Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 73-minute teaching, Lama Zopa Rinpoche guides practitioners through a detailed analytical meditation on emptiness. He emphasizes that this retreat’s central meditations—guru devotion and recognizing the illusory self—are difficult by design; difficulty signals the mind is being imprinted and purified. The session opens with vivid death-awareness teachings from Pabongka Rinpoche, then moves through guru yoga and refuge and bodhicitta practices. The core is a sustained, methodical examination of how the self appears as independent and solid. Rinpoche walks practitioners through checking whether this “I” can be found in the body, the mind, their combination, or apart from them. By eliminating each possibility, he guides them to recognize the independent self is a complete hallucination. For serious practitioners in Mahāmudrā training.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 75 2004 04 25 MR.mp3
UUID: 84f2536d-1622-49b8-bdf0-a6745a45d000
Teacher: Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1
Collection: y Mahāmudrā International Retreat (Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1)
Date: 2004-04-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 73.4 minutes
Words: ~2,576
So we’re going to do the same as we did we’re going to do the same as we did yesterday. And she’s asked us to start again with the six-fold finger yoga and integrate into that the instructions that he gave two nights ago. So if you have your text open, and those people So the new people, then you don’t need to have text. So I’m not going to guide everything. So you also need your notes.
Need your notes and a text. Then we begin by sitting in the correct position. Actually, maybe actually, I want to say one thing for you again, and that is that I was reminded I was very kindly reminded just before I came down by one of my Sangha brothers that this meditation is not an easy one. So I thought that was a very useful comment. Actually, in that within the Lamrim, seeing the guru as Buddha and seeing the the sentient beings as mother, the two most difficult, Kundaling Pabongka Rinpoche’s way.
Then also this identifying the object to be refuted, the very first point. Identifying the object to be refuted are very difficult. So this seem to be the meditations that we’re doing this course. So if it’s difficult, if you’re finding it difficult, you’re tired and you find it difficult, don’t be surprised. I think what Rinpoche is doing is he is just helping us to put a lot of imprints in the mind, do a lot of purification, a lot of accumulation.
And then like he said, it’s there and when you have all the conditions, it can just click. So we’re just setting up all the conditions so that something could click because it’s there. We just have to have all the conditions purifying, accumulating, have any imprints, doing what the Guru says, and then it can come. So keep a relaxed mind about it and just follow the guru’s instructions and try. Okay?
But not with a tight mind. So we’ll begin by getting sitting in the correct position and then cleansing the mind with the nine round breathing. Eliminating superstitions. Some motivation from Pabongka Rinpoche. There’s no time other than today to spread your bedding and go off to sleep.
Upon your last bed, you fall like an old tree, and others are unable to turn you with their lily soft hands, tug at your clothes and blanket. This is going to happen to you. Even if you completely wrap your body in the best under and outer clothes, still you have no freedom to wear them other than just today. And when that body becomes as rigid as earth and stone, you behold for the first time your own corpse. This is going to happen to you.
Though you struggle to speak your last words, your will and expressions of sorrow, pitifully your tongue dries up and you can’t make yourself clear. An intense sadness overwhelms you. This is going to happen to you. Though others put your final food, holy substances and relics with a trickle of water into your mouth, you’re unable to swallow even a single drop, and it overflows in the corpse’s mouth. This is going to happen to you.
Those surrounded by a circle of close relatives, heart friends, and those near to your heart, and even those that are loving and distressed at the ending of your being together, while crying and clinging, just then, you have to separate forever. This is going to happen to you. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving in other perfections, may I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings? I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly.
From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving in other perfections, may I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the highest assembly. In the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving other perfections, and I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. May all sentient beings be parted from aversion and clinging, feeling close to some and distant from others. May they win the bliss that is especially sublime.
May they find release in the ocean of unbearable sorrow, and may they never be parted from freedom’s true joy. From this moment on, until I’m a Buddha, I never give up till my life be at stake. The attitude wishing to gain full enlightenment in order to free from the fears of saṃsāra nirvana’s complacency, all sentient beings. All Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and gurus, please listen to what I now say from the depths of my heart. Just as all Buddhas have passed and developed the thought of enlightenment, true bodhicitta, then practice the stages of greater development, following the trainings of all Buddha’s children.
So may I too forsake of all beings develop bodhicitta and follow the trainings exactly as all Bodhisattvas have done. All Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Gurus, please listen to what I now say from depths of my heart. Just as all Buddhas, of the past, have developed the thought of enlightenment, true bodhicitta, then practice this stage of greater development, following the trainings of all Buddha’s children. So may I too, forsake of all beings, develop bodhicitta and follow the trainings exactly as all bodhisattvas have done. All buddhas, bodhisattvas, and gurus, please listen to what I now say from the depths of my heart.
Just as all buddhas of the past have developed the thought of enlightenment, true bodhicitta, Then practice this stage of greater development, following the trainings of all Buddha’s children. So may I too, for the sake of all beings, develop bodhicitta and follow the trainings exactly as all bodhisattvas have done. At this moment, my life has become truly fruitful. By having attained endowed human body, today, I’ve developed the true Buddha essence, bodhicitta, and thus have become Buddha’s child. Applying now any skillful means whatsoever, May I always accord what I do with this essence and follow the actions of all Buddha’s children.
May I never confuse with this pure, faultless essence any teachings that lack this enlightening thought? In the sky before me on a breathtaking throne of jewels, on a moon disc seat of a snow white sun and full moon, sits my root guru all pervading Vajradhāra with a blue colored body, one face and two arms, holding vajra and bell and embracing the mother, seminal to himself. He shines resplendent with all the marks of Buddha, adorned with many dazzling jeweled ornaments, draped with fine garments enchanting heavenly scarves. Even the mere remembrance of him dispels all my torment. With a nature encompassing every supreme refuge, he sits cross-legged in a vajra position, The three spots of his body are marked with three letters.
Light beams forth from the HUM at his heart and invokes Guru Vajradhāra for his actual abode. They merge to become non dual. I bow at your lotus feet, on my jewel like guru, Vajradhāra. Your kindness heralds instantaneous dawn of great bliss. Om Vajrasattva bhagawan, lord of brave ones.
Om, Om, pay. Om to you whose brilliant garland of fire that ends great aeon. Om, Om, pay. Om to you, I’ve been inexhaustible crowning topknot. Om, Om, pay.
Om. Do you wear a tiger skin cloth? Om. Om. Om.
Om, bow to you whose great smoke, color body, ends all obstructions. Om. Om. Om. What is actually placed here and what I mentally create.
I present you an ocean like cloud of these various offerings, outer, inner, and secret. The body, speech, and mind, and myself and others, our wealth as well as our virtues, mass in the past, present, and future. An excellent jewel of mandala together with a mass of Samantabhādra’s offerings. I envision these all and present them to you. Oh my guru, my yidam, and his three precious gems.
Accepting these in your compassion, bestow on me your blessings. I humbly beseech you, my precious guru, just as the Buddha’s three times in ten directions of tame sentient beings, You too enact the Buddha’s deeds in countless realms, taking the form of the saffron robed monk. I humbly beseech you, my precious guru, Esteemed by vajradhara for those meager of mind, there’s a field of merit more holy than endless circles of infinite Buddhas. Every supreme and mundane attainment follows from pure devotion to you, my protector. Seeing this, I forsake my body and even my life.
Bless me to practice what will only please you. Requested in this way, my supreme guru comes the crown of my head. Think. Myself and all sentient beings have been suffering in saṃsāra time without beginning due to not having realized Mahāmudrā. Think of all the six realm sentient beings.
Each one of them is a source of all your past, present, and future happiness. I must free these sentient beings from all the sufferings and its causes and lead them to enlightenment. By completely severing the continuum that clings to holding yourself and generating a mind of compassion and loving kindness, may I be blessed to quickly attain the highest state of Mahāmudrā through the path of total integration. So now do the meditation, guru devotion as Rinpoche or with the guru as Rinpoche explained. Watch the nature of mind undistractedly.
Clear perceiving. Just keep the mind on that. Keeping the mind in a state slowly, skillfully, carefully, with a corner of your mind, watch the I. Watch to see how the I is appearing. Watch to see how you are appearing to yourself.
Think of a situation where you are praised or blamed, and look at the I. Or simply ask yourself, what am I doing? I am meditating. Look at that I. Or imagine being on the edge of a very high cliff.
Watch the I that arises and determine how it appears. Notice how the I appears to be something more additional to what is merely imputed by mind. How it appears independent, unitary, and existing totally from its own side, real one, solid. Familiarize your mind with this appearance. This real I is the object to be refuted.
First, you must have a very clear appearance of how it exists, how it appears to you. Now check the possible ways that something can exist. Things can exist either as one thing or as a collection. Is there any other way it could exist? Come to the conclusion that the I must exist either as one or many.
There is no other alternative. Now check to see whether the I is a collection of the body and mind or a collection of the five aggregates? In other words, is the I many? Is the I the body and mind? The way the eye appears to us is independent and existing singly, not as a collection of things that are all different.
Form, feelings, discrimination, compositional factors and consciousness. Therefore, the I is not the collection of the body and mind. Now check to see if the mind is the body. Search amongst all the parts of the body and see if you can locate the I. When you search the various parts of the body, the skin, the flesh, the blood, the bones, the inner organs, down to atoms and cells, you don’t find the I in any of these.
Nor can the I be the collection of all of them. Because the I appears to be independent, self existing, existing singly. Therefore, the I is not the body. Also, we talk about my body, which indicates there is something separate possessing the body. Now check to see if the I is the mind, is consciousness.
If the I were consciousness, then when we say I’m hot, the consciousness would have to be hot. If you say, I’m hungry, the consciousness would have to be hungry. Also, the consciousness is a changing phenomenon depending on previous moments of consciousness. And so it is dependent. The I appears to be independent, existing totally from its own side and solid.
One thing. Therefore, the I is not the consciousness. Come to the conclusion that the I is not the collection of the body and mind nor is it the body or the mind. Now check to see if the I exists separately from the body and mind. Can the I be something existing apart from the body and the mind?
If there were no body and no mind, would there still be an I? If the I existed separately from the aggregate, when you take away the body and you take away the mind, it would have to be left and be evident, but it’s not. Nothing is left. Therefore, the I does not exist apart from the aggregates. Come to this conclusion.
Since the I does not exist as a collection of the body mind, nor as something separate from the body and mind. Therefore, it does not exist at all. Focus one pointedly on the I that appears to be self existent. The I that appears to be something more than what is merely imputed by the mind. And be aware that this real I is in reality completely empty.
Hallucination. There is no such I existing at all. While there’s the appearance of a real I, the awareness in your heart is that this is completely empty. So I’m not going to read out everything that’s in the text. You can do the B3 yourself.
From this moment on, without any sense of loss, I send forth my body and likewise my wealth, my virtues massed throughout the three times in order to help all beings, my mothers. I shall never transgress even in my dreams. The most minor rule is pure moral training. The Prātimokṣa, bodhicitta, and vajrayana vows, I shall practice according to Buddha’s words. As Buddha intended, I shall uphold the complete sacred Dharma of insight and scriptures as gathered together in the three types of vehicle and four tantric classes.
I shall liberate all beings by whichever means is suited to each. There’s a force of white merit from this virtuous act, And by the compassionate power of vajradhara, throughout all my lives, my never transgress any vows I’ve taken. May I complete the stages of two fold paths. In brief, may I be born in Shambhala, the great jewel treasury, and complete there the stages of the peerless path, in as quick a time as the amount of white merit I’ve gathered from this virtuous practice. Throughout all my lives, may I never be parted from perfect gurus, by making good use of the glorious Dharma, to fulfill the good features of stages and paths, may I quickly achieve Vajradhāra’s enlightenment?
So have a short break to do the mindfulness meditation with awareness. Everything is like a dream. I’m walking in a dream. I’m going to the bathroom in a dream. I’m waiting for Rinpoche in a dream.
I’m exhausted in a dream. I’m asleep in a dream. So enjoy that ten minute break. We’ll ring the gong.