Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 11-minute session, Ven Lobsang Namgyel opens the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation practice by reading a foundational motivation text composed to prepare the mind. Rather than analyzing the verses themselves, he guides the audience through a guided reflection on the sufferings of uncontrolled samsaric existence, the rarity and preciousness of human birth with the freedom to learn dharma, and the recognition that all sentient beings have been one’s mother throughout countless lifetimes. The text moves progressively from fear of endless suffering, to gratitude for meeting a qualified teacher and buddha’s teachings, to the resolve that true happiness lies only in attaining enlightenment to liberate all beings. This opening establishes bodhicitta—the heartfelt aspiration to free others from suffering—as the foundation for practicing these transformative verses. Suited to practitioners beginning the Eight Verses teaching.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011 10 01 Ven Namgyel – 02 – Sat 1st Oct.mp3
UUID: 0918b730-31f7-4369-9446-463ffe761cb7
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: 8 Verses Thought Transformation (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Date: 2011-10-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 11.3 minutes
Words: ~649
K, people. We are going to start with page a hundred and fifty seven. So this is a meditation that Rinpoche has written in order to create a a good motivation, the best motivation for doing this practice. And so rather than reading it together, perhaps you meditate, and I’ll read it. And then you can think about the meaning.
From beginningless samsaric lifetimes until now, I have experienced the general sufferings of saṃsāra numberless times, especially the sufferings of the three lower realms. There is no suffering that I’ve never experienced. When I think deeply about all of this, I’m gripped with terror, and I weep uncontrollably. Therefore, I must no longer allow myself to fall under the control of the disturbing, unsubdued minds, which are the causes that oblige me to experience the result, true suffering. As long as I happily continue to follow these evil, disturbing, unsubdued minds with neither fear nor doubt, there is no difference between me and a mindless crazy person.
If I continue to follow the wrong conceptions, I merely ensure that I will keep suffering for countless lives to come. And when I think about this from the depths of my heart beyond mere words, I’m unable to eat by day or sleep by night, and it makes me vomit uncontrollably. Thinking of my foolishness breaks my heart. However, now I’ve received the inner condition, the precious human body, endowed with eight freedoms and ten endowments that gives me the ability to achieve all happiness and perfection. I’ve also met the outer condition, the holy Mahāyāna virtuous friend who’s extremely difficult to find but can, in a single second, grant the higher state omniscient mind.
And as well as the inner and outer conditions, I’ve met the teaching of the Buddha, the supreme medicine that dispels without exception all sufferings of migratory beings. Given my incredible good fortune, if I continue to seek mere temporal happiness or my own personal liberation from the bondage of the disturbing, unsubdued minds and karma, What difference is there between me and a foolish, dumb animal? Such an attitude would be extremely upsetting from several viewpoints. From my own side, how shameless. From the side of others, how very ungenerous.
How selfish and cruel. How dare I cherish myself and renounce others. And other sentient beings, the precious ones, from whom I’ve received all happiness and perfection, I must understand that it’s inadequate merely to ensure that I shall not be reborn in the suffering lower realms, nor is it enough to seek simply my own release from Samsāra. All sentient beings have been my mother. There is not a single one who has not.
Moreover, each has been my mother, time without number, and each time has been just as kind to me as my present mother. At this very moment, not only are these kind mother sentient beings experiencing great suffering, But they’re also running constantly to create the cause for more. There’s not even a second during which they can experience a moment’s happiness. If a mother’s suffering is not alleviated by her own child, who else will do it? Even though it’s up to me alone to bear the burden of eradicating the suffering of all mother sentient beings, at the moment, I’m incapable of relieving the suffering of even one sentient being.
Yet if I receive the enlightened holy body, just one ray of its light could ripen the minds of countless sentient beings, leading them to the state of greatest peace. Therefore, to release all mother sentient beings from suffering and lead them to the sublime happiness of enlightenment, I must attain the exalted state of Buddhahood. The attainment of Buddhahood is not without cause or conditions. Its principal cause is the two bodhicittas. Therefore, I’m going to practice the profound oral teachings on transforming the mind into bodhicitta.