Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 31-minute teaching, Ven Lobsang Namgyel walks through four of the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, a Tibetan Buddhist practice for reshaping difficult emotions and relationships. He begins with the four immeasurables—love, compassion, joy, and equanimity—as a daily motivation, offering concrete ways to practice them throughout the day: wishing happiness on everyone you see, cultivating compassion toward those who irritate you, and leveling your mind’s bias between people you like and dislike. He then covers the first four verses: recognizing all beings as precious despite their behavior; cultivating humility and respect rather than pride; developing mindfulness to catch delusional states of mind the moment they arise; and viewing difficult people as rare opportunities for spiritual growth rather than obstacles. Throughout, he emphasizes practical application: tracking your behavior every two hours, setting a clear motivation each morning, revisiting the day in the evening to rejoice in positive actions and purify negative ones, and using thought transformation to reshape how you relate to colleagues, partners, and family. Suitable for practitioners new to formal Tibetan Buddhist methods seeking concrete daily practices.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 34 Teaching 10.mp3
UUID: 27399524-62a8-47f6-8bcd-a57d855a1163
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: VenNamgyel Thought Transformation (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 30.8 minutes
Words: ~4,451
So these are the four immeasurables in relation to all sentient beings. I particularly like them as something that you can read in the morning as a motivation for the day. If you’re practicing thought transformation, this is another easy way of doing it. So if you if you are having problems with anybody, take as one day the day that you keep thinking, may you have happiness. So just whoever you see, may you have happiness.
So this is the first one. Instead of saying, may all sentient beings have happiness and its causes. Just as you’re going around, you know, in the city, in the shopping centers, wherever you are, just everybody you see, may you be happy. May you be happy. And then you can extend it to may you be happy and have the causes of happiness.
Because may you be happy is present. If they don’t have any causes of happiness there’s no future happiness. So they need happiness and causes of happiness. So if you find that you’re getting upset with people, your mind’s not so happy, etcetera, etcetera, then happiness and its causes. Then the next one is I’m sorry.
And the first one is love. So it’s great love. It’s great love because it’s in relation to all sentient beings. Ordinary love is in relation to some sentient beings. Great love is in relation to all sentient beings.
The next one is compassion and that’s, may all beings be free of suffering. So again, if you have an angry irritable sort of mind and you’re not seeing things in a very nice way and you want to change that, then you go around saying may you be free of suffering. May you be free of suffering. So you can take one day when you do one, one day when you do the other and then you can combine them together. May you be happy and then may you be free of suffering.
Yeah. So you can just work with it and see which way, is good for your mind. Never separated from sorrowless bliss. So this is understanding that we have ordinary happiness which is caused by positive karma. So sorrowless bliss is a state of happiness which is beyond karma.
You’re not relying on good karma in order to be happy. So then you’re wishing that all beings have that type of happiness. Not conditional happiness, but just happiness from their own side. And that would also assume in brackets that they’re not going to suffer. And then the last one, may all sentient beings abide in equanimity free of bias, attachment and anger.
So equanimity, making your mind a level playing field. Usually our mind is not a level playing field. It’s biased, it’s tilted towards some people and it gives the advantage to some people and it puts the disadvantage on other people. So who do you normally like and you help? Who do you normally dislike and you don’t help?
That’s the uneven playing field. An equanimity wants to level up the field. You know, it says, now try and have more caring and compassion, more kindness towards the people you don’t like, and try and reduce the attachment of the people that you do like. Attachment as opposed to love and compassion. So you have to work with the difference between those.
And then anger, of course, we’ve already touched on anger and whether anger is a destructive force and can really harm others. So that’s called the four immeasurables. Okay? Any problems? You all look exhausted.
What’s wrong with you people? Up half the night? Up half the night? Did you get eight hours sleep? And take a deep breath.
Breathe. Come on. Breathe. Get some oxygen into your lungs. I might have to get you all to go running around the hill, I think.
Little bit of exercise. So going back to the verses. Verse one, the preciousness of all living beings. No matter what they’re doing to you, you have decided that they are precious. Alright?
This is the operating principle upon which you are working. I have decided they are precious. I don’t care what they’re doing to me. I don’t care if they’re shouting at me, abusing me. They want to harm me, they want to get rid of me from work, they want to divorce me, whatever it is.
I don’t care. I have decided they are precious. And I care about them. They’re dear in the way of being expensive. They’re, dear in the way of I want to hold them close.
I’m not trying to push them away. This is very different from what we’re normally doing. Alright? So it’s radically changing your perspective on the difficult people. It starts to work with that.
There are difficult people in our lives, and our usual reaction is get them away. So in this very first verse, it says, no matter what they’re doing, bring them closer. Then the second verse is about humility and respect. Alright? So, this being humble, you may know incredible things.
You know, you could be a PhD, you might know everything, but you don’t have to use it in order to always put yourself up. Remember when you put yourself up, it’s more difficult for people to talk to you. It’s more more difficult for people to ask advice, to get closer to you. The Buddhist analogy or example of this is usually that a very proud person who is not humble sits on the top of the mountain. Right?
So it’s like they’re sitting on top of the mountain, on the peak of the mountain, and all sentient beings are down in the valley. Or, where does the sun shine first on? It shines first on the top of the mountain and sort of melts that, you know, and then goes down into the valley. Where do the crops grow? So do the crops grow on the top?
You know, you may be getting a bit of warmth up there, but where do the crops actually grow? Where does the food grow? It grows down in the valley. So the goodness is actually down there, rather than putting oneself up there separate, not not able to interact with others. So in order to have a conversation, in order to be a benefit to others, put yourself with the others rather than separating yourself.
Okay. By the way, if you’ve lost the verses, they are in this small book. On on page sixty three. Then, we’re up to verse three and four. Do you want to give them out for me?
Thank you. I think the translation in this book is slightly different. The the meaning’s the same, but the the verses might be slightly different. So the third verse is vigilant. The moment of delusion appears in my mind, endangering myself and others.
I shall confront and avert it without delay. Vigilant, the moment of delusion appears in my mind, endangering myself and others, I shall confront and avert it without delay. So now this is encouraging you to be mindful. Be aware of your actions throughout the day. Particularly these sheets of paper I gave out.
What’s your name? Do you want to take these Susan? These are two pieces of paper I gave everybody else. Susan went to Tibet and got stuck in Tibet so couldn’t get here for the beginning of the course. So she’s trying to catch up.
So I gave you this piece of paper where you can track your behavior. Thank you. Where you can track your behavior throughout the day. You might take that as an idea of something that you want to continue. So in that case, you have a book and then when you wake up in the morning, you set your, motivation for the day.
What’s my particular motivation for today? If you can, enlightenment, bodhicitta, compassion, love, patience, whatever your specialization for today is, set the motivation for the day. And then every two hours, check-in on what’s happening to your mind. So every two hours, try to stop. Take two or three minutes, and then try to check-in on what’s been happening.
And then make a note in your book, plus and minus. It’s also important to make a note about the good things that you’re doing. Don’t use your tracking system to just be noting the negative things, but note the positive things. What have you done during the day that was really positive and at the end of the day you can rejoice over? So the negative things, it gives you an idea of the habits that you may not have, realized that you had, and then to purify at the end of the day, you can use Vajrasattva if you want to, or some other system.
Particularly, to regret the actions and to try to make a system where you’re going to be reducing the amount that you’re doing those negative actions. So can you promise not to do it for half an hour, an hour, at least to make a promise for a shorter amount of time. So that’s purifying negative actions. The positive actions then you need to keep rejoicing over the positive actions that you’ve done. So these are the two things that you do in the evening.
So this is what I call, a scanning meditation for the day. Start your day with a positive motivation and your breathing meditation or your analytical meditation or you could be reading the foundation of all good qualities. Whichever way that you felt that you wanted to start the day, do that because if you don’t do it first thing in the morning, you won’t do it. You know how busy we are. Right?
So we rush through the day. You think, oh yeah yeah, I’ll do it in the evening and when you get home you’re tired, you don’t want to meditate. So really good to get your meditation done first thing in the morning. Get up, wash your face, sit on the cushion. Right?
Rather than, first I have a cup of coffee and then the phone starts to ring. Don’t answer the phone. You know, if you have a normal phone, most people don’t anymore, take it off the hook. There’s an incredible invention for mobile phones. Amazing.
It’s really incredible. It’s called the off switch. Right? Press the off switch. Switch it off and don’t switch it on until you’re ready for the day.
And how are you going to set yourself up for the day? You’ve got to get your mind moving in a positive direction. Right? So then, you’ve done that in the morning. You’re checking in every two hours.
Are you living in accordance with the direction that you set first thing in the morning? Are you still moving in that direction? If not, what’s sending you off course? What is it? And try and relate it to one of those eight verses.
So this is how you use the eight verses during the day. Write down little notes that will help you at the end of the day, and when you get home, you could do it first thing when you get home, you just sit down. I recommend that people sit in a chair. This is not a formal meditation. Sit in a chair, have a cup of tea or coffee.
You can have a biscuit or something like that. Go back through the day and use your book. So you know, maybe it’s eight o’clock in the evening. So six o’clock, I noticed that. Four o’clock, I noticed that.
Two o’clock, I noticed that. That was really good because usually I get cranky when blah blah blah happens, but this time I didn’t. You know, you do it like that. It helps to remind you of the subtle changes that are happening, that we often don’t notice. You just think, oh, know, that was good, and then you forget it.
But you need to keep building on those subtle changes. So having that sort of diary over the day really helps. So from the time you sit down in the evening, go back through the day and notice the positive that’s happened, notice the negative. What do you do about the negative? How do you work on it to change it?
And the positive, keep rejoicing. And having that positive in a book over a few days, a few weeks, is really inspiring. You can see that your life is changing. So that’s one way of mindfulness. Another thing that you can do, if you are stopping every two hours, is, as I said to you, breathe.
Right? So every two hours, not just the book, but just spend a few minutes or a minute, if you haven’t got much time, just breathing. You know, we’re often not aware of our breath, so breathing deeply into the abdomen, breathing out. If you are stressed and tense, breathing in peace, breathing out problems, breathing out thoughts, but reconnecting with the breath. It’s very important to get you back to your center.
So breath, many people, then the objection comes, but I can’t do this in work. I said go to the toilet. You know, it’s a great meditation area. You close the door, you sit on the toilet, you can multi multitask, multi function, you know. But just sit there, nobody knows what you’re doing.
Two or three minutes, just close your eyes, reconnect to the meditation that you had in the morning. The idea of doing the first meditation is that it’s like the injection antibiotic for saṃsāra, you know. And then it works, it wears off during the day. So every two hours you need to take a tablet. That’s the short meditation.
So you sit there and you just breathe, reconnect with your breath, with your motivation for the day. If you’ve got your book with you, make a note, go back to work. What you’ll find then is that you’re not accumulating so much stress and tension. You’re able to be more equal and less up and down, less stressed, less tired, and then when you go home, time for enjoying yourself. Because if you get home with your your shoulders up around your ears and you’re really upset and angry about something, the family experience it.
And why should they? You know, we have to find a way of dealing with it throughout the day. So, the moment a delusion appears in my mind, trying to be aware, to have mindfulness, trying to be vigilant, you know, so it’s like there’s a guard on the gate of the mind Watching for anger, attachment, jealousy, hatred, pride. Ignorance is the root of all of them. But look out for those negative states of mind because when a delusion appears, you’re about to create sixty-five karmic imprints per second.
No delusion, no karma. So this is the good news, is if you don’t have a delusional state of mind, you are not creating any karma. However, the downside is we have ignorance present twenty four hours a day. Means ignorant of the fact that things don’t exist inherently. They don’t exist by their own nature.
So you know that’s always there. So try to reduce the delusions. You’ll find things get better very quickly. Then the next verse, and then we’ll go for a break, and then if you have any questions you can ask me afterwards. Whenever I see beings who are wicked in nature, overwhelmed by violent negative actions and suffering, I shall hold such rare ones dear as if I had found a precious treasure.
The rare jewel has appeared on your horizon. The one that you said you always wanted. You said, help me to get to enlightenment. Help me to develop more compassion. Help me to have more patience.
Here it is. This is the opportunity. This is the rare jewel. You don’t think it’s a rare jewel. You think this is a pain in the neck, and you’ve got to get rid of them, you know?
Go to the boss and say, why did you get to give this person this job? They’re horrible. And they go and another horrible person arrives. So they’ve appeared because of your karma. This is a ripening of your karma.
If you try to get rid of them, you’re creating more karma and more will appear. So now you need to deal with this karma. And how you deal with it is by rejoicing that this person has arrived, instead of thinking it’s a terrible thing, and then you work with the situation. You use them as your guru. So you think, like the Lama who went to the top of the mountain and was meditating on patience, if I go to the top of the mountain and I’m just thinking patience, patience, patience, there’s no test.
We don’t know whether we’re really patient. What’s happening now is the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have decided I need an examination. I need a test. And so this person has turned up for that reason. Or this person is my guru, or this is a manifestation of my negative karma.
Whichever way you think, think in a different way than you would have thought before. If before you would have been irritable, and angry, and upset, and have a reaction, that’s what you need to stop. But not stopping it by suppressing it, stopping it by changing the way you view it. And that goes back to the first one. All sentient beings are precious and dear.
I want to hold them close. It doesn’t mean all sentient beings are dear except this one. That’s not compassion. All sentient beings are dear without exception. The second one, humility and respect.
Why am I always putting myself higher? Why am I saying I’m more important than this person? I’m perceiving them as upsetting, irritating. I’m seeing them that way. But they’re not truly that way.
This is the dream or the rainbow. It’s not really the way I’m thinking. It’s my sixty five imprints per second forcing my perception to see the enemy because of emptiness. So that person that I’m seeing as the enemy is empty of inherent existence. They’re not existent the way I think, it’s because of my karma that I’m seeing them that way.
That’s my perception. Not the perception of all people. Because you know if you go to other people, you won’t get everybody agreeing with what you say. You say, this person is so irritating. And somebody else will say, not at all.
That’s when you see the emptiness of the situation. Not at all. Or their mother loves them. You know, Saddam Hussein’s mother loved him. Not everybody hates him.
Somebody said after he was dead, he was an incredible guy. Some people said, that shows you emptiness. That there’s not one world view of that person. Not saying that person’s good, but I’m just saying that person is empty. And that’s really hard for us when we’re building this idea of the enemy in the mind.
And the other one is when we’re building the idea that we’re falling in love. We go into this fantasy. Wow. Look at the way they walk. Wow.
Look at the way they talk, the way they eat. Everything is perfect. Isn’t it? Before you get together, it’s all perfect because it’s a fantasy. So you’re living the fantasy Fueled by desire and attachment.
I want them. And because I get and because I want them, if I get them, I’m going to be happy and it’s going to fulfill me. And if I don’t get them, then I’m going to be really upset and angry. Right? So love often has that two sides to it.
If I get what I want, happiness. If I don’t get what I want, unhappiness. So you get what you want. You start to live together, the honeymoon phase. It’s all going along quite nicely.
And after a short time, the the little arguments and I don’t live this way. You know, I want you to do this. Well, don’t live that way, and I want you to do this. And then the the bickering can start, and the disagreements can start. So where does it come from?
We’re trying to change the other’s behavior. Love means, we go back to the four immeasurables, I want you to be happy. It’s not I want you to be happy to make me happy, it’s just I want you to be happy. Now imagine if two people are living together, and I want you to be happy, and I want you to be happy. No problem.
But I want you to be happy in order for you to make me happy is the emotional hook, isn’t it? It’s a deal. It’s a bargain. So as long as you love me in the way I want you to love me, then we can stay together. And if you stop loving me in that way, if you stop doing what I say, what I want, we’re not going to be together any longer.
Is that really love? Or is it a deal? Is it a contract? So these are difficult things, but we need to go into it in order to see we make a hook. Our love is with a hook.
I love you as long as you love me back in the way I want. And if you don’t love me in the way I want, I’m gonna make you suffer. I won’t cook you dinner. I won’t do your washing. Right?
That’s why we need the second verse. I don’t want you to suffer. I don’t want you to suffer. So if you’re finding you start to get that negative mind, suffer, suffer, suffer. You know?
You made me suffer, so I’m gonna make you suffer. Does that make you happy to have that state of mind? So don’t go into it. You’ve decided these states of mind are not happy, they’re not positive, they’re not going to give you a good future. So don’t go around saying suffer, suffer, suffer.
And we do. You know, you’ve had a really bad day, everything’s gone wrong, and you want to go home and make somebody suffer the way you suffered. You know, do you realize what sort of day I’ve had? And the other person says, well, I haven’t. I’ve had a great day.
It’s been wonderful. You can’t stand it. You know? You don’t say, oh that’s really nice, isn’t it? I’m so happy for you.
You say, well, forget about that. Let me tell you about my day, you know? So when we’re upset, it’s like we want to share it. And why? Does it make it any better?
So if you’re breathing into the pain, breathing into the suffering, you can let go of it. Like I said yesterday. But if you keep going back to it and and recreating it and rethinking about it and going over and over it, it actually builds it into something solid and real in our mind. A solid a solid real rainbow. You know?
It’s mine, and it’s solid and real and suffering, and I’m going to keep adding to it more, more, more, more, and I’ll make sure I suffer. And then once I’m really suffering, I’m gonna make sure you really suffer too. Whether it’s a friend or relationship or whatever. Is that what you want to do? Do you want your parents to suffer?
Is your relationship one where you only call them when you’re unhappy? Do you ever call them when you’re happy? So if we’re working on the four immeasurables and thought transformation, we call when we’re happy. And when we’re unhappy, we’re sitting by ourselves and we’re trying to work on it. Or you’ve got a dharma friend, you know, and you write to the dharma friend and say, I’m really having a tough time with this fourth verse, you know?
I’ve got to try and see this situation in a different way. The delusions arisen in my mind. They’re delusional. It’s a terrible situation. I’m really trying to change it.
What can I do? Try and find inspiration from somewhere. Don’t keep revisiting bad situations and making yourself suffer so that you make others suffer. Is that the world that you want to live in? Because I know everyone of you want to live in a nice world.
We all want our home to be a pleasant place full of joy and happiness, but we often find ourselves in a situation that is not joyful and is not happy. If you’ve been in that sort of relationship where you lie in bed and you’re not talking to each other, it’s like back to back facing that way. And when you get up in the morning, you bang the cups around and slam the dishwasher and bang out the door and, you know, like that. Send nasty SMSs. You know.
I hear it all. So people say they get into these sort of situations and they don’t know how to get out of it. What do I do? Well, put the other up, put yourself down. You know, not in the way of I’m completely wrong, I’m bad, I’m not like that.
But just try and look at the other person as something valuable. You did in the beginning. You wanted them. You know? Now you’re acting like you don’t want them.
Does that create a good relationship or a good friendship or good parents? Good parents are in relation to good children. We often think that parents should just exist as good parents, but good parents exist in relation to good children. You know, what are you doing to improve the relationship? So these verses keep coming back to you.
There’s no blame on anybody else. It’s you. In the sense of, if you’re not in a good situation, take responsibility, take back the power and say, I’m going to change it. I’m not relying on anybody else. It’s about me.
And then that’s very powerful. Okay. So we’ll stop there. Good enough. And it’s nearly twenty two, so we’ll start again at eleven.
And if you have any questions about that or problems or anything, you can ask me at that time.