Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute talk, Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches the seven limb practice as the framework for Guru Yoga and the Graduated Path. He connects each limb—prostrations, offerings, confession, rejoicing, requesting to turn the Dharma wheel, requesting long life, and dedication—to a specific remedy: prostrations counter pride, offerings counter miserliness, confession addresses the three poisons, and rejoicing counteracts jealousy. The teaching centers on rejoicing in merit: recognizing and delighting in one’s own and others’ virtue to multiply it infinitely, using the analogy of money that bears great interest in a bank. Included are detailed visualization instructions for the merit field—the thousand-spoked golden Dharma wheel and celestial throne decorated with jewels, offered to all Buddhas and lineage masters. Suited for practitioners ready to work directly with these foundational practices.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 26 WWNN.mp3
UUID: de0dc127-23be-4cd8-b2d0-f70b94d568ef
Teacher: Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1
Collection: y What the World Needs Now 1987 Audios (Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.3 minutes
Words: ~1,894
So with the remembrance of the whole kindness, please pray from the heart benefits, happiness, you see? Immeasurability and happiness, benefits to all sentient beings. I prostrate to the Three Jewels. Thus I have heard, one time. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from anger, attachment, discriminating sentient beings as far and close.
May they abide in equanimity. I will cause them to abide in equanimity. Please, Guru Buddha’s, draw me blessings to be able to do this. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings abide in equanimity. Free from anger and attachment, discriminating sentient beings as far and close.
May they abide in equanimity. I will cause them to abide in equanimity. Please, Guru Buddhas, grant me blessings to be able to do this. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings are in equanimity, free from anger, attachment.
Discriminating sentient beings as far and close, may they abide in equanimity. I will cause them to abide in equanimity. Please, Guru Buddhas, grant me blessings to be able to do this. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings have happiness and the cause. May they have happiness.
I will cause them to have happiness. Please, Guru Buddhas, grant me blessings to be able to do this. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings have happiness and the cause. May they have happiness? I will cause them to have happiness.
Please, Guru Buddhas, grant me blessings to be able to do this. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings have happiness and the cause. May they have happiness. I will cause them to have happiness. Please, Guru Buddhas, grant me blessings to be able to do this.
How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings are free from the sufferings and cause. May they be free from the sufferings. I will cause them to be free from the sufferings. Please, Guru Buddha, grant me blessings to be able to do this. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings.
They are free from the sufferings and cause. May they be free from the sufferings. I will cause them to be free from the sufferings. Please, Guru Buddhas, grant me blessings to be able to do this. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings are free from the sufferings and cause. May they be free from the sufferings. I will cause them to be free from the sufferings.
Please, Guru Buddhas, grant me blessings, to be able to do this. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings if they are not separated away from the happiness of the upper realm and ultimate happiness. May they not be separated away from the happiness. I will cause them to not be separated away from the happiness. Please, Guru Buddhas, grant me blessings, to be able to do this.
How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings, if they are not separated away from the happiness of the upper realm and the ultimate happiness. May they not be separated away from the happiness. I will cause them to not be separated away from the happiness. Please, Guru Buddhas, grant me blessings, to be able to do this. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings.
They are not separated away from the temporal happiness and ultimate happiness. I will cause them, may they not be separated away from the happiness, I will cause them to not be separated away from the happiness. Please, Guru Buddhas, grant me blessings to be able to do this. At any rate, I must achieve the omniscient mind. For the sake of all the mother sentient beings who are equally in the infinite space, I’m going to meditate on the gradual path to enlightenment with the profound Guru Yoga.
The reason I laid out that one. The reason was practicing the meditation on the graduated path to Enlightenment with the profound Guru Yoga. That means starting from the refuge with this merit field. And other, is just one aspect. Dharmakāya, the holy mind of all the Buddhas, and the absolute guru that manifests in various forms to the sentient beings according to level of our mind.
And so manifesting Śākyamūni Buddha, taking this form as the founder of the teaching, which is called Śākyamūni Buddha, this aspect, manifests the absolute guru, which manifests the direct, indirect, and then gurus and the Buddha and the Sangha who reveals the Dharma. So this Śākyamūni Buddha is a manifestation, the embodiment of all other Buddhas, and even the visualization of the merit field, the merit field is done, the elaborate visualization of the merit field, the merit field is done. However, one who transforms all this, there are the lineage lamas and the Dharma Sangha, the whole, that is the same as the guru. So starting the refuge, it becomes Guru Yoga practice. Starting from that, it is a Guru Yoga practice.
And so on the basis of this, inseparability of the guru and Buddha, Buddha and guru. You see one accumulates on this highest object of the merit field. Then, in order to generate realizations of the graduated path to enlightenment, from the realization of guru devotion, but from there up to enlightenment, from there up to enlightenment. And then for that one purify, For that, one purify on the basis of this merit field, the supreme merit field, one does practice purifying. One does practice purifying the obscurations..
And then, accumulating on the practice of accumulating extensive merits. In short, here, the very essential methods of purifying and accumulating merit, and that is the seven limb practice and mandala offerings. Then on the basis of this, then, this practice, starting from the refuge. With this understanding, Guru Yoga, one does the reciting mantra or the prayer. With the speech, then mind completely relying upon the merit field, visualization, purifying the obscurations, obstacles, you know, to develop the mind, obstacles, you know, which interferes to develop the mind those karmas which we have accumulated, those particular ones, with the relationship with the holy object, Guru, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, that we purify with the refuge, you know, with the refuge and the field.
And then by generating bodhicitta, we purify also the negative karmas accumulated with the relationship with the sentient beings, purify by that. However, starting from there, we really accumulate extensive merits as well. Infinite merit, the cause to generate the realization. The condition, you know, the necessary condition, then necessary condition, see, like heat and moisture, the water and so forth, are the necessary conditions, accumulating merit, for the result to grow the stem, you know, and the gradual path, you know, Then the fruit, you know, the enlightenment in this mind field. Then purifying the obscurations, this practice, we stop the things surrounding, the protections of the seed, which allow to destroy the seed, There are protections for that so that without obstacles, then one can enjoy the crops, the fruit.
Therefore, similarities, they need to purify the obstacles to generate realizations of Graduated Path to Enlightenment. So then, the actual cause, you see, of the realizations, the mind training, making the mind familiar or transforming in the path, the meditation. So the reason why it says, meditating on the gradual path, meditating with the profound Guru Yoga means like that. So during the seven limb practice, when we request to turn the Dharma wheel, then we should visualize in the hand offering dharmachakra, thousand-spoked golden Dharma wheel. So yourself, numberless of yours, numberless.
Whole space field is numbless of you, then holding dharmachakra. There are some details mentioned in the Gyeltsabje commentary, but however one can visualize like this, offering to the merit field. Then, when we request for long life, to have stable life until the saṃsāra ends, And then she wants you to visualize a golden throne. And then very well, beautifully decorated with jewels. In the front, having a double vajra.
So as we see in the as we visualize them as we visualize or as we see in thangkas, the statues of thangkas and so on. Can visualize like this. Again, numberless of you. So to accumulate more merit, so as numberless of you, once again, you know, filled whole space and offering, and then making offering. Then after that, after you have done the request, and then the throne absorbs into the merit field.
That’s how to meditate. So then they made it when you request to turn the Dharma wheel. When you request to turn the Dharma wheel and stable life, you know, then, you see, think that the merit field have accepted the merit field have accepted, You see, either dharmakaya way, in a mentally accepting, you know, or the rupakaya way accepting. It means from the holy mouth, everybody saying yes, yes. Yes, and clapping hands.
Now, this I’m joking. This I’m joking. So, The prostration. Yeah, the prostration is a particular remedy to the pride, to destroy the pride. Some would somebody whom you feel pride, you know, very difficult to respect.
Because you want to respect, you know. So, Okay. The general negative karma, you see. And then the you see, it purifies. Then the confession, the antidote to the three poisons mind, remedy to three poisons mind.
Think it might expand like that. Then after the prostration, there’s offering. The offering is a remedy particularly to the miserliness, attachment. Then confession. Then rejoicing.
That is a remedy particularly to jealousy. What’s the difference between covetousness and jealousy? Covetousness. Same. You usually jealous of the person.
So, rejoicing is a particular remedy, particularly to jealousy. Then for jealousy, yeah. Jealousy, the joyfulness, feeling how wonderful it is, you know, one’s own three time merits, past, present, future merits, coming by oneself, you know, feeling happiness. So every time, every time one will feel, one will think how wonderful it is, how fortunate I am, The like the money, yeah, like like the money in that you invest in the bank, you see, increases, you know, gives the best bank, gives great interest, you know, like that, you know, as a company or something, you see, that which gives great interest. Or then, from that, you know, what you put there, you know, comes great increase, you know, the extra, you see, money without, you extra, you know, work, doing work to collect money.
So like this, every time when we feel how fortunate and how wonderful it is, you know, is practicing the Dharma and is of one’s own merit. And like it, like, yeah, if has offered one, if one has matured one bowl of food to a dog or to object sent in being or one of a term, you see, once offered to the merit field, then even after that, even practice resolvefulness, things like this, just even that merit, then it increases very much. So if one practices rejoicing, all the three time merits accumulated by oneself, then unbelievable, unbelievable merit, that accumulated interest. And, yeah. And then that rejoicing at merits accumulated by other sentient beings, ordinary beings, then higher beings, especially one should think about the Bodhisattvas, ordinary beings.
Think like this, the sentient beings, especially Bodhisattvas and the Buddhas. Particularly remember Bodhisattvas, the Buddhas.