Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 54-minute session, Khensur Rinpoche moves into the fifth of the six Lam Rim preparatory practices — the seven-part practice — and focuses almost entirely on its opening step: making homage through prostration. He explains two types of prostration (semi and full), the pyramid-style hand position, and four placement points (crown, forehead, throat, heart) each linked to a quality of Buddhahood. The session’s core is the four powers of purification: reliance, regret, resolve not to repeat, and applying antidotes such as the Vajrasattva mantra or the 35 Confession Buddhas. Rinpoche stresses regret as the linchpin — urgency should match the reflex when a snake drops onto your leg — before a Q&A that works through a practical example of apologising for a broken window.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 LR 1998 09 22.mp3
UUID: ecd1c434-de6b-4828-ab9c-d5d3ec8e73f7
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1998-09-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 54.0 minutes
Words: ~3,256
So we were dealing with the six preparatory practices and among the six we have done four and now we are at the fifth, which is to perform the seven-part practices and the mandala offering which includes essential aspects of accumulation and purification. And the last we dealt with the fourth preparatory practices in the last teaching which the fourth which is to visualize the field of merit or merit field, visualizing merit field and we have talked the way of visualizing the merit field in accordance with the Guru Puja, Wait, it’s not in Guru Puja. So in the Guru Puja, we have visualized the merit field in accordance to the teaching taught in Guru Puja. And in Guru Puja we have made or recite or made the prayers that I very quickly, quickly, that’s two actually in Tibetan, quickly become enlightened for the sake of sentient beings. For that I’ll practice the highest yoga, highest yoga tantra.
And in that word in Tibetan comes nyurwa nyurwa which means in English we just combine into one word: quickly. But actually nyurwa nyurwa doubled means very quick, very quick, said two times. The first one stands that I shall become enlightened in this lifetime through practicing Tantrayāna or tantra. And the second one means that I shall become enlightened — usually we say that to become enlightened we need to accumulate a great store of merit for the three endless aeons. But the second one states that I shall become enlightened in this very short life at the time of the five degenerations and instead of accumulating that great store of merit for three countless aeons.
So the second one stated, without accumulating the merit in the three aeons I shall become enlightened in this very short life at the time of degeneration. So, to become enlightened or to achieve the Buddhahood one needs to collect a great store of merit. And the way so how we quickly or how quickly accumulate merit is by making prayers and offerings for the to Guru, Yidams, means personal deity, and dakas and dakiness, etc. So the way how we accumulate by making offerings to those beings is to be done. So we have to accumulate the merit by doing the practice of performing the seven-part practices and the mandala offering.
So which is in the fifth of the six preparatory practices. So, in both the Tantra and the Sūtrayāna, or both the Sūtra and Tantra practice, the seven point practices is the main practice to accumulate the great store of merit, or accumulation of merit. So, this seven part practice is considered more important in both the Sūtrayāna and Tantrayāna. So, among the seven part practices, the first one is making homage. And so, the object of homage to whom we have to pay our homage main there are many, but the main is it has been described many in the Guru Puja, but here Rinpoche reckons the main one to whom we pay homage is to our guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
So these are the four main object to pay our reverence or homage. So, to make homage, to give homage to those four like guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, then we have to do our homage by doing the prostration for those four beings. The way of making prostration has been described in two types. The first one is called the semi prostration which means touching your four limbs on the ground and then the forehead touching on the floor. And which is called the semi prostration.
So, and then the next one is making a full prostration, which means lying, I mean, holding your body on the ground, which says, like example, it’s like a huge tree has been falling completely down on the ground, something like that. So what kind of motivation is required at the time you do the prostration: as being a Mahāyānist we work for the sake of all sentient beings and to become enlightened for the sake of sentient beings we have to get rid of all the negativities and acquire all the good qualities. For that, I’m doing this prostration to purify all my negativities to become enlightened for the sake of sentient beings. Yeah. So, at the time you do your prostrations, there are also two types of placing your hands.
First, I mean your hands should be positioned like touch on the four fingers together and put both thumb inside. It’s not to make empty like hands inside. So press the two thumbs inward and then it’s like a pyramid style, that’s better to say. And by that, and there are two ways of placing your, I mean the prostrated hands. There are two.
The first one is placing it four times, one at the crown or at the crown and then second is at the forehead and third is at the throat, and then at one’s heart or mind. So this is the first one. And there’s also another one. And the next is to place them at three points: one at the forehead and then the throat and the heart. So when we do the four points, which means the first one is to represent or to achieve the Buddha’s how do I call it in English?
It’s a crown protrusion, something like that. And the second one, when you place it on the forehead is to represent achieving the special hair mark, or it represents to achieve the Buddha’s body, actually. And the third one is that the throat is to achieve the Buddha’s speech, and then Buddha’s mind or heart. So this is the thought? So, actually there are three types of giving homage or prostration.
First is to pay homage or do prostration through body and then speech and mind. So at the time we were at this moment we are talking about the body prostration. So at the time when you do prostration there are two types. First is if there was just like we were just prostrating how to place your hands and everything. So at the time you’re doing prostration if you do it with a wider mind or a broad perspective then it’s good to imagine yourself as numerous as the atoms in this world.
So which means, so above there are two kinds of reliances and these sentient beings and the Buddhadharma and Sangha. So to that kind of like purifying so we can purify if the negativity is done through the sentient beings then you have to confess that negativity but through sentient beings. And if the negativity is performed by through or by depending on Buddhadharma and Sangha, then negativity is to be confessed or purified by depending on Buddhadharma and Sangha. So it has like for the power of alliances we have two kinds of doing this. One is doing taking refuge or going refuge for Buddhadam and Sangha and then generating bodhicitta or altruistic intention.
So the action, how we purify those negative actions caused by relying on sentient beings is like we should through love and compassion generate altruistic intention or bodhicitta within oneself and try to and then work for the sentient beings to become enlightenment and main purpose to become enlightenment is for them to bring all those sentient beings into the ultimate happiness and make them free from suffering. So that one purifying. That is how one accumulates merit, and it also means purifying the negativities which you have caused by depending on sentient beings. So it’s the same. And then as for Buddhadharma and Sangha it’s going to be same that the negative which you caused, sorry, commit by depending on Buddhadharma and Sangha is to be confessed or purified by depending same on Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is the way just paying, like having faith in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and going for refuge and giving respect or homage prostrations is purifying the negative confession or purifying negativities by depending on Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.
So if you for example Rinpoche says that if you have accumulated negativities through or depending on the Venerable Marga, you have to purify it by depending on Venerable Marga. No. And so, those two of purification is done is the power of reliance comes under the power of reliances. And the second one is then just power of regret or power of repentance Means just feel remorse or regret for the actions you have done or bad actions you have done in the past. And that one is the second one.
And third power is the power of not repeating the misdeeds or negative deeds you have performed. So that one is the power of not repeating the action again, all right? Now, which is the third one. So the power of remorse and the power of repentance is very, very important. If you have that, then the power of not repeating the misdeeds again and the power of purifying — through those two — the first one, the power of reliance, comes naturally.
If you have the power of repentance or regret, then power of reliance and power of not repeating the mystery or negative action again, it naturally comes. So the power of repentance is very important, he emphasized here. So, and one may think how one should develop do this practice of to have the power of regret or repentance is if one has the faith or belief in the law of cause and result, then one can generate a power of repentance. Because if one has a faith or belief in the law of cause and result, then one will accept or one will know that if one commits a particular like crime or negative action, then one has belief in the law of causes and if result or effect then one thinks about one has to undergo through the results of that bad action in the future. And if one commits a huge negative karmas then the result will be huge in the future lives.
So and by knowing this one will never try to commit any negative deeds or bad action and plus one will, if one has already committed then one knows about the bad and like suffering or result in the future and one feels very remorseful about the action one has performed. Having the faith or belief in the law of causes and effect is very important to have the power of repentance or regret within oneself. And so, one should really feel afraid of committing any negative action even for a moment. That fright or fear should be like, say if one is just sitting on grass or on ground somewhere and suddenly a snake falls on one’s leg.
And then you know that one cannot sit on, even for a single second or a moment, just get frightened and jump or anything and one can do anything at that moment. So, the same feeling should be there when one commits a negative reason and couldn’t say for a minute and get worried or afraid of the result in the future and just get to the confession or purifying that kind of negativities. So the regret or the urgency should be like the feeling or the action you do when the snake falls on your legs, something like that. No? And the fourth one is the power of overcoming misdeeds through applying antidotes, which means one recites the hundred syllable mantras or the mantra of Vajrasattva and reciting the prayers of the thirty-five Confession Buddhas or reciting the six liberators, Om Mani Padme hum, etc. So that is the power of applying antidotes or overcoming the misdeeds.
No, and the Heart Sūtra is also good to show antidote or purifies in negative ways. So, have been dealing with talking about four antidotes or four powers. So, confessing or purifying the negativities by showing the four antidotes or by showing the four powers is very important. And if one is being able to do these practices which are showing the four antidotes or four powerful very strongly or one can do very, yeah, if one can do properly or strongly then one can be sure one can purify one’s negativities and doesn’t have to suffer the result in the future, one can really purify all the negative deeds. And if one can do, cannot perform very well, just like a middling stage, it still helps if one is going to suffer for a long period then it can help us to shorten the suffering, or if there’s very severe suffering then one has to bear much milder ones and something like that.
And if one can still cannot practice a middling stage and one can still just think, do those for showing antidotes but not really, really, like we said, replace it by dividing the three. The best one, the middling one and then the last. If one is still able to do the last one it helps not to, usually what we said is if we commit negative actions and just leave it as it is, then that negativity multiplies all the time. So if one is able to do the third one, it also helps that one action not to multiply, just remain the same amount all the time. So, you know, we want or we do not wish suffering but we commit negative ridges, so which are contradictory or which contradicts to each other.
So because the suffering comes by committing committing negative deeds or bad actions. So what we are actually doing is contradictory all the time. Do not wish suffering, but we commit negative deeds all the time. So, we are doing something contradictory all the time. Not wishing suffering and then committing negativities is contradictory, which we usually do.
So, what one should do is one should really try not to commit any new negative weight or negative action and try to confess or purify the negative action what one has performed or committed in the past. So this is very important. If one do not do this kind of, doesn’t do this kind of practice then the suffering will never stop, it keeps flowing. Yes, so it’s similar to us, we wish happiness but we do not work for the happiness, which is contradictory as well. So, it’s like this happiness comes from the good action or from the good karma or good action we have accumulated.
So if one does not accumulate the virtues or wholesomeness, then no matter how much one wishes for happiness it will never come. So happiness is there or happiness comes after when one has coming, so one has accumulated great stroke of merit, or do wholesome deeds, or good action. So performing good action is very important. Otherwise, no, if one doesn’t perform any good action, happiness never comes. And so one should talk to oneself or think about, think just oneself, think, or whether one wishes for happiness or not.
If one wishes happiness and one just talks to oneself, then one needs to accumulate the merit or virtues, and because the virtue comes, you know, self happiness comes from good action or virtues, so once you talk to oneself to accumulate the merit, I don’t know. And one should talk One should give advice for oneself or one should talk to oneself that do you wish suffering or not?’ and then enter so you know it’s a very obvious one to not wish suffering so just talk to one should not commit any bad action and one should. How do I commit bad actions? So the confession or purification is the main tool to purify all the negativities which have been performed through disturbing emotions like hatred, desire, attachment, anger, etc. So the confession or purification is very important.
And which is also this method or skill to stop one’s unwanted, or one’s unwanted means suffering. And the making offering is the antidote for miserliness, yes, miserliness. So problem with accent, no.
So if one is able to do good offerings then it, you know, helps it contradicts or it encounters the miserliness, know, miserliness. And so we’ll stop here today and he’ll, I mean he can save five minutes for the questions if any questions. Yep. Yeah, it was not clear actually. We talked about by commit the action or negativities by depending on Buddhadharma and Sangha, which means it doesn’t mean that Buddhadharma, Sangha made us to commit, you know that.
Which means usually we commit negativities towards sentient beings or towards Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, which means like the negative actions which we performed by not paying reverence to the Buddha or Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and then disparaging them, and, you know, not giving respect, you know, this kind of thing. So, which means it’s called which by depending or through Buddhadharma and Sangha, not paying respect to those. And for example for the Dharma, it’s like leaving texts on the ground or using them as a mattress, etcetera, you know. So these are the kind of negativities which we perform through or depending on Buddhadharma and Sangha. Is that clear?
Thank you. There are also negative deeds which we perform by not placing the statues or representations in the right position or in the right places. So usually we have to place representations or statues on the upper or higher places or in the altar or something like that. One should not place all the statues by the gate or near the door, which means it accumulates negative actions by placing them in the wrong place, like a door or on the stairs. All right, yeah.
You mean you broke or you break your own windows? Yeah. Alright. So, yeah. So what Rinpoche says is like, you are supposed to have broken Venerable Marga’s window and so you need to go and say I’m sorry for breaking that.
What you need to do is you need to speak with Venerable Marga and beg apology, apologise and say, Sorry, I have done this and that. So which is, and then which means you’re confessing your mixed deeds and purifying your negativity. But to purify that you have accumulated a certain demerit or non virtues and to purify the negativity one should need all those four reliance, sorry four antidotes or four powers. All right, so purification is done by showing those four antidotes or we it said four powers, which is power of reliances and power of overcoming misdeeds through antidote, which just means begging apologies or reciting those mantras, mantras. And then power of repentance or regret and powers of not repeating the action.
So to purify the action non negative is to be done through these four, all right? So it doesn’t mean you just, I mean you can do confession or purify by using one of those. So all four should be present there while you’re doing purification or confession. You mean which means this which of those four? You mean beg, apologize, or saying sorry.
Does that mean? Just repeat it again. Rinpoche says that fixing and apologizing and fixing windows comes under the power of repentance or regret. Without repentance, you won’t apologize for this. It comes under the third, which is the power of not repeating, or second, which is the power of reliance.
Okay.