Seven-Point Mind Training — 1984-11-22

Seven-Point Mind Training (Geshe Doga)

Seven-Point Mind Training — 1984-11-22

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

About this talk. In this 49-minute teaching, Geshe Doga introduces the Seven-Point Mind Training, a classical Tibetan Buddhist method for developing bodhicitta, the compassionate wish to attain enlightenment for all beings. After a guided visualization of Śākyamūni Buddha and a purification practice, Geshe Doga moves to the systematic approach of exchanging self with others. He explains why this exchange is essential: self-cherishing is the root of all suffering, while cherishing others is the source of all happiness and virtue. Using examples from ordinary life—how moral restraint and generosity arise from other-cherishing—he shows that even worldly success stems from valuing others. Drawing on Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra, Geshe Doga contrasts the Buddha’s transformation through other-cherishing with the ordinary person’s entrapment in self-concern. He identifies self-cherishing as the deepest enemy and challenges practitioners to recognize how it has perpetuated their cycle in saṃsāra since beginningless time. Suited to practitioners with prior Buddhist training.

Let us generate the motivation that without any discrimination with any sentient beings, let all — any sentient beings — let all our — I mean, this involving this Dharma practice be dedicated for their attainment of the highest enlightenment. So without losing our mind to an external things and in a the physical posture, you know, same that we did in the last few sessions. And then let us visualize the the Śākyamūni Buddha the on the crown of your head, sitting on the cushion of lotus, moon, sun. And try to imagine the qualities of his body, his holy body and holy speech and holy mind.

Like, his holy body has such qualities. Like, the the light emanates from all his powerful body, and his body has endowed with full auspicious marks and signs. And and his speech has such a power to destroy all the misconceptions and defilements of all sentient beings. And and his holy mind has the the qualities of pure love and compassion to all sentient beings. And also imagine that he is looking to you with with smile in his face.

And imagine that that Buddha, which is object of your visualizations as the the actual Buddha. And he is the essence of all your gurus, all other Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and all yidams. And imagine him as the your ultimate and the temporal refuge who relieves all your temporal suffering and obstructions and ultimately release you from this bondage of saṃsāra. Yes. So with the clear visualization of his his qualities and his or his body, then try to make a supplications so that the misconceptions of all other beings, sentient beings, and also your own being, eliminated from their very roots.

And then may I be bestowed with your blessings? So that the old The auspicious qualities we develop within my innermost mind. Then may I keep the generation of bodhicitta in all my lifetimes. This and in the intermediate stage and all the lives that have to come after this. So by making this supplication from your heart, then visualize the white ray of light coming from the crown of Śākyamūni Buddha and entering into your crown and that purify all your negativities of body.

And then from the neck of the Śākyamūni Buddha, the the red light comes and enters into your neck. And by this, you are receiving all his blessings of his holy speech. So you are purifying all your such negativities of speech. And then the blue ray of light from the heart of the Śākyamūni Buddha, enters into your heart.

And through this through that light, imagine you are receiving all his blessing of his holy mind and that purifying all your negativities of mind. And then the different type of light are coming from the the every pore of Śākyamūni Buddha. And they and they are absorbing into all parts of your body and that and that they are purifying all such your negativities of body, speech, mind. And then By this process, ray of light comes from the crown of Śākyamūni Buddha, and it enters into your heart. And then the as if the the Śākyamūni Buddha also completely dissolves into your heart, and it become indivisible from your heart.

So continue in this way for a while. So last night, we discussed about the how the bodhicitta is developed by its seven causes and effects. So today, we will continue with the the how it is developed through the system of — I mean — the system of equally exchanging oneself with others. So to begin with these techniques of generating the bodhicitta, first of all, I’d mention about the wish to obtain a wish to obtain the the awakened mind and a wish to and our aspirations to to to help others. So with regard to how to train our mind on the aspirations to help other beings, other sentient beings, First of all, one has to know the the what sort of help other other sentient beings are expecting.

So So other has other essential being have two wishes. They have the short term goal and and they have a a long term goal. So the short term is to lead them to be born in any of the higher realms, and the long term is to lead them to the land of the Buddha. So this is just the general wishes of other sentient beings. Now in these teachings, we have to fulfill their ultimate wishes or ultimate goal.

So to fulfill their ultimate wishes, basically, one has to train one’s own mind with the with exchanging the self-cherishing with the other-cherishing. So, the exchanging the self with other doesn’t mean that the the I become you and you become I. Yeah. So it means the it means to to replace the the self-cherishing that we have at the moment with the other-cherishing. So we have to replace that self-cherishing.

So it means to change the place of mind In the case before you have self-cherishing or selfishness, now one has to change one’s own mind and and on that place, one has to generate the other-cherishing. So so to transform our mind with that other cherishings, one has to abandon these these self cherishings And and on in that case, one has to cultivate the the other cherishings. So so for that so for that, one has to know why one has why one has to replace that self-cherishing with other-cherishing? This is because the self-cherishing is the root or the source of all your sufferings and pains. And all the disadvantages.

On the other hand, the other cherishing is the source of all happiness and peace peaceful mind and source of all advantages of such mental qualities. So the all our unwanted mental and physical qualities comes from that self-cherishing. And all that we wish, all that we expect comes from the other-cherishing. So it was said in the there was Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra that the whoever wants to the infinite happiness should change his or her mind with the practice of exchanging self with others. So it was also said in that text that even the happiness that we get in this relative world are all come from that other-cherishing.

So, other-cherishing. For for instance, the the such quality that we have, the being, I mean, being endowed with all the qualities of this rebirth, this human rebirth. And also having all these surrounding necessary things and possessions — all these I mean are the result of other-cherishing. And the our rebirth in this human form is also the result of other cherishing. Because by cherishing others, we refrain from killing other sentient beings.

So by that we are maintaining the moralities. So due to that morality, that preserving so that moralities, we were born in this precious human life. So, and also due to our cherishing others, we would help other sentient beings. We will fulfill their wishes. So by this, we are doing some practice of generosities.

So from that practice the result will be the prosperous and rich becoming rich one in the future. So the all the happiness and such good I mean, the situation around oneself are the results of the the the cherishing others. And also the all such misfortunes, all this suffering even in this ordinary world, all come from the cherishing of oneself. So, we ordinary beings doing such actions of harming others, stealing other things, and so forth. All just keeping in mind, just aspiring some happiness from that actions.

So that is completely the wrong way of seeking the happiness. So instead of that, we were confronted with many such sufferings and frustrations. So that action also comes from our self-cherishing. More or less, to summarize, it was said in the same text that one could know the real qualities of self-cherishing and other-cherishing. Just by looking to the Buddha who has the other-cherishing and to the ordinary beings who have the self-cherishing.

Looking at those two persons, one may know the difference better. So lord Buddha and the ordinary beings are same with regard to the taking birth I mean, taking birth in the saṃsāra before. Now, at the moment, he reached such a high state of life. Because of his previous practice on these other cherishings, he was fully aware of the disadvantages of self-cherishing, generated other-cherishing. And he used that for the as the base of his practice.

And by this, he reached the present high state of Buddhahood, as we call it. In the same way, the when the lord Buddha has started his this practice, at that very moment, if we have also done the same practice, we have also started with the same practice, Then, surely, we also became the Buddha. We also accomplished all the qualities that he has now. So so we are in a very in terms of Dharma, we are in a very unfortunate situations. We haven’t accomplished any such ultimate goal.

We haven’t generated the the bodhicitta. Yeah. At least I mean and we also had a very difficult even to just cultivate some kind kind and good heart. And we are having pain at the moment. And also, we are not sure about our future lives, where we are going to be born and what sort of sufferings one has to suffer.

So we are in a very pitiful, I mean, situation. But one must know the the causes of this and the causes of this unfortunate present situations. One cannot blame these causes to other sentient beings. The real causes of all these are being done by oneself. That all comes from the self-cherishing that is deeply rooted in one’s own mind.

From where beginning of time. So one have to know must know the the real enemy that is self-cherishing within oneself. So one must know that enemy, that self-cherishing.. By the way, thinking of one’s past life and trying to realize that it is that very self-cherishing that causes that cause one to these present situations. And then one must try to realize that these very self-cherishings have their root from the very beginningless time.

And and by the force of that, self-cherishing. One one has only one becomes subject to doing many such negative actions. So all these negative actions of oneself come from that force. So so in fact, it is the the root of one’s cycling in this saṃsāra. So one must also know that even at the present moment, if one doesn’t realize that the self-cherishing as the one’s most worst enemy, that would cause you the same suffering in the future lifetime.

So,

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.