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 practitioners through the graduated path to Buddhahood, emphasizing that failure to attain enlightenment stems from misunderstanding the nature of reality. He explains how emptiness—the absence of natural or inherent existence—is the antidote to the mistaken consciousness that binds us to saṃsāra. He then shifts focus to the mind of enlightenment, the aspiration to attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings, which he develops through the sevenfold cause-and-effect instruction. The teaching culminates in a practical framework: cultivating refuge and love-compassion as inner companions; meditating on the three capacities of being (small, intermediate, great); visualizing the Buddha, making requests for blessings, and engaging in giving-and-taking meditation. He emphasizes dedication of merit as essential, likening it to placing a drop in the ocean so it cannot be destroyed by anger. Practical instruction aimed at serious practitioners willing to integrate these methods into daily life.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 16 TK and I.mp3
UUID: b7594cb4-264e-4a8d-8a7b-b427097beb6d
Teacher: Lama Lhundup
Collection: Towards kindness and insights (Lama Lhundup)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.7 minutes
Words: ~2,712
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, see that they actually don’t exist the way they appear. They are empty of that way of existing.
Though they appear to be naturally existent, the the the mind which the consciousness which holds them to exist to be naturally existent is in fact mistaken. This this this mind, this consciousness which holds phenomena to naturally exist is an adventitious stain. It’s a 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 aggregates seeing that they in fact do not naturally exist, they do not inherently exist. That we begin to spread out and we start to 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, this mistaken which holds a grasp of phenomena existing naturally that they naturally exist. Once we completely eliminate this mistaken consciousness upon the elimination of that mistaken consciousness then we attain Buddhahood. So therefore seeing that 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 this sevenfold cause and effect instruction can develop the thought that whoever we see, no matter who it is, 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, non artificially and automatically, whoever you see, when this experience arises, 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, upon developing that mind of enlightenment, entered into the first of the five paths of the great vehicle. And this being who has developed that is a Bodhisattva. Oh. And he’s the son of the Buddhas or child child of the Buddha.
So this is a mother looks on her child as being beautiful. Yes. And then and she cares a great deal. She’s very pleased with her child. Likewise, upon the development of his mind of enlightenment, the Buddha is filled with great pleasure.
So if we don’t meditate, try to cultivate it and 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 is no reason why we can’t develop it. 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 being and each of them having their particular path and this is developing and cultivating the mind of enlightenment is the path of being of great capacity. The the the the paths of the being of small capacity and middling capacity are preliminaries preliminaries or preparations 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 faith in the Buddhas and developing this great faith in Buddha, again and again making request, may I attain this mind of enlightenment wishing to benefit all sentient beings. Refuge refuge is the doorway into the teachings of the Buddha. 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 should meditate on impermanence and death, meditate on love and compassion, the mind of enlightenment, and in doing this, this life becomes a great meaning. So these cultivating refuge, love, compassion are So taking these as our constant companion and even when you know a boyfriend or a girlfriend aren’t around us and we might get a little depressed because we’re alone and we should think that oh I have my constant companion with me. I can take joy can take joy in this.
I become happy by meditating on love and compassion. Okay. How about then? I mean, boyfriend or girlfriend too. They they love and compassion should become my boyfriend and girlfriend.
Where if we take these as constant companions, then wherever we go, 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 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 have refuge, love and compassion with us, it’s never it’s not gonna bring us any unhappiness. It will never bring us any unhappiness. It will always bring us happiness.
So if if if we don’t have those inside of us, no no matter how many if we have hundred thousands of girlfriends or boyfriends, have empty feeling inside. Okay. Happy to to you. Happy to be Happy Happy Happy French this what you say is true not only the French people, but anyone who doesn’t practice the Dharma. It’s not just specifically the French people.
I mean, all everyone who gets married feels the same way. Who doesn’t practice the Dharma. That that is the truth. Much more really so. 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 this work will bring you the happiness that you want. There’s other type 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 into practice and to meditate as much as can, but this is the way to really find the happiness that we want.
So in a way, we should try to forbear, develop patience to forbear and all the various difficulties because if we if we if we forbear then it’s difficult we’re going to develop all these realizations and find happiness. Many people just for the happiness of this life go through a great deal of hardship at 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. I’m thinking in that way we should develop a great deal of forbearance and courage in our practice.
Have explained the essence of these three paths, the paths that have been of small capacity, limited capacity, great capacity. Each day try to cultivate and meditate a little on each of these and please develop them. Now, you’re not gonna, this time that you’re giving over to meditating the path, no one’s gonna give you’re not gonna receive a paycheck. I would not pay you any money but please keep. You’ll try because it’s extremely important.
Appreciates very much what you have done in the retreat and hopes very much that you all find the happiness that you’re 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 we can develop a great joy and we transform this joy in the form of 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 all sentient beings and happiness I must attain Buddhahood.
Therefore I am going to meditate on this, am going to engage in this particular activity or I am going to meditate with this motivation to help others. At those times when you are unhappy, when you have some anger, anger, any type of desire, then this is a good time to develop this motivation of wishing to attain it. And then if you have a disturbed mind, are not happy or you have attachment or anger, first you can meditate on the breathing, watching your breath and then out-breath and in-breath, the breathing and then once the mind has come to some neutral state equanimity then develop the motivation of the mind of enlightenment. So meditations are important. So we should meditate each of the practices, each of the paths, smaller capacity, the lower capacity, the greater capacity.
We should go through each of their various practices, meditation and their impermanence and death, meditating on the law of cause and effect, meditating on the disadvantages of cyclic existence, the afflictive emotions and the cause of suffering and go through that. Even if we only have ten minutes, can 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 is the on top of a throne is the lotus, moon disk and sun disk, on top of this is the Buddha seated and with all his various features, are very pleasing. His eyes and his face, etc. Are all very pleasing.
And then visualizing the Buddha before you, you, you take refuge and then you make request that may I quickly gain the realizations of its three capacities of being, may I develop the mind of enlightenment. And having made this request to the Buddha, visualize before you, he becomes extremely happy with the request that you have made and from his body the light radiates out into our body and all the darkness in our body is eliminated. All the negative actions, all the obstructions to hindrances gaining realizations are completely eliminated and our body and mind have been completely purified of these obstructions to realization of the path. We shouldn’t have any doubts about whether about whether the Buddha is actually in front of us or not before us or not. There’s there’s no reason why he is not we we can give no reason why he is not present before us.
We we we can have no So why 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 haven’t created it. The blessings of the Buddha are also dependent arising, and therefore, we have to create the conditions and the causes for for the blessings of the Buddha to rise from both from our side also.
So from the Buddha’s side, he has created the causes and conditions. He has already created all the causes and conditions necessary 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 for the the arising of the blessings of the Buddha within our own mind. And then having the having the performing preparation and then we can engage in the 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 Buddhahood for the sake of others for the sake of sentient beings. It is extremely pleasing to the Buddhas and they are very happy with us.
And then upon completing our meditation we should then dedicate the merit that we have created that may all sentient beings may all sentient beings I dedicate the merit created from meditation that all sentient beings attain 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 the teachings of the Buddha always remain. And also dedicate that your teacher of your lama or guru of this life who has shown you unerringly the path may he remain until saṃsāra is empty, cyclic existence is empty. Fully qualified lamas may they remain until saṃsāra is empty. So in general there are many different types of dedications.
We can dedicate for long life, to eliminate sickness but these are the king of dedication. So why do we have to dedicate it? Get up from our meditation, go outside and we get to have an argument with somebody. We get angry and this anger will destroy all the merit, all the potential that we just created. But by dedication, it cannot be destroyed.
It’s 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 always remain. So You know, and it is possible if we put when we put our money in the bank, it may become lost in the bank. When we put money in the bank it draws interest and increases. Likewise by putting our money in the bank, dedicate our merit to the attainment of Buddhahood that 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 now we have a precious jewel and now we must we must So it’s 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 into practice. Very good. So both time, clear. And then then we just and let your voice do that.
Don’t you?