Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute teaching, Lama Lhundup guides students through the three paths of Buddhist practice, with a focus on developing the mind of enlightenment as the foundation of the Bodhisattva way. He begins by explaining why we have not attained Buddhahood: we misunderstand the nature of reality, holding phenomena to exist naturally when they are in fact empty of such existence. By systematically investigating this emptiness through meditation, we refute the mistaken consciousness that grasps at inherent existence, opening the path to enlightenment. Lhundup then teaches the graduated path meditation: cultivating refuge and faith in the Buddha, meditating on impermanence and death, and developing love and compassion until the mind of enlightenment arises spontaneously. He emphasizes practical integration: taking these practices as constant companions, using the giving-and-taking technique to transform suffering into joy, and protecting merit through proper dedication. Throughout he urges practitioners to see this inner work as essential, not optional, and walks through a complete session structure—visualization of the Buddha, making requests, receiving blessing light, actual practice, and concluding dedication—showing how even ten minutes of practice shapes happiness across all future lives.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 TK and I.mp3
UUID: 622ac0b9-bd87-41df-a381-484c51957f3e
Teacher: Lama Lhundup
Collection: Towards kindness and insights (Lama Lhundup)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.2 minutes
Words: ~2,572
I have that ability to do it but why up to this time haven’t I attained Buddhahood? We should understand the reason we haven’t attained Buddhahood up to this time is because we have made a mistake with the way reality exists with the actual nature of reality. So we have been continually making a mistake with respect to the way things actually exist. When we begin to examine, investigate the nature of the various objects, for example our body and all the various objects around us, we see that they actually don’t exist the way they appear. They’re empty of that way of existing.
Though they appear to be naturally existent, the consciousness which holds them to be naturally existent is in fact mistaken. Consciousness which holds phenomena to naturally exist is adventitious, stained, it is a temporary fault of the mind. So by coming to understand that I don’t naturally exist, that we refute, we begin to refute the appearance that though I appear to exist naturally, have a natural existence that in fact I don’t exist this way we begin to refute this appearance and this obscuration to seeing reality begins to diminish. So as we did in other meditations we broadened the scope of our meditation. First we meditate on aggregate seeing that they in fact do not naturally exist, they do not inherently exist.
That we begin to spread out and start to view other, investigate other objects around us and investigate to see whether they actually naturally exist until we get to the point where we understand that all phenomena do not naturally exist. When we come to understanding that all phenomena do not naturally exist we refute consciousness, mistaken consciousness which holds the phenomena existing naturally that they naturally exist. Once we completely eliminate this mistaken consciousness upon the elimination of the consciousness then we attain Buddhahood. So therefore it is necessary that we have to attain Buddhahood and in fact we have the ability to attain it. So then we developed the wish that I must attain Buddhahood for the sake of benefiting all sentient beings when we generate such a mind then this is the mind of enlightenment.
So through familiarization again and again cultivating the seven cause-and-effect steps can develop the thought that whoever we see no matter who it is we see a person and we say that in order to for this person I must attain Buddhahood, for this person I must attain Buddhahood. When this begins to arise sincerely, not artificially, and automatically whoever you see, when this experience arises that automatically arises that whoever you see, for this person I must attain Buddhahood, then this is the actual non artificial mind of enlightenment. This is really the mind of enlightenment. So you have So you have upon developing that that mind of enlightenment, you have entered into the first of the five paths of the great vehicle. And this being who has developed that is the Bodhisattva.
And he is the son of the Buddhas, a child of the Buddhas. So just as a mother looks on her child as being beautiful. Cares a great deal. She’s very pleased with her child. Likewise, upon the development of this mind of enlightenment, the Buddha looks on with great pleasure.
So if we don’t meditate and try to cultivate it then we will never develop the mind of enlightenment. We can develop the mind of enlightenment if we meditate on it. Many people have actually developed this mind. There’s no reason why we can’t develop it. To the degree that we meditate on even just a little bit we’re going to be that much happier and the greater our mind of enlightenment becomes, the greater our happiness will become.
So we talked about the three levels of beings in each of them having their particular path and this is developing cultivating the mind of enlightenment is the path of a being of great capacity. So the path of the being of small capacity and middling capacity are preliminary are preliminary to preparation for the path of the being of great capacity. So we should if we in in trying in trying to develop this mind of enlightenment, we should develop great faith in the Buddha’s and and developing this great faith in Buddha, make again and again making request may I attain this mind of enlightenment wishing to benefit all sentient beings. So this faith, refuge, is the doorway into the teachings of the Buddha. Doctrine.
Doctrine. So whenever we can we should think about the qualities of the Buddha that he is reliable and thinking about the excellent qualities again and again take refuge in the Buddha developing great faith in the qualities and developing great joy. And in this way by doing this again and again our mind will be blessed we will receive the blessings and our own excellent qualities will begin to increase. So first we begin by cultivating refuge and then we meditate on impermanence and death, meditate on love and compassion, the mind of enlightenment and in doing this life becomes a great So these cultivating refuge, love, compassion are not occasional, should become our constant friend, constant companion. Taking these as our constant companions and even when a boyfriend or a girlfriend aren’t around us we get a little depressed because we’re alone we should think that oh I have my constant companion with me, can take joy in this and become happy by meditating on love and compassion.
Okay. How about the negativity? I mean, I’m both kind of. They they I love and compassion should become my boyfriend. If we take these as constant companions then wherever we go we always have these friends with us and even when we die these can accompany us onto the future.
The people who we now who we care, who we like and who we care a great deal about, our relationship isn’t stable. So in the people who are very close today, something can happen tomorrow, and they’re going to go their separate ways. We’ve all seen this for us. We’ve all seen this for ourselves. If we don’t have those inside of us, no matter how many — if we have hundreds, thousands of girlfriends or boyfriends — we have an empty feeling inside.
Okay. Any questions? What you say is true not only the French people but anyone who doesn’t practice the Dharma. It’s not just the strictly the French people. Mean, at all anyone who gets married feels the same way.
Well, that doesn’t practice the Dharma. That is all the worse. Much really worse. So what we have been talking about the last two days we should as much as we can as much as we are able we should try to put into practice. It shouldn’t be a mere, really listen to these teachings.
We should try to make use of them and try to understand them and put them into practice. Know you all have a lot of work to do so perhaps you don’t have much time but we should think that how extremely important these practices are and amongst all our work this should be our most important work, our first number one work because all this work will bring you the happiness that you want. There’s other types of work that haven’t brought you the happiness that you’re seeking. Therefore we should develop courage and confidence to put these as much as we can whenever we can and to practice and to meditate as much as we can. This is the way to really find happiness.
So in a way we should try to forbear, develop patience to forbear all the various difficulties because if we Many people just for the happiness of this life go through a great deal of hardship and work and etcetera and we can think about how much hardship we have to bear just to make enough money to feed ourselves for one day. But what we’re talking about here is not only the happiness of this life but the happiness of all our future lives. Thinking in that way we should develop a great deal of forbearance and courage in our practice. So, Lama Lhundup requested to please explain the essence of these three paths. The paths of the being of, small capacity, the middling capacity, to This time that you are giving over to meditating the path, you are not going to receive a paycheck.
Very much what you have done in retreat and we hope very much that you all find the happiness that you are seeking. We should, it would be very good practice for us to make use of this giving and taking by imagining sentient beings and their suffering taking on their suffering in the form of black smoke coming down into a heart and having taken on their suffering, separated the beings from their suffering, create joy and we transform this joy in the form of a white light going out and giving the sentient beings whatever will make them happy. We join them with happiness. We separate them from suffering and join them with happiness and this would be a very good practice to take for yourself. So we should always try to develop the motivation when we are going to meditate that in order to place those sentient beings in happiness I must attain Buddhahood.
Therefore I am going to meditate on this particular activity or I am going to meditate with this motivation to help others. At the time when we are unhappy, when we have some anger, anger and desire, this is a good time to develop this motivation. And then if you have a disturbed mind, you are not happy or attachment or anger, first you can meditate on the breathing, watching your breath in and out the breathing and then once you have the mind has come to some neutral state equanimity then develop the motivation of the mind of enlightenment. So all the various meditations are important. So we should try to meditate each of the practices, each of the paths, smaller capacity, middling capacity, greater capacity.
We should go through each of their various practices, meditation, their impermanence and death, meditating on the law of cause and effect,, meditating on the disadvantages of cyclic existence on the afflictions as the cause of suffering and go through that. Even if we only have ten minutes, we can go go through all these various meditations completely. So when you are meditating on the graduated path before you proceed with your meditation imagine before you at the top of a throne is a lotus, moon disk, and sun disk and on top of this is the Buddha and with all his various features, eyes, his face, etc. Are all very pleasing. And then visualizing the Buddha before you you make you make you go for refuge and you make requests that may I quickly gain the realizations of the three capacities of beings, may I develop precious mind of enlightenment.
And having made this request to the Buddha visualize before you he becomes extremely happy with this request that you made that you have made and from his body the light radiates out into our body and all the darkness in our body and mind is eliminated. All the negative actions, all the obstructions and hindrances to gaining realization are completely eliminated and in our bodies mind has been completely purified of these obstructions to realization of the path. We shouldn’t have any doubt about whether the Buddha is actually in front of us or not before us, it is enough. There is no reason why he is not present before us; we can give no reason why he is not present before us. We should have no doubt that he is present.
Since all things are dependent arising. We have to have an aggregation of causes and conditions. Now why don’t we receive the blessings of the Buddha? It’s because our minds have not created the conditions. The blessings of the Buddha are also dependent arising and therefore we have to create the conditions and causes for the blessings of the Buddha to arise from both our side also.
From the Buddha’s side he has created the causes and conditions. He has already created all the causes and conditions from his side but from our side we have not and it is through the power of faith and trust that we create the causes and conditions necessary in order for the arising of the blessings of the Buddha within our own mind. And then having the having the performing preparations and then we can engage in actual meditation on the path. However long we can meditate, maybe five minutes, ten minutes, because we have done it with the motivation to attain Buddha for the sake of others, the sake of beings, extremely pleasing to the Buddha and they are very happy with this. And then upon completing our meditation we should then dedicate the merit that we have created: may all sentient beings — I dedicate the merit created from this meditation — that all sentient beings obtain Buddhahood that they be separated from all their sufferings, that they find all the happiness that they desire.
And also dedicating our merit that until all of cyclic existence is empty of sentient beings, may the teachings of the Buddha always remain. And also dedicate that your teacher of your lama or this life who has shown you unerringly the path may he remain until saṃsāra is empty. Fully qualified Sangha may remain until So in general there are many different types of dedications. We can dedicate for long life and and to eliminate sickness but these are the king of dedication. So why do we have to dedicate it?
If we get up from our meditation, go outside and get into an argument with somebody, get angry and this will destroy all the merits, all the potential that we just created. But by dedication it cannot be destroyed. It’s like as we took a drop of water and we placed it in the ocean until that ocean is completely dried up this drop of water will always have it always remain. You know, it is possible if we put our money in the bank it may become lost. When we put money in the bank it draws interest and increases likewise by putting our merit in the bank of dedication.
Merit dedicating our merit to the attainment of Buddhahood until we actually attain the Buddhahood this merit is continually increasing. So it’s extremely important that we have these three activities of developing proper motivation, the actual practice, and then the final dedication. So this is like as if we now we have a precious jewel, and now we must we must So as if we have a precious jewel that we’ve accumulated a lot of gold and that we shouldn’t at least we shouldn’t just forget about it. We should put it into use in practice. We have purified our ordinary body, and we are now in nature of the Buddha.
I mean, our body’s in nature, the Buddha body.