Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute guided session, Geshe Pema Tsering uses the image of a vast still body of water to explain the meditating mind: delusion is the turbulence that distorts what it reflects, not a fault in the things seen. He opens with eight-point posture guidance and a five-minute breath practice, carefully distinguishing awareness (the observer) from alertness — the “parent watching the child” — that returns attention when it drifts. A detailed Buddha visualization follows: white light purifying obscurations, yellow light transmitting realizations, then the Buddha dissolving into the practitioner and sending countless golden Buddhas out to all beings. The session closes with the four immeasurables, a brief teaching on mentally offering one’s breakfast to all beings, and an introduction to the four opponent powers, with regret framed as compassion for oneself.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 19 Meditation.mp3
UUID: 1f105fd8-e53e-46f7-add9-1388bed9ffd9
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Retreat Jan (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.7 minutes
Words: ~2,841
I really do want to develop my own qualities. And if I look at others, they want the same thing. So for in order to develop these qualities and in order to be able to help others do the same all the way to Buddhahood, I’m sitting here to do this meditation right now. This is my motivation. So let’s just check our posture.
There’s a certain way that’s most appropriate for to sit in order to make the most of our mind in meditation. It isn’t the body that meditates that it’s appropriate to have it in a good position. So ideally, it is said there’s about eight points. Ideally, the best thing is to have your legs in full lotus position, as they say. But if we can’t do this sitting ordinary cross legged, if not this, then in a chair, whatever.
The next thing is to have your back straight. That’s crucial. So as we’re sitting in chairs, most of us, the best thing to do is not to just don’t slump into the chair. Have your feet firmly on the ground and sit yourself up and and hold hold up your own back. And imagine your spine is like a a pile of coins that you’re holding up very carefully.
Shoulders, relaxed but very square, held back and up. The body should be very strong and straight. That’s important. The back especially, very straight. Your head slightly tilted forward, chin tucked in a little bit.
Your hands in your lap in what they call the meditation gesture posture, mudra. Your arms apart, your hands, left underneath, right on top, thumbs touching. If you can, you know, with the chairs where they are, maybe it’s difficult. Just have your hands on it, otherwise just relax in a way that’s for you. Your eyes, best to be open actually, as the Dalai Lama says, but if because our concentration is not so good, then have them lightly closed.
Have your eyes looking down as if you were sort of looking down but straight ahead of you. Straight ahead of you. Down towards the floor. And finally, your jaw relaxed. Tip of the tongue resting lightly behind the top teeth near the palate, and breathing naturally through your nose.
So just settle into this position now and bring your mind firmly to the sensation of the air at the nostrils as you breathe in and out. For few first first part of the meditation, we’re gonna focus just on that. So bring your mind to that sensation. So for five minutes, what we can do is do concentration meditation, which and the aim of this is to keep the mind focused on a particular thing, and in this case, the breath. So for five minutes, with strong determination, what we’re going to do is do just that.
And what we’re going to think, though, is it’s the part of your mind that’s watching. There’s various parts of your mind. Don’t just think I am watching the breath. The part of your mind we’re trying to train is called awareness. It’s the part that does the observing.
So that’s the part looking at the mind. But another part of the mind is what’s called alertness or vigilance. It’s like it’s like the parent watching the child. And as soon as the kid goes off the breath, as soon as the awareness goes off the breath, alertness brings it back. And it doesn’t matter how often you have to bring the mind back to the breath.
That’s the job to be done. So with determination, just for five minutes, remembering our motivation, just watch the breath. Just bring the mind back to the breath. Now with this concentrated mind, imagine in front of us the Buddha in the aspect that you see in the pictures and statues looking like a monk. Right?
His saffron robes. He’s like in front of us about the level of our eyes and made of light completely, not like a statue, sort of substantial. Golden like body, wearing the saffron robes, right arm bare. His hands like ours in the meditation mudra or no, the left hand like that, the right hand like that, holding a begging bowl. The right hand is resting on his right knee, fingers pointing down.
He’s sitting on a lotus. It’s a white lotus. And the lotus is sitting on a throne. It’s got a square, very beautiful structure, appropriate for an enlightened being. And it’s held up at each corner by two snow lions.
Everything’s made of light, and everything has meaning. Everything is like a visual language, a new language perhaps that we need to learn. Everything has a meaning. The lotus, for example, is symbolic of our own enlightened mind. That is the lotus born out of mud but untainted by it.
Same. Our our own enlightenment comes in our own pure mind, not tainted by the delusions. The whole aspect of a Buddha is representing the complete subduing of the body, speech, and mind, complete control in the most perfect way. And all of it, all this visualization, is showing us our own potential. It’s like a mirror image of our own potential.
The Buddha’s face is very peaceful, very blissful, peaceful, radiant. Very sweet red mouth. The hair in it, as we see in the statues, you know, held up in a top knot. So visualize coming from his from his heart chakra, very powerful beams of white light, radiant beams of light that enter our heart, filling us completely and purifying all the all the obscurations to our own realizations, all the states of mind that block us at the moment from being an enlightened being, which is our natural potential. All the delusions, the unhappy emotions, all the way to the main, the primordial misconception about reality, the root delusion.
This sense of I, mistaken sense of I. Imagine, full of this white light, completely purifying us. All the suffering that we that this causes us and all, therefore, the suffering it causes us to to do to others. All of this, completely purified, full of this radiant light. And again, Buddha’s heart, he sends this time yellow light, powerful beams of yellow laser light that enters our heart, filling us completely and giving us all the realizations, the realizations of our own potential, all the qualities fully developed, of virtues, all the delusions eliminated, but all the realizations of a Buddha — our own potential.
Imagine, feel full of this radiant yellow light, Infinite wisdom, infinite compassion. And now you imagine that the throne and the lotus dissolve upwards into light into the body of the Buddha. And then the Buddha comes to sit above our heads, facing the same way as we are. And he dissolves into golden light and absorbs into our body, just completely merging, imagining, completely becoming oneness with our own consciousness, our own mind. The Buddha’s mind, our mind, same thing.
Now thinking, well, now that I’m enlightened, then no choice but to benefit others. This is the function of a Buddha, based on infinite wisdom and this infinite compassion. So imagine in front of us countless living beings. Right in the front, first of all, the people we don’t like, the people who’ve harmed us, hurt us, our so called enemies right in front. And to the left, our dearest friends, and then to the right and everywhere else as far as you can imagine, above, below, behind, in front, everywhere, all other living beings, all the strangers, visualizing all living beings, all in the form of human beings, which is the form they can get enlightened in.
Just visualize. Imagine the whole of space full. Thinking every single one of these beings is exactly like me, in wanting not to suffer, in wanting to be happy. And every one has the same potential. And now that I’ve achieved my own Buddhahood, then what choice do I have but to benefit them?
So imagining from our from our hearts, hearts, billions and billions of tiny golden Buddhas emanate out, entering into the hearts of the enemies, the friends, and the strangers, giving them everything they need, taking away all their suffering, and transforming them into their own Buddha. Just imagining this, concentrating on this. Continuing to visualize, as we’ve just seen for a few moments, recite the mantra of the Buddha. So if you know it, also chant it. If not, just concentrate again on the visual continuing to visualize all these buddhas coming out from our hearts, transforming all these living beings, as we say in the mantra.
So now imagining all these living beings transformed into Buddha, their own true nature manifesting, like our own. And we imagine now they all just dissolve into golden light and enter from all sides, above, below, behind, all absorb into our own body, enhancing even more brilliantly our own buddha buddha qualities. So now just relax the mind for a moment or two, and we’ll do we’ll finish with another kind of meditation. Just relax for a moment. So now, what we’ll do is bring your bring your just check your body again.
The back, the shoulders, your feet, your hands, eyes, neck, just get yourself into the right position. And then forget about the body. Remember, because it’s not your body that meditates. And what we can do this time is attempt to concentrate on the mind itself. This actually is much more subtle, and it’s much harder because the mind isn’t physical.
We’re gonna we can’t see it or taste it or touch it or smell it. So it’s the best we can do is get an idea about it. So they say it is said that the mind, function is to be aware, and we’re aware through the mental consciousness, through our senses. We’re aware of something all the time. So this we were trying to focus on this awareness, become familiar with this awareness itself.
So it’s also said that the the way the mind is aware is as a mirror, it reflects. So if you like, if you think of your mind as being like a vast body of water, absolutely still and clear and huge, very spacious, not kind of small, stuck in this body. You know? Very spacious, very big, expansive, vast body of very clear, still water. Now we know whatever is reflected in that water would be reflected accurately, wouldn’t it?
But when the water is turbulent, whatever is reflected in it appears crooked. You know? The trees all appear distorted. So the mistake we make is that we think the trees are distorted, But in fact, it’s it’s the it’s the water that is not reflecting them accurately. So when our mind is turbulent with the delusions, then it doesn’t see things as they are, And we don’t realize it’s the things aren’t at the fault, it’s our own mind.
So just for, you know, a few minutes, strong concentration, get us get try and have a sense of concentrating on the awareness itself, being familiar with the awareness itself, kind of getting the feeling of this vast, spacious body of water. The thoughts, the turbulence, they’re in the same nature as the clear, pure water. So whenever thoughts arise, don’t engage in them, allow them to subside back into the mind and keep focused on the awareness itself, not the objects. For example, there’s a sound, you know. Usually the mind goes to the objects, the sound, the sight, the smell.
The mind rushes out towards it. We’ll try and keep the mind on the awareness itself, not the objects of the awareness. Just focus on this vast, clear, still mind. So now just relax the mind again, and we finish. We do a dedication.
We think well, first, I’ll just recite a little prayer and just make these thoughts your thoughts. Just hear them to the extent that they have make sense to you. It’s called the four immeasurable thoughts. And then we finish. But just think how wonderful it would be if all sentient beings could abide in equanimity, free of attachment, ignorance and hatred.
May they abide so. I will make this happen. Please, Buddha, bless me to be able to do this. How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings could have happiness and the causes of happiness. May they have them.
I will make this happen. Please, Buddha, bless me to be able to do this. How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were free of suffering and the causes of suffering. May they be free. I will make this happen.
Please, Buddha, bless me to be able to do this. How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were never parted from higher rebirths and liberation’s excellent bliss. May they never be parted. I will make this happen. Please, Buddha, bless me to be able to do this.
So now, rejoicing in this activity as well as we did it, the effort we made to first concentrate our minds, then visualizing the Buddha, imagining purifying ourselves, imagining leading all beings to enlightenment. In a sense, that visualization is like the essence of the entire path to enlightenment. And then for a while, to observe our mind, just be aware of our mind. All of these things, these strong seeds we’ve planted in our minds of these activities, may they ripen as quickly as possible, as we motivated, in the development of our own perfect qualities as quickly as possible for the sake of all beings. So let me just please enjoy your breakfast.
Let me just say if you how to there’s a way to think when you have your breakfast. We can talk about this later. So just imagining, first of all, imagining it’s not just a small plate of breakfast, you know, real this cornflakes, whatever. So it’s sort of imagining get some space from it and think of it as just this very radiant nectar and vast oceans of it. And then you imagine your mind offering this to all beings of the universe, imagining them all experiencing the joy of receiving this food.
All the holy beings, all the sentient beings, imagine receiving everything they needed. So in this way, it’s somehow because the mind is the point, how we think is the point, and we’ll be talking about this. Our attitude to what we do is the energy that we create, is the karma that we create, not so much the action itself. So by thinking this way, completely transforms the action of eating from something that’s just simply for myself to something that’s actually quite quite extraordinary. And it’s a compassionate action.
Because the mind is the basis. And then enjoy. Just wiggle and relax or just relax or whatever you want to do, I’ll do this quick meditation, it’s the four opponent powers, it’ll probably take about twenty minutes, just to give you the taste, okay, of how it works, so you get the idea. What’s happening, you’re leaving? Oh, you’re getting comfortable.
Okay. Okay. So just kind of, you know, just relax, close your eyes lightly, feet on the ground, back straight, hands in the meditation mudra if the chairs allow you, and what kind of chairs as you can. Right? Like that.
And just sort of bring all your awareness, listen to yourself. And so I’ll just do this sort of fairly quickly, go through the four stages so that you can that you can know how it works. This is the main thing just to give you a taste for it okay okay so the first step let’s launch straight into it the first step is regret so let’s just think of the main things. Let’s say the main things are old, old rubbish habits, know, that really give us so much pain. Because this point of regret isn’t because you’ve harmed others yet.
This is because you’re harming yourself. So regret is based on your compassion for yourself. Cause you know that these things that you have, the states of mind, the anger, or the jealousy, the depression, all the things that you do with your body and speech that harm others, all of these are what cause you suffering. So regret, this first step, is a strong recognition that these are what cause you pain, and you do not want anymore. So it’s like kindness to yourself.
So whatever it is that are in our mind, our old habits, and then the things that we do on the basis of this, and all we have done in this life, harming others like killing or, you know, whatever, we have a strong sense of regretting this because we don’t want any more suffering from this, we’re fed up, you know. Just contemplate for a couple of moments.