Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Jampa Kaldan introduces the graduated path to enlightenment, Buddhism’s systematic framework for spiritual development from ordinary awareness to full awakening. In this 47-minute teaching, he traces the Four Noble Truths before turning to the path itself, explaining how the Tibetan tradition organizes spiritual growth through graduated stages called the Lamrim. He walks through the key motivational foundations: recognizing the preciousness of human life and the urgency created by impermanence; acknowledging suffering and cultivating refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as reliable guides; developing determination to awaken through understanding deeper causes of dissatisfaction; and progressively opening the heart to others through loving-kindness and compassion until one’s central motivation becomes achieving awakening for the benefit of all beings. Jampa Kaldan then introduces the six perfections and tantric practice before leading a guided meditation using Śākyamūni Buddha as a focal point for cleansing negative patterns and cultivating skillful qualities. Suitable for newcomers to Buddhist practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2000 02 07 04 Introduction to Buddhism 7-2-00.mp3
UUID: c50b1dda-9962-4346-9778-7a9c37158de9
Teacher: Jampa Kaldan
Collection: Intro to Buddhism (Jampa Kaldan)
Date: 2000-02-07
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~4,196
And it’s about that haze of confusion that the Buddha taught the teachings of the noble truths to try and make some sense out of of that rather confused state that we call everyday life. The four truths of the the presence of dissatisfaction or the old fashioned term of suffering that seems to run throughout our lives. The second truth that that has some sort of a cause within the way our mind functions, the cause of ignorance or or bewilderment. The third truth of that this current state of cyclic existence in which we’re embedded at the moment is not necessarily the state that our mind needs to be in, that there’s a state of cessation, of the state of dissatisfaction and suffering, and that the the fourth truth that there is a path, a way of practicing, and a series of new insights that one can attain which lead to that state of cessation. And each week we talk to you in a little bit of detail about each of those four, which brings us tonight to the the fourth one, the path.
And tonight, I’ll talk about the path. The path in Buddhist practice, in Buddhist thinking, the idea of a path has got a a very particular particular meaning. It’s not meant as an outward a path is something that you take a journey on, so it’s an appropriate analogy. But a path is seen as some sort of inner or inward insight or new understanding or realization that one has. So our becoming something different to what we are because of our growing, our maturing, and our having insights, that process is in fact the path.
It’s not some outer thing. It’s an evolving process within our lived experience. Now the Tibetan tradition, one of its very characteristic things has been to try and systematically set out all of the components of this process of growth or maturation as a human being right from just an ordinary being like we are up to the state of having fully realized one’s potential, in other words, state of Buddhahood. So from here to there, the whole process of growing or evolving from the ordinary being to being a fully awakened being, the Tibetan tradition has put a lot of effort into producing, if you like, systematic summaries of all the main stages that you have to go through as a practitioner. They’re called in Tibetan, they’re called lam rim, which literally means lam is path and Rim is like step or graduation.
So graduated path. And you often see books with things like The Graduated Path to Enlightenment, titles along those lines. So what such literature seeks to do is to take all of the great diversity, often confusing diversity of views and practices that are that are put forward within Buddhism and tries to systematically arrange them in an order. So what I’d I’d like to start off doing tonight is to tell you the story of the graduated path to enlightenment as it’s traditionally set out. And wanna briefly run through the graduated path to enlightenment and each of the key stages that it refers to by by way of seeking to bring our minds and considering our motivation.
And some of these points you’ll remember that I’ve already mentioned and spoken about in some detail. So see if you can pick out which ones I have mentioned and which ones I haven’t as I go through. So I we find ourselves with extraordinary mind that is fundamentally clean and clear. And together with that, the very fact that we’re here indicates that we have a very precious opportunity because it means that all of the factors have come together within our life here and now to allow us to undertake a serious spiritual practice. We are extremely fortunate because we find ourselves in that situation.
And dwelling on this extraordinary good fortune counteracts this myth of our inadequacy that I talked about one of the nights that I what can I achieve on? There so many things that are bad for me. In fact, our situation is extraordinarily unfortunate. And this fact about our condition here as a group is thrown into great highlight and given urgency by our impermanence, the fact of our impermanence. We know we’re definitely going to die but we don’t know when.
So our time is very precious. And this, considering this, counteracts another myth that I talked about, our myth of immortality. The myth that we tend to live by unthinkingly which seduces us into wasting our time and spending it on all sorts of trivial pursuits. But if we really thought seriously about what am I doing and how much time have I got, we may not be so keen to do them. So the consideration of one’s death can be a very empowering thing.
And our lived experience moving on at times contains some extremely unpleasant states. You know, at times we have to go through as a sentient being or a being with a mind. We have to go through what I referred to as the three lower realms in the second night. There’s some really quite bad states of suffering. And I think at times in our everyday life, have we have to face things that are along those lines.
When we acknowledge this, of course, and we think that these are going come again in the future, it makes us feel some apprehension. And in fact, feeling some apprehension or even fear can at times be most useful for us if we use it the right way. And here we can use it to ask ourselves seriously, what is it within my lived experience? What are the things that I go to refuge for? And to what degree are they effective for helping me address the issues like one day I’m going to die and I keep getting myself into these really unpleasant situations that I hate?
Are my current refuge points in life adequate to doing what I want to do with my life and for addressing some of the deeper issues about what it means to be a human being? And so traditionally in Buddhism, the three refuges are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. So when one enters into Buddhist practice by going to refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, this is not just some empty faith or some outside means of salvation that one is entering into. What one is doing is, in fact, moving on from that to see that I have the ability to create my futures. I see that by my actions now I can make a difference to what will happen to me in the future, choosing to live skillfully with self control so that I can create the mental conditions for maximizing my future happiness.
Such intelligent self control, even though it’s very wonderful and a really important key part of spiritual practice, is in itself rather limited. Because I’m still stuck in my deeper habitual mental patterns. I’m still cycling through this overall pattern I call cyclic existence. So even the moments of great happiness and bliss and satisfaction seem so shallow and quickly slip away. It’s like trying to grab sand with your hand and squeeze it and it just keeps running away.
And so when this being the case, we look for a deeper analysis. And that’s what the Four Noble Truths do, try and come up with a more radical solution to this predicament that we find ourselves in. And then understanding this and understanding the situation we’re in, we can develop by dwelling on this and analysing it deeply, we can develop determination to awaken or very regularly referred to as renunciation in the books in English. Where we seek here, once we develop this attitude to a degree, we then sort of live in a free spirit of non attachment. Some sort of spaciousness opens up around us instead of our lives having to be completely filled with clutching at all the things we want.
And this is motivated at the end of the day by compassion for ourselves. So we can support this determination to awaken or the determination to live more skillfully. We can support those by intelligently making a choice to undertake the practice of some vows. We might choose from now on. I can see it would be really useful for working on my mind to decide to make a vow not to kill.
So I’m going to after intelligent consideration that this would be useful for my spiritual practice, I will enter into taking that vow. Or one a person might say after the same process of deliberation, I wish to become ordained and take a number more vows because I can see that would be really good for my spiritual practice, and I feel ready to do that, and it fits with my life. And then, of course, we begin to move on as a growing human being and to the issue of awakening our hearts to the presence and the importance of others, realizing our profound dependence on the existence of others and our profound dependence on the work of all these other beings. When we think through this, naturally develop a sense of gratitude and wanting to show love and kindness to others. And also when we look deeply at others, we see that they’re just like ourselves.
They don’t want to suffer. They’re trying so hard to be happy, just like we are. And so when we consider this, it naturally brings up a sense of compassion for others. And eventually, with effort and some mind training, working at these issues and developing loving kindness and compassion, one can come to a stage of seeing that one’s your key my key motive in life is to work for the benefit of others. And the best way I can do that is to try and transform myself to the point of fully awakening as a human being.
Because if I could attain that state, then I would be able to be of maximum benefit to others. Whereas now when I try and help people, I so often get it wrong or I do the wrong thing or I don’t even have a clue how to do it anyway. Now once a person has come to the point where this wish to achieve Buddhahood for the benefit of others becomes a central guiding factor in his or her life, that person is called in Sanskrit the word bodhisattva or the being of enlightenment. Literally. Bodhisattva.
It’s a word that if you haven’t come across now and you and you do more reading in Buddhism, you’ll come across constantly. It’s often used and not translated. The bodhisattva. And of course, here also one can enter into vows related to universal compassion, compassion for others. One can enter into the bodhisattva vows, making commitments.
These are the things I want to do because it’s going to do for me and for others what I see now I want to do. So determining to put these sort of aspirations into practice, one undertakes a series of activities called the six perfections. And the six perfections are generosity, patience, ethics and morality, joyous effort. The fifth one is concentration, developing a stable, calm, and focused mind, concentration. And the sixth one is wisdom.
Wisdom. And we’re going to be talking more about the wisdom one tonight. But in this wisdom one, it’s where we deeply analyze and meditate on the nature of ourselves and reality to find and uproot that cause of our ignorant, bewildered state at the moment, which leads eventually to the awakened mind, the liberated mind. And then out of a sense of urgency to undertake this whole process as quickly as possible because I really begin to feel that I don’t want to go too slowly because it means it’s only longer until I can be of more benefit to others. So having developed a motivation like that, one then is ready to approach the practice of tantra, the advanced tantric practices.
Here, realizing that our fundamental nature all of our energies are in fact clean and clear. Beneath the wild storms driven on the surface of the ocean of our minds, beneath that is this vast ocean of clean, clear mind and entering into practices to help ourselves to realize that that’s there even though most of the time we don’t. And we begin to practice as if that that way about ourselves is true. And eventually, realize my true nature and wake up to Buddhahood. So here’s a very extraordinary spiritual path and Buddhism includes vast and sophisticated array of spiritual methods of philosophical systems and of styles of practice.
And and the entry point to this whole enormous spiritual system is the business of going for refuge. Moving away from the current refuges to look, to seriously consider, and then eventually to undertake the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha as one’s refuges. The Buddha, in the outer sense, this person who through his efforts achieved enlightenment and then spent many years teaching others how they could do it, a model for us. In the inner sense, our own capacity and potential to grow and awaken. We go to refuge to the Dharma, which in the outer sense are all the teachings and texts that talk about this spiritual path.
In the inner sense, our own growing insights and realizations on the path. That’s the way those are the things we go to refuge for. And it’s often said the ultimate refuge in Buddhism is that one, the inner sense of Dharma refuge. That’s the ultimate refuge. Because when one realizes something for oneself directly from your own experience, then no one can take that away from you.
And you know exactly what the situation is because you’ve thrashed it out for yourself within your own experience. And the third thing we go to refuge for is the Sangha or the spiritual community. Those like minded people who are able to walk beside us on the path and be with us. So once again, as last time, I I shall allow give you the opportunity just to pause and consider this issue of what one’s refuge is, and I shall say this refuge first. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha from the skillful energy that I create by the practice of giving and the other five perfections, may I attain the awakened state to be able to benefit all sentient beings.
I go for refuge until I enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha from the skillful energy that I create. By the practice of giving and the other perfections, may I attain the awakened state to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened, to the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha. From skillful energy that I create, by the practice of giving and the other perfections, may I attain the awakened state to be able to benefit all sentient beings. So let’s do some meditation now.
And tonight’s meditation will be another type of analytical meditation, the third of the three types that we’ve tried. In this one, we will we will do some what’s called deity meditation. This is where we visualize a a meditational deity and do some work with that deity. Now the one the the meditational deity that I’m going to suggest that we use in this meditation will be Śākyamūni Buddha, which is in this tanka here behind me. And I’m going to ask you to imagine about a meter in front of you the size of your hand that there’s an image of Śākyamūni Buddha there in space before you.
Just imagine the presence of this there. And it will be you can imagine that it’s sort of like made out of made out of light, made out of sort of rich golden light. And that what this image represents is can be seen on a in a number of ways. In one sense, it it it it it represents the refuge point, the either in the outer sense or the inner sense. This image is representing the energy of enlightenment, which is a part of us.
So in one sense, we can think that what I’m visualizing is a part of me. I’m trying to make it more concrete for myself as a skillful means of working with this energy and imagining it out there in front of me. But really, I’m the one doing the imagining. It’s my mind that’s generating this. It’s part of my mind.
Now if someone feels that they’re not at all comfortable with visualizing Śākyamūni Buddha, that’s fine. You may wish to choose some other great spiritual master that you relate to very strongly and do the practice with that. Or if you don’t like the idea of visualizing any particular individual, simply imagine that there’s like a of a a ball of energy there out in front of you a meter away and work with it in that way. That there’s this ball of enlightened energy. Then we’ll go through a couple of stages.
We will firstly white light will come from Śākyamūni Buddha or whatever you’re visualizing and will come down to the through our crown of our heads and this this white light will wash through us and cleanse cleanse away all of our unskillful habitual patterns and negativities, things we don’t like about ourselves. The mistaken myths that we live by like our inadequacy, our immortality, the ways we think we can be happy when they really don’t make us happy, our general state of ignorance, all this is being washed away and cleansed. And then, secondarily, we’ll imagine a yellow light, golden, a rich golden light coming to the crown of our head. And in this case, it will be filling us with all the skillfulness that we love to have, a determination to wake up, loving kindness, compassion, wisdom, being filled with all these things. So we’re absolutely brimming with all this at the end of the meditation.
And to we will also do something else as we’re visualizing these lights coming. We’ll recite at least I will lead the reciting of the mantra of Śākyamūni Buddha. And we’ll pass out the the red books, the red Buddha house books, and you’ll be able to have this short mantra in front of you. And as as we as I chant this, if anyone wishes to join in with the chanting as it goes on, then you’re most welcome to join in. And we’ll do it twenty one times with the white light and twenty one times with the golden light.
So we’ll just pass around those Buddha House books. You’ll see someone’s handing out a little cloth as well as a sign of respect for the for for books to do with dharma. Part of one of the traditional little rituals is that we try and avoid putting it on the floor or standing on it. So it’s a little one of the many little ritual ways of reminding ourselves about what our values are. Good.
One? Thanks. Page six. Yeah. On page six.
It the page has got a a picture at the top, the same as the one in the tanka here. All very similar. And it’s got prayer of guru Śākyamūni Buddha, and we’re just interested in the bottom line, which is. So just if we take a firm position and once again as in the past we will spend a moment setting our motivation, then we’ll focus on our breath for a few minutes, and then we’ll come to the meditation related to the meditation or deity. So let’s generate a very positive motivation for undertaking this meditation now.
Imagine in front of yourself, this time in the past we’ve specifically chosen someone who feels very close and you feel a natural affection towards. This time I’d like you to be a little bit more experimental and choose someone perhaps an acquaintance from here in the group. Someone that you’ve sort of met or seen but you don’t really know them that well. You might have just said hello or exchanged a few sentences but you don’t really know this person very well. So if you feel comfortable, choose someone like that from the group to imagine that this person is sitting in front of you.
If that feels a bit uncomfortable, then simply use one of the people from the previous two times. And that’s fine. Someone that you naturally feel love towards. And now towards this person in front of us, let’s develop some compassion and some loving kindness by expressing to them the following thoughts. Having thought what the situation of this person might be, the difficulties that they might be facing, the struggles he or she may have to be going through.
Now developing compassion through the following thoughts. How wonderful it would be if you could be free from suffering and discontent. May you be free from all unhappiness and all your problems. May they disappear. Will your pains go away.
And I would like to take responsibility to work with you so that you can truly be free of this dissatisfaction in your life. Now developing loving kindness, how wonderful it would be if you could be happy. May you have every happiness, and may all your dreams come true. And I would like to take responsibility to be able to help you to actually achieve this happiness. But when I look at myself, I realize how limited am I I am in my capacity, in my degree of love, compassion, and wisdom to be able to help you.
And so I undertake this meditation now as a step in the path of becoming more competent to be a benefit to you. And now bring your mind to focus on the breath, the natural flow in and out of your breath, watching it wherever it’s easy to keep your attention on it. And when your mind wanders away as it surely will, when you become aware of that, gently bring your mind back to the breath. Bring your mind gently back to the prayer. Now let’s undertake this cleansing and empowering meditation using the meditational deity of Śākyamūni Buddha or whatever you choose to use.
So imagine in front of you about a meter away the size of your hand. This image, vibrantly alive and yet made of light, filled with all the rich energy of enlightenment. Every negativity has been removed. Every positive potential has been fully realized, and it’s concentrated in this image in front of you. And now imagine that a tube of white light comes from the heart of this image and enters the crown of your head.
And this white light pervades your whole body. It washes through your body. And as it does that, it cleanses all the unskillful habitual patterns, the mistaken and confused myths that we often live by, the negativities, the ignorance, the anger, the attachments that drive us crazy. All of these are washed away, cleansed. And as we visualize this, I’ll recite the mantra.
And when we recite mantras, we do this because it helps us to tap into the positive energy of our mind, and it also helps is a powerful way of keeping our mind focused on what we’re doing. Now feel that you’ve been completely cleansed. How wonderful that is. And now imagine instead of the white light, a tube of golden light emerges from the image of Śākyamūni Buddha, a mist now emerges down into the crown of your head. And that this rich, satisfying golden light fills you with all happiness, skillful ways of living, determination to be free and awaken, loving kindness, compassion, and wisdom.
And as you meditate on the empowering golden light filling and washing through you. Once again, we’ll recite the mantra. So now feel that you’ve been completely filled and totally blessed by this empowerment. And just to confirm this, imagine that the image in front of you dissolves also into light and comes and enters the crown of your head as a final confirmation of the gift of this cleansing and empowerment. Okay.
If people would like to stretch for a minute or relax. Is the microphone seems to be making a lot of noise. Maybe maybe I could try the other one. I think it’s the lack of cover on this. Is it working now?
Yeah. It sounds like it. So I’m passing around a little sheet related to the graduated path to enlightenment or the lam rim. Please excuse the fact that I wasn’t able to get it typed. I hope you’ll be able to make sense of my hand.