of not doing enough. It offers possibility of an end to the ceaseless brand of trying so hard that wraps so many people’s lives in a knot. Instead, there is now meditation as an act of love.
How endlessly delightful and encouraging. Meditation as an act of love, as a way of befriending oneself, is such a radical departure from the era of self improvement projects that are presented in the media and in life stories of the famous, the successful and those who have prevailed over an affliction or crisis. This being said, the question of futility still hangs in the mind. How can this act of befriending oneself help us to heal, to become calmer, to deal with anger, panic and depression, to meet our spiritual hunger? The answer to this question is beguilingly.
Is that the way you say it? Thank you, simple? Maybe I should just remove the word simple. Everything is softened by this commitment to friendship. It is only when we can be a friend to ourselves that we can be a friend to the world.
On his constant travels, Dalai Lama reiterates like a mantra: My religion is kindness. Perhaps it really is that simple. I just wanted to share that with you because I mean, I think it’s good just to, you know, be kind with yourself. It’s very important. And then that we help you to be kind with others.
Okay. So is that okay if we go straight from the counting the breath meditation that we’re going to do for about ten minutes into the other meditation that venerable Jamyang wrote that we’re going to look at our feelings and emotion, our attachment, and aversion. Or do you just want to have a small break? And then no? Okay.
Shall I guide you again through the posture? Or yeah. Yeah. Who wants who wants to be guided through the posture before the yeah. Okay.
So we’re just gonna do it. And it’s always, anyway, a good thing. And it’s always a good thing even when you’re at home that you make sure, you know, that you got the right posture. And then during the meditation also that you check your body, especially if you feel overexcited. I mean, for me, I’ve noticed usually my head goes like that and my head up here.
So it’s good to check. So just sit in the seven point posture. You’re on the floor, half lotus or full lotus if you can, or simple cross your leg with both feet on the floor. If you’re sitting on a chair, feet flat on the floor, buttocks to the back of the chair. Your hands are loosely on your lap, the right hand on top of the left hand.
Your palms upward with the fingers aligned. The two hands are slightly cupped so that the tips of the thumb meet to form a triangle. Relax your shoulders and your arms. Do not press your arms against the body. Just allow some air to circulate.
That will prevent you from being sleepy. Your back is straight and lightly upright. Relax your muscle. If you’re sitting on a chair, the back should not touch the back of the chair. Your eyes, slightly open, allowing some light to come in.
Direct your gaze downwards. Do not focus on anything. Neither look at the floor or your nose, but just in between without focusing. Relax your jaw and your mouth. Your lips are touching.
Your teeth are slightly apart. The tip of the tongue should touch the palate behind the upper teeth. Your neck is bent forward a little so that the gaze is directed naturally towards the floor in front of you. Your nose is in line with the navel. Now focus your attention on your breathing.
Breathe naturally. Just focus the mind on the rising and falling of your shoulders and chest as you inhale and exhale gently. Allow your mind to settle and become calm and present, ready to engage in the meditation on counting the breath. Think that you are meditating not just for your own individual benefit, but that you are taking the time now to meditate and develop your mind to become a wiser and kinder person, able to benefit all sentient beings. Now start by focusing your attention at the opening of your nostril.
Pay attention to the very subtle sensation as you breathe in and out through your nose. You can feel sudden sensation as the air passes, as the small air moves, cooler sensation as you inhale, warmer as you exhale. Do not follow the air into your body or out into the surrounding environment. Just place your attention on the sensation associated with the breath at the opening of your nostril. Your job is to keep your attention firmly placed on those sensations only.
As you inhale and exhale, mentally count each inhalation and exhalation together as one. Count from one to ten concentrating on those sensations. When you reach ten, begin again at one. If you become distracted, if your mind wanders to other things and moves away from the point of concentration, then begin again at one. Even if you never get past two, it is not a problem.
The point is to train your mind to focus on one point only. This concentration can take some time and practice to attend. So we’re going to do that for about ten minutes. Make sure that your mind is still on the object of meditation. If it wanders, it is not a problem.
Just bring it back to the object of meditation. And if it is all you do during this practice, it is okay. Sorry. I changed my mind. We’re going to have a break before the other one.
So I did okay. Did you yeah. And did you get a hand out of this? No. You missed them.
Okay. I get I I give one to you because after what you can do once you’re once you’re okay with the counting, you know, from one to ten, they told you that you can actually come backwards from ten to one. So that’s when you master the technique a bit more. But I get you that. And if anybody wants one who didn’t have one, I’ll make some copy.
If we’ve got two more meditations to do and we might have some time after so I don’t know. I mean there’s two options we could do. We could talk about the obstacles of meditation or maybe I could talk a bit more about pain, physical pain during meditation and how you can overcome that. So I don’t know, we could see if we’ve got time and what you’d like to talk about because I know it’s a common problem, you know, of the pain. Someday, you know, you might experience more pain than others and it’s good to have tools to deal with that.
We did cover a little bit of this tool during the last few weeks, but there’s more tools that you can use for that. Anyway, we’ll see if we’ve got some time. We’ve got two more to do so. Oh, yeah. Ready for the next one?
Yes? Okay. Just adapt the posture again and go through each point. Just spend a few instant to come back into your to confirm your breathing, to calm down your mind again. In the West, we try to relax by knowing what is bothering us.
We, some of us, use alcohol, look for some other ways to forget, buy a new car, new clothes, get a new wife, get a new husband, etc. Relaxation through mindfulness means understanding the nature of things, the impermanence of everything. Then when things happen, we know how to let go. We don’t get disturbed when we lose something or when things change. When I guide you through this meditation, let the information I’m going to give you merge with your mind.
Let the words of your thinking merge with your feeling. The nature of the mind is clear and knowing. In the mind, many things can arise, feelings, thoughts, and emotions. Although these things arise in the mind, they are not the mind itself.
They appear like clouds in the blue sky. No matter how many clouds there are in the sky, no matter how thick the clouds are or how long they stay in the sky, the clouds never touch the blue sky, never influence the blue sky. In the same way, our thoughts, feelings, and emotions arise in the mind, but never touch the clear nature of our mind. Any thing that arises in the mind is by nature impermanent. Therefore, everything that arises in the mind necessarily will disappear again.
We don’t have to do anything for this. It happens naturally on its own accord. Try to observe the natural coming and going of your feelings, thoughts, and emotions. In order for this natural process of arising and disappearing to happen, we have to allow anything to arise in the mind, and then we have to let it go again and not hold on to it. When feelings, emotions, or thoughts arise that we don’t want or don’t like, like pain, we have the tendency to suppress or deny them in an attempt to stop them from arising.
This is aversion. When we reject unpleasant feelings, emotions, or thoughts, they become stronger. If we judge our feelings, emotions, our thoughts in a negative way, we feel the aversion, and the aversion might turn into agitation and even anger. Allowing the unpleasant feelings to arise is acceptance. As soon as we accept that we are in pain, afraid, worried, it doesn’t become bigger and stronger.
Usually, when pain or suffering occurs, it quickly becomes huge because we are so focused upon ourself. In this example, try to think of more suffering, for example, that you yourself had in the past or that other people experienced. This will help you to remember that pain and suffering is always relative and that the amount depends on what we compare it with. When feelings, emotions, or thoughts arise in the mind that we do like, we have tendency to follow them, to hold on to them. This is our attempt to let them last for a long time, preferably forever.
This is attachment. We also might have expectation of what might come, of what meditation will bring to us, like good feelings or a kind mind. This is also a way how desire manifests. This is also attachment. The nature of desire is that it is never satisfied.
Any pleasant feeling that we follow naturally comes to an end, after which we are looking for another pleasant feeling to follow and hold hold on to. For instance, when we sit too long, we want to stand up. When we stand up too long, we want to walk off it. Because desire is never satisfied, in Buddhism we say that desire is suffering. When there is desire, there is never contentment.
Contentment is acceptance and acceptance is the basis for peace. If we can let go of suppressing our negative feelings, thoughts, and emotions, and let go of following or holding on to positive feelings, thoughts, and emotions will become present in the moment. Our body and breath are always in the present moment. They are never in the past nor in the future. If we let our awareness rest on our body or our breath and stop following our aversion and desire, our mind becomes naturally in the present moment.
Not following our aversion and desire mean that the mind becomes calm and clear. When we can see the impermanence of our feelings, thoughts, and emotions, naturally, we will stop clinging, holding onto an aversion. You realize that you realize there is nothing to hold on to. Everything passes away by itself. Do you remember how long the Chenrezig meditation?
Last time, it was probably twenty, twenty five minutes. So okay. What do you wanna do? You you want to do a bit more about the you wanna do about the obstacle and antidote and the pain, or you want to go straight into Śākyamūni meditation and we finish early? That’s up you.
The pen? You want to know a bit more about the pain? Well, you know, as we said in this meditation, I mean, pain usually comes from aversion. We do not want it. So we we do fight against it.
And I’m just going to try to find my notes. But usually what happens, if you look at your mind when you got pain, you got a lot of thought, know, that shouldn’t happen to me. And it gets bigger and bigger compared to what the pain is actually. Your thoughts are really fueling the pain most of the time. And if you just observe the thought and let them go, usually the pain might still be here but you might not pay too much attention to it.
And there’s there’s also a technique I’m just going to try to that was the last session, I think. Session four. I didn’t have time to go through all techniques from for pain. So that’s one technique. Just to observe your thought.
You know? And, usually, as I said, the thoughts are much bigger than the pain itself. In Buddhism, I mean, they say that much of the physical tension are mind related and usually if you solve the problem in your mind, you’re going to solve the problem in your body. So it’s good to recognize your problem and settle them in meditation. That’s one way of dealing with pain.
You can also, if you have pain, just go through the seven point posture again. It might be you’re not sitting properly and that’s why you’re getting pain from it. You can relax each part of your body, especially the one where you feel some pain. And another method is to breathe deeply and slowly with concentration and imagine that the tension and pain leaves your body with each exhalation. You can even imagine black smoke coming out if that’s more beneficial for you.
So that’s the third way. There’s some school of Buddhism that actually tells you to stay with a pain and sit with it and walk through it and don’t move, but it’s okay. To move it really, you know, gets worse and you can squeeze it a little bit. That’s okay to do that too, but it’s good to observe the pain first before doing that. And I suggest observe, do not react to it and do not be fearful and instead of giving the label pain, which just by saying pain, you know, that might trigger some pain in your body.
So just label it something, a sensation in my shoulder that might move the energy. I just have a few notes that I took from Lama Zopa retreat last year which is pretty good. Some are advanced techniques and you actually need to have some background and some knowledge in Buddhist teachings to actually apply them and I’ll tell you which one they are. Some of them, you just say be patient with your body. Your body should be a companion to your meditation and not an obstacle to your meditation.
So accept the pain and try to understand the truth of suffering, that there is suffering and there’s causes for suffering. That is the first two noble truths, but you can also think about the two last ones that is suffering, there causes for suffering, there is cessation of suffering, I mean suffering can cease and there is a path out of suffering. So you need to have some knowledge of the four noble truths to actually go through that. And if you got knowledge about karma, you can also think that the pain that you are feeling is actually you are exhausting negative karma. You are burning negative karma and you’re getting rid of that.
And that’s good. You can think that by just having pain in my shoulder, I might not have bigger suffering because karma expands with time, so you might not have cancer down the track. So that’s one way of, you know, really good, you know. So you should rejoice, you know, it’s only a pain in your shoulder. But yes, as I said, you need to have knowledge about karma and believe in karma also.
I will not work. You can think of impermanence, that the pain will not last, will go away And that you know that as soon as you’re going to get up from your meditation, most of the time the pain will be gone. As I say, you know, pain comes from the desire to be calm and pain free. The attachment and aversion together. So a way to do that is just invite the pain, you know.
Oh, that’s good. You know, you’re here. Well, good. Welcome. Stay here.
So then, you know, you remove the aversion and you remove attachment. So that should not create the suffering because as I said, it’s usually the attachment and the aversion that we create the pain and the suffering. So if you invite it. And as I said, observe your thoughts and the reactions and that the thoughts are more disturbing than the pain itself most of the time and that it’s a temporal discomfort for long term benefit. That’s what you need to keep in mind.
What do you want to achieve by your meditation? So if you need to go through a bit of pain, you you still have the long term. Of course, if you do have a medical condition, that might not be applicable to this technique, you also need to follow your doctor’s advice. There is another technique, but sensing you need to be familiar with the teachings is actually when you got pain, you can visualize that you are taking on the suffering of all sentient beings. You actually imagine, you know, there’s black smoke and you’re breathing this black smoke and you destroy your ego and then you send them happiness with white light.
And you wish them to be free of pain and suffering. But for them you might need to go through some stages of developing love and compassion and seeing everybody as your mother and wishing them happiness and be free from suffering. But it’s, yeah, depends if you’re ready to do that or not. And then you rejoice. When you do this practice, actually rejoice that they’re free of suffering.
It’s difficult to understand without any Dharma teaching. And this way of thinking, as I said, there’s reason behind that. So basically that thought about the suffering, the pain that I’ve got, is that helpful? Okay. Anything else for?
So you can try different technique, but there’s also a technique that says you can actually increase the pain, make it very, very strong, and then you relax it. And then, of course, you need a strong pain and you go back to a inferior level of pain. So that will decrease the sensation of pain. But that’s okay to move your body from time to time. Do you want to stretch a little bit before we go into Śākyamūni meditation?
When I need to, I’ve got pain. Most of you have already done the Śākyamūni meditation or most of you here know it? Who didn’t do who hasn’t done it? Okay. That’s okay.
I mean, I’m going to guide you through it. I might put the mantra on the write the mantra on the board. And like last time, we’ve been to you. Got a much better voice than you. Yeah.
And this is a. You can look at the image, and we’ll willing to visualize it in front of us. It’s in your mind, not by looking at it. I mean, you can look at it if you want to, but Uncalm your mind by doing a few moments of breathing meditation. Then I’m going to read the prayer of refuge in bodhicitta.
When I really just contemplate on the meaning of this prayer. I take refuge until I’m enlightened in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Through the merit I create by practicing giving and the other perfection, may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all living beings. I take refuge until I’m enlightened in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Through the merit I create by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all living beings.
I take refuge until I’m enlightened in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha through the merit I create by practicing giving and the other perfection. May I attain enlightenment for the sake of all living beings? Generate love and compassion by reflecting briefly on the predicament of all beings, their wish to experience true happiness, inability to obtain it, and they wish to avoid suffering with continual encounters with it. Therefore, in order to help all beings and lead them to the perfect peace and happiness of enlightenment, I myself must attain enlightenment. For this purpose, I shall practice this meditation.
Now we’re going to visualize Śākyamūni Buddha. Every aspect of the visualization is of light, transparent, intangible, and radiant. At the level of your forehead and between six and eight feet away is a large golden throne adorned with jewels and supported at each of its four corners by a pair of snow lions. These animals in reality manifestations These manifestations of bodhisattvas have white fur and a green mane and tail. On the flat surface of the throne is a seat consisting of a large open lotus and two radiant discs representing the sun and the moon, one on top of the other.
These three objects symbolize the three principle realization of the path to enlightenment. Lotus, the present renunciation, the sun, emptiness, and the moon, bodhicitta. Seated upon this is a Buddha, Śākyamūni Buddha who has attained this realization and is the embodiment of all enlightened beings. His body is of golden light and he wears the saffron robes of a monk. His robes do not actually touch his body but are separated from it by about an inch.
He is seated in the vajra of full lotus posture. the palm of his right hand rests on his right knee,. The fingers touching the moon cushion signifying his great accomplishment. His left hand rests in his lap in the meditation pose, holding a bowl filled with nectar, which is medicine for curing our disturbing states of mind and other hindrances. Buddha’s face is very beautiful.
He’s smiling. Compassionate gaze is directed at you and simultaneously towards every other living being. Feel that it is free of all judging critical thoughts and that it accepts you just as you are. His eyes are long and narrow. His lips are cherry red, and the lobes of his ears are long.
His hair is blue black and each hair is individually curled to the right and not mixed with the other. Every feature of his appearance represents an attribute of his omniscient mind. Rays of light emanate from his body. These rays are actually composed of countless miniature Buddhas, some going out to help living beings also dissolving back into his body having finished their work. Feel the living presence of Buddha and take refuge in him.
Recalling his perfect qualities and his willingness and ability to help you. Make a request from your heart to receive his blessings to help you to become free from all your negative energy, misconceptions and all the problems and to receive all the realization of the path to enlightenment. Request is accepted. A stream of purifying white light, which is in the nature of the enlightened mind, flows from Buddha’s heart and enters your body through the crown of your head. Just as darkness in a room is instantly dispersed the moment a light is switched on, so too is the darkness of your negative energy dispelled upon contact with this radiant white light.
As it flows into you, feeling your body completely, we are going to recite the following prayer three times To the Guru, the Founder, the Thus Gone One, the Transcendent Destroyer, the One Who Has Gone Beyond, the Foe Destroyer, the completely perfected fully awakened being, the glorious conqueror, the Subduer from the Shakya clan, I prostrate, take refuge and make offerings. Please bestow your blessings. The Guru, the Founder, the Thus Gone One, the Transcendent Destroyer, the One Who Has Gone Beyond, the Foe Destroyer, the completely perfected fully awakened being, the glorious conqueror, the Subduer from the Shakya clan, I prostrate, take refuge and make offerings. Please bestow your blessings. To the Guru, the Founder, the Thus Gone One, the Transcendent Destroyer, the One Who Has Gone Beyond, the Foe Destroyer, the completely perfected fully awakened being, the glorious conqueror, the Subduer from the Shakya clan, I prostrate, take refuge and make offerings.
Please bestow your blessings. Now we’re going to recite the Buddha’s mantra. We’re going to repeat it loud or chant it. We’re going to chant it at least seven times, and then we’re going to say quietly to ourselves for a few minutes. When you have finished reciting, feel that all your negative energy, problems and subtle obscurations have been purified.
Your body feels blissful and light. Concentrate on that feeling for a while. Now visualize that a stream of golden light, that descends from the Buddha’s heart and flows into your body through the crown of your head. The essence of this light is the excellent qualities of his pure body, speech, and mind. He can transform his body into different forms, animate and inanimate, to help living beings according to their individual needs and particular states of mind.
With his speech, he can communicate different aspects of the dharma simultaneously to beings of various levels of development and be understood by them in their respective languages. His omniscient mind sees clearly every atom of existence and every occurrence, past, present, and future, and know the thoughts of every living beings. Such is his awareness in each moment. These infinite good qualities flow into every part of your body. Concentrate on this blissful experience while again repeating the mantra.
Feel that you have received the infinite excellent qualities of Buddha, body, speech, and mind. Your body feels light and blissful. Concentrate on this for some time. Now visualise that the eight snow lions absorb into the throne. The throne into the lotus and the lotus into the sun and the moon.
Then in turn, absorb into the buddha. Buddha comes to the space above your head, melts into light, and dissolve into your body. Your ordinary sense of high, unworthy and burdened with faults, and all your other wrong conceptions disappear completely. In that instant, you become one with Śākyamūni Buddha, blissful, omniscient mind in the aspect of a vast empty space. Concentrate on this experience for as long as possible, allowing no other thought to distract you.
Then imagine that from this empty state, there appear in the place where you are sitting a throne, the lotus, the sun, the moon, and upon this yourself as a Buddha. Everything is of the nature of light, exactly as you had visualized before in front of you. Feel that you are Śākyamūni Buddha. Identify with his enlightened wisdom and compassion instead of with your incorrect self view. Surrounding you in every direction and filling all of space are all living beings.
Generate love and compassion for them by recalling that they too want to achieve happiness and peace of mind and freedom from all problems. Now that you are enlightened, you can help them. At your heart are a lotus and a moon. Standing upright around the circumference of the moon, reading clockwise. Other syllables of the mantra, The seed syllable, Stand at the moon’s center.
Visualize that rays of light. Actually, you wisdom and compassion, emanate from each letter and spread in all directions. They reach the countless sentient beings surrounding you and completely purify their minds. Then the you can this, again, recite the mantra. Think.
Now I have led all sentient beings to enlightenment through fulfilling my intention for doing this meditation. Visualize that everyone surrounding you is now in the form of Buddha and is experiencing complete bliss and the wisdom of emptiness. You should not worry that your meditation is a sham and that you have not helped even one person achieve enlightenment. This practice is known as bringing the future result into the present path and is a powerful cause for our own enlightenment. It helps us to develop firm conviction in our inner perfection, our Buddha potential, and that we and that what we have just done during meditation, we will definitely accomplish one day.
Now take a few moments and reflect on the reasons for and the motivation behind your coming here today at Buddha House and taking the time to meditate and listen to some teachings. Dedicate the positive energy you have created and insight that you have gained through your practice toward a beneficial end. Dedication helps in stabilizing them and will ensure the result. Not dedicating is like not locking the door of a house full of treasures when you leave it. When you leave it open, thieves can come in.
So if your motivation for coming here today was to strive for the happiness of future life, really dedicate that your session will become a cause for a higher rebirth, in which you have whatever you want, like wealth, power, condition to practice, etc. If your motivation for doing this session was to strive for liberation of cyclic existence, you dedicate that all the positive energy generated by doing this session will become a cause for liberation. And if your motivation for doing this session was to strive for enlightenment, you dedicate that all the positive energy generated by doing this session will become a cause for enlightenment in order to benefit all other sentient beings. Well, thank you for coming here today. And just one thing, I did say last time that the Śākyamūni Buddha practice is not a tantric deity.
That’s okay to visualize yourself as Śākyamūni Buddha, but with the other deity like Medicine Buddha or Chenrezig and the other one, you need to have initiation to do that. Okay.