Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Teacher Valham leads a three-part Lamrim meditation session centered on cultivating compassion and understanding karma. The session opens with visualization of Chenrezig, universal compassion in form, and establishing faith in awakening as possible. Valham then guides reflection on the preciousness of human life and why it matters—not merely to possess it, but to use it for genuine inner development, ethical training, and ultimately liberation or full enlightenment. He explains three Buddhist reasons enlightenment is attainable: virtue can develop limitlessly, the mind has no inherent fixed nature, and the mind stream can be purified. The second meditation examines how karma operates through ignorance and delusion, using the metaphor of a farmer sowing karmic seeds in consciousness. Valham prompts practitioners to review their own actions—recognizing kindness and harm—and to become aware of subtle mental negativities occurring constantly. The final meditation focuses on purification using four opponent powers: visualizing coloured light from Chenrezig’s body, speech, and mind dissolving negativities as dirt and dark water leaving the body, then making renewed commitments to refrain from harm according to one’s capacity.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 M.mp3
UUID: 599a3266-fa28-4024-a773-4f7db1be5e5f
Teacher: Valham
Collection: Lam Rim Meditation (Valham)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~2,641
Just take a couple of minutes and recall universal living beings surrounding us and the kind, compassionate one in space in front of us. And generating yourself a sense of faith and trust in universal compassion. Thinking of it as a as a universal truth. Their wish and the will to guide all living beings to the fulfillment of their inner potential. So even when you visualize Chenrezig, you think what you are relying on, you know, is not some magically magic vision in the space.
But, you know, mind is directed towards great universal compassion. That state of mind. And that state of mind takes emanates for us to communicate with as a white radiant light being. So I think reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech, and mind. I present clouds of every type of offering, actual and imagined.
I declare all my negative actions accumulated since beginningless time and rejoice in the merit of all holy and ordinary beings. Please remain until the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. I dedicate my own merits and those of all others to the great enlightenment. Alright. So we imagine the entire universe in our hand.
And then offering that to Chenrezig with a wish to empty ourself out, you know, old clinging, grasping, to be able to fill ourself up with compassionate wisdom. So think Chenrezig in front of you. He looks at, you know, looks at us and with incredible great joy sent forth much radiating light from his heart while reciting mantra. Now when we meditate on the preciousness of our own human life, it’s very useful to think like this. It’s not enough just to have a precious human life, you know, as something else to enjoy.
But what is important is to use it, you know, to use the precious human life according to its abilities. Like we said before, if we don’t utilize the potentials of the human life, then, actually, we become, like, worse than animals. So you know if we don’t take responsibility to use our human life for inner development or for something higher, then in some ways of thinking that we become sort of worse than animals. Because animals don’t have the ability don’t have that, you know, potential to fully utilize their life or to utilize their life for something higher. So think.
There are so many ways to use our human life, but at least to use it for something that brings happiness in this and future lives. And if we can, then aim for true happiness or lasting happiness, liberation, by practicing the higher trainings of morality and ethics, morality, concentration and wisdom. Or even gather one’s courage together and seek for full awakening. The state of mind that has no obstruction, that has gone beyond all obscurations, all the hindrances, hindrances, and that is able to guide and lead other sentient beings to the achievement of their full potential. And if we wonder, you know, if we have some doubt, or if we wonder how can human beings attain enlightenment, There are three reasons in the scriptures.
One is that because there’s virtue in every human being, That virtue can be developed by the activities of the Buddhas. The Buddha’s activities, you know, help sentient beings to develop their virtue. So through the activities of the Buddhas, human beings’ virtue can develop limitlessly. The second reason why we can attain enlightenment or how we can attain enlightenment is because our mind doesn’t have inherent existence. It’s not a solid concrete entity as a thing.
It is a dependent arising. Dependent on cause and conditions. And the third reason is because the mind stream, that non inherently existing mind stream, can be purified, can become completely pure by our own efforts. That means with the interest to purify our mind and with the intelligence to understand the non-inherent existence of our mind. And by relying on the help of supreme beings, Buddha’s activities, there’s nothing we cannot achieve, you know, with this precious human life.
As a conclusion, we can think. Just even having attained a precious human life with all with all its advantages, you know, it’s like having progressed halfway. If you think of enlightenment as a, a huge huge mountain to climb, like we have already passed halfway. It’s just a matter of bringing our human potential to its fulfillment. And it says that it is much easier to attain enlightenment once we have a human life Then for a you know?
And once we are born in the lower realms, like the animal realms, you know, for us to, again, gain a precious human life. It is much harder for an animal to gain a precious human life than it is for somebody with a precious human life to attain enlightenment. So one can think with encouragement. Whatever good energy we develop through our meditation practices, may it become a cause for us to have the courage to follow the path and to follow the pure path to its fulfillment for our own sake and for the sake of all universal living beings. Meditation two.
And let’s begin this session again reminding ourselves, all universal living beings, and the great compassionate one who is like a protector, you know. Universal compassion is the protector of all living beings. In the sense that universal compassion never gives up on sentient beings. No matter how, you know, negative we turn, no matter how many obscurations and how muddy and how much down in the, you know, muck of saṃsāra we descend, the universal compassion never gives up. So it’s like the sun and the moon shining equally, not on only some sentient beings and not on others, but just equally on all living beings.
So I think the rays, the compassionate rays of Chenrezig completely pervade us. And as much compassion we want, it is there to guide us. So while we recite the mantra, feel the flow or the energy through you, and then also building up within you, filling up every dark corner within your body, within your mind, with blissful, you know, white radiating light energy. So then still, when we probe our life deeper, we still find everything is not alright. Everything is not fine with our life just because we have a precious human life.
Our life is still caught up in the unpredictability of saṃsāra, the uncertainty of saṃsāra, and many other things. So we find our body our body in one sense is saṃsāra, is experiencing samsaric suffering, both our body and our mind. Why it is like that is because this body and mind, or this body, is a product of delusion and karma. It’s born out of delusion and karma. So if we check what delusions, since it is a result of virtue Well, underneath virtue, in in some psychic systems, there’s still the ignorance.
First of all, the ignorance of not knowing many things. The law, cause, and effect. The nature of the mind. Past, present, and future. And also, there’s the ignorance of the nature of reality.
These are the delusions, and then actions out of those delusions, even their virtues actions, they still create a samsaric result, like our body. So previous life, we did have delusion and karma creating, you know, this body. So we are born with delusion and karma. There’s no time that delusion and karma didn’t function in our life. And there’s no time in the past we were not under the control of delusion and karma.
So in this sense, also this body in our present life is a base pervaded by delusion and karma. Because of that, we are busy in this life creating more, you know, imprints in our mind out of delusion and karma. Ignorance, you know, attachment aversion, and all the other deluded states of mind, and the action karma. So one can think like this image. As long as we have ignorance and live in saṃsāra, ignorance is like a farmer.
And the farmer is the farmer of ignorance is planting the seeds, sowing the seeds, the karma, you know, in our consciousness, the field, our consciousness like a field that is getting planted with the seeds out of ignorance, seeds of karma, of imprints, karmic imprints. Our life is like a container of all these various karmic imprints that will ripen one after another whenever the conditions are, you know, suitable. This karma’s ripen just like flowers. If a karma ends up on a rock, you know, it doesn’t if a seed ends up on a rock, it doesn’t have the conditions to sprout just then. Like that sometimes, our karmic seeds end up on in places where there aren’t the right conditions.
But when the right conditions gather, they will also sprout and give the result. So, in our consciousness, have countless karmic imprints. For many lifetimes, and for many, many experiences to happen in the future. So we can contemplate, maybe first of all, a gross way, you know, the gross karmas that we can recognize. There are so many karmic imprints that we don’t recognize, you know, or we don’t remember.
But we can go through our life, journey through your own life first, from today backwards, and recognize your kind actions, and rejoice and feel happy. Then also recognize your own actions that are obviously harming others. And feel and recognize now how and why they become negative, knowing about the motivation, you know, knowing and understanding the self-cherishing attitude, how it pushes us to create negative actions, you know, without awareness. So generate a sense of regret. But also try to recognize how many actions are created all the time just simply out of attachment and aversion.
When we think about these subtle mental attitudes, you know, mental actions, then it really becomes clear how many negative actions we create and how difficult it is to, you know, act positively with non attachment, non anger, you know, non close mindedness. Those mental actions are so pervasive, nearly twenty four hours. It’s like then we can see how this precious human life gets used up for nearly only negativities. So precious little time spent on truly know, on virtuous activities or wholesome activities. That’s a conclusion we can think.
And then becoming more aware of karma, action, reaction, the law of cause and effect. However, negatively motivated action, leads to harm and suffering for ourselves and others. And the opposite, every positively motivated action causes that, you know, helps oneself and others, helping oneself and others, that brings happiness. It only results in happiness. So this knowledge gives us the energy, you know, to improve ourselves, improve our life, to work with the law of cause and effect.
And it also gives us an opportunity to take full responsibility, you know, for the quality of our body, speech and mind, for the quality of our life. We can dedicate with the prayer, thinking whatever benefit arises of a meditation on karma, may we develop the clear discrimination between what is, you know, what is virtue, what is non virtue. And abandon what leads to misfortune and unhappiness, and then cultivate as much as we can, even day and night, the positive action that lead to happiness for ourselves and others. Meditation three. So in this session, let’s gather all our negativities.
Acknowledging, recognizing them, and purifying them. Trying to also connect with the four opponent powers, using the four opponent powers. So first, whatever negativities we we recognize such as killing, stealing, those very gross negativities of body. Imagine that is going to be purified by the white radiant light entering through our crown. Imagine the negativities of speech, lying, slander, harsh words, gossip.
And that you gather is going to be purified by the red radiating light coming from Chenrezig’s throat into our throat. And whatever negativities we found of attachment, aversion, closed mindedness, all those countless negative imprints of mind. We think blue radiating light comes from Chenrezig’s heart, streams into our heart, and instantly, you know, removes all the karmic imprints. And you think it goes like a shower through our body, and all negativities comes out in the form of dirt, like tar, or, you know, like dirty water through the lower lower doors of your body and vanishes into the earth becoming non existence. Non existent, you know, like that.
So then the object of reliance is the universal compassion. In front of us, we visualize. Standing on the lotus and the moon disc, having magnificent white radiating body, an extremely compassionate face. Thousand arms stretched out with the aim of pulling with a wish and aim, you know, goal of pulling every single living being out of saṃsāra. As if may as if that is done by hand.
When you look at Chenrezig, you should make the visualization so beautiful, you know, so enchanting that you don’t want to take your eyes away. It’s something that just by looking at generates this feeling of bliss and compassion, loving kindness. And and so the reliance, refuge, and generating in in our self a sense of loving kindness and compassion for all the universal human beings who are suffering because of, you know, the uncontrolled delusion of karma, and generating a sense of regret in our mind over our negativities. And as we practice the method, reciting the mantra and visualizing the negativities being removed, that is the actual opponent method. Then afterwards, we’ll make a determination or promise to refrain in the future as much as we can.
Those are the four opponent powers. Contracting, eliminating negativities from our mind stream. So we can recite first, maybe we can start reciting the mantra together. Focus on the light rays. You can continue visualizing the light rays one by one white purifying the physical actions, red purifying the verbal actions, blue purifying the mental actions.
One by one, then altogether, completely flushing out your body, speech, and mind and leaving it in a state of crystal clarity. And you think afterwards, now my mind has been purified of the negative imprints and is completely crystal clear and clean and pure. Imagine that Chenrezig is in front of you. He’s looking at you like a kind father, you know, looking at his only son or daughter, the kind of unbearable compassion in the eyes, in the face. And in front of Chenrezig, we can make a decision, determination, towards all the universal living beings surrounding us.
Decide in your mind and not to create the negative actions again according to your own ability for a day, two days, for a week, a month, a year, five years, or for the the rest of your life. Whichever negative actions you think that you can abandon altogether, decide to abandon, whatever negative actions you think, you cannot abandon for the rest of your life. Just make a determination to abandon them for as long as you think you can cope, maybe for just the rest of the day. But to make a promise like that, you know, in front of the supreme beings and with the thought of the welfare of universal living beings in mind, extremely powerful and positive. That is the one action that will help us to overcome that particular negative attitude.
You can imagine that it causes immeasurable sense of bliss and pleasure in minds of all supreme beings. There is nothing that can please the supreme beings more than, you know, developing the intention or developing the wish within ourself not to intentionally harm others. May we, ourselves, become the great compassionate one, Chenrezig, due to these merits.