Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 8-minute opening session of a Heart Sūtra retreat, Ven Jampa Ignyen begins not with the sūtra itself but with foundational practices and mind preparation. After leading the group through refuge prayers, bodhicitta intention, and a mandala offering, he introduces a pre-meditation “check-up phase” — examining what the mind is currently doing and which patterns of thought and feeling are present. He unpacks how feelings drive attraction and aversion, explaining why these reactive tendencies obstruct genuine benefit. The session establishes why cultivating a virtuous, positive state of mind is essential to practice, and introduces focusing on the breath as a foundation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011 04 24 Heart Sūtra Easter Retreat.mp3
UUID: 9ad45887-ab70-4092-9985-e2f87d928b3e
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: Heart Sūtra Retreat (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2011-04-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 7.9 minutes
Words: ~667
So we’ll just start with some prayers, page number four. So, refuge in bodhicitta, down to and including the short mandala. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By my practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly.
By my practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for a refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha of the Dharma, the supreme assembly. By listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment for friends and hatred for enemies. 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 virtues of all holy and ordinary beings until the end of cyclic existence, and turn the wheel of dharma for the living beings. I dedicate my own merits and those of all others to the great enlightenment.
Then a short mandala offering. This ground, anointed with perfume, strewn with flowers, adorned with Mount Meru, four continents, the sun and the moon. I imagine this as a pure field and offer it. May all living beings enjoy this pure land. Edam, Guru, Ratnam, Mandalakam, Nirayatayami.
So we just do a short meditation. So, prior to doing a short meditation, we do a pre meditation. So, this is the check up phase, just to check on the state of the mind in the present. What is my mind doing? Just to take stock.
What am I thinking about? So when we look at the mind, we see that it’s involved in various chains of thought. So when we look at what we’re thinking about, we can investigate: Is the mind itself virtuous or non virtuous, neutral? For us our mind is going to be a mixture of a little bit of virtue here, little bit of non virtue. It’s not really possible that our mind is completely, purely virtuous.
So what we’re examining is the mind itself, what’s the state of it at present? Often our mind is in a neutral state or sort of neutral with a few concerns, worries, thoughts about the present, the future, the past, concerns about other people, so forth. And then hopes about this. Really, it’s a in brief, it’s a mixture of being attracted to some things, attracted to some objects, not being attracted to others, or repulsed by other objects. And then we also notice there’s currents of feeling that come up.
Feeling is so central to our life because our feelings often determine how we think about things. Have a positive feeling about a particular object, we’re attracted to that object, we tend to become attached to it. Negative feeling towards an object, we’re repulsed by that object, we tend to want to distance ourselves, generate aversion to that object. Those two tendencies tend to be non virtuous. Both attached mind of attachment and mind of aversion both tend to be non virtuous.
They’re not generating a positive outcome for us. So when we check on the current state of our mind, should check to see what we’re attracted to, what we have aversion to. And both those processes ultimately are not establishing our benefit or our welfare. What establishes our benefit, what’s in our interest, is a positive state of mind, a virtuous state of mind. This is why practice is so good.
So what we’re doing then is we’re just focusing on the breath.