Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Ignyen opens a multi-day mindfulness course by addressing the central obstacle: the mind’s natural distraction. In this 8.5-minute talk, he explains why mindfulness is essential for inner development and offers practical breath meditation instruction — where to focus attention (nose tip or solar plexus), how to let thoughts pass without grasping, and what to do when you realize you’ve drifted. Before sitting practice begins, he emphasizes setting a positive motivation — directing the mind toward both your own benefit and others’ — noting that this direction persists even when distraction arises. The talk includes an invitation for questions, which he encourages people to voice as soon as they occur, since unasked questions are easily forgotten. Suited for beginners new to meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 Mindful Life 1996 05 18.mp3
UUID: 5b1ce78f-cb48-4207-b7cf-cf346190d2d8
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Living the Mindful Life (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 1996-05-18
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 8.5 minutes
Words: ~777
The theme of the course of personal development, And in fact, without developing mindfulness, it’s really not possible to develop, to actually progress inwardly to deeper levels. The key, and in fact, the very means for achieving this, is the development of mindfulness. It’s one of the most difficult things to do as well. And I think if we think about it, we understand this quite readily because normally our minds are very distracted, very difficult for us to sit down and simply relax, in fact. The mind has a natural distracted energy that often prevents us from simply relaxing and being able to place our mind on an object or to meditate on a particular topic and just have the mind remain there.
But without that faculty, without that, ability to simply be able to relax and let the the mind be tranquil, then it’s not really possible to develop very far. In fact, that’s the key. And the Buddha himself spoke at great length about developing mindfulness, about the ability to control or at least be aware of the way we think, the way we feel, the way we act. And so that’s gonna be the theme, of the course for the next couple of days. So I think probably in the beginning, we’ll do a short breathing meditation, just to, help us to reduce our level of distraction.
Then we’ll do maybe a little visualization, and then we’ll do a little more discussion during the first session. If anyone has any questions or has anything they want to say, any comments, then please feel free at any time. It’s it’s valuable to bring up our doubts and just to discuss them. And often it’s when we think of them that we remember them. If we don’t ask them at that time, then we may forget forget them or we go into something else.
So it’s good to bring these up. So whenever you have a question or you want to say something, please feel free. Of course, it’s very good in the beginning to set a positive motivation. Setting a positive motivation, is also of great importance because it sets our direction. And if we set a positive direction from the beginning, then even if we become distracted, still, we’ve already set that direction.
And we’re we’re aware that we’re impermanent beings, that we don’t have an unlimited amount of time. And so it’s it’s good to reflect on our impermanence and to think that if we can make positive use, you know, the next few minutes, of the next half hour, or whatever, then then this is something that won’t go to waste. In sense, it’s something that the future will be built upon. So to have a positive motivation in the beginning is very important. Here, having a positive motivation really means two things.
It means having the thought for our own benefit and also having a motivation for the benefit of others. And, of course, this also is not so easy. It’s not so easy to develop, strong positive motivation. But the benefits of developing a strong positive motivation are unlimited because the potential of the mind itself is unlimited. So, anyway, in the beginning, as as we see it, developing a strong positive motivation, as much energy as we can into setting a positive direction.
Positive direction means love, compassion, wisdom, Detachment. For the benefit of ourselves, also for the benefit of other beings. Now with breath meditation, the object is simply to watch the breath. And as we breathe in, we note that we’re breathing in. Now we can either focus on the, say, the tip of our nose or, say, solar plexus, just at a point where the breath, can be observed.
And the object is to simply take a take awareness of this physical activity of breathing and to bring the mind, to that point. Just be aware of the breath. And any thoughts that arise, we should just let them go. We shouldn’t think about them, speculate about them, judge them, and so on. We should just let them go as if we realize that they’re impermanent, they have no intrinsic value as such.
Whether they’re a good thought, whether they’re a negative thought, we should just let them go. Just watch them as they disappear. Don’t hold them. Don’t grasp at them if we can. When we find that we are following our thoughts, at that point, we should then let them go.
Just return to the breath. We should be in a comfortable position. We should physically relax, and then just watch the breath.