Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 37-minute meditation session, Kyabje Rinpoche opens with a verse from Ārya Maitreya and establishes a key distinction: healthy meditation develops skillful states, while unhealthy meditation strengthens afflictive emotions through repetition. He illustrates unhealthy patterns with concrete examples—ruminating on past harm, obsessing over a friend’s beauty—before turning to proper practice. He teaches mindfulness of breathing with visualization (black light carrying afflictions out, white light bringing positive qualities in), then moves to compassion meditation. Rather than treating verbal formulas as sufficient, he insists the mind must actually transform into compassion itself. Using the sugar-water analogy, he explains how cumulative familiarization gradually changes the mind’s nature. A practical instruction for practitioners ready to understand how the mind actually works in meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1991-03-23 – Sunday – KR.mp3
UUID: f634023e-94e8-4d7e-8577-a0787dc196f9
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Meditation
Date: 1991-03-23
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~1,982
Verse number two. Page four, verse number five. Quoting from a verse by Ārya Maitreya in which he’s discussing the way of actually carrying out meditation. So most of us like to meditate and that’s very excellent. What do we mean by meditation?
Meditation is the bringing to mind again and again the object of meditation, whatever it might be. That one begins to familiarize one’s mind with the object, one becomes habituated to a particular state of mind. So with respect to meditation and considering that meditation is defined in this way, we can see that there is both, that there is healthy meditation, unhealthy meditation and neutral meditation. So an example of unhealthy meditation this process of familiarization, taking again up to mind the subject again and again. That we take as our object of observation, something that someone did to us in the past or perhaps they did somebody really treated us very badly.
They caused us a lot of pain. They harmed us. They hurt us. Or perhaps they hurt somebody that we love, some friend of ours and we keep churning it over again and again in their mind. Keep going over and over what they did, how terrible it was and how they’re still doing it.
And if you’re not careful, they’re going to do it again in the future and again and again and again familiarizing your mind, habituating your mind to this thought and building up this anger more and more by taking this object again and again to your mind until you get to the point where if you were to see that person, you’d hit them. This is unhealthy meditation. Another type of unhealthy meditation would be that you have some friend that you care a great deal about and you take them as your object of observation and you begin to think all the good things about them and you begin to think how beautiful they are and how lovely they look and how what a beautiful complexion they have and how what a wonderful way they walk and the way they talk. And you keep going over all of these fine qualities that your friend has until you finally jump up and run off to their house to go see them. So these states of mind have increased through the power of habituation or familiarity that the potency of a particular state of mind is becoming greater and greater simply by taking the object again and again to one’s mind.
So this is the meditation which increases our afflictive emotion. These are not beneficial. But on the other hand, type of meditation which we’re trying to implement is a type of meditation which is seeking to lessen the afflictive emotions, not to increase them. afflictive emotions are seen as fault. They are the causes of suffering.
They cause us to generate all the various undesirable states and as a consequence various types of dissatisfaction. And so, the meditation is directed toward freeing ourselves from the afflictive emotions, lessening the afflictive emotions. Through lessening our afflictive emotions, we’re going to create less negative karma. We’re going to engage in more skillful types of karma and thereby be happier. How are we to proceed in a healthy type of meditation?
Initially, we begin by examining our own mind. What is the state of our own mind and developing the proper meditation, proper motivation? This is the doorway into meditation. So, the body is not doing the meditating. The body is simply placed in the meditative equipoise position, proper position.
And then it is the internal quality of the mind which is carrying out the meditation. So, we concern ourselves with the mind. Firstly, we examine the state of our mind. What is it? In what direction is it?
Is it abiding in? Is it in a positive state, a negative state, an indifferent state? Upon initially examining one’s mind and one sees that it’s in a negative state of mind, that is to say that one of the afflictive emotions is present, perhaps attachment or hatred, anger, spite, some state of this, then this would not be a proper state in which to commence meditation in. So we have to begin by eliminating the negative states of mind to prepare the mind for meditation. So the method that we can initially make use of in eliminating the negative state of mind to prepare the mind for meditation is as we did this morning with mindfulness of breathing.
We can imagine that whatever the effect of emotion, whatever the negative state might be, is going out in the form of black light in conjunction with our breathing, exhalation. And then in conjunction with our inhalation, imagine a white light which is the various happiness, various skillful states of mind, positive states of mind and simply continue alternating these in conjunction with our exhalation and inhalation and this is the way we can pacify these negative states of mind initially. We proceed in this fashion, we can pacify the negative states of mind. We can eliminate the negative states of mind, and what will probably arise is an indifferent state of mind, a neutral state. So we don’t leave it at that state.
We wish to transform this indifferent state into a very positive state of mind, a healthy state of mind. And so we would proceed as we did this morning in adjusting our motivation, trying to develop the motivation that I am going to try to meditate well in order to bring all sentient beings happiness and to eliminate their suffering and generate this state of mind as the motivation for carrying out the meditation. Such a state of mind is an extremely healthy state, it’s a very skillful state, the motivation of the awakening heart and altruism or the beneficial intention. So in dependence upon that motivation we then enter into a type of conduct. In this instance the conduct is our meditation itself.
So, proceeding with the conduct, in this case the meditation itself. In general, there are two types of meditation. There is the consideration of the subjective aspect of meditation, that is the mind itself, and the consideration of the object of meditation, the objective aspect. With respect to the subjective aspect of meditation, that is, one type of subjective aspect of meditation is to seek to generate the mind a particular state of mind. Rather than examining a particular object, the mind itself is generated into a specific state of mind.
For example, meditating on love, compassion, and the awakening heart. We, in terms of, by way of example, compassion, this is embodied in the thought, May sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. I will free them from suffering and the causes of suffering. But, you know, we make use of these words and simply those words are not sufficient to constitute a state of meditation that there has to be an actual transformation of the mind into the aspect which is being pointed at by those words. The mind itself follows, flows on upon those words to be generated in the state of mind which is actually a wishing state of mind which wishes that sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
So the mind is actually transformed into the entity of compassion itself. It’s not something which is thought, but the mind itself becomes the entity of compassion. So, can we proceed in this fashion? By reciting these words, for example, May sentient beings be separated, be free from their suffering and the causes of their suffering. And then actually the mind reflecting upon what’s being said and what is being intended, that those who are skillful in the operation of their mind can actually generate the state of mind which is being, the meaning of the words which is being intended.
The mind is actually generated into that state. The mind is transformed, takes on the entity which is being, which is the object of the meaning of those words. It may be necessary to repeat again and again the words, but the mind should reflect upon the meaning of those words. And the more that you again and again reflect upon the meaning of those words, the more the entity of your own mind will be transformed into the meaning which is being sought by those words. What is actually intended by those words, the mind will be generated in that state of compassion.
What is the way in which the mind is actually transformed? If we take as an analogy, if we had a cup of water and we’re adding sugar to it, we add just a grain of sugar at a time. And the water has its own nature and the sugar has its nature, but slowly we’re adding a grain of sugar to the water. And there will reach a point when the actual nature of the water will be transformed into the nature of the sugar that we’re adding, that the water, the very nature of the water will become sweet, whereas before it wasn’t. And this is a gradual cumulative quality of consistently adding a grain of sugar.
Likewise with respect to the mind. The mind is like the water and the sugar is like compassion. Simply by the accumulated effects of adding a grain of sugar, of compassion, again and again familiarizing the mind with the state of compassion, then the mind will become of the nature of compassion. That is, it will become habituated to compassion to the extent it becomes its second nature. And this is the way a beneficial meditation can proceed.
Transforming the mind through this practice, through this process and developing a compassionate mind is extremely beneficial. It’s an extremely skillful, healthy state of mind. Brings about tremendous personal power. It’s great blessing and is very beneficial not only to oneself but to others. It will bring happiness not only to oneself but will bring happiness to others.
And anything which is any of our various actions which we enter into through our body, speech or mind which is influenced by this power of this compassion is going to be a skillful action and it’s going to have vast benefits. It’s going to be extremely powerful and will have a very beneficial result. Additionally, to the influence of the compassionate mind, various afflictive emotions such as harmful intention will begin to degenerate and finally cease. So if we proceed in our meditation this way, it’s extremely beneficial. This is the way we can proceed.
First, by examining our mind, trying to see what is the state of our mind, adjusting our mind so that we develop a positive motivation, and once having developed a positive motivation, entering into the various conducts. In this case, the conduct is that of meditation. If we understand this way of procedure, then meditation can be of tremendous benefit. It can be there’s no problem. It’s not going to bring us any difficulties.
If we don’t understand this way of procedure, what is to be done initially in the intermediate and what is the final outcome, what is the benefit of meditation? We can say that meditation in general is beneficial, we can’t say that our particular meditation will be beneficial. And this same way of proceeding can be applied to other forms of meditation, meditating on love, the awakening heart. They all can be implemented in the same fashion. So we’re going to spend the rest of the five minutes of this session meditating on compassion.
The dedication’s on page five verses eight and nine. If you there’ll be a discussion group. We’ll meet here in about five minutes if you’d like to get a cup of tea.