Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 48-minute session, Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen unpacks the practical scaffolding of meditation as taught in the classical Compendium of Valid Cognition. He begins with mental preparation: inspecting the quality of your mind before sitting, and using a breath-based technique to discharge negative states like anger and attachment by exhaling them as black light and inhaling white light. Once the mind reaches neutral ground, he explains how to establish a positive motivation—generating compassion for all beings and the determination to eliminate your faults—which transforms meditation from haphazard routine into genuine transformation. He then moves to the Buddha’s prescribed objects of meditation: the sixteen aspects of the Four Noble Truths, which serve as means to gradually rewire the mind away from afflictive emotions toward lasting freedom. A closing Q&A clarifies how mantra recitation functions as a reminder and invocation to deities, and distinguishes two types of breath meditation—one for clearing obstacles and one for developing calm abiding.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1993-09-17 – 19B – KR.mp3
UUID: 4d640461-f724-41fd-924c-c2c12f650e02
Teacher: Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen
Collection: Compendium of Valid Cognition
Date: 1993-09-17
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,414
So through through this this way of meditating, can we can block all of these block these troubling conceptions from being generated and the mind can be kept happy. So if we want our meditation to go well, it’s very important that first upon seating ourselves and that we inspect the quality of our mind. Is our mind in a skillful state? Is it in an unskillful state? What types of conceptions are arising within the mind?
Sometimes there may be anger or sometimes there may be attachment, for example. Upon previous to our actual meditation, inspecting the quality of one’s mind to see if there’s anger or attachment present, whether there’s any types of negative conceptions present, and if so, to implement methods to eliminate those from the mind. If we proceed in our meditation even though we are in an angry state or have attachment, our meditation will not go well. We have to get rid of these states such as anger and attachment before meditation. We have to be we have to be skilled in the methods whereby to rid ourselves of these of these states such as anger and attachment.
If we simply keep keep up the type of thinking which is current at that time, then they won’t go away. So we should try to become skillful in the means by which we are able to eradicate these from our mind, these various negative states. And one way we can do this is to begin with mindfulness of breathing. That way you can, upon the exhalation, whatever negative state or whatever negative conception is arising within our mind, imagine that particular negative conception going out in the form of black light out into the distance and inhaling white light. And this is that would be one inhalation and exhalation.
We could do that seven times and then inspect the nature state of our mind. If it still hasn’t still in a negative state, then do it another of those seven two or three more times. And then our mind should come to that that negative state should have been eliminated from our mind. Having done that, then our mind will probably be in a state where it’s neither skillful nor unskillful. It’s in a neutral state or unspecified state.
Then within this neutral state then to proceed generating a positive motivation for generating the attitude that for the sake of all living beings, in order to free them from their suffering and to lead them to complete happiness, I must eliminate all my various faults. I must attain a state of where I have achieved all excellent qualities. And it is for that purpose I am going to meditate and develop developing that kind of hearted attitude of the awakening heart as one’s motivation. So we proceed in meditation that way, whatever the object of our meditation might be, it will really be very, very good. What the is?
It’s a. One has to be skilled in means. Example of being skilled in means, being skillful in means that if, you know, if there was a Buddha House, if there was they were going to it was going to be a really good show and everybody knew about it. You came in a place that was really crowded and there was no place to sit down. And there was and you said, what am I gonna I can’t this show is gonna start and there’s no place to sit down.
So you go and you say, oh, look outside. Look look outside. And everybody jumps up and goes out to look. And then you casually come up and get a nice seat. So we have to know we have to know how to trick the mind.
Meditation can be extremely beautiful and beneficial. First, you know, but we shouldn’t go about it in a haphazard manner. First, choosing a beneficial object upon which to meditate. You know, there are numerous objects we can choose from. We can meditate on impermanence or suffering, on emptiness, on compassion, on the awakening heart.
All of these will act as a means in terms of an object to bring about both our temporal and ultimate welfare. That we can eliminate our problems through meditating on such objects. Then having chosen an object, again we shouldn’t proceed in a haphazard manner in terms of our motivation. That if we proceed in our meditation with an unspecified motivation, then our results of our meditation will be unspecified. On the other end, that is to say unspecified means neither skillful nor unskillful state.
It would be really of no benefit. Than that, if our motivation is unskillful, then the result of our meditation will be unskillful. So if we generate a positive state, a healthy state as our motivation, then meditation will be of tremendous benefit. And then having developed one’s motivation, to meditate abiding in an undistracted manner precisely upon the object one has chosen. In this way, one develops one’s mind.
One’s mind will improve. So the Buddha taught as it’s set out in the commentary to valid cognition, as objects of meditation the four noble truths. And within these four noble truths, there are the 16 moments of the four noble truths which are the Buddha set out as objects of meditation. By taking these 16 moments of the Four Noble Truths as objects of our meditation then we can they can be used as means to eliminate our afflictive emotions. The reason that we meditate is because it is a method of ridding ourselves of the afflictive emotions.
And why do we want to get rid of the afflictive emotions? Because it is if we eliminate the if we abandon the afflictive emotions, we eliminate our suffering. If there’s no cause, there’s no result. Through meditation on these 16 moments of the Four Noble Truths we will develop the excellent qualities. Through meditating on these 16 moments of the Four Noble Truths, we will develop the excellent qualities of our mind.
That is to say, we will develop the power we will have great power and ability of mind. And the results of this power will bring about the elimination of the various faults from the mind and the development of all its excellent qualities. That is to say, it is through this means that we achieve liberation and liberation and omniscience. It is because of this fact of a lack of habituation with healthy states of mind. We are at present on lack habituation to healthy states of mind.
On the contrary, we are habituated to negative states of mind. And it is due to this habituation that all of our various undesirable results are continually being experienced. So we can gradually habituate ourselves to more and more healthy states of mind by the means of first listening and then reflecting upon what we’ve heard and then cultivating it in the course of our meditation and generating these healthy states. And then again and again cultivating these healthy states until these become extremely powerful in our mind in the future. Meditation is extremely important.
And both the types of meditations that we have described in terms of the subject, the transformation of a part of the mind into the states such as compassion, love, and the awakening heart and also in terms of meditation on various objects. We’ve talked about, for example, impermanence, selflessness and emptiness. You know, meditating, for example, on a table is of no use in itself. But if we were to take that and look into its nature and think of it in terms of meditating on its impermanence, it’s momentarily arising and abiding and ceasing or trying to understand that it’s in the nature of suffering or trying to understand the selflessness at the table, then this would be a means by which we could really improve our minds, that we could develop our minds. And it would be a way that we could abandon the afflictive emotions.
And it is this way that meditation is very useful. So we have to know how to proceed in meditation. So we’ll stop there, but if you have some questions. So the recitation mantras of the individual deities is the way that we are pleading with them for to bestow their blessing upon us. Like for example, it’s like requesting Mañjuśrī, you know, Mañjuśrī, please give me the blessing of your wisdom.
You know, just as in case when we go when we need some help, when we go to an important person, we plead for this person to help us. And likewise, each of these has their special help that they can bestow upon us. So the recitation, the mantra is like a pleading to please bestow your special blessing upon me. So just as when we go into an office and to a high official and we have great hopes and that I’m I’m pinning my hopes on you. Would you please help me?
So this is also the purpose This is also the reason that we recite the various rituals, the various words of the rituals. And generally what we want to do is generate ourselves as the deity in our meditation. But this doesn’t appear to us in a complete way. And so it’s necessary that we recite the words of the ritual as a way of reminding us as to the deity’s appearance and the various occurrences which are set out in the recitation. This will facilitate the development of oneself as the deity.
The ritual text is like the message book that we keep in the office. Know, people you know, if if it’s a way of communicating and as a means of reminding. When we can’t talk directly to the person that we want that is trying to give us a message, we write it down in the message book. In that way, it serves as a means of communicating to ourselves what it is that we’re trying to what what it is we’re trying to the person intends us to understand. This is like an old person.
They find it difficult in getting up, so they rely upon a cane. And dependence upon the cane, they are able to rise up. It’s like a crutch. So as a means of meditating on the meaning, we recite these words. It’s like a crutch.
Yes. So we can say that there are two two types of meditation on the breath. One is where you’re going to proceed in a meditation and you, as we’ve described, you first inspect the state of your mind. If you see that it’s in an unskillful state, then you meditate on the breath to bring into an unspecified or neutral state. That’s one type of meditating on the breath.
The other is to, as a means, to relax the mind, to develop a peaceful mind. So from the point of view of this first type of meditation on the breath, where we’re trying to if we inspecting the mind we see it as an unskillful state in order to bring it to a neutral or an unspecified state, we meditate upon the breath. If one was going to proceed in meditation and one inspected one’s mind and saw that it wasn’t in an unskillful state, then it wouldn’t be necessary to meditate on the breath. If one is going to proceed in meditation and your mind’s not in an unskillful state, then it’s not necessary to meditate on the breath. I remember she mentioned about the light, where we have to look to see whether it’s useful to meditate on light or not.
I was questioned about that. Said, Well, if you were using it as an object for development of calm abiding in a very concentrated state, then you could use that object to develop calm abiding on and therefore it would be useful. And then he went on to say that it would be difficult to develop calm abiding using the breath as the object because the mind is trying to abide upon a single object. So in the cultivation of calm abiding, could cultivate it even on a stick. If you could, you know, keep it, the mind would abide upon this object without allowing it to move to any other object.
And one could cultivate calm abiding on even a stick. So I was just asking Rinpoche, you know, if you could develop calm abiding on an object or form, a physical object. He said yes, like a statue of a Buddha or just on any object, a stick or a stone, you can develop calm abiding upon such things. But merely that would not be able to abandon afflictive emotions. Using the breath as the object.
So, in the course of meditating on the breath, one was meditating on the exhalation going out and with that black light, for example, and the inhalation coming in, white light coming in, then the mind is continually moving. It’s going out and then the mind is coming in. It’s not abiding abiding single pointedly upon an object. It’s not abiding single pointedly. It’s not abiding pointedly.
Not abiding on a single point. In order to obtain it, the mind has to abide upon a single point. Yeah. Could develop, yeah, upon just that sense if you abided just upon that sensation, you could you could cultivate single point you could develop cultivate calm abiding. That’s only concentrating upon that sensation.
Breath, the coming in and out of the breath. So it’s best to keep one’s eyes open as it’s portrayed by the Buddha in the way in which he meditates. Though initially in our meditation, by closing our eyes, it’s helpful for the object to appear to us. But if sit a long time, then our mind will become very dark. We will become very lethargic.
So it is best to keep the eyes open. And though it might be difficult initially, eventually we won’t nothing whatever appears to you know, the meditation is being done by the inner internal factor of mind, not the physical senses. So those things, when we abide single pointedly upon the object, whatever is crossing the field of our vision will not appear to us. We won’t see it. So, if we heard a very pleasant sound.