Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this guided meditation, Thubten Chodron leads practitioners through the second noble truth — the causes of suffering — by examining six root disturbing attitudes that bind us to cyclic existence. She explains how we habitually blame external circumstances for our unhappiness, but the Buddha taught that the real source lies in our own mind: attachment, anger, pride, ignorance, deluded doubt, and distorted views. For each, she offers concrete examples from daily life and specific antidotes — recognizing exaggeration, cultivating patience and compassion, developing humility, understanding dependent origination, clarifying purpose-driven inquiry, and maintaining an open, inquisitive mind. The session emphasizes recognizing how these attitudes distort perception right now and create negative karma for the future, with a practical closing invitation to notice their arising in daily life and apply their corrections. Suited for practitioners already familiar with foundational Buddhist teachings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 27 GM.mp3
UUID: 7d53cd49-ecd6-44d8-b95a-6bc4c6f5e24a
Teacher: Thubten Chodron Guided Med
Collection: Guided Meditation (Thubten Chodron Guided Med)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~1,951
Having meditated on the first noble truth, the truth of suffering or unsatisfactory experiences, we’re now going to meditate on the second noble truth, the causes of those unsatisfactory experiences. Generally, we think the causes of our unhappiness come from external factors. We have problems because of our boss, because of our neighbors, because other people don’t do what we want or don’t follow our advice. We have problems because of the government, because of our car. We’re always attributing our problems outside.
This puts us in a difficult situation because we can’t control the external world, And so it’s impossible to make everything be the way we want it, and it’s impossible to eliminate our problems that way. It doesn’t work. We keep trying it. So the Buddha said that the real source of our problems is in our own mind, in our disturbing attitudes, negative emotions. And these disturbing attitudes cause us problems in many ways.
First of all, when we’re under their influence, we act destructively, and that negative karma leaves a seed or an imprint in our mind stream, which ripens into unhappy experiences in the future. And another way that disturbing attitudes cause us suffering is right in this very moment because they distort our experience and make us emotionally up and down. It causes so much emotional pain. So as we go through and contemplate the various disturbing attitudes, make examples in your own life of when you’ve suffered from them. Try and understand how they arise in your life.
Try and understand what’s going on in your mind when you’re under their influence. And don’t just understand how they arise, but think about their effects. How do you feel when your mind is controlled by these disturbing attitudes? How do they make you create negative karma? How do they cause you so much confusion and emotional imbalance right now?
And as you think of each one also, try and get an idea of how to correct it, what antidote to apply, what is the correct view instead of the incorrect one that’s held on to by that particular disturbing attitude. So the first one is attachment. So this has a specific meaning, and that’s when we exaggerate or project good qualities onto someone or something and then cling and become dependent and not want to be separate from it. So we cling on to people. We get attached to ideas.
We hold on to our possessions. Understand how attachment arises in your mind, what you’re attached to, how you act destructively under the influence of attachment, and how it makes your mind very dissatisfied and confused right now. Then imagine what it would feel like to have a mind that was free of attachment, to have a mind that didn’t go up and down, that was just accepting, balanced. So when we think of the disadvantages of attachment, how we think of the ugly aspect of the thing we’re attached to, makes our mind become more balanced, more stable, more peaceful. So try and generate that feeling by thinking in that way.
The second disturbing attitude is anger. This is when we exaggerate or project bad qualities, and it includes being annoyed, being frustrated, being outraged or enraged, being spiteful. And so because we have exaggerated or projected bad qualities onto someone or something, we wish to either harm it or to get away from it. So, again, think how this manifests in your life, what situations it arises in, what’s going on in your mind when you experience it, what effects it has in your life, how it makes you create negative karma, which brings more problems. So the antidote to anger is developing patience and loving kindness.
So here we think about how others have benefited us in the past, how they’re going to benefit us in the future. We develop some compassion and acceptance that they, like us, make mistakes and act out of confusion even though they want to be happy. So contemplate that and use it as an antidote to your anger. The third one is pride, which is an inflated sense of self that makes us feel that either we’re the best one in the world or that we’re the worst one. So low self esteem is an inverted form of pride, and it too is a very inflated sense of self.
So make examples in your life. See how it affects your life. The antidote to pride is recognizing that we’re just one sentient being among countless sentient beings, that we’re no big deal. So we don’t need to make ourselves the best or the worst. If we feel that we’re the worst one, it’s important to remember that we have many good qualities and have received a lot of kindness from others.
And when we feel that we’re the best one, it’s important to realize that any qualities we have come through the kind ness and efforts of others to show us and teach us. Try and have a balanced sense of self. Apply that antidote. The fourth one is ignorance. So this is a lack of clarity regarding the nature of things.
So it can be ignorance regarding cause and effect, not understanding karma and how it works. But most importantly, it can be the ignorance that grasp at inherent existence. And this self grasping ignorance makes everything concrete so that everything seems to have its own essence. Everything seems to exist independently. Everything seems to be very concrete and to be a big deal.
So this ignorance is actually sometimes quite difficult to discern because we think that things actually exist the way they appear to us. But when you think that, in fact, everything exists dependently, not independently, then you can get a sense of how this ignorance is wrong. All functional things exist depending on causes and conditions. Everything exists depending on part, and everything exists by being merely conceived and labeled by the mind. So try and identify this ignorance that grasp at things as being solid and independent, and then try applying this antidote of seeing them as dependent on other phenomena.
The fifth disturbing attitude is deluded doubt. So this is doubt that tends towards the wrong conclusions. So it’s a kind of cynical mind, kind of doubt that doesn’t really want to learn, isn’t really curious, but just doubts for the sake of doubting. So some doubts we have are quite good. They’re positive doubts that inspire us to learn, that make us question, that help us gain correct understanding.
But this disturbing attitude is a deluded kind of doubt, And it makes our mind too pointed. So we can’t do this. We can’t do that because we don’t know what to do. So we can’t believe this. We can’t believe that.
We can’t practice this. We can’t practice that. So make some examples in your life when this doubt arises, and then think of how you can clarify it, what you need to do in order to eliminate it. Then the sixth one is distorted views. And it actually has five branches to it.
So the first type of distorted view is view of the transitory collection. And this one conceives of an inherently existent I or mine. So ignorance grasps at inherently existent phenomena, being very inclusive. And this one pinpoints the I, how we think of the self, how we think of I and mine. So remember a time when you had a very strong emotion, for example, when you were falsely accused, and examine the way the self appears at that time.
What is your view of the I? And watch how it seems so strong, so real, so solid. So the view of the transitory collection grasps at that I is being so real and solid, holds onto it, and this causes so many other problems in our life. So the eye appears to be mixed in with the body and mind, mixed in with the aggregates, and yet existing very independently, very solidly in its own right. So that’s the false side that the view of the transitory collections holds as real, and that’s the root of saṃsāra.
And then reflect how in fact the conventionally existent self exist dependently. The self isn’t independent and solid. Depends on causes and conditions. It depends on parts. It depends on being merely labeled by mind.
The I, the self is merely labeled in dependence on the body and mind. Doesn’t exist in its own right. It exists by being merely labeled in dependence on the aggregates. The second kind of distorted view is view holding to an extreme. So this either holds on to the extreme of inherent existence, and that’s called the view of permanence or eternalism.
So it thinks that there really is this solid I that continues on after death, for example, without changing. Or we go to the other extreme of nihilism and thinking that there’s nothing that exists and that after death, there’s no continuum of the I. So this view grasping onto these two extremes is also something distorted. It’s distorted because, in fact, the eye exists dependently, and the continuation of the conventional I exists after death. The third distorted view is called wrong views, and this is a very stubborn mind that denies the existence existence of cause and effect, denies the existence of rebirth or enlightenment or the Three Jewels.
So it’s a very stubborn mind that doesn’t wanna listen, that just wants to deny and complain and be cynical with no purpose. So try and see if that arises in you. And remember that it’s important to have an open mind, be inquisitive, and curious, not holding on to our wrong views. The fourth type of distorted view is holding wrong views as extreme. So that’s thinking that the previous distorted views are definitely the best way to think.
So recognize how this plays out in your life. And again, make a determination to have an open mind, to consider all sides of things, to be curious, to continue to learn and discuss. The last type of distorted view is holding bad ethics and modes of conduct as supreme. So this is a very confused mind that thinks that unethical actions are in fact ethical. It’s a confused mind that thinks incorrect practices are the path to liberation.
So maybe we think that living in complete austerity, fasting all the time, depriving and torturing our own body is the path to liberation, but it’s not. People have all sorts of strange views nowadays on how to attain happiness. This is the source of many cults, so it’s important to recognize when we ourselves hold bad ethics as supreme or bad modes of conduct is the correct ones. And, again, try and maintain an open mind and think about things. Really persevere to gain the correct view.
And so in conclusion, when we meditate on the causes of cyclic existence, it strengthens our determination to counteract them in order to be free of them. And this makes us much more mindful in our own lives so that we can notice when the attachment and anger and so forth arise and then apply their antidotes so that we can free our mind from being under their influence. So make that determination to be very attentive in your life when these things arise and also to train your mind well in meditation session and also in your daily life so that you can view things in a realistic and beneficial way and counteract all these disturbing attitudes.