Seven-Point Mind Training — 1984-11-14

Seven-Point Mind Training (Geshe Doga)

Seven-Point Mind Training — 1984-11-14

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Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.

About this talk. In this 46-minute teaching, Geshe Doga guides students through the opening visualization and preliminary teachings of the Seven-Point Mind Training. He begins with a detailed guided visualization of Śākyamūni Buddha at the crown of the head, followed by a three-stage purification using rays of light that cleanse negativities of body, speech, and mind. He then shifts to foundational Buddhist doctrine, explaining karma and its results, the nature of saṃsāra as cyclic existence rooted in the illusion of self, and why mere rebirth in higher realms remains insufficient without liberation. To illustrate the arbitrary, interconnected nature of saṃsāra, Geshe Doga recounts a classical story of karmic reversal in which a man eats his own father reborn as a fish while kicking his mother reborn as a dog, carrying his enemy reborn as his child. The teaching is pitched at practitioners beginning the mind-training path who have received foundational Buddhist instruction.

So as we did yesterday, so we did with the motivations of love and compassion towards all sentient beings without any sense of discrimination. So in the crown of your head, the Buddha is sitting on the cushions of sun, moon, and lotus. In his left hand, he holds a bowl filled with nectar, and his right hand stretched before his left in a bowl shape and his legs are in cross. So his holy body is with great auspicious marks. And his holy speech is also very pleasing, and that speech gives answer to every sentient beings, to the questions of every sentient being.

In his holy mind, understands each and every phenomenon as if those phenomena are in the palm of his hand. So his holy mind is in the aspects of love and compassion. So he is gazing in gazing to you. Visualize him as the the essence of your guru, the essence of all Buddhas, and the essence of all yidams. We shall regard him also as in the form of the Triple Gem.

And then think that he is the ultimate refuge. And then supplicate him that made your all misconceptions and delusions be eliminated from their very roots. Supplicate him. May I receive all unattained wisdoms. They are not separate from love, compassion and bodhicitta in all the times.

And then regardless of any circumstance, May all my act be be turned toward turned into a path to reach the certain enlightenment. So, from your very heart, try to supplicate in this way. Now, due to your supplications, the white ray of light comes from the crown of Śākyamūni Buddha, and it passes through your head and it purifies all your negativities, actions of body. Then the red red ray of light from the neck of Śākyamūni Buddha passed through your neck, and it purified all your negativities of speech. The blue ray of light from the Shyamunya Buddha’s heart pass through your heart and it purifies all your negativities of mind.

The the different type of light shines from the Shyamuni Buddha’s spirit and mind, and those lights dissolve into all your parts of the body purifying your negativities of body, speech, and minds. And then from the the head of Śākyamūni Buddha. A ray of light comes and is dissolved into your body to your head. And due to dissolution of that light into your heart, the you visualize that the Śākyamūni Buddha and your heart have become inseparable. In one it becomes in one aspect.

So yesterday, we discussed about the karma and its fruit. And then came to know that if we strenuously preserve the law of karma, then the So if we observe the law of karma, then we will gain the ultimate result, liberation. And not only that, before we reach to that state, at least we would we would not be born in any of lower realms in next next lifetime. That’s definite about that if we maintain the the karma and this fruit. We did not have to go to any astrologer and any such thing to do to after preserving this good karma.

I mean, there’s no doubt. So if we rightly maintain the law of cause and effect, then we won’t be born in any of the lower realms and we would be born in any of the higher three realms, whether the deva, asura, or human being. But we must know that we must not be sufficient with sufficient just to be born in any of the the higher three three realms of saṃsāra. Because still we are not free from the suffering of saṃsāra. So to be free from suffering, we have to attain the liberation of nirvana.

So before going to that point, I would say about the saṃsāra. Now Samsāra is a term of term in Sanskrit. So in English, commonly we say cyclic existence. And some are saying the wheel of life or the wheel of birth and death. So we mustn’t be confused with saṃsāra with just our this physical body.

So so saṃsāra means the cyclic existence. Cycle. It means by the force of the deluded actions and afflictions born again and again. So the foundation of individual saṃsāra is made thus: Due to the root cause, the I-grasping and attachment. Met with that root, we create actions of karma.

So when we create that karma, that karma will leave some impression or imprint upon our upon the into in the stream of our mind or in the stream of our consciousness. So so after after after some days, the The the the craving craving is a strong form of desire. Craving and the grasping, that is also grasping will will make that that impression stronger and will will make that impression to ripen and give its result soon. So by that, due to that force, we will born again in the saṃsāra. So the the root of saṃsāra is I-grasping.

That is because till that root we produce some very strong attachment to self or oneself. That strong attachment to self keeps other people at a distance. So ultimately, we had a feeling of discrimination or, you know, impartiality. So due to that impartial feeling, thinking one’s self so close and other in distance, we produce bad karma and then are born again in saṃsāra, and it goes on cycling like that. So once we get I mean, got out of that Samsāra, once we got out of that force of I-grasping, then we attain the liberation of nirvana.

So the the cessation of saṃsāra is liberation or nirvana. To attain that to attain the nirvana, First of all, one must have to generate a strong wish to free from saṃsāra. So that wish, that strong wish is the renunciations. But but to but to develop the to develop that renunciation, before developing the renunciation, one must come to know the nature of saṃsāra, by thinking on the faults, by thinking of the disadvantages of saṃsāra.

So one must have to have to know the facts of saṃsāra. From the very beginning of this time, we have not seen the real disadvantages of saṃsāra. Rather, we regard many things in saṃsāra as qualities. So so due to that, we were born again and again in this saṃsāra. But the but from the point of dharma, there’s no absolute quality in saṃsāra.

So the Our confusions about the nature of saṃsāra is made by seeing the worldly relatives, worldly things, and so on as a basis of our happiness and pleasures. So if we consider those, I mean, samsaric things as a source of the real happiness, then we are involved. We are, I mean, we are in the fault of not seeing the the the disadvantage of saṃsāra. So the saṃsāra has the the disadvantage of uncertainty. So since it has such nature, then one must not think that the one’s own relatives and things and all these are the the the source of the happiness and pleasures.

Because all these when since nature of saṃsāra is like that, uncertainty, so the all those, I mean, things that that ordinary people regard as source of happiness and pleasure have uncertainty. So with regard to the uncertainty of the the the world of relatives, So there was a way you might have heard a short story. So long time ago in the there was one one householder or a householder with his small family. So he was died and born in a born as a fish in a river, which is beside his house. The the mother of his wife also and his mother also died and born as a dog of that his house.

So a man who killed that householder was born as a born as a son of son of son of the that householder’s son. Yeah. So so that the that household son one day went to the lake and catch the fish, which is in previous lifetime his own father. So he he killed that he catch that fish and ate it himself. And when the the dog, which was his mother mother, he kicked to that dog.

Yeah. And while he was, I mean, eating his the the the the fish and kicking the the dog. So In his lap, he carried his own child. That child was his enemy in his previous life. The child had killed him in his previous lifetime.

So in in that in such situations, one Ārya Katayana came and through his power of clairvoyance, he came to know about the situations. And then he said that the that the that the boy is eating his father’s flesh. He’s eating his the fish. Isn’t it? And

Translation / བསྒྱུར།

This translation was generated using Gemini Pro 2.5 with a curated Buddhist terminology glossary and verified for register, glossary use, and absence of English leakage. The English transcript above remains the authoritative source.