Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute session, Geshe Doga introduces the Seven-Point Mind Training, a core Mahāyāna practice compiled by Geshe Chekawa for generating bodhicitta. He begins with detailed meditation posture instructions—lotus position, spine straight, thumbs joined below the navel—then guides a visualization of Buddha at the crown, followed by receiving blessings as colored light dissolves into body, speech, and mind. Doga explains that before higher practices, simple visualizations build mental stability and weaken delusion. He then outlines the text’s seven points: preliminary practices, transforming adversity into the path, concentrating practice in one lifetime, measuring progress, keeping commitments, and instructions on mind training. The preliminaries include contemplating human rebirth’s rarity and value, impermanence, saṃsāra’s flaws, and cause and effect. He details the eight freedoms—freedom from birth in hell, as a hungry ghost, animal, or long-lived god—and explains why each blocks genuine dharma practice through overwhelming suffering or mental dullness. Pitched at practitioners ready to engage systematic Mahāyāna training.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 7 P MT 1984 11 06.mp3
UUID: 0d9f2f14-c2c1-4d6e-ab5d-b8fa4b6a90c2
Teacher: Geshe Doga
Collection: Seven-Point Mind Training (Geshe Doga)
Date: 1984-11-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.2 minutes
Words: ~2,168
So to begin with the meditation, at the at first stage, we have to posture our body as we as most of you all know as, I mean, keeping the body in a lotus, in a adamant posture, and all doing those. And I mean, keeping the keeping both hand together below the navel. Right hand on the left hand. And, also, we have to keep our backbone of spine straight. And and also keep the tongue And keep the neck just bending a bit forward.
Yeah. And gazing the eyes straight in front of your nose. Yeah. And then and to hand the bit in a form of not the hand not touching the touching your your the elbow not touching your I mean, the the side part of the body. I mean, this posture this type of posture will help you to causes you to you to attain the in the attain the Buddhahood in the form of And the the the purpose of keeping the keeping your two thumbs joining together is that we believe that the energies of the bodhicitta exist in these two thumbs.
And by joining these two thumb and keeping that below your navel, it would help you to generate the bodhicitta quickly. And by keeping your body’s state and so state will help you you to do the meditation in longer period so that you won’t feel tired because that’s keeping the body’s state. The nervous system will work as normal. And by touching your tongue to forward, then you won’t be feel you won’t be feel thirsty. So this help to do meditation.
Now keeping the body in the right right posture And what we have to do with our mind is that at the beginning, we need we it is necessary to to produce or to have good motivations. And then visualize in visualize on the crown of your head by cushions of lotus flowers. Then upon that lotus flowers, in flowers, you visualize the cushions of moon disc and sun. And and and on the cushions of moon and sun, the Lord visualize the Lord Buddha is sitting. And the lord Buddha is sitting in a vajrasana posture as we do, and his and his left hand, he hold he holds a bowl, his bowl, and his right hand just hanging in the fold.
And that ball is and you should not wish not that bowl is empty, rather it should be filled with nectar. Right. Natures. The cushion of lotus flowers signifies the signifies the thought to leave this cyclic existence. And the cushion of moon signifies the the bodhicitta or mind generation.
And the sun denotes the denotes the the wisdom of emptiness. You need to visualize the the the lord Buddha so clearly and think that he wears a yellow monastic robe and his the color of his body is is And if possible, visualize the halo of light shines from every part of the Buddha. And lord Buddha gives teaching to each and every sentient beings accordingly to to his or her ability of need. And his exalted wisdom apprehends and comprehends the each and every phenomena as if we see the form by our eye. And and he has a pure love and compassion to to all sentient beings.
And visualize that that Buddha as a as a the the real form of your guru and also the that Buddha has possessed the whole essence of Buddhas in all directions. And also think that Buddha has the essence of the three gems and think that he has he has a a full power to bring you out of this out of the the the bondage of saṃsāra. Yes. Think so thinking in this way, we have to supplicate, to do supplicate to the. Law.
Supplicate in such a way that that may the the the root of all my misperceptions be cut off. And then supplicate that may I obtain all those intuitive wisdoms, the perfect wisdom? And may I generate the the pure bodhicitta as soon as possible? So through this, your power of supplications to Lord Buddha, then you visualize that the the white light from the the crown of lord Buddha pass pass to your crown and it dissolve into your crown and think that now you receive the the blessings. So as as that light as the ray of light dissolve in your into into your crown, do you think that now that through that power of light, the all your negative actions are purified.
And then visualize from the from the neck of the lord Buddha, the red ray of light passes through your neck and then think that you got the blessings of lord Buddha’s holy speech. Then think that it purified your all those bad actions that is that that have been those have been done by your speech. Then from the heart of the Buddha, the blue ray of light shines and it getting to get to your heart and think that it purify all your negative activities, actions done by your mind, it purified all your negativities of your mind. So the different type of ray of light shines from the the the every part of the Buddha, and all this light dissolve in your bodies. And then think that now you receive the blessings of the holy body, speech, and mind.
Yeah. The .
So And to and to this place, you think that now you have purified all your negativities of body, mind, speech. And then the the light which come from the crown of Lord Buddha dissolves past to your crown and think that that light becomes the the same entity of your mind. And think in this way for a while. So before we engage in such higher meditation teachings, it’s good to do the very simple meditations as that as that we did now and the as on the visualization of this light and things like that. So this is the become familiar with this sort of simple meditation help you to do the higher meditations?
The but the the the purpose of this doing meditation should be to decrease our delusions. So so so whenever we do meditation, we should check whether that meditation helps to decrease such delusions or not. Yeah. Ain’t it? Normally, it is good if you do the the meditation teachings on the objects which directly counteract the delusion which you produce very strongly.
So, you know Yeah. That’s Not that The the the subject of today’s this session is on the seven points of the thought transformations. Yeah. The next slide. This thought transformation was compiled. The author of this is Geshe Chekawa.
And the since this transformation has seven definite points. So it is called the thought transformation of seven points. To name these seven points, firstly, the the presenting the preliminary practice. Turning bad circumstances into a cause to obtain enlightenment. Fourthly, putting all putting all effort to practice Dharma in this single lifetime.
The measure of thought transformation. Okay. The commitment of thought transformation. Seventhly, the instructions of thought transformation. So roughly speaking, since this Mahāyāna thought transformation is a method to generate bodhicitta, it is known as the thought transformation.
Yeah. Then then how about the And also, here in this talk, mentions each and every defects of self grasping and the qualities of having other-cherishing. So it talked about the the how you develop that other-cherishing. So this the origin of these thought transformations, this thought I mean, derived derived from the Lord Buddha. And from Lord Buddha, the lineage transmitting to many mahasiddhas and then to to and then it comes down to the author.
And it also says that not only this this teaching the the the the origin of these teachings be traced out from Lord Buddha, but it also says that what we will gain by putting this thought transformation into practice. The benefit of practicing this thought transformation is as as like the vajra, the precious diamond stone which cuts every stone and every and even the hard mountains. So to put in this thought transformation into practice, even if you put that part of this thought transformation into practice, it will help you to get get rid of the saṃsāra. Yeah. That’s my idea.
Can you you to get rid of this saṃsāra. But but through this practice, you would even let me see. Even Even you can surpass the Hearers and Solitary Realizers. I mean, even you can surpass the qualities that Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas have got. Like a sun sun because every part of the the ray of sun, sun clear the clear out the darkness and these transformations cut the root of our ignorance.
So it is also like the medicine plant which cures so many diseases. So it shows the yeah, it’s So among these seven point, the the there is the the first point, the preliminary practice has has got some divisions. Like like, firstly, the the the difficulty of obtaining this precious human rebirth and the death and impermanence and the defects of saṃsāra. And the This is because, I mean, to generate the bodhicitta, firstly, one have to generate the compassion as a causes. But to generate that compassion compassion, have to, as a prerequisite, have to generate a thought to completely leave the cyclic existence.
So so to generate that thought, we we must have to know the the defects of saṃsāra. So but to know the defects of disadvantages of the saṃsāra, one must have to know the law of causes and effects. But to know clearly the the law of cause and effect, one have to know the the death and impermanence. But still to to generate the the clear understanding of death impermanence, one must have to to to contemplate, to recognize the the the precious of human rebirth. So the the the precious the human rebirth is precious as as because it has possessed the qualifying qualities Right.
To the perfect So to so to elaborate that adding qualities that human body has, the it has two divisions, the eight freedom and ten endowments. Since the human body is free from bad conditions to do the Dharma practice, so as it possesses the eight freedoms. Since it endowed with some ten qualities to do the Dharma. So it possesses the ten endowments. But but just possessing that the the that human, the precious body is not enough, but one had to recognize the the precious of that body.
Because if you have the if you have a piece of gold and you don’t recognize that precious and the precious of that gold, then it is worthless. So in the same case, if you don’t recognize or realize the precious of this human rebirth, then is I mean, this body will be worthless. So the so to to to so to to present these eight freedoms, firstly, remember the. So the eight freedoms are of two kinds: four non-human freedoms and four human freedoms. So among these eight, the four non-human freedoms. They are freedom from being born in the three lower realms: freedom from being born as a hell being, as a hungry ghost, as an animal, and as a long-life god.
But we have to know that not to be born in these non-human states: hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals and long-life gods, Dharma is necessary to to do a perfect Dharma. Because if we if we want I mean, if we if we born in the any of this non human being, then we one one cannot do one cannot do just do the the Dharma practice. Because suppose with the hell beings and the hungry ghost, they due to their the the immense sufferings, so they they they are not possible. They have no ability to to do any Dharma. They cannot even produce intention to do Dharma.
This means you can know yourself. For for instance, if you have a very bad suffering, then if someone else asks you to do meditation or such Dharma practice, you can’t do. So in the same case, I mean, if you once the helping come to do Dharma, so still, I mean, that suffering is nothing our suffering is nothing as comparable with those hell beings. And also, if we suffer from thirst and hunger, then we can’t do dharma. So in same case, the the and the animal have such suffering and they are not in position to do dharma.
And also the that this this suffering of thirst and hunger is for hungry ghosts. And in same case with animal due to their their dullness, their I mean, dullness, even if you ask them to do, they can’t do. That’s the same case with the people who have a clouded mind of ignorance, they can’t do the Dharma practice.