Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 43-minute session, Ven Lobsang Namgyel guides practitioners through the detailed visualization core of Medicine Buddha practice. He unpacks the three prayers of request—receiving blessings of body as white light, speech as red light, and mind as blue light—explaining how these transform negativity and open the channels to the Buddha’s compassionate power. He then walks through the intricate stacked visualization of all seven Medicine Buddhas, starting with the Guru Buddha at the base and ascending to the crown, repeating each Buddha’s name seven times before they dissolve into the next. Throughout, he emphasizes the three-fold purification with nectar: downward purification of disease and obscuration, upward purification to remove remaining contamination, and instantaneous purification by recognizing emptiness. The final section focuses on the seed syllable and mantra visualization at the heart, with extended teaching on how light and blessings flow to all six realms, addressing doubts about whether sentient beings truly exist in realms we cannot see, and unpacking the relationship between visualization practice and bodhicitta motivation. Practical and intellectually rigorous, suited to committed practitioners already familiar with basic Buddhist visualization.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011 10 15 MBP session2.mp3
UUID: 3fae3646-8e91-44b5-9266-23b7b9218a83
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: Medicine Buddha Practrice (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Date: 2011-10-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 43.2 minutes
Words: ~5,852
People are in the pastoral care group. So Lindy’s saying you want to ask me some questions. Oh, it’s we were thinking it would be lovely to have a meeting. How long do you think you need? Three minutes?
Five minutes? I was gonna say how long is a piece of Ah, how long is a piece of string? Half an hour. So may you think? Oh, you’re you’re the more practical one.
Okay. So maybe we can do it another day. Yeah? Okay. If you want more time, then it’s better to do another day because if we do today, it’s going to be, limited to whatever time we have after lunch, which will probably be half an hour.
And so if you want more time, we can organize another day. George wants to touch my ear. Thank you, George. Well, let’s let’s hope. Okay.
So the we’ll organize the the meeting with the pastoral carer on another day. Okay. Because that’s what she was just asking me. The mandala offering, I’m not even going to touch because it it’s too much. I mean, it’s basically it’s transform like I said, transforming everything into the mandala of the Buddha.
And so instead of seeing impurity, you see purity and beautiful smells, beautiful taste, beautiful touch. Everything that you experience in that mandala is perfect instead of imperfect. So similar to what we did before. Then we’ve got three prayers of request. So you’re saying Bhagawan means, Buddha.
So Bhagawan medicine guru, sky-colored holy body of lapis lazuli, blah blah blah. The meaningful one, please grant me your blessings. So then, when you’re taking the blessings, you can think blessing the body. So you can think, white light, which is coming from, either the third eye or the Buddha’s crown, and it comes in a curve to your crown, and it blesses your body. So removing all the negativities that you’ve done with your body and bringing all positive blessings to your body.
So that’s white light. Then the second verse is blessing your speech. So that’s red light coming from the Buddha’s throat to your throat. So, again, it curves in an arc. So for the lady who’s got the the Medicine Buddha in front, you would be thinking that the light is coming straight to you.
But if the Medicine Buddha is above you, you do it in a curve like this. Okay? So the red light from his throat to your throat, blessing your speech, removing all the gossiping speech, the divisive speech, the harmful speech. So whatever negative speech there is has been removed, and it transforms your speech into the same as mantra. So your speech becomes like mantra.
So when people hear your speech, the effect is the same as hearing mantra. And then the last one is receiving blessings of the mind. So then this is blue light that comes from the Buddha’s heart to your heart, and then removing all negativities, that you have in the mind, totally removing and purifying, and then bringing all blessings of the Buddha’s mind. And then your mind transforms into the Buddha’s mind. Okay.
So white, red, and blue. Then you have the visualization of the seven medicine Buddhas. So this is yeah. So when you say morning speech and Yeah. So it’s what Red, blue.
Yeah. If for this particular thing, when you say, I beseech you, Bhagwan, you’re making a request, and so you should try and do the visualization of the light actually coming to you, and then, your body transforms into light. Your speech transforms into mantra. Your, mind transforms into the mind of the Medicine Buddha. Yeah.
That’s better. But if not, the least is to think purifying, transforming. And then as time goes by, you start to understand more and more why. Then we have the visualization, little bit complicated. So we start at the bottom.
You’ve got Guru Medicine Buddha at the bottom. Okay? Right on the lotus and moon disc. So from that point, Guru Medicine Buddha, each Buddha appears above the last one. So you’ve got the first one, Guru Medicine Buddha, then you visualize above him, Buddha Delightful King of Clear Knowing, then above him, Buddha melodious ocean of proclaimed Dharma.
So it’s got the colors of each one and the mudras of each one. So you do that visualization until you’ve got the seven above the crown of your head. Shall we say, The seven Maybe. Possibly. It’s not easy to do a Medicine Buddha something like that.
Makes it easier when you can see it like that, which is why I like this is because at least you get some sort of representation of how it should look rather than you trying to construct it in your own mind. So the seven Medicine Buddhas would be above the crown facing the same direction as you, full color, all the mudras, but I think, you know, this is, you know, it’s a wish. So start with Guru Medicine Buddha. Try and add some details each time you do it. And then once you have Medicine Buddha, you would start to add the next one, and then the next one, and then the next.
So as you’re completing all the details, you would add each one. You may think this is impossible. Let me tell you a little story. I bought a Buddha for Geshe Rinpoche. It was a photograph of an old Buddha I bought for Geshe Rinpoche.
And I took it to him because he kept saying to me, I really like Indian Buddhas. Not Tibetan so much, but Indian. So I looked all around Dharmasala. I found this photograph. I had it framed, and I took it to him, and I said, ‘Indian Buddha,’ and he said, ‘Tibetan.’.
And I said, no. No. It’s Indian. He said, no. It’s Tibetan.
I said, I’m telling you, it I got it in the shop down in McLeod Ganj in, Dharmasala. No. No. No. It’s Tibetan.
He said, how I know is it’s my teacher’s Buddha. So this teacher had come out of Tibet and had painted it, and they had a photograph of it in this little shop in Dharmasala. And they had only little pictures, many, many, many, and I picked this one, which is his teacher’s Buddha in black and white. And he said to me, my teacher was so incredible that on his on his, nail here, he could paint the sixteen arhats, sixteen arhats in detail on the one nail. So this is what happens when you have this amazing capacity to do visualization.
It is possible to do these visualizations and to see in color and all the rest of it. But at our level, then, of course, we have to be practical, and we say, whatever appears, be happy with it, and then become familiar and keep adding to the details. So that visualization you have to do, that’s page three. Then we go to page four. Now we’re on the top Buddha.
Okay? This Buddha is the top one on page three. This is Buddha renowned glorious king of excellent signs. So if you go back to page three, you’ll see that Buddha is at the very top. And what we’re doing is we’re starting at the top and working downwards towards the Medicine Buddha.
You understand, or you’re completely confused? How come? What’s on page one? Oh you’ve got the cover. And so the computer’s numbered the cover.
Oh, this is what happens with computers. They do they do their own thing. So, actually, the one with all the Buddhas on, the seven Medicine Buddhas, is page three. And then so you can make it page three. And then page four is the Buddha renowned glorious king of excellent signs.
It’s the first one with the the big Buddha in the middle. That’s page four. And then you repeat the name seven times, and you can do in English, or you can do English and Tibetan. I like to do some English and some Tibetan because, actually, the Tibetan’s much shorter. And once you get used to it, it flows much easier than saying the English, but it’s up to you.
Usually, what I do is I start off in the retreats, and we do five of English and two of Tibetan, and then we do four of English and three of Tibetan. And people really prefer the Tibetan. We do. It goes like that. Whereas when you read, it’s the fully realized destroyer of all Jifan.
You know? And it seems to go on and on. And so if you’re trying to make the practice a little bit quicker, because you’re looking at at least an hour and a half to two hours. So if you want to make it a little bit quicker, doing in Tibetan really helps. It makes the practice flow faster, and the benefit is the same.
So, once you’ve recited seven times, you then say, may your vow to benefit all sentient beings now ripen for myself and others, which is below the English above the Tibetan. There’s one line. Okay? May your vow to benefit all sentient beings now ripen for myself and others. So you say that after you finish the seven.
Each time, you’re saying, may you fulfill your vow. Alright? And then you’ve it says, visualize white color nectar flowing from the begging bowl to myself as well as to all sentient beings in the six realms. There is no begging bowl. So what’s happening is this Buddha is dissolving into the next Buddha.
So number seven is dissolving into number six, and then automatically, the nectar from the Medicine Buddha, from his bowl starts to come down through the crown of your head and then fills you up with nectar, removing all your sickness. Do you know the three visualizations of purification? I shouldn’t really tell you because then what do I have to say on the the purification day? Then maybe there’s no need to have a purification day. We could cancel that.
The three purifications are the nectar coming downwards, pushing all the negativities down through the lower part of your body, and it leads through the lower doors, and it’s, something like tar, or you can think like liquid, or you can think, scorpions, spiders, but then often Westerners are saying, what’s wrong with spiders and scorpions? So in the Tibetan time, they really don’t like dark creatures, and so they see that as negative. But it’s basically having the feeling that all sicknesses, all problems, all, mental problems, emotional problems, whatever you see as problem goes out through the lower doors and through the pores of your body. It’s sort of seeping out. You know?
It’s really good to have that feeling of it. It’s really going out in the form of black tar, black, liquid, or black smoke, whatever suits you. If you want to, you can visualize, Dorjikadro or one of the purification Buddhas underneath actually taking this negativity, but maybe that’s going a bit too far. The second visualization is the nectar comes down and like a wave goes back up, and the negativities are are riding on the top of the nectar like froth. And it goes back up and, comes out through the crown of your head and then overflows through the crown.
So first time, completely down. Second time, down and back up. Any remaining negativities on the top of the nectar, overflowing. And then the third time, like a light being switched on in a dark room, instantly all negativities vanish. They were empty of inherent existence.
Okay? So that’s the three. It’s done for Medicine Buddha, Tārā, all of the practices. It’s the same three visualizations. Understand?
Yep. Okay. So you would do that with the white nectar. And in the beginning, what I recommend is that you do it a lot for yourself. Don’t worry so much about the six realms because it says, for you for you and all sentient beings of the six realms.
Start with yourself and get the feeling that you’re saturated with nectar. And once you feel you’re saturated with nectar, it starts to overflow to others. But often people won’t help themselves and will help others rather than themselves. So start with yourself and feel that you’ve totally removed all negativities. And once you have that feeling, then start to include others.
And then the six realms, the nectar overflows and it goes into the hot hells, and then you think it brings cooling warm, cooling breezes. So something cool for the hot hell. For the cold hell, it brings warmth. Then for the hungry ghosts, it brings food and drink. For the animals, it removes their fear.
For the humans, it takes away desire, attachment. For the demigods, the ones who are jealous and angry, so it gives them rejoicing and love. So it takes away the anger and and they’re looking at the god realms all the time thinking, well, why are they so lucky? Why have they got that? So it takes away that sense of jealousy and anger.
And then for the god realms who are in a blissful state of existence, then it it brings the sound of Dharma so that they can actually hear Dharma and get out. Because the god realms is just pleasure, but it finishes and you come back into saṃsāra. It’s wasting time and wasting karma. So they need the sound of Dharma. Okay?
Okay. So then what I put at the bottom is, now visualize Buddha renowned glorious king of excellent signs, golden color to remind you of the color. Right hand in the mudra of giving protection, left in the mudra of concentration, dissolving into the next Medicine Buddha, king of melodious sound, who is yellow with hands in the mudra of giving the highest goal. And then you turn the page, and then you know what the visualization is, and then you visualize next one. So you’ve got the seven, but you’re particularly focusing on each one as you’re going down.
So now we’re focusing on number six, and we do the same repeating seven times, either English, Tibetan, or both. When you finish seven times, may you vow to benefit all sentient beings now ripen for myself and others. This Buddha dissolves into number five, then the nectar starts to overflow from the Medicine Buddha’s bowl, comes down to you, again removing all your problems, all your sicknesses, all your negativities. First time, downwards. Second time, upwards.
Third time, as if the negativities never existed. And then flowing to all all sentient beings of the six realms. And what you could do is, one time, you could concentrate on the hot hells. Another time, you could concentrate on the cold hells. Another time, you could concentrate on the hungry ghosts.
Another time, you could concentrate on the animals. So it depends on which way your mind works, but it’s really good to think about the sufferings of each realm. Because often, people don’t believe in the realms. They think, I can’t see the hells, doesn’t exist. I can’t see the hungry ghost.
Doesn’t exist. God realms and the demigod realms don’t exist. So all that exists is the animal realms and the human realms. So I say to them, well, you can also can’t see amoeba. Know?
You haven’t seen amoeba and giardia, but you can experience it. So do you think it exists? And they say, yes. Why? Because a doctor told me.
So where’s the difference between doctor Buddha and doctor doctor? You know? If George says to you, you have an impacted mandibular molar, and it’s going to cost you five thousand dollars to fix this, you’ll say, okay, George. If you say, I’ll do it. Right?
You would. You would trust George to fix your mandibular, whatever it is. So that’s where you place your faith and the expertise of somebody like that, a doctor, a dentist, you put your faith. Well, Buddha said, there are these realms, and he told that there are these realms because they need our compassion. And if we say they don’t exist, we’re not dedicating for them to get out of that suffering existence.
You can’t develop bodhicitta if you say there are not six realms. It’s impossible because you’re completely eradicating beings who are suffering. Therefore, you are not including them in your bodhicitta. Therefore, you cannot have bodhicitta. You must include them in your motivation and your dedication.
So this can be one way of connecting with the suffering realms that when the nectar comes down, you think it’s cooling for all the beings who are experiencing too much heat in the hell. And then in places like Rajasthan, in India, in Africa, you know, if you have this feeling you really want them to remove their suffering, it’s good to do a visualization of that happening. What it does is it karmically connects you with them. So when you become a bodhisattva, you want to benefit them. This is how visualizations and prayers work.
You’re connecting. Right? If you don’t connect, when you’re a bodhisattva, you don’t have the ability to help them because there’s no karma. So we need to have the karmic connection. Okay?
So you just go through like that. Keep repeating the names, the nectar dissolving into the next one. So you just keep going like that until you reach. For me, it’s page ten, but for you, it’d be page eleven. This is the last one.
Everything has dissolved into Medsim Buddha. So then the last page is the fully realized destroyer of all defilements, guru Medsim Buddha, king of lapis lazuli light. To you, I prostrate, and go for refuge. Sure, I make offerings seven times. May you vow to benefit all sentient beings now ripen for myself and others.
In Tibetan, when you’ve done that seven times, for the last time, the nectar comes down. Okay? So all the seven are the same. Now the Medicine Buddha has nothing to dissolve into. There are no other Buddhas.
There’s only Medicine Buddha above your crown. So we’ve gone back to the first visualization that we started with. The end is the same. Then you turn the page, and you’ve got your visualization. So if you have a highest tantric initiation, you can visualize yourself as Madsen Buddha.
If you don’t have a highest tantric initiation, you should keep Medicine Buddha above the crown of your head. Okay? So you’ll have to adjust the to suit your tantric initiation or not. So it says, granting your request from the heart and the holy body of the king of medicine, infinite rays of white light pour down completely filling your body from head to toe. So before we were visualizing nectar, and nectar has the consistency of honey.
It’s quite heavy. And if you like, if you can visualize, each drop of nectar is a Medicine Buddha. So when the nectar comes down, you fill up with this Medicine Buddha nectar, which is countless Medicine Buddhas. Now we’re changing to light. Okay?
So it has been nectar. Now it’s light, and this is much diff it’s quite different. So this light is purifying your diseases and your afflictions due to spirits and their causes, all your negative karma and mental obscurations. So it’s said that spirits cause a lot of sicknesses, particularly cancer. So, when spirits are involved, we need to remove the spirit harm.
So that’s why I particularly mentioned spirits because they’re often, they’re often associated with illness. In the nature of light, your body becomes as clean and clear as crystal. So before, your body was full of nectar. Now your body has transformed into light, and it actually feels quite different in the visualization. In the nectar one, you feel quite heavy, but now your body transforms into light, and so you should feel very different.
And then the light rays pour down twice more, each time filling your body with blissful, clean, clear light, which you absorb. So the blissful part is when you have realization of emptiness, your mind is blissful. So you should have a really happy feeling. Your mind becomes joyous. You are transformed into the holy body of the guru Medicine Buddha.
So if you don’t have a highest tantric initiation, doesn’t have to be Medicine Buddha, but if you don’t have Chakrasamvara or Mañjuśrī or any of the others, you keep Medicine Buddha above the crown of your head, which is quite nice if you’re using it as a visualization, a purification. It’s actually, much easier. So if now I’m going to assume you don’t have the initiation. If you don’t, you have Medicine Buddha above your crown. And where it says in the next paragraph, at your heart appears a lotus and moon disc, It becomes at his heart.
So it’s in Medicine Buddha’s heart appears a lotus and moon disc. So if you have visualized yourself as Medicine Buddha, it’s in your heart where your heart actually is that you have a lotus and a moon disc. If you’re not visualizing yourself as Medicine Buddha, he’s above your crown, it’s in his heart that there’s a lotus and a moon disc. Okay? Is it clear?
Okay. Then standing in the center of the moon disc is the blue seed syllable. Ask: should they write Tibetan, or can they do it in English? You can visualize HUM. You don’t need to write it in Tibetan.
K? The lamas have said it’s okay to do it in our own language. So standing in the center of the moon disc is hum, h u m, and this is the seed syllable. So this is all of the mantra contained within hum. It’s like the root of the plant or the seed of the plant.
The seed syllable is blue. It’s radiating light. Now I’ve asked many times, is the light white or blue? I haven’t got a clear answer. You can visualize white light or blue light radiating from the HUM.
For me, it seems to make more sense that the light would be blue. But usually in the text, it says white. But I think, it makes sense that it’s blue because it’s coming from blue. I mean, if you got a blue why does the light suddenly become white? It doesn’t really seem to make sense.
So, it’s up to you, but I think blue is better. So standing in the center of the moon disc is the blue seed syllable surrounded by the syllables of the mantra. So what that means is okay. Right? So you’ve got your lotus.
You’ve got your moon disc. So the moon disc is flat, and around the edge of the moon disc, facing outwards, are the syllables of the mantra. Standing up and facing out. In the center, you’ve got which is blue, and that is radiating light. And then around the edge, you’ve got the mantra, whether it’s the short mantra or the long mantra that’s facing standing upwards and around the edge.
So surrounded where it says surrounded by the syllables of the mantra, so you might think, well, what does that mean? It means HUM is in the middle, and the mantra is around the edge of the disc. Okay? And the syllables are are radiating light, and the hum is radiating light. So as you recite the mantra, you visualize rays of light radiating in all directions from the syllable if you are Medicine Buddha at your heart, if you are not Medicine Buddha, it is at his heart.
So you need to change it. If you’re not Medicine Buddha, you can change it to his heart. Yes, Jack. You could say that. I think because Medicine Buddha is blue, the seed syllable is blue.
Everything has to do with blue, you know, with the Medicine Buddha. And blue is the mind. And so, what are we purifying? What are we, changing? It’s all about the mind.
So Buddha is mind, and Medicine Buddha particularly is mind. So, there’s no explanation in the text given as to why blue, but I think the most logical is because it’s mind. It’s white, red, blue, yellow, green. So it’s about this. Then the seed syllable is blue.
Again, I think because it’s the heart and because it’s the mind, but there isn’t an explanation given. I mean, the difficulty in these texts is it’s given in this way, and it’s not necessarily explained why. They just say, do this. You know? So Tārā’s green.
And then you say, but why? Because she’s green. You know? There’s it’s sort of you have to have a a humility and acceptance. Well, this is the way it is.
You know? And then there’s, other texts with Medicine Buddha, where some of the Medicine Buddha’s are slightly different color. And you say, but why? Because realized beings saw them in a different way. So there’s no black and white, you know, it’s like this.
So you can really enjoy that, or you can get irritated with it. You know? I think better to just accept and say, oh, well, this is the way it is. You know? But I think it’s to do with the mind.
If you think of the sky and the ocean, when you look at the sky and the ocean, what feeling do you get? it is vast and expansive, and that’s the same as the mind. It’s the example of the mind. So I think Medicine Buddha also gives you that feeling of removing all obstacles, obscurations, removing all sickness, removing the boundaries. You know?
Like, remove the boundaries and open up. So Medicine Buddha gives you that feeling. Any other questions? Yeah. Tentric initiation.
There’s a permission to do the practice. If you have the permission to do the practice, then usually you keep the Medicine Buddha above your head. It’s not the full initiation. It’s more, you have some good karma from doing the practice because you’ve been given the permission, but it’s not the full initiation in the sense of, they have tormas and they do it over two days. It it’s much lengthier.
So if you’re not sure, keep the Medicine Buddha above the head because it’s really nice visualization of the light coming down. Whereas when you transform, you have to do it yourself. And if you’re not used to that, it’s a bit difficult. Yeah? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It doesn’t specifically say, but I would assume because otherwise, it’s gonna get really complicated. Blue here, white here, how’s it gonna work? You know?
So you just logically, it seems it would be blue from the seed syllable, and blue from the mantra, I would think. Well, if the whole universe can be contained in one drop of water, it can be actually very, very small. But, when you magnify it, then you you see it. So you should be careful not to make the visualization too big. When you make the visualization big, it’s much more difficult to maintain as a visualization.
Usually, the visualization should be half the size of your thumb. That’s the size of the Buddha above the crown of your head, just that big. I remember this from we did a Shinay retreat in London twenty six years ago. And, I was thinking you’d have a huge Buddha. Right?
Because it would be much easier to visualize. And I remember that time, somebody was leading the retreat, and I was reading up on Shinay. And Lama Zopa Rinpoche said, the smaller, the better. Because when it’s really small, then it’s like you have a a certain number of pixels. You know?
If you have a thousand pixels, I guess you all know what pixels are, don’t you? Being computer people, you’re looking a little bit vague over there. But, you know, the dots. You can stretch the dots out to make a bigger image, but it won’t be clear. And as you compact it, it gets clearer and clearer.
So, actually, it’s more beneficial small rather than big. But if big appears, it’s a huge Buddha, don’t judge and criticize your Buddha, you know, and say, this is really awful. You know? It should be much smaller. As I said, accept it, but just gradually know it’s going to get smaller and smaller because you want it to.
Okay? Any question? You’re okay? Then the light rays pervade the sentient beings of all six realms. So, again, removing all their suffering and giving them whatever they want.
So if they want jobs, see them getting jobs. If they want a family, if they want, a house or food, whatever it is, the light offers them whatever they need. Again, this means that when you’re a Bodhisattva, you’re going to work to make sentient beings happy, both on the conventional level, but also on the ultimate level. It’s not just about giving them enlightenment. If people are hungry, they need food.
They don’t want enlightenment. You know? So first, you give them what they need, and then you give them spiritual food. Through your great love wishing them to have happiness and through your great compassion, wishing them to be free of all sufferings, they are purified of all diseases and afflictions due to spirits and their causes. All their negative karma and mental obstructions are purified and removed.
So you visualize everything that has been harming them, the sicknesses, the mental obstructions, the emotional problems. Everything has been removed, and now they have been transformed. So everybody transforms into Medicine Buddha. So now the next question comes. I’ll tell you the the difficult questions.
Everybody’s transformed into Medicine Buddha except you. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Bit of a worry. So often what happens is in the visualization of everybody transforms into Medicine Buddha, people feel they also transform into Medicine Buddha. And then they ask me, is that alright?
And I said, well, if everybody else is Medicine Buddha, why shouldn’t you be Medicine Buddha? It’s illogical that everybody else is okay except for you. Isn’t it really? This could relate to, you know, this the the three motivations that we have, the shepherd, the king, and the boat person. Do you know these three motivations?
So you have the king or the queen. I’ll go in front. I’ll get enlightened, and then I’ll be back to help you. The boat person, let’s all go at the same time. Because we’re on the boat, we’re all going at the same time.
The shepherd, you will become enlightened, and I’m behind. I’ll lock the door and make sure you’re all safe. So the highest motivation is the shepherd. So if you have the shepherd motivation, it could be that in your visualization, you see everybody is enlightened and I’m not. So through the power of of me, my practice, they have become enlightened, and now I’m really happy for them.
And through that, then automatically, you become enlightened. But if the mind feels a little bit left out, a little bit distressed, become enlightened too. You know? Depends on your motivation. I remember His Holiness saying, even the motivation of the king or the queen, which is the lowest, is still unbelievable, still incredible in this day and age.
Isn’t it? You know? So it’s okay. Yes? King.
I will become enlightened for all sentient beings as quickly as possible by myself alone. You should think like that, but, also to think, I do want to become enlightened so that I can dedicate for the benefit of others. So it’s a it’s a little bit complicated. It’s to do with how your mind feels about your practice. Do you want to just stay here and keep dedicating for others, or do you want to become enlightened as quickly as possible in order to work for the benefit of others?
Which motivates you? Or do you want to do both? You want to become enlightened and along the way, be dedicated. I mean, if you can have the shepherd motivation without any tricky thoughts, you will become enlightened the fastest. It’s all for you.
But if you’re thinking, it’s all for you, but I’m because I’m getting something, then you’ve turned it into a selfish practice. So the most incredible would be the shepherd who’s just wanting others to be benefited. I’ll I’ll tell you another problem then. In the Bodhisattva vows, it says, you should not put off enlightenment. You should become enlightened as quickly as possible.
Right? So you’ve got all these conundrums which Buddhism presents you with. There is no answer. It’s the Buddha taught in different ways for different minds so that you will find something that sets you on fire, you know, that you think, wow. That’s incredible.
I must do that. So for some people, they hear the king or the queen motivation. Wow. Yes. I must go as fast as possible.
And then other people don’t like that. They want to be behind. They want to be making sure everybody else is okay. So in Buddhism, everything’s possible. You know?
There is no right or wrong in that sense. There’s just different levels of mind and what suits you. So, yeah, bodhicitta is king or queen, usually. But it’s good to think, may they go in front. But does that mean I don’t?
It yeah. It doesn’t so much because now you’re actually enlightened. You are enlightened. And so now you have to have that feeling, I want to benefit others. All of the practices, they’re Lam Rim or whether they’re Tantra, is to mentally connect you and karmically connect you with other sentient beings.
So it’s actually more when you’re on the Lam Rim path that you have the choice of the three motivations. But on the tantric path, there’s no choice at all. You’re already enlightened. So then how can you have a choice as to whether you’re enlightened quickly or slowly? There is no choice because you’ve already done it.
But, when you’re thinking about motivation, then at that time you can play with your motivation. But I think that, Buddha taught in so many different ways because he was so aware that one way is not going to work for all. And so, what makes you interested? What what connects you to the practice? Anything else?
Okay. Lunch. So we didn’t get to do the qualities yet. I’m going to have to talk to Lindy Abraham. Abraham.
Isn’t it Abraham? I thought it was Abraham. Something like out of the bible. I think she’s a bit biblical actually. Don’t you think