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 compassion for all sentient beings by anchoring the meditation in direct emotional memory. She begins by recalling the three kinds of suffering—pain, change, and pervasive suffering—then instructs listeners to remember their own experiences of overwhelming fear, craving, dullness, jealousy, and self-absorbed pleasure, and to recognize these mental states as the internal origins of the six realms. For each realm, she guides practitioners to contemplate how others are living in those same conditions right now—hell beings in rage, hungry ghosts in endless craving, animals in stupidity, demigods in jealousy, gods in pleasure-intoxication—and to generate authentic compassion for their liberation. The meditation culminates in a vow to exchange one’s own happiness for others’ wellbeing, rooting bodhisattva intention in felt understanding rather than abstract aspiration.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 37 GM.mp3
UUID: a10fc818-6d6a-4d55-8586-8faf36aca8fe
Teacher: Thubten Chodron Guided Med
Collection: Guided Meditation (Thubten Chodron Guided Med)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~773
Now we’re going to meditate on compassion, which is the wish for everybody to be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. So before we begin, think of what suffering means and remember the three kinds of suffering that we meditated on earlier. The suffering of pain, the suffering of change, which means that the temporal happiness that we have, if we keep on doing what gives us that happiness, we eventually wind up experiencing pain. For example, if we eat at the beginning, it brings us happiness. But if we keep eating, it makes us miserable.
And then the third kind of suffering is a compounded pervasive suffering of just having a body and mind under the influence of disturbing attitudes and karma. So reflect a little bit on those three kinds of suffering so that when you wish sentient beings to be free from them, you know exactly what it is you’re wanting them to be free of. Begin by remembering times in your life where you’ve been overwhelmed by fear or paranoia or anger. Remember what that was like. And think that that feeling becomes so strong that it becomes the whole environment that you’re in.
And what you have then is the hell realm, an outside projection of those inside emotions. And then think that other beings are actually living in that state right now. They’re actually experiencing that with their body and mind at this very moment. And as you think of what that must be like for them, let your heart open in compassion, wishing them to be free of it. Then remember a state of mind in which you were completely overwhelmed by craving and desire, where your mind was totally obsessed with something and constantly frustrated because you couldn’t have enough of it.
And then think that that clinging miserly craving mind manifests outward as your environment. It’s the world you’re in. And there you have the Preta realm, the hungry ghost realm. Other beings are running here and there constantly searching for the food and drink that they think will make them happy and living in constant frustration because they can’t get it or because they get it and it burns them. And as you think of others living in both that physical environment and that mental state, generate compassion for them, wishing them to be free.
And remember a time when your mind was completely overwhelmed by dullness, sleepiness, lack of clarity, where you wanted so badly to be able to be awake or to understand or to have some mental clarity, but the mind was total fog and stupidity. And when that mental state manifests out, it becomes the animal realm. And there are living beings who are living in that right now. So generate compassion and wish them to be free. And then remember a time when you had uncontrollable jealousy.
The mind just burned with jealousy. Couldn’t stand that you didn’t have something and that others were happy instead. So remember that feeling. And that feeling then manifests out as your environment where you have no peace at all, but everything you encounter makes you burn with jealousy. And there you have the demigod realm.
So others are actually living in that right now. And when you think of them, generate compassion, wanting them to be free. And then think of a time where you had so much pleasure that you’re totally lost in your pleasure. It’s so much pleasure that the mind just spun around in its self absorbed happiness, completely oblivious to anybody else. And then think that manifests out as your environment.
Just sense pleasure galore. You’re totally distracted, totally self absorbed in your own happiness. Other beings are experiencing that right now. That’s the god realm. They’re like drugged on their own happiness.
So thinking of those beings generate compassion. And let your mind rest in that feeling how wonderful it would be if everybody were free from all those sufferings of the six realms and all of their causes. And then think, before, I always said, I want to be happy. Now I’m going to exchange myself for others. And when I say I, I’m going to label I on others so that I want to be happy means others want to be happy, and that’s going to be the most important thing in my life.
But since suffering is suffering no matter whose it is, I must work to eliminate the suffering of everybody. And since happiness feels good no matter who experiences it, I must work to bring that about for everybody.