Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute teaching, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen establishes motivation as the decisive force in spiritual practice: all virtue depends on intention. He outlines how to cultivate bodhicitta—the altruistic commitment to free all beings—through six meditations on equanimity, kindness, and compassion. The focus then shifts to meditation posture: the seven positions of Buddha Vairochana (legs, hands, spine, throat, head, eyes) that keep energy channels clear and the mind supple. For minds caught in attachment or anger, he offers a breathing corrective: exhale negativity as black smoke, inhale blessings as white light, until the mind settles into neutral, ready to generate virtue. A systematic teaching for Lam Rim practitioners.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 LR 1995 06 04.mp3
UUID: 35addb70-e702-4c6b-8aee-71b503ce9823
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: Lam Rim 1995 Jan-Dec (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1995-06-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.8 minutes
Words: ~2,819
So, like, quoting from the teachings by Śāntideva in the text called Guide to the Way of Bodhisattva’s Life explains that sentient beings wish to become free from sufferings but but it happens that they create the cause of sufferings And sentient beings again wish to be happy, but they always destroys the cause of happiness. So if we look to our past lives, then, like, to the time, the duration of the duration of the time of our past lives, Then, like, just looking to the time, then it means it should be able, like, we should be able to, like, collect all the happiness that we can. Just looking to the time. So the time we spend in our past life, the duration of time, if you look to that, then it should be something that we should have accumulated all or collected all the happiness, cause of the happiness, but instead we didn’t do that. And even we are unable to collect the cause for temporary happiness and most of the time we we, what I say, damage or destroy even the temporary cause of happiness.
So, the reason that we have been doing like that is that because we are attached to the existing of this life. And being attached to the existing of this life that one become ignorant in practicing what is to be adopted and what is to be abandoned. So, at present, today here, have all the necessary conditions to collect the cause of happiness, which is like an external condition. We have teacher who can show us what is to be adopted, what is to be abandoned. And as an internal condition, we do have that too, like a precious human body that we have, which is suitable for doing this practice.
So gaining this human body, having this human body, at least whatever one one do, even even our daily behaviors, one should one should set one’s mind saying that I will behave good. Then, secondly, like, even the practice that we are doing, like the Dharma practice that you are doing shouldn’t, like, leave for tomorrow, but you should do right now, think that. And the practice, what you do, should be a pure one? So we do practice Dharma, but most of the time our practice becomes more polluted or in sense, more impure. That is we are doing these practices because of to protect our friends or because of to gain fame or because of to acquire wealth and and so on.
And because of that, most of the time our practice becomes impure. So when we do our Dharma practice, we’re thinking that we’re able to become fame or able to protect the friends or just to protect this body, this contaminated body that we have. If we are doing only for that, then that that that practice at the time of death, like when when the clear light of death appears. At that time, we have it doesn’t help one. When one had to leave all these behind, all these all these, like, the body that we carry, and one has to go alone.
So when the clear light of death appears and when one enters into intermediate state, goes into intermediate state, then what one can carry is the virtue, the wholesome action that one have done. That is what one carry with one. And that is what is most beneficial for one at that existing. So so then that kind of virtue, how one come to accumulate that type of virtue? The the the positive actions is that whatever you do, you once you think you’re doing for for the future, not for this life.
So so that also should be conjoined with the thought of working for others. Working for others. Not thinking for yourself, but working thinking that you are doing all this practice, collecting all this virtue for the benefit of others with the with the thought other words in another words, with the thought of bodhicitta, then that practice or that virtue becomes pure pure. So as as bodhicitta, the bodhicitta which is the altruistic mind, That is, let’s say, as a nature it has this good heart, like good hearted nature. That which is not thinking for self but completely thinking for others.
So so then so what type of, like, cause and conditions that we need in all in order to have that mind, that altruistic mind or the bodhicitta? Then as a cause, there are like six, which are known as the six causes or the seven cause and effect instructions. So those the former six causes, like compassion and so So those are the causes, like not having the thought of near and far, which means having the thought of equanimity towards all other sentient beings and remembering the kindness of mother, meditating love towards them, and compassion, meditating compassion towards them. These are the causes. So then there you generate another special thought.
Like that is taking a great responsibility by yourself thinking that I myself will free all sentient beings from this state of suffering. And I myself will like, you want to say, lead all sentient beings into the state of happiness. That kind of like taking that responsibility for oneself is known as generating a special thought. So so so in order to free all those sentient beings from the state of sufferings, I I I will listen to the to the teachings here now and and together with that, we can generate the thought of bodhicitta, and we meditate for a short time. So going into the teaching to the text, last time what Geshe la explained was sort of what one should prepare for our meditations or for our practice, Like the preparations part in the beginning, how we want you to set up our cushions and so on.
And now coming to the second part where what how once you sit and what kind of motivation once you set up while doing meditation. So the sitting posture of meditation is as it explains like taking the posture of the seventh posture of Buddha Vairochana. So these are like the seven postures are known as posture to do with your legs, hands, and the back. And your the lips, teeth lips, teeth, and and then the tongues. And then there are three just together.
And then the head, eyes, and then the shoulders. And then plus, sometimes it count as an age, which is including the breathing. So so the leg is known as the vajra position, like the full lotus position. So you can also, sorry, do the half bhaja position, which is sitting like a tower, like a right leg, of lying out. So stretching a little out.
So then the hand is kept in a meditation posture. That is like putting right hand on top of your left and then keeping on the level of your navel. A Four sort of like four finger beneath your navel. And then the the two thumbs are attached. So as you’re in this lesson, the the posture should have sort of like a triangle shape shape, I wanna say.
You have to have triangle shape here. So with this triangle shape here, it has some significance or explanations according to tantra, but we’re not going there. So then the third the back should be straight up. Like, back back should be straight up? So the reason that we keep our back straight is that it helps one keep straight the channel inside our body.
So if the channels inside our body is straight, then the wind that moves inside the channel like like, easily pass through. So if the channels are straight and the wind moves smooth in side, then the mind that moves together with the wind becomes more flexible, easy to use. So so the teeth that you keep keep as as a normal how you keep? Shouldn’t like tied up or shouldn’t open? And then the tip of the tongue, touch up to the upper palate?
So so, like, keeping the tongue the tip of tongue touching to the upper palate helps not to have a dry throat. And also another thing that when one is in deep meditation, then it helps like what do you call saliva. It helps keep the saliva inside, not drop from your mouth. So so your head should be sort of a little bend in bend in front which is like at your throat. There’s the channel note And that’s like if you keep it a little bended in front, that means it it happens that something touches the channel note there.
So so then the the two eyes shouldn’t be, like, wide open or completely closed, but slightly open looking looking down to the, what you call, to the tip of the nose, of the two sides. So so then this the shoulder should be kept as usual, as normal? Not like one up and one down? So these these postures are known as the seven postures of Buddha Bevichara. So these are called the seven portion of Buddha Bavichana because that’s how Buddha Bavichana sits.
So so the reason for keeping this posture in our meditation is that keeps, it’s something to keep this posture is something very auspicious that in the future it helps one to achieve the state of So so then on top of that, if you add the the breathing, then you can count it as an eight. So, the breathing if you are keeping all this posture, then the breathing is not so important. But if your mind if you find your mind in negative state, like under the control of attachment, then we do the breathing meditation to yeah. We use the breathing meditation there. So keeping this portion, the seven portions, and then you briefly check your mind.
And then if your mind is under control of delusions, with that, if you do meditate, then your meditation won’t become good because of the delusions. So so if you if you find your mind is under the this in a negative state or under the influence of delusions, then there you you do the breathing meditations. For example, if your your mind is under the control of attachment, then in order to get rid of the attachment, you do the breathing meditations, which is like which is like you breathe out from your right nostril and breathe in from your left and do this many times which is like seven, ten or twenty one times. And then when you do this then that’s how you distract your mind from the attachment, from the negative state of mind. So, which is you distract your mind from negative state.
So, when you do this, that’s how you free your mind from negative state to doing the breathing meditations. So then, adding some more to this breathing meditations. When you are exhaling from your right nostril you can also think that all the sufferings the attachment that your is in the state of that attachment like exhaling out from your right to neutral in the form of like black light or cloud going out. And then when you inhale you inhale from your left, all the blessings in the form of white light into you. So the main reason doing this practice, this breathing practice is that because as our mind, known as the ordinary mind, hold two things at once.
Like two different things at once. So if under the control of negative state then we do this practice to make it bring it into neutral where one can use that for holding a positive thing. So, when one remove the negative state of mind and then bring it into neutral state, then it’s much easier from then lead the mind towards the positive state. So whatever state our mind is, anger attachment and so on, we do these breathing meditations and distract the mind and and calm our mind from these two states and bring into a neutral state. That that’s what one of the that was one of the reason doing breathing meditations.
So as an example, like if it’s in a very cold winter, wintertime, and you have only one cushion, and if it happens that somebody is using that cushions and you don’t have anything to sit on and now if you do tell the person directly saying that I need the cushion to say get up then probably he or she may get upset. So you do in different ways that is like an indirect way. That is like you just go to the window and look out and tell him there’s something exciting out there. And when he gets up, you sit on the cushion. So, like the example, you remove the negative state of mind which is the mind which is under the control of attachment.
You remove that and bring another one, the positive state of mind. So so when when our mind is in a neutral state, when our mind is in a good state, then then on that basis, one one set up the motivation. So, Lama Tsongkhapa asked this question to those different meditators, saying, What is the starting of your meditation? So sort of the question was, what what is the actual starting of your meditation? Actual part of the starting of your meditations?
That is for that question, one of the pension gave the answer saying that the setting of the motivations is the starting of meditations. So one need to set up a good motivation. So if one have a bad motivation, like if you have a motivation which is mixed with attachment, hatred, so on, then your meditations also becomes negative or becomes yeah. It becomes negative. So the reason that how it becomes negative is that Nāgārjuna explains saying that if you have, what do say, attachment, like how he explains attachment, hatred, and ignorance brings a negative result.
So that’s what Nāgārjuna explains. So similarly, explains the next lying saying that non attachment, non hatred, non ignorance brings as a positive result, a virtuous result. So same with another master, Atisha. Master Atisha explains that if the root is poisonous, then all the branch and the tree or whatever, the pliancy becomes poison, poison pliancy. And then if it is a medicine root, with medicine, then the branches and the pliancy is also medicine plant.
So out of, like, out of delusions, whatever one one thinks, whatever one do, you have a unwholesome unwholesome result. So so then if you’re if if you do your practice whatever with a good motivation, for example, whatever you do, hearing, meditating, or sinking, or your your day work, whatever you do, with good motivations then brings about a good result, a wholesome result. So so with with a good motivation, even, like, if you happen to, like, take the life of some someone, there there are chances that you still, like, accumulate some merit. So there’s a story with Buddha Buddha that one day he was traveling with, like, five hundred merchant in the ship, like, in the ship. So they went to the ocean to pick the jewels, and then they got back.
On the way back, there was one bad person who wants to kill all those merchant, businessmen? So so at that time, then Buddha knew that that that person is going to kill these five hundred other merchant, and and and so so out of compassion out of compassion, Buddha like like say to save the five hundred lives plus unable to bear the suffering that the person would go through after killing this five hundred hundred merchant. Like, killed the bad the bad guy. So so so just this action, how the Buddha performed there happened that he, like, completed a married like, accumulating merit for for many, many aeons. So it’s not the the killing, the action of killing the person that made him complete the collection of merit, but it is compassion that he had towards the person, the better guy, and then towards the five hundred people merchant.
That just saving five hundred lives and having compassion towards this person made him complete collecting merits of many aeons. Because of this, the motivations makes all the difference, which is whether it’s a virtuous action or whether it’s non virtuous action, or whether it’s a neutral or whatever. Motivation makes all the differences. Yeah, that’s a logical issue. So here, will explain short history.
So the story in the past in India, was like one there are two son. One is from the king caste, and one is from the Brahmin caste.