Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Lama Lhundup explores the foundation of Tibetan Buddhist practice: purifying the mind by weakening attachment to external objects and cultivating universal love and compassion. In this 44-minute talk, he begins by distinguishing meditation practitioners by their motivation—some seek worldly happiness, others liberation or Buddhahood—and explains why external pursuits alone cannot deliver lasting contentment. He then teaches the core method: using mindfulness to observe the mind and separate it from afflictive emotions like anger and attachment, which distort how we perceive objects. Wisdom recognizes that attractive things are not inherently beautiful and hostile people are not inherently enemies. He then shifts to method: expanding natural love and compassion, first felt narrowly toward family and friends, to encompass all sentient beings equally. By meditating on this universal love and remembering karma when meeting someone difficult, practitioners dissolve resentment and generate immense merit. The talk stresses that this twofold path of wisdom and method, practiced even for five minutes daily, gradually purifies the mind and leads toward ultimate happiness and Buddhahood. Practical and foundational, suited to beginners and earnest practitioners.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 GP.mp3
UUID: 1ccfcdc8-1bc8-4588-8f24-53d01984eefa
Teacher: Lama Lhundup
Collection: The Graduated Path (Lama Lhundup)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.7 minutes
Words: ~2,513
So each of us have various reasons for meditating, for making effort in meditating. Some people, they meditate in order to a few people meditate in order to attain Buddhahood. Others, few of them order because they have problems in this life, they seek to meditate in order to solve those problems. For those who have trained for have trained well in the have studied well, trained well in the graduated path, for them their thought or their intention is to seek either Buddhahood or liberation. For those who have not trained for so long in the graduated path, they are training the reason is that they are seeking temporal happiness.
But whoever it is, are meditating in order to find happiness. But really but we are not going to find our desired happiness only by meditating. But if we have a great deal of merit and through listening to the Dharma and meditating, then we can be freed from our suffering. But for us beginners, it won’t happen like this. So in general, we have a great deal of attachment to external objects, external things.
If we can’t somehow reverse this attachment to external objects, then we’re not going to find the happiness that we want. So if we can begin to decrease our attachment for the external things, the external objects of forms, sounds, tastes, touches, smells, and these are the five qualities of external objects. Then as our attachment for those decreases, our internal for these external things decreases, then our internal happiness will increase. So most people’s problems in the world come about through their attachment for these five types of external objects. So it’s because of this attachment and also because it’s accompanied with self-cherishing that we have all the difficulties that we’ve experienced.
So, you know, our real happiness does not lie outside of ourselves. Our real happiness lies within our own mind. Always, our mind is not mixing with desire. So there are occasions when our mind is not mixed with the attachment or the afflictive emotions. So in meditation, whether we’re sitting in a meditation posture or not, what is most important is that we, with our mindfulness and awareness, are always examining our mind.
So in the beginning, we must examine to see whether our mind is mixed with anger or attachment, and if it’s not, then we can sit in single-pointed concentration. If you want to meditate, then you can look at your own mind.
Then you just make separate your anger and pride and desire, attachment. Make separate. Then behind all this delusion, then you can find your own mind. So the mind which is not mixed with the afflictive emotions, etcetera, is the mind which is experiencing our desired happiness. We don’t have to buy it with money. We already have this.
We have that, but we’re not keeping it always clean. So what is the purpose? What is the necessity for meditating? It is to purify the mind. So whatever we’re doing, whether we’re eating or whether we’re sitting in meditation posture, if our mind is pure, then we’re in meditation.
So this mind, this pure mind, which is not mixed with the afflicted emotions, we have to increase it, have to improve it. So if we are abiding in this meditative mind, this pure mind, then no matter if we come in contact whatever the condition is, we come in contact with pleasing sounds, pleasing smells, pleasing shapes, our mind will not become mixed with attachment. And if we have the condition of meeting the enemy, our mind will not become involved in anger. So but if the mind is is mixed with the afflictive emotions, then then then whatever object we see, we’re going to see it in a wrong way, and we’re going to hold on to that way we see it. For example, attachment.
The object of attachment, the the mode of apprehension, that object does not exist. So, if we may come in contact with a pleasing form, attachment, we’ll see it as beautiful and this beautiful object actually doesn’t exist. If we examine it with wisdom as to whether the object is beautiful as it’s been apprehended by attachment, we’re going to find it doesn’t exist. Likewise, when we come in contact with a displeasing object and then due to anger, the object appears, for example, arises as an enemy. And if we were to examine that object with the mind of wisdom, examine it with wisdom, we’re going to see it’s empty of the way it appears to anger.
So if attachment does arise, then we have to have some method so that it doesn’t increase. So, when attachment rises, we use our wisdom to examine the object of that attachment. So if we make this examination, then our attachment will not increase. Likewise, the object of hatred, if we examine it with wisdom, then our hatred will not increase. So we haven’t attained Buddhahood.
We haven’t attained ultimate happiness. And why is that? It’s because the condition necessary to attain these is not allowing the mind to become mixed with the afflicted emotions, the substantial cause. So substantial cause of the happiness that we desire is the mind which is not mixed with the afflictive emotions. Okay.
So this isn’t going to happen all at once. In our meditation, we can have our mind separated from these afflictive emotions and consistently, again and again, meditating this way, even whether it’s five minutes, then we will definitely improve in this way. No. No. No.
We have clean mind. Just not only just looking at this clean mind. Also, at the same time, you can also be remembering compassion and love. So in order to improve the mind, we need both wisdom and method. Without wisdom, without method,
We cannot make separate completely. Therefore, we need to develop also same time wisdom and method. So what is the method? The method is compassion. Compassion and love.
And wisdom is the wisdom understanding selflessness. So we have within us now a compassionate nature. So we don’t need to buy this from anybody else. We have it. But we have it, but we have to we have to improve it.
We have compassion a lot, but we we we sometimes losing. You know? We we forget it. So therefore, we don’t lose. We we keep strongly.
So we have love and compassion for our mother, father, and friends, people like this. So we have this love with us now. So who is it that we have greatest feeling of love for? Maybe it’s a woman, maybe it’s a child, maybe it’s our mother. So this object that we have, this person we have this greatest feeling of love for, we want to take this same strength of love and begin to direct that same strength to others.
For example, to a child, to a man, and ultimately to everyone, the same strength. So the unique or the extraordinary cause for the attainment of Buddhahood is this. Yes. You have that love for your which part of the world, what did you have just now, that love?
You can develop love for all sentient beings. You can cover all. If you have that love, if your love object covers all beings, if you have everything covered — we are not yet there now. But if you develop that, if you have that, develop it.
So this love which is directed to all sentient beings is the extraordinary cause for the attainment of our ultimate happiness in Buddhahood. Now we have just this love and compassion very narrow, you know, directed to just a few. So unless we have our love and compassion is directed to all sentient beings, pervasive. We’re going to just having love for one side, it’s going to and compassion just for one small group, we’re going to have it’s going to cause us problems and suffering. So especially, we should try to subdue our mind with respect to someone who we don’t like. Yeah.
Someone we don’t like. Even though we do, we’re just taking care, you know, taking care of him or her. But still they do more, you know, checking to to something, you know, to to you. So we need more to develop love, you know, especially need to practice love to that that person. If you have that person, especially you get love, then that is perfect love, pure love.
So it’s difficult to develop this type of So why haven’t we experienced this type of love? Why haven’t we been able to delve develop? Because we may think No. Yeah. We may think.
Why do we not have love for that person? Because he’s cheating me or he’s something he he did mistake something with me, you know, reason that. So in dependence upon this false reason, we don’t develop love. So so at such a time we at such a time we should remember karma. We should think that, you know, that that by the power of by the power of my having hurt others sentient beings in the past, and now now I’m experiencing that this hurt on myself.
So we should think at such a time, you know, that that I he is hurting me, but because I have created the karma to be hurt in the past. And by his hurting me, I now purifying that past karma. And it gives me a chance to practice patience. But by his hurting me, he is creating negative karma himself. No.
And therefore, it depends upon Because he’s creating negative karma himself, he’s going to suffer in the future. So we should be thinking that he’s extremely kind because in order to benefit me, he’s actually causing himself suffering. So if you think like this on such occasion, then this mind of dislike will cease. Also, we can think that it’s not the person he is not actually he is not the one who’s hurting me. It’s the afflictive emotion in his mind which is harming me.
And if I’m going to become angry at someone, I should become angry at the afflictive emotion in his mind. So if we examine our self-cherishing, the degree of our self-cherishing, So I don’t have any control over over my dis over how much I dislike him. It’s oh, I’m under the power of my self-cherishing. It’s forcing me to dislike him. Just we think like this, like like like debate, you know, with the our with the deluded mind or samsaric mind.
Think like this. So then, after we analyze, just as before we don’t like very much, but then after we analyze, we understand clearly. So then that strong mind of dislike will become soft, not too much. This strong mind of dislike will cease. Strong mind of dislike will cease.
Very strong unhappiness. So that becomes soft. Something like discomfort. Something like this. So whoever we see, generate love toward them.
To whoever we see suffering, we can generate compassion. So just if we develop the love for all complete sentient beings, in just five minutes of this, we develop tremendous great amount of merit, positive energy. So, you know, where do where do our our our problems coming from? You know, all the many sentient beings are are benefiting us, are are bringing us are extremely kind kind to us, but we don’t develop love for them. And because of this, we experience suffering.
So all the undesired problems that we have, the sufferings, what is the way to get rid of them? It is to always meditate on love. You know, even if we if we develop love for others, all sentient beings, not only in just this life will we not experience sicknesses, but in the future lives, we’re going to always be happy. And ultimately, in seeking to benefit all sentient beings, we will finally experience complete, constant happiness. So we So what is the proof of this?
You know, when we meditate what is what what what comes of when we meditate love for sentient beings? What it was what do we experience from that? Do we experience happiness, or or do do we experience suffering? If we if we experience happiness, then, of course, we should try to increase it greater and greater. If we experience suffering, then, you know, we can forget it.
No. We we not develop that loss. So many people in the world are extremely suffering, but we don’t have compassion for them. We don’t have the feeling of wanting to help them, you know, because we are not thinking love for them. We don’t think or wish for those people to completely become happy.
So we should make effort to develop a powerful love that whenever we see, for example, an animal suffering and is experiencing great suffering, should try to develop seeing that, we should try to develop compassion. So we can’t even bear a little suffering. There are many, many sentient beings who are experiencing much, much more greater suffering than that. So, you know, we can we see every day on the on the news, on television, all the suffering that goes on, you know, the people being killed, people being burned up in fires, all the various problems that people experience is suffering. So we should use this as a basis for increasing our love and compassion.
Otherwise, we’re just wasting our time watching. It’s making problems for your eyes. So just like the sufferings that we experience, every sentient being, not only in this world but in all the realms pervading all the space, are experiencing similar sufferings. So, you know, we shouldn’t confine our attention just to a few people, that we should have a very broad mind, a very broad mind thinking about all sentient beings equal to space. And in that way, we will develop the power of our compassion.
So, you know, just to just with respect to people, the people in this world, we can count, but the people in general are countless. So the non humans are even more than that? So the number of sentient beings there are many sentient beings, embodied sentient beings, but there are even more non embodied sentient beings. For example, the beings in the intermediate state. So in India in India, the the water the water is very dirty.
In India, they have some, you know, dirty, dirty, dirty water. We put outside a few days and just then after it is just a very warm day. So then, you know, thousands are already born there. So how is this confirmed? Already there, waiting — just an interaction with other beings.
So like this, you know, and any animal, just a horse dies, then immediately, you know, one or two days, then thousands of beings are already born there. So.