Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 28-minute session, Venerable Lobsang Namgyel introduces the practical daily practice of thought transformation, beginning with generating bodhicitta, the heartfelt intention to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings rather than just oneself. He clarifies what enlightenment actually means, addressing the modern Western listener’s potential hesitation: not magical omnipotence, but omniscient wisdom, knowing others’ minds and karma so you can truly help them, though no mystery will remain. He then walks through purifying the place, challenging the delusion that happiness depends on external conditions like chocolate or pleasant weather, and instead cultivating an unshakeable peace of mind. He explains karmic appearance, how each person perceives the same room differently based on their karma. Finally, he introduces the offering practice, teaching how to mentally offer beloved things like coffee, chocolate, or flowers to Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and all sentient beings, starting with difficult people to develop equanimity. The talk is pitched at newcomers and serious practitioners alike, grounding Buddhism in immediate daily applicability.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 25 Teaching 1.mp3
UUID: ea04ee00-4ff6-41bb-b225-3f995b656b2c
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: VenNamgyel Thought Transformation (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 28.5 minutes
Words: ~3,962
We’re trying to do through thought transformation, through all the activities in the day. So in order to do that then we start off by generating bodhicitta. This means thinking about your motivation for the day. So if you can do that at the very beginning of the day, you get up and you think what’s my motivation for living today? Often it’s just earning enough money to buy something, to eat, to have a nice house or flat or car or whatever it is.
But generating bodhicitta is not about all of that. It’s about something bigger than that. It’s about the suffering and the happiness of all sentient beings. So this is spiritual rather than material. Okay?
So when we’re reciting this generating bodhicitta, we’re saying to accomplish my own and others’ aims. So we’re not saying you should deny yourself. We’re not saying forget about you forget about you and only consider others. We accept that you have a concern and we’re using that concern to turn you on to the concern that you should have for others. So understanding your own, what about me?
You start to look at others and you think, well I’ve got that same problem. Right? So it’s not just me alone. We’re all suffering from that disease of what about me? Then I generate the mind seeking enlightenment.
So, seeking seeking enlightenment. This enlightenment word, it’s a very big word, isn’t it? And so you think, wow, you know enlightenment, Buddha. Do I want to become a Buddha? Do I want to look Asian?
Do I want to be a statue? You know? I mean, this is a bit hair raising, isn’t it, if you got hair? But do I want to become a statue? Do I want to be sitting up there like he is?
I think, you know, thinking about this word enlightenment brings up maybe many questions. And we have to have those questions and we have to think about would we want to be enlightened because it’s not enough to just say, I want to be enlightened. That’s what I want. You know, as we say in Buddhism, oh, give me enlightenment. You know, As soon as I’m enlightened, I’m gonna liberate all sentient beings.
But is it realistic? Have you really thought about what enlightenment means? Enlightenment means omniscient. It doesn’t mean omnipotent. A Buddha doesn’t create the world.
A Buddha’s omniscient knows everything. Right? So Buddha means awake, to know. It means having wisdom. Would you want all that wisdom?
Would you want to know? It means you’d know other people’s minds, other people’s karma, other people’s delusions. You’d know how to help them. You’d know how to benefit them. But nothing would be a mystery anymore.
Right? So imagine a world where there’s no mystery, where nothing’s hidden. No mystery novels, know, no Sherlock Holmes, no miss Marple or anything like that. Now you know everything. Right?
You know the last page before you’ve even started reading the first page. You know what’s going on inside each individual. So this is just a taste of what does this word enlightenment mean. To have only light in your heart and no darkness. No suffering, no delusions, no problems.
Just imagine what that would be like. So it’s good to just start thinking in that direction. What would it mean? Instead of just saying, oh yeah, enlightenment, I like that word. You know, it sounds good.
But what’s the meaning for you? And then purifying the place, the next verse, this means that rather than seeing the place as impure, we’re starting to try to visualize the place as pure. Like I said, you can wake up cranky, irritable, but do you have to be cranky and irritable the whole day? Sometimes we are. Right?
Sometimes you you continue that cranky irritable mind for the whole day. Is that the way you want to be? Isn’t it just a decision? Right? Because of causes and conditions, what was happening around you, you made some sort of subtle decision.
I’m going to be cranky and irritable today. But Buddhism says, do you have to be? Is your mind so out of control that you can’t change that situation? And we know we can. Right?
You cranky and irritable and you think, oh, if only I had a Baskin-Robbins double whatever. You know, whatever it is that you really like, or that really nice bar of Swiss chocolate, or if my friend would send me an SMS or phone me, then I’ll be happy. Right? So our happiness is conditional, and if we don’t meet those conditions, we stay cranky and irritable. But if something nice happens, the mind changes, and then we become happy.
But then something that we don’t like happens, we become unhappy. And isn’t that the way it goes on? That’s not an enlightened lifestyle. Right? That’s a lifestyle that we normally have that is conditional.
It’s always looking for conditions to make us happy. So purifying the place says, yes, we know all about that. Buddha also knew about that because that’s where he came from. He experienced it too. But he said, you know, I live in a palace with all these pleasures, but deep down inside, there’s still dissatisfaction.
There’s still pain and problems. So there must be more than this. And he kept asking his parents, what more is there? And they said, you want more food? You want more whatever?
No, no. It’s not that what is it? You know, there’s something missing. So what’s missing is the ability to control the mind. Isn’t it?
If you have that control of mind, then no matter what’s happening, your mind is going to be happy. Not conditionally happy, but just happy. So purifying the place means we accept we may have woken up cranky and irritable. We start with bodhicitta. I’m not just living for myself.
I’m doing things for others, and then purifying the place. I’m not coming from karmic appearance. So I’m throwing a lot of concepts at you before we’ve even started. So karmic appearance is that however you’re seeing the world is an appearance according to your karma. So yesterday I asked you, do you know about karma?
And you all said very happily, yes. Now maybe you should have said no. So karmic appearance means that your karma, your past actions are forcing you to perceive this room and to hear these teachings in your own way, individually. Right? So we have a collective karma.
All of us are sitting here experiencing this together. But what’s really interesting is when you get into the discussion group and you say, oh, I heard and somebody else says, no, no, I didn’t hear it that way. I heard it a different way. Right? So you have that collective karma, but you also have your individual karma.
Where you’re coming from, how you’re perceiving the teachings. You could be sitting here thinking, what are these terrible statues doing here? Why they put all these statues? And somebody else is sitting there thinking, wow, look at those statues. Right?
The statues are the same, but your perception of the statues is according to your karma. So how you’re experiencing this room right now is according to you. Whether you’ve got positive karma, negative karma, neutral karma. So at the beginning of the day, what we’re trying to do is smooth out the bumps. You know?
If you woke up a bit rocky, not so happy, you’re trying to smooth it out. So you don’t experience the day like that. You want to experience the day in a much nicer way, don’t you? I mean, do we have any volunteers for unhappiness? Right?
Nobody. His Holiness always says, we all want happiness and we don’t want to suffer. And yet we make ourselves suffer. Not one of you said, yeah, I love it. You know, give me the suffering.
If anybody doesn’t want suffering, we’ll all give it to them. Nobody wants it. I don’t want it. You don’t want it. He doesn’t want it.
I don’t think even Buddha wants it. Buddha didn’t say, I want more suffering. Buddha said, I want more happiness. But I don’t want this type of happiness that is conditional on the chocolate, the iPad, whatever it is. A happiness that goes beyond that.
That’s enlightenment. Right? So how do we get to that stage? We’re starting to work with how we woke up, how we’re perceiving the situation, what’s going on. This is very practical.
Instead of saying, here’s all the teachings, you know, massive amount of teaching, take it and figure it out. Somebody sat down and said, well actually, you need to think about the beginning of the day. How do we start off our day when we’re not so happy? When there’s a gray sky, know, you’re living in wherever you’re living, but it’s a gray sky. It’s raining and you think, you know, I have to go out in that.
How do you transform that? What do you do with that? Right? These are these are the sort of practical questions that you ask in the very beginning, isn’t it? When I’m not so comfortable, what do I do with that?
When I’m not sleeping well, what do I do with that? But if that’s your ultimate goal, it doesn’t go very far. Just comfortable sleep, comfortable seat, nice things to eat. That’s very small. What about getting out of suffering, but not being concerned about others?
That seems pretty incredible, getting out of suffering, but what about all the others? In the Lamrim, the teachings of the Buddha, that’s what’s called the medium scope. What about me and sorry but the others I’m not worried about. So that’s often called nirvana, individual liberation. It’s not in relation to others, it’s just about me.
I want to get out of my suffering. I want nirvana. Yeah? So liberation from suffering. But Buddha said that’s not the end of the road.
The end of the road, the total package deal, you know, now you get total package deals, isn’t it? So we’ll throw in this and we’ll throw in this. So if you’re buying a computer or anything like this, they do this to you. So you know, here’s the package deal and you get this and this and this and this. And there’s some functions missing.
And you say, oh, but what are those functions? Oh, well omniscience And the ability to walk through walls, and the ability to fly without airplanes. Oh, well, give me that package deal. Yeah, I want that one. So, you know, being Westerners, we want to grab the whole lot.
Right? We would like enlightenment. So that’s the ultimate goal. Enlightenment is the total package deal. I could be totally able to benefit all sentient beings as long as they have the ability to be benefited.
It’s two ways, isn’t it? It’s not just Buddha from his side trying to benefit, but it’s also our side we’re trying to be benefited. You’ve got to do it from both sides. So in order to purify and prepare this ground, we’re generating bodhicitta, we’re purifying the place which is starting to challenge our delusions. Okay?
We’re challenging our delusions because your delusion like I said could be sitting here thinking I’m so unhappy, I’m so angry, I’m so this, I’m so This negative states of mind that we get into, this is a delusion. So we’re starting to challenge it at the very beginning of the day. Then there’s an offering prayer. So this offering prayer, it’s all it’s all in English. It’s not a particular mandala, but we’ll just recite these three verses and this offering prayer is that in order to make a lot of positive karma as quickly as possible, in order to be able to actualize what you want to actualize, you need to be able to make lots of offerings.
In order to do that, you can either have physical offerings that you can make or very skillfully you can do it with your mind. And by making offerings with your mind, what are you doing? You really think about when you’re making an offering, you know, think about, I don’t know, you went to the shops, you know your friend really needs a clock. It’s the birthday, right? So you searched all the shops and you found the most beautiful plastic clock that you could find, you know, with all the functions.
And your friend loves green. So you searched all the shops and you found the right green clock. Right? And it opens up and it’s got a little stand and it’s got all these doo dahs. So you think this is great.
I really want to offer this to my friend. That opens your heart, doesn’t it? When you’re doing that, when you’re giving a gift, it opens your heart. And when you give the gift, you know, it’s wrapped in this beautiful paper that they go, and you think, that paper cost five dollars. Open it carefully.
So you gave this, and you give it to your friend, and if your friend lights up and says, Wow, this is incredible. You know, it’s a plastic clock made by Orphée. That’s, I mean, it’s beyond what I ever expected to get. You know, really amazing. How do you feel?
You feel incredible, don’t you? But say your friend says, Oh, plastic, green, or pat, you know, and your heart goes, So just we know in the ordinary world, in our conventional world, when we offer our heart opens. We have an incredible feeling about it. We really like it. So we’ve already got that experience going for us, but now we’re saying magnify it, make it even more, but don’t start with this.
Because if you give this and then afterwards you think, why did I do that? You have regret. You want to pull the good action back. That’s not a healthy state of mind. So we start with visualizations.
Giving chocolate, giving coffee, what do you like? You have to offer what you like. People think when they’re offering to Buddhas, they have to offer strange things, you know, things that they wouldn’t normally offer. Oh, well, I’ll offer incense even though I don’t really like incense and I’ll offer these sort of special robes that they wear but I don’t really connect with that. So would you feel gloriously, incredibly happy after that?
You know, you’ve offered these things that you somehow don’t really know what you’re offering and you’re not so happy about offering. But what about if you offered things that you really like? The cup of coffee that you really like first thing in the morning or the cup of tea that you really like first thing in the morning, you could offer that. And you see that the Buddha drinking your cup of tea or coffee and saying, you know, that must be Java. Yeah?
You made that really well. Oh, thank you. Yeah? You’d feel happy about it, wouldn’t you? Ice cream, chocolate, whatever you like, that’s what you should be offering.
And not just to the Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas, but to all sentient beings. In your mind, you’re offering to as many as possible. This prepares your mind for the eventuality in the future of you being a Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva meaning able to offer and benefit as many sentient beings as possible. Can we do it right now?
No. We’re limited. But we’re here to try and learn how to go beyond the limitations. Teach me how to go beyond these limitations because I’m sick of the limits. You know, I’ll help you and I’ll help you and I’ll help you and you, well you hurt me last week so I’m not helping you.
And you I definitely don’t like. Right? These are our limitations. But a Bodhisattva has none of those limitations. A Bodhisattva, male or female, wherever they see suffering wants to take away the suffering and they try to give happiness.
Right? So we can start mentally by wanting to give happiness. And what do you do? When you want to give happiness to your friends, what do you do? You give a present.
You give some flowers, you give some chocolates, you give coffee, you give a nice meal, whatever it is, we do it in that sort of way, don’t we? So, what I’m asking you to do is mentally to prepare the ground of your mind, you start making offerings. And if you are not Buddhist and you don’t believe in Buddha, if you have another religion, you can do it with Jesus, you can do it with Mohammed, whoever you want to do it with. And if you don’t believe in any of them, just think of all sentient beings. Your mother, your father, your brothers, your sisters, they’re usually the ones that you have trouble with.
You know, your mother who says, You play the violin, are you mad? Or, You study, become a PhD? What? You know? Or always pushing you to do more than you think you can do, or criticising the clothes that you wear or whatever.
So you can have problems with your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your friends. So we need to visualize them around us and think, start giving. No. No matter what they’ve done to you, start giving. Mentally, what would they like?
I know my mother likes this, I give her this. I know my father likes this, I give this. And you see them happy and pleased because you’ve made these offerings. That helps you to start developing the mind of equanimity, a balanced mind. Instead of saying I really like, I really dislike and the rest I don’t care about, we’re trying to develop a mind of equanimity, a balanced mind.
In order to create a balanced mind, you need to start working with the people that you don’t like. That’s thought transformation. You need to start working with the people that you’re attached to. That’s thought transformation. You need to start working with the people you don’t care about.
That’s thought transformation. So you’ve got to work with everybody. That’s why everybody’s important. Right? Because in every situation there’s something to transform, there’s something to work with.
Okay? Understand? So we are not reciting this meaninglessly. There is a meaning. There is a very big meaning behind it.
And I am telling you this because when you go away from here and you wonder what to do, when you wake up in the morning cranky and irritable, you think, what was it he said? You know? Change your mind. Do something about it. And it really helps when something’s been written down for you.
Okay, so if you open to page thirty five. So Generating bodhicitta. We are going to read that three times and then Purifying the Place, offering prayer just once. To accomplish my own and others aims, I generate the mind seeking enlightenment. To accomplish my own and others aims, I generate the mind seeking enlightenment.
To accomplish my own and others aims, I generate the mind seeking enlightenment. And then purifying the place. So now it says everywhere may the ground be pure. So you’re changing this place into the most beautiful place that you can imagine. If it’s not beautiful now, visualize it as being beautiful as you’re reciting these words.
Everywhere may the ground be pure, free of the roughness of pebbles and so forth. May it be in the nature of lapis lazuli and so smooth as the palm of one’s hand. So, what it’s saying is that because of our negative karma, we could be experiencing a place that’s that’s rocky and uneven. So a difficult place to walk, thorns, no flowers, you know, not a very nice place. So if you’re experiencing that place, even more so do you need to transform it in your mind.
So the nature of lapis lazuli, it’s very blue, very beautiful. For some reason, lapis keeps coming up in Medicine Buddha, different things. Lapis was a very precious stone, you know, many, many years ago. And I think it was used, you know, in paintings and many special situations. So it was one of the rare stones.
And so I think this nature of lapis lazuli, very smooth and very beautiful. And then the offering prayer. So during the offering prayer, may human and divine offerings actually arranged and mentally created. Actually arranged means, oh, can you you know under there, there’s I don’t know why he doesn’t switch the lights on. Actually arranged are meant to be created.
We’re going to switch the lights on, then you get actually Oh, there’s no power, no wonder. So, you’ll have to really do this with your mind. Imagine all the lights going on. Alright? So the lights are actually arranged and the water bowls are also actually arranged.
You don’t have to come here and do the water bowls. Somebody comes here and does the water bowls. And the water bowls represent certain offerings that you would make to a guest when they’re coming to your house. This was traditional Indian style. So when you went to and still now today in many Indian homes, you go to an Indian home and the first thing they say is, would you like to wash your feet?
They didn’t have shoes, so would you like to wash your feet in cool water? So water to wash your feet, then something to drink, so water to drink. Then would you like some food? They offer some nice flowers, so the environment looks beautiful. Some nice smell, incense.
This is what the water bowls represent. The water bowls represent all the offerings that you would make to a special guest when they are coming to your home. This is your home. You’re asking all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, please come here to bless my mind to help me to become enlightened as fast as possible. So you’re doing it in a very skillful way.
Okay. So the offering prayer. May human and divine offerings actually arranged and mentally created clouds of Samantabhādra offerings fill the entire space. So it means mountains of ice cream, mountains of chocolate, mountains of coffee, mountains, you know? Don’t just offer one little cup of coffee.
Offer lots of coffees. Because as many, many Buddhas, many bodhisattvas, you want to offer as many offerings as you can. Because the more you offer, the more merit you get, the more that you’ve got going for you, the more that helps you have realizations to change your mind. Right? We need all that good karma.
So this is how we start the day. So we’ll just finish with those three verses. Okay. So before I start on the thought transformation, So it’s not on, is it? I thought I sounded very quiet.
So can you hear me in the back? I try to project, right? But if my voice drops, you have to tell me. Okay? Because there is no power.
I’m on I’m on me power. Just me. Okay. I thought to give you a Lamrim overview. Some of you, I think, don’t know what the Lamrim is.
Do you think there’s chalk? I can take this one with me. So I’ll write this on the board for you.