Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this guided meditation, Bhikśunī Thubten Chodron leads practitioners through the contemplative foundation for generating genuine compassion for all beings. She begins by establishing equanimity — releasing attachment to friends, aversion to enemies, and indifference to strangers — then guides a reflection on how all sentient beings have been our parents across infinite lifetimes. The core practice involves recalling the concrete kindness our birth parents or caregivers showed us: nine months of pregnancy, the pain of childbirth, sleepless nights feeding us as infants, protection from harm, teaching us language and basic skills, discipline that shaped our character, and years of financial sacrifice. She addresses how painful childhood memories may surface and offers perspective on parents as ordinary beings doing their best. The meditation then expands this recognition of kindness to encompass all living beings as former parents, cultivating a warm, close feeling toward them. The session concludes by letting genuine gratitude and the natural wish to repay kindness arise spontaneously, forming the emotional and conceptual ground for compassion practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 31 GM.mp3
UUID: 6e0057bb-f464-43e9-8536-7469128e6795
Teacher: Thubten Chodron Guided Med
Collection: Guided Meditation (Thubten Chodron Guided Med)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~1,289
When we meditate on equanimity, we free our mind from attachment to friends, aversion to people we don’t like, and apathy to strangers. On the basis of that, we want to develop love and compassion for all living beings. And in order to do so, we have to see them as lovable. One way to do this is by recognizing that all sentient beings have been our parents, remembering their kindness when they’ve been our parents, and then automatically feeling the wish to repay that kindness. So that’s what we’ll meditate on now.
Since beginningless time, we have taken one rebirth after the other in all sorts of bodies, in all the various realms. As human beings, animals, and hungry ghosts, we’ve had mothers who have given birth to us. Since our previous lives are infinite, there’s a good chance that all sentient beings at one time or another have been our mother or father. So try and get a little bit of a feeling that you haven’t always been who you are right now, that you’ve had previous rebirths, that these rebirths stretch back without beginning, and that in so many of those previous rebirths, you’ve had parents so that all sentient beings at one time or another have been your parent. Try and enlarge your vision to encompass that.
As an example of the kindness of our parents, we remember the kindness that the parents of this life has shown us. If it’s easier for you to think of the kindness of another relative or a caregiver, an aunt or an uncle, an older sister, brother, a babysitter, if it’s easier to think of somebody like that rather than your mother and father, that’s fine. But in any case, as you consider each kindness, let yourself feel gratitude towards whoever it was that showed you that kindness. Sometimes it happens that in the process of recalling childhood events, painful memories arise. If that happens, just remember that your parents are ordinary sentient beings who want to be happy and don’t want to suffer and who did the best they could given their abilities and the situation that they were in.
In other words, don’t fall into an old habit of bemoaning your childhood or getting stuck in certain events that happened to you. But here, we’re trying to see the good things that happened when we were little and how we were able to be born and survive and have the wonderful life we have now due to the kindness of our parents and the people who took care of us when we were little. So to remember the kindness, let’s first begin thinking about how our mother carried us in her body for over nine months and then gave birth to us. So being pregnant was probably very uncomfortable for her, and going through labor and then giving birth is also very painful. But our mother endured all of that very happily in order to give birth to us.
And because she did that, we have the life that we have now. So think about what she went through and really have a sense of how kind she was and appreciate it. So while she was pregnant, our mother watched what she ate. She took very good care of herself, not for her own benefit, but because she cared about us. And then after she gave birth to us, she or our father or another relative or a caregiver took care of us when we were infants and toddlers, when we were unable to protect ourself, when we couldn’t stay alive without the help of others.
So we couldn’t feed ourselves. We couldn’t put a blanket over ourselves to protect ourselves from the cold. We’re completely dependent on the kindness of others to stay alive, and others helped us stay alive. They got up in the middle of the night to feed us even though they were sleep deprived for years. They forsook their own traveling and other things that they like to do in order to take care of us.
They watched us so that we didn’t put something dangerous in our mouth and choke. They took care that we didn’t fall off the edge of a bed or fall down the stairs. And whenever we did get hurt, they picked us up and cared for us and comforted us. They taught us how to speak, how to take care of our basic needs, how to dress and wash ourself, and gave us social skills and language so we could talk to other people and become part of society. They also gave us an education, made sure we did our homework, encouraged us to learn new things and try new things.
And they also had to discipline us when sometimes we got out of control and when our own selfish mind was making other people miserable. So even though we may not have liked the discipline at the time, in many ways, it helped us to conquer some of our bad habits and learn how to speak kindly, how to restrain our selfishness, and how to get along better with other people. Our parents also worked hard to get the finances to support us so that we had a place to live, books, toys, other things that we enjoyed. While we were playing and goofing around, they had to go to work every day. Many hours of work, many hours of overtime, day after day, month after month, year after year.
And they worked in order to support us and to give us all the things that we had. And meanwhile, as children, we very seldom thought of their situation and what they had to go through and what challenges they faced in their life. So as we think of all this kindness that our parents or other caregivers have shown to us in this life, then automatically our heart opens up. It feels very warm because we recognize that we’ve been the recipient of a lot of care and attention and love. Now we come back, and we remember that all sentient beings have been our parent.
And just as our present parents have been kind to us, then all these sentient beings have likewise been kind to us in all of the infinite previous lifetimes that they’ve been our mother. So as we think of this, really develop the sense of being very close to others and think of how they’ve taken care of us as a parent takes care of a child and loved us like a parent loves their child, looked at us with all that affection as a parent does for their child. And that we’ve had that relationship with each and every living being, not once, not a hundred times, but infinite times. Really try and get some feeling for that kindness and what they’ve given us. Remembering the kindness of all these infinite sentient beings and knowing that you’ve been the recipient of so much kindness and love from all sentient beings throughout your beginningless lifetimes, then let a wish to repay their kindness automatically arise in your mind.
So this doesn’t require too much effort because whenever we feel loved, whenever we see that we’ve received kindness, then automatically, our mind sees the ones that have been kind and been loving as very wonderful. And, automatically, we wanna do something to bring about their happiness. Automatically, when somebody’s kind to us, we wanna return it. When they love us, we want to return it. So let your mind rest in these kinds of feelings towards each and every living being because they’ve all been kind to us.