Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 33-minute guided meditation, Ven Lobsang Namgyel leads practitioners through a foundational analytical investigation into the nature of the self. Beginning with settling the mind and establishing body awareness, he directs students to locate the sense of “I” that normally feels solid and independent. He then systematically deconstructs this assumed self by asking whether the “I” could exist apart from body and mind, searching through the body’s parts and the mind’s fluctuating moments for any unchanging essence. By imagining the body breaking apart into atoms and the mind dissolving into separate thoughts and emotions, he guides practitioners toward the insight that the “I” is merely imputed by the mind in dependence on many parts and moments. The meditation concludes with a dedication directing the realization of this profound emptiness toward liberation and the benefit of all beings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 19 Meditation Emptiness.mp3
UUID: d7607b98-f17f-4779-bc98-c87d49f60dde
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: VenNamgyel Thought Transformation (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 33.6 minutes
Words: ~859
So we can begin by simply letting our mind settle down. And again use few deep breaths. Breathing in some freshness and then breathing out and dispelling tension. Allowing our mind to naturally settle down. So now we’ll begin by generating awareness of the body, our body sitting.
We can repeat the thought in the mind. I am sitting. I am sitting and then to generate an awareness as clearly as you can of the body sitting. Your body sitting. Slowly repeat in your mind the thought, I am sitting.
And be aware of your body sitting. You can perhaps also use the thought, my body is sitting. And be aware of the body sitting. Now begin to generate an awareness of your mind. The mind that thinks I am sitting.
Generate an awareness of the thought, of the mind, I am sitting. The mind thinks I am sitting. And then now contact the I that thinks I am sitting. Try to make contact with the sense of I. The way it’s instinctively appeared to you.
Look at this I that thinks I am sitting. Try to get a sense of it as strongly as you can. Just a sense, don’t conceptualize about it. Some kind of identity that it’s maybe even beyond words. I.
I am I am sitting. There is the body. There is a mind. The mind. And there is a sense of I.
Can I really exist without the body and the mind? I exist in dependence upon the body and the mind. If you think I can exist independently, it can. Then you can try and find out how would you describe this I without relating it to the body and the mind. What would this I be?
I exist in dependence upon the characteristics of the body and mind. Can an I really exist without the body and the mind? Then we might conclude that, okay, if that’s the case then the I is one, this I is one with the body and the mind. Then you can start to slowly look first within the body into the different parts like a spy looking for the sense of a real I. Look into the different parts, the different organs.
Where is this I? Is it in the ears? In the eyes? In the head? Can gradually go like that slowly through your body.
And if you think you find it somewhere, we can perhaps identify it somewhere. Try to go into the smaller details of the body in this area. And see if you can find such an I there. If you need to strengthen again this sense of I, this concrete I that you’re supposed to look for, You can again think, use this thought to go back in the meditation and think I am, I am. I am sitting.
I am so and so. I am like this or like that. I am. And then look for this I, carry on your search. So when you search from within the body you find many parts.
Many, many bodily parts made of matter. Where did you find the I? Did you find anything more than body parts? So then we might think, okay, then I must be found within the mind. This I must be found within the mind.
But then look a little bit into the nature of the mind. Moment by moment. One moment ceases, another moment arises. One moment peace. One moment anger. One moment love.
One moment jealousy. We can ask ourselves which moment is the I. The I appears in one way. Solid concrete one. And the mind made of so many moments.
So many emotions. Look into these emotions that you’re familiar with from within your mind and try to see. If you can find such an I in any of these moments, any of these emotions. Then you can imagine your body is gradually falling apart into smaller and smaller pieces, smaller and smaller parts. Even down to the level of atoms and even smaller than that.
Just like that floating, floating away into different directions into space. The body is breaking up and disappears. And then do the same with the mind. The different moments, different emotions and thoughts that arise. Let them float away.
Don’t hold any of them back. Then you can allow this sense of I to come back. And think this I is merely imputed by the mind. in dependence on many moments and different parts. This I is merely imputed by the mind.
In dependence on many moments and different parts. Then we can make a dedication that through engaging in such practices and analyzing in that way we will be able to realize this most profound truth about the way things are. May it become a cause for ourselves to be liberated, to be liberated from all suffering and its causes And to be able to help all others to get out and to be liberated as well. Not leaving anyone behind. You can make as well personal, more personal dedications for people in your life and for different difficult situation in this world.