DB All about Karma — 2013-03-26

Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.

About this talk. In this 114-minute teaching, Ven Thubten Dondrub explores karma and the mind as the heart of Buddha’s entire path, showing how understanding cause and effect naturally develops renunciation, compassion, and the wisdom that liberates us. He emphasizes why purifying negative imprints is vital—not by erasing them, but by reducing their potency through the four opponent powers: regret (the most crucial), refuge and bodhicitta, determination to avoid repeating the harmful action, and remedial virtuous action. Dondrub distinguishes carefully between guilt (a delusion) and regret (a type of wisdom), then walks through six particularly powerful purification practices—reciting Buddha names, Vajrasattva visualization, reading Buddhist texts especially on emptiness, making statues and stupas, and making offerings to the sangha and guru. He stresses that following a guru’s advice, especially difficult advice, is the highest purification, illustrates the practice with Milarepa’s life, and introduces the Vajrasattva mantra with detailed visualization instructions, encouraging daily practice before sleep. For serious practitioners seeking practical methods to purify the mind within a framework of karma and rebirth.

File metadata (for organising)

File: 2013 03 26 Week 5.mp3

UUID: 6083c3bd-1175-47cd-abe6-733111804230

Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub

Collection: DB All about Karma (Ven Thubten Dondrub)

Date: 2013-03-26

Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide

Duration: 114.3 minutes

Words: ~15,183

Buddha’s teachings on the law of cause and effect are really at the heart of the Buddha’s teachings. Everything that the Buddha taught is connected to that central idea of the law of cause and effect because all the Buddhist teachings are about the mind, and the law of cause and effect is talking about how the mind works and what the effects of our our thoughts, really. And it’s developed in the law of cause and effect, understanding the law of cause and effect and having faith in it helps us develop renunciation. It helps us develop compassion and loving kindness, which is the basis of bodhicitta, and it’s necessary to develop wisdom, which is the ultimate aim of the Buddha’s teachings is to develop the wisdom because that is that wisdom is what is going to help us be not just help us, actually become a cause that frees us from suffering. And if we can pass that wisdom onto others, then we can help others become totally free of suffering.

So all the Buddha’s teachings can be condensed into renunciation, bodhicitta, and wisdom. And the law of cause and effect is connected to all of them in in many, many profound ways. So it’s a really important subject to understand if we really want to understand something about Buddhism or a lot about Buddhism. It’s also important to understand that the there are different I mean, within the Hindu tradition, is an under teaching on karma, but it’s it is different from the Buddhist one. So it is important to try and under and, of course, there’s, like, modern versions, California versions of karma these days.

So it’s important to understand that the Buddhist view about the law of cause and effect. And of course we can do this not only for our own sake but especially the more we understand the Buddhist teachings and the more we understand how we are, in fact, connected interconnected with every sentient being, always have been and always will be. We really thrive and depend on their kindness, which somehow amazingly we do receive in very amazing ways, big and small, day by day. And we particularly depend on the kindness of a mother, and we’ve received this countless times from every sentient being, believe it or not, in beginningless saṃsāra. And but sadly, all these beings are suffering.

And suffering most of them right at this very moment. One can say the vast majority of sentient beings in the universe are experiencing far far greater suffering than we will ever experience in this life. And what makes it worse is unlike ourselves at the moment, they have far less ability to make sense of their suffering, to reduce it, to transform it, to eliminate it. And in their confusion, the vast majority of sentient beings trying to be free of suffering are in fact creating the causes of it. So if we think about that, it becomes kind of unbearable, and that can lead to the thought that I’ve got to do something about it, and there’s only one thing to do about it.

Fortunately, only one thing, and that one thing is to become a Buddha, which means to free the mind of all negativity and awaken the potential for all positive things. And as a Buddha, we can perfectly repay the kindness of sentient beings, helping each of them to be become free of the causes of their own suffering, helping them to achieve what my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, calls, peerless everlasting happiness. So if you’d like to join in, we do the the motivation prayer, which is on page twelve. If you’d like to join in, no compulsion. But names will be taken, and there is a camera observing who and who is not.

And to make this prayer as meaningful as possible, it can be helpful to think of the Buddha in front of oneself as the very embodiment of all perfect qualities. And as we sort of look at the Buddha in front of us, it can remind us that we have the potential for all the qualities that are active within the Buddha right now. So the Buddha is appearing there to to sort of remind us of our Buddha nature and encouraging us to realize our Buddha potential. And we think of all sentient beings surrounding us as as a way to motivate ourselves to realize our Buddha potential. So especially thinking of our mother of this life on our left, our father on our right, then the rest of our family, all our friends and helpers behind us, those who have harmed us in front.

So at least try to have a sense of their real presence around us. But as much as you can, try to open your heart and mind to an awareness and concern for all the different beings of the realms of cyclic existence, at least thinking of the as much as possible of the human beings of this world. And thinking that to achieve enlightenment, then I have to follow the path. And to follow the path successfully, I have to understand the path properly. And an integral part and essential aspect of the whole path to enlightenment is understanding and observing the law of cause and effect.

So for this reason, I will study this teaching tonight. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So then we can imagine the Buddha in front of us very pleased with our motivation and showing that by now coming to the crown of our head. And when directly above our crown, we imagine the Buddha dissolves into light so that that light can pour down into us, blessing our mind in such a way that we can understand the teachings properly, put them into practice correctly so that eventually we can gain the unmistaken, undeclining realisations that transform and liberate and enlighten our mind.

And then we can enhance that positive state by just briefly doing the nine round breathing exercise. And one can enhance that by imagining with each in breath of the cycle, breathing in very peaceful, pacifying, calming white light with each out breath of the cycle, imagining breathing out all one’s disturbing thoughts, agitation, fears, worries, confusion, negative imprints in the form of black smoke. K. Thank you very much. So tonight, I’d like to talk about the practice of how to purify the mind because this is really vital, and a lot of people have asked about this anyway, but it is part of the course.

And if there’s time, there’s a few other points I’d like to try and mention that came up in people’s comments in the homework. But just before that, I just want to remind everyone about the retreat, which is on in what is it? This is the fifth week, so there’s two more weeks. And on the Sunday of that that last week, there’ll be the the one day retreat from what time is it, Kathy? Nine thirty?

Nine? Nine o’clock until three thirty in the afternoon. So I’d really highly, highly, highly encourage people to do the retreat because it is meant to be an integral part of the course, and it’s a way to reflect on the topics, to meditate on them. Unfortunately, there’s usually no time to do it in the class. It would be ideal to do some every class, but somehow there’s not enough time to do everything.

And it is it is also very helpful to meditate together. There’s benefits in meditating by oneself, but also especially for new people, I think it’s very helpful to meditate together. So I really recommend that to please try and come for that. And which also means please book now for it because if we don’t get enough people, it will be canceled, and we do need to know how many people will be coming. And especially if there’s a huge horde, we may have to knock down walls to cater for everyone.

So please, you know, book now to avoid disappointment. Okay. So, of course, what what the what the Buddha is encouraging us to do by teaching the law of cause and effect is to use this life to avoid negative actions, recognizing more and more what is negative, that what there are many things which are naturally negative, many of which we don’t recognize as negative, partly because our self-cherishing doesn’t want to, but also our culture and so on says these things are perfectly okay. And there’s the the the the guiding light of morality these days. If it feels good, it is good.

If but this unfortunately is not a very good guide for what is actually virtuous and non virtuous. Just because it feels good doesn’t mean it actually is good. And as I think I might try to say before, when your mind is confused like that and you do something even more negative, it doesn’t feel negative. It can actually feel good. So feeling good is not a very good guide to say that something is virtuous.

Anyway, so the Buddha is encouraging us to avoid negative actions of body, speech, and mind, particularly the ten non virtuous actions of body, speech, and mind. These are the main ones to avoid. And in in that context oh, no. I’m getting off the topic already. But here we go.

In that context, it’s really helpful to take vows if on the basis of if one wants to follow the spiritual the Buddhist spiritual path. The first thing is to take refuge, know, to to make a commitment to be a follower of the Buddha and try to put into practice the Buddhist teachings. And on the basis of that, one can take vows which are extremely helpful because and they really only work on the well, in in the Buddhist tradition, on on the belief in the law of cause and effect. The more you believe in the law of cause and effect, then the more you’ll want to avoid negative actions understanding the suffering result. So then if you take vows, then there’s even more reason to avoid those negative actions because it’s even more negative to break the vow.

You know, it makes it even more negative. Like, you can kill is negative. But then if you’ve taken a vow not to kill, it’s, you know, infinitely more negative to do so. And but also by keeping the vow, one accumulates far more merit. By consciously avoiding killing, this is very meritorious.

It generates this positive transformative energy in the mind. But by keeping the vow by having a vow not to kill and keeping that is even far, far more meritorious, more effective for the mind. And at a practical level, a great benefit of taking vows on the basis of having a strong belief in the law of cause and effect is it forces us to be mindful. It forces us in a sense to be more conscious of of what is going on in our mind because we need to. Because if we start to recognize that certain negative thoughts are really harmful to our self and others, we need to be aware of them so we can stop following those thoughts and stop acting on them because that’s the trouble.

Most people, most of the time, are totally unaware of their thoughts. They pop up, we identify with them, and we’re off. We’ve done the thing before, we’ve even thought about it, in a sense consciously reflected on it. Yeah. So being mindful is also like a vital essential aspect of Buddhist fundamental practice of Buddhism of trying to be aware of what is actually going on in one’s mind.

Aware in the sense mindful in there’s a little bit of difference between the meaning of mindful and aware. Awareness is just like a a like a neutral state of mind. As my teacher points out, like, a thief needs to be very aware, have a lot of awareness. To be a to be a good thief, you have to have a lot of awareness. But a good thief has no mindfulness because if they had mindfulness, they wouldn’t steal.

Because mindfulness is a virtuous mind that recognize is aware of what is meaningful and what is meaningless. So we need that mind. We need to cultivate that mind more and more, and having vows encourages that mind much, you know, much more. Anyway, there are five basic lay vows that one can take, which is avoiding killing, avoiding stealing, avoiding sexual misconduct, avoid have I said avoiding lying? Killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and one very important one, which is not in the ten virtues, but which is extremely vital, is avoiding intoxicants, which means alcohol, booze, and other mind enhancing not enhancing, mind changing drugs of which there are many, many these days.

But it does not include, fortunately, tea and coffee and chocolate. Yeah. But this actually is quite an important thing to avoid if one is following the spiritual path because really if you think about it, the the Buddhist teachings are all about it’s all about just taking care of the mind, having a clear mind. If we’ve got a clear mind, then our mind can function. If our mind is calm and clear, then all the good qualities are able to function better.

Right? If it’s calm and clear, the the the natural inbuilt qualities of wisdom, kindness, compassion, blah blah blah, they can function better. So that’s what as my Lama Yeshe, one of my main teachers used to say, clean, clear, my Just just have, you know, mind that’s just keep your mind clean, clear, my dear. Yeah? And out you know, know, alcohol and drugs do not make the mind clean, clear.

They do the very opposite. And the the Buddhadharma is all about the the whole aim of well, I’m really getting off the topic. No. I’m not. Is about seeing things as they are.

And drugs do not. Alcohol and especially mind warping drugs do not allow us to see things as they are. And I’ll just tell you this funny story that some of you would have already heard that illustrates this point how, you know, avoiding intoxicants is really, really vital in following the spiritual path and, you know, living a moral life, which is the basis of a spiritual path. So once upon a time, there was an extremely handsome young monk, and this lady fell in love or probably just in lust with him and kept pestering him all the time and wanted to go to bed with him. And he, being a good monk, said, no.

No. No. I can’t do this. I can’t do that. You know, this is against my vows, etcetera, etcetera.

And she kept bothering him, pestering him and saying, well, if if you if you won’t go to bed with me, at least kill this goat for me, and we’re gonna have this delicious meal. He said, no. No. No. No.

I I can’t do that. That’s also against my vows. You know, killing is really one of the, you know, worst, you know, things in in the Buddha’s understanding. So she said another time, she said, like, I’m I’m going completely crazy in love with you. If you you if you’re not gonna have sex with me, if you’re not gonna kill this goat and eat with me, then at least let’s have a drink together.

If you don’t do this, I’m gonna kill myself. I just can’t live without you anymore. So at least, you know, you you were supposed to be compassionate, so let’s have a drink together. So finally, the Buddhist the monk thought, well, of all the three, this is the least negative. You know, I’m not supposed to drink, but it’s not that bad.

So he had a drink with her, and the story goes he got completely drunk, killed the goat, and had sex with the lady. Going back. Okay. So, anyway, what I was trying to say is first introductory point is what the Buddha is encouraging us to do is avoid negative actions. And one way to help us do that is to take vows.

So this is a good thing to do, But at least in in our mind, we try and make that commitment to avoid negative actions. And the other thing, is, of course, is to engage in virtuous actions of body, speech, and mind as much as possible. But also what is also really vital to do is if if the you know, the more we if we develop some understanding of the law of cause and effect, I don’t know how many of you have become convinced of the truth of the law of cause and effect yet. I don’t know what I can do to kind of squash your mind to believe this more. But the the the point is if one, you know, does have some faith in this and sees that this is maybe the explanation of what’s going on, then what we also need to do, what Buddha encouraged and the lamas of the tradition encourage is that we need to purify our mind because our mind is weighed down, is obscured by the negative imprints of negative actions.

Just like when we create virtuous engage in virtuous actions, these create positive imprints in our mind. Those positive imprints don’t weigh down our mind. In a sense, they lighten up the mind. They give some positive energy to the mind. And it it those positive imprints somehow energize the mind in a positive way, whereas the negative imprints weigh in a sense, figuratively speaking, weigh weigh down the mind, obscure the mind so that it it it becomes more and more difficult to put the mind in a in a positive, virtuous, meaningful direction.

Purifying the mind is really important. So in the Tibetan tradition it teaches it talks about what are called the four opponent powers. So there’s one method to purify the mind, and that method is called the applying of the four opponent powers. And it is taught that if one does this practice properly, strongly, and sufficiently, this practice of applying what are called the four opponent powers has the power to purify any negative action no matter how bad it it it was, like killing people, killing one’s parents, and the the of course, the worst from a tantric from a Tibetan tantric Buddhist point of view, the worst karmas, negative actions we can engage in are against our spiritual masters, our gurus, because they they are the beings who are going to lead us to enlightenment, who we depend on to lead us to to enlightenment. They themselves are very pure holy beings, so anything negative directed against them is is is the worst thing we can we can possibly do.

So that generates the worst negative imprints. And but even those can be purified by the four what are called the four opponent powers. So these four opponent powers are set out on page eighteen of the of your student material under the section nine the four opponent powers. One point to understand about the four opponent powers is that that they one needs to try and apply all four of them together and to apply them as quickly as possible after the negative action has been done. And to apply it the main thing is to apply them sincerely, you know, really honestly, not not just go through the motion, but the more sincere the application is.

And and the the stronger the motivation, the purer the motivation, and the more concentrated one does them. If one can get all those factors together, any negative imprint can be purified. So again, I’d just like to try and explain what it means to purify the mind of a negative imprint. Just roughly speaking, let’s say what karmic imprints are is probably one of the most difficult things to explain in the Buddhadharma. In fact, you do often don’t hear explanations of what karmic imprints are because it’s a really, you know, super, super complicated, you know, abstract concept.

But anyway, just metaphorically, let’s imagine this is a karmic imprint. But of course, a karmic imprint isn’t a thing. It isn’t a physical thing, and it isn’t even consciousness. It’s something else. It’s something which is neither physical nor consciousness, which in Tibetan because there are of things that exist, there are three, you know, there are three types of things that exist.

There are things which are form, consciousness, and another category of phenomena which in Tibetan is called, because it’s nice and short, du ma yin gyi dngos po, which translates into English as that which is neither form nor consciousness, Such as time, space, emptiness, these are things which are neither form nor consciousness, but they exist. They’re not just ideas. Space exists. Emptiness exists. Time exists.

And karmic, karmic imprints exist. Oh, don’t don’t I don’t know what energy is. I have no idea what this word is really I don’t know. Energy equal m c squared. Apart from that, I have no idea.

But I think energy would be form, having said all that. Because it’s associated with well, but I don’t know. Yeah. But you can also talk about the energy with the mind. So I I really don’t know what this sub what this is and how it fits in with the, like, the Buddhist view of things.

Sorry. Anyway so anyway, just imagine a karmic imprint like that and and imagine this jar was full. So the oh, so let’s the jar is here. This is the karmic imprint, and the the water represents the energy of the karmic imprint to produce suffering. So what purification involves is you don’t wipe out the imprint altogether.

That’s not possible. The only time karmic negative karmic imprints are totally one hundred percent eliminated from the mind is when one realizes emptiness, the ultimate nature of all things. When that is fully that that wisdom is fully developed, and that takes many stages. And but when the when the final stage of wisdom is developed, all negative imprints are just gone. They’re just gone.

So before that, we can purify negative imprints. And what that means is reducing the potency. So if you if you purify your mind a bit, the potency of the imprint is reduced a bit like like boiling water. You boil some of the water off. But then you’ve got the rest of the boiling water to pour on pour over you and scold you and cause you suffering and screaming.

Right? So but if you purify a lot, very effectively, what is left is just a tiny little bit of the energy and and your purification causes that to ripen. Right? But it ripens because you’ve pure because there’s only a little bit of the boiling water left, you only get a little bit of suffering. Maybe I’ll just yeah.

So for example, you know, maybe you kill someone, so one has created this horrible negative imprint that if it’s not purified will bring, for starters, you know, the suffering of a terrible rebirth. But if one purifies it, then it it that you you eliminate most of that karmic energy and just a little bit ripens, and maybe it ripens as getting hit by a truck. Or even if it’s even better, you just have a headache or a dog bites you or something like that. But something far, far, far less. Like from a worldly point of view of this life, it may be really bad, but compared to being born in the lower realms for billions of years, it’s nothing.

Alright? So this gets into a very complicated, confusing territory, interesting territory that the way karma works is that by engaging in lots of negative actions, this can force well, okay. Let’s carry on. By engaging in lots of virtuous actions, this actually purifies all virtuous actions have some effect of purifying the mind. Even if you’re not consciously purifying the mind, any virtuous thing you do has some purifying effect.

Right? If you consciously purify, it’s much more powerful. But all virtuous action has some purifying effect. And so, for example, someone who is practicing the Dharma very well in this life is is purifying the mind. And so strangely enough, this may be very scary for you and turn you off the Dharma and cause you to leave this course straight away.

But because we practice the Dharma hoping this will make us all very, very happy and healthy and beautiful and all these things. But actually what can happen is that by practicing very well in this life, being very virtuous, it causes some of our negative karma to ripen in this life and all sorts of suffering happen. But this is a really good sign. It means we have purified some negative you know, really heavy negative karma. On the other hand on the other hand, what is very interesting is that someone who leads a really negative life, this can cause their positive karma to ripen but in a very small way.

This is why good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. Well, one of the reasons. You know, someone who’s, you know, spent their life cheating and stealing and lying and killing and hurting people can have their positive imprints, which could have brought them lifetimes of happiness as a human being. It ripens as just being rich in this lifetime or escaping the police all the time, which looks terrific from the worldly point of view, but is just a huge waste of positive energy. Yeah.

Yes. Yes. It’s gone. That that’s it. Finished.

No. No. But yeah. Yes. But something’s finished.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. Once it’s arrived and that’s it. It’s finished.

Okay. So how can we do how can we purify the mind? With the four opponent powers. So the four opponent powers are the power of regret, the power of refuge in bodhicitta, the power of determination, and the power of remedial action. So as I said, it’s important to try and apply all four of them together as sincerely as possible, as strongly as possible, and as much as possible.

Because, again, although the the the the great masters say that this with this method, even the heaviest negative actions can be purified. We have to understand that it’s not easy. Yeah. It’s with all due respect, it’s not like, you know, you know, you just say a few Hail Marys and, you know, everything’s gone because it can sound like the same thing that you just say, oh, I’m sorry. And and that’s that’s it.

You know, you you have to, especially if one’s engaged in some really heavy negative karma, then one has to apply these four opponent powers very strongly for a long time. And and doing that, you know, and and that’s why we were encouraged to actually apply the four opponent powers every day to purify our mind every day. So, anyway, all four are necessary, but of the four, the single most important one is the power of regret. That is the key one. Some of you may know in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, probably the most famous practitioner is someone called Milarepa.

And when he was a young man, before he met his guru, before he was actually a Buddhist, he, according to the story, became his family, his mother and his and his sister, him himself, when his father died, he they were cheated out of their inheritance by the rest of the family. So mom told his her son to go off and become a black magician and wreak havoc on the relatives as vengeance. So being a good boy, he did it. He went and learned black magic and killed thirty six of his relatives in one bash. This, he suddenly realized after some time, is not good karma.

And in in great terror and fear and everything, he went looking for a teacher who could help him and he found his guru and Marpa. And due to his in intense devotion to this teacher, it is believed he achieved enlightenment in one lifetime, in that very lifetime, having killed thirty six people. And they were all his relatives, which is even heavier. So and he applied this method, and he said I can’t remember exactly what Milarepa said, but something like he said something have with great fear of the lower realms and with great regret, I went to the mountains and purified my mind. And then he said, you know, Milarepa himself said, regret is the purifying the mind, developing regret is the most important.

So he he’s the he can speak on authority about that. So I think it’s really important to understand that there I I I am you know, with the English language, it gets messy, but everything we’ve got words like guilt and regret and remorse. But it’s I think it’s really important to understand there is a real difference. There are two different mental states. One we call one one is a virtuous positive one, which for one of the better word in English, we call regret in the Buddhist in the Buddhist tradition.

And then there is another state of mind which most of us very easily fall into, whether we’re religious or not, which is a negative state of mind, which is guilt. Guilt is actually it is a byproduct, like, of all delusions of ignorance. And it it it is it itself is a a a kind of a negative mind. Whereas regret is a type of wisdom, and so it is a virtuous positive helpful mind. So regret being a type of wisdom is is simply the mental factor that recognizes that this action that that I have done is negative and will bring suffering to me.

That’s what regret is. It’s a very scientific, precise it’s not like sort of, you know, beating oneself about the head and shoulders and saying, I’m bad and evil. It is just a clear recognition that this is negative and it’s going to bring me suffering. And if we do that, for example, if if you have a headache and, you know, and blinding headache and you stagger into the bathroom, open the cabinet, take a pill and swallow it or several pills, and then you look at the pill and it says deadly poison. You don’t feel guilty.

You feel regret. You think, oh, that was stupid. I am really going to suffer. And if you think about it, what goes with that thought is I’m never going to do that again. Right?

And so it’s a type of wisdom. It’s it’s not sort of making yourself feel I’m evil and terrible because I made a mistake. It’s just recognizing I made a mistake. This is wrong. This is negative.

And I am going to suffer for it. Not because God, someone’s punishing. This is how the mind works. That’s all. If on a good old Australian summer’s day, you take off all your clothes and lie out on the beach in forty degree heat for six hours, you get sunburned.

God didn’t do it. The sun didn’t punish you. You know, the sun didn’t deliberately go out to hurt you. God didn’t hurt you. The Buddha didn’t hurt you.

It’s just what happens to skin if you expose it to a lot of sun for some time. Yeah? And then, you know, you can get melanomas and blah blah blah. It’s just it’s just what naturally happens. You do something and something naturally comes from it.

That’s karma. Yeah? No one’s if you get sunburned and melanoma and blah blah blah, no one’s punishing us for it. We’re not punishing ourselves. It’s just what happens.

If you if we work with our mind in one way, certain things just happen. If we do other things with the mind, other things just happen to our mind. So where am I? In illustrating a point, I forget the point. Yeah, no, I know it’s regret, but I yes.

So regret is is a virtuous mind. And and I I was gonna talk about this later, but I’ll talk about it now because it’s very much connected. So regret is recognizing I am going to suffer, and that is associated with fear. Now this is a very important topic, fear, especially in relation to law of cause and effect. Why should we avoid negative actions?

Because fearing the result. Now most people hate the idea of being encouraged to fear something. This is bad. Why do I want to be afraid of something? Well, that really friends.

The point is there are things that we should be afraid of. It’s that simple. It is wise, you know, to be afraid of fire. Yeah? If you’re not, you’re gonna run into one.

If you have no fear of fire, you’re going to get burned. It’s that simple. You’ll build houses in in forests all the time, and they’ll burn down, you will too, and your whole family. It is very wise to be afraid of fire. All of us here are afraid of fire.

But if you check, are you petrified of bursting in flames right now? No. Because there isn’t any fire around, so there’s no need to be afraid of fire right now. But when there’s a dirty, great, big fire right in front of you, it’s really helpful to be afraid of it. That is a type of wisdom.

It protects you. It doesn’t make you go ballistic. You don’t go insane. You just think fire, avoid. That’s fear.

Yeah. But there’s millions of things all of us, because of our self-cherishing, we’re afraid of which are are totally stupid fears. We’re afraid that we don’t look good. We’re afraid that people don’t like us. We’re afraid that we, you know, we’re this.

We’re not that. You know, we don’t we’re afraid that yeah. All these things. No one will love me. I don’t look nice.

Is my clothes the right way? Is my hair looking nice? I’m afraid because I’m too young. I’m people I’m afraid people won’t like me because I’m too old. I’m this.

I’m that. I’m too fat. I’m too thin. I’m too this. That’s really stupid fear.

This doesn’t help us at all. That’s completely stupid. But we all have those and don’t worry about that. So that’s perfectly okay. But when a Buddha says you should be afraid of negative cover, oh, this is terrible.

Why are you encouraging us to be afraid? Come on, friend. This is really helpful. And there’s a maybe we need to find different words, but there is a fear which is just very calm and logical. And then there is like neurotic anxiety and panic.

We’re not talking about developing that. We’re talking about clean, clear fear that is valid and useful. It is valid to be afraid of suffering, and it is it is even more valid to be afraid of the causes of suffering. One amazing thing or my my teacher says many, many amazing things, but one of the many simple amazing things my teacher once said was something like, the difference between us and bodhisattvas, bodhisattvas who are beings who developed bodhicitta, the wish to achieve enlightenment. The difference between a bodhisattva and us is that we, because we are controlled by self-cherishing, are afraid of suffering, but we have no fear of the causes in creating the causes.

Whereas a Bodhisattva has no fear of suffering. They are able to bear as as much suffering as you throw at them, but they are very afraid of creating its causes. That’s really worth thinking about. We are afraid of suffering, but we’re not afraid of creating the causes. Whereas a bodhisattva is can bear suffering but is afraid of creating the causes.

Why? They’re afraid of creating the causes because they realize that this is going to delay their enlightenment. The suffering itself, they don’t bother with. They can cope with that. So there is a wise fear.

And so having that wise fear, we can regret creating the causes of what the of the very things we fear. Right? That we should fear that is valid to fear. So regret is really important. And the more genuine it is, then the more we purify because this can lead to the next power which we need to cultivate which is well, these are not necessarily in order, but there’s the power the power of determination, which is actually, these powers as a way to remember them are often called the four r’s, which which I haven’t got here.

But there’s a refu regret, reliance, re and remedy. So the second power can be the power of resolution or here I’ve called it the power of determination, which is developing the mind, cultivating the mind that decides I’m not I am going to avoid that negative negative action, whether it’s killing, stealing, whatever it is. We make this this determination to avoid it in the future. And my teacher, being very wise and compassionate, emphasizes that it it it is not skillful to make the determination, the resolution that I will never ever for the rest of my life do this action again because in most cases, we will. Right?

Because of the the the the the habit is so strong. So my teacher says it’s not it it it doesn’t become beneficial to say that because it’s not true and we know it. So my teacher says what we should do is check our mind really carefully and and and assess realistically how how long do I think I can avoid this action in the future? Can I avoid it for a month or only a week or just a day or even a half a day, an hour, a minute? And then you decide, I will I will I will at least stop it for that period of time.

Even if it’s an incredibly period of time, you make the determination. If it’s a really heavy negative habit one has, you make the determination, I will avoid it for one hour. I will put all my effort into avoiding this negativity for one hour, two hours, a day, two days, whatever. And then the point is to put that effort in. And of course, if you succeed, then you don’t stop.

You don’t start creating the same activity again. You try and make the determination to do it for a similar period of time or maybe a little bit longer so that eventually one can make it longer and longer and longer and longer and longer until it’s forever. Little bit more about that later. So another of the opponent powers is the power what is called the power of reliance. So this is relying on one’s refuge and bodhicitta.

So how this purifies the mind or one way to see that it can help purify the mind is that from a Buddhist point of view, especially which everything is here, the reason or the condition why we engage in negative actions is either we have no refuge, that is we have no belief and trust in the Buddhas and their teachings and the law of cause and effect, Or even if we do, we we we forget our refuge or we ignore it. So that’s why as a way to purify the mind, it is really important to reestablish one’s refuge, one’s trust in the Buddha, the Buddha’s teachings, the great practitioners of them. And at the heart of refuge is taking refuge or doing refuge is that is the determination to take care of the mind and use the Buddha’s methods to do so. Having determined, decided that they are valid, perfect, unbetrayable. And what goes with that so that that regenerating refuge or taking it for the first time is completely opposite to the mindset that it is that enables negativity to flourish.

If we have real refuge, really strong refuge, then it’s more and more difficult for negative habits, negative thoughts to arise. Right? So we try and reaffirm that refuge. And with that, the other aspect of the power of power of reliance is relying on the power of bodhicitta. So bodhicitta is the most virtuous mind possible.

It is the mind seeking, wanting to achieve enlight determined to achieve enlightenment to repay the kindness of others. It’s the mind which therefore it means it’s the mind determined to give up every kind of negativity no matter how long it takes, no how hard it is to do it. But it’s the mind determined to do so, And it’s the mind determined to cultivate every good quality no matter how long it takes, how difficult it is in order to achieve enlightenment, in order to repay the kindness of suffering beings. So it it is the most virtuous, most courageous, most all encompassing, amazing mind possible. So to actually generate bodhicitta is incredibly difficult.

Here I go again. But but even even directing the mind in that way is incredibly virtuous and powerful and the very opposite to the mind that engages in negativity. Because if you remember, I tried to say last week, if you look at the ten non virtues, with every one of them, the mental factor that has to be dominant in the mind that has taken over the mind in order to engage in negative actions is what is called self-cherishing, which is that mental factor that has a wrong view of self, that thinks of self as like the center of the universe, and only wants what is what seems to be seems to be, you know, happiness and wants it quickly and easily and is determined to achieve that quickly and easily. And that is the mindset that brings about anger and attachment and craving and every negativity. Whereas bodhicitta involves the very opposite.

To generate bodhicitta, it involves giving up self-cherishing and cherishing others more than self. Instead of like as I gave, you know, the little flea or an mosquito landing on your skin. So the self-cherishing thought, quick easy solution, you just kill it. But if you so because the the thought is me, me and my suffering, it is just totally and what is the quick easy way to stop that? You kill.

Yeah. Because and you only think about, you know, what I want, what I, you know, what I want now. That’s all that we think about with control by self. We don’t see the consequences. You know, why are we destroying this world and why there is global warming is because we want stuff now.

We want to be rich now. Yeah. So we destroy the world to have stuff now, and we don’t think what happens in we can’t control by the self-cherishing thought. Just can’t do it. So bodhicitta is giving up self-cherishing and cherishing others.

So even trying to generate bodhicitta, what is called generating effortful bodhicitta, like we try to do at the beginning of the the talks by thinking about the kindness of sentient beings and their suffering. Even that, you know, is just incredibly fantastic. Because we don’t know even to have a thought like that for one second, you know, until we’ve met the Buddhadharma, we have never had that kind of thought. If you have, that’s terrific. You can really pat yourself on the back of your thought, I will benefit all sentient beings and free them all from suffering before you became a even heard about Buddhism.

Really good imprints. But it’s made our our life worthwhile. Millions of people, most lifetimes, we never have one thought, even passing thought like that. Anyway oh, yes. Done it again quickly.

So where are we? So then the fourth opponent power is the power of remedy. So that is doing, deciding and following through by doing a virtuous action as a specific remedy counter to the negative action. So this can be any any virtuous action, but in the tradition, there are as listed here what is said to be six particularly virtuous actions that create enormous merit. So it’s best to try and do one of those actions as the the purification, especially if one’s trying to purify some, you know, really negative behavior, especially if it it’s, like, repeated negative behavior.

So just very quickly, the six super virtuous actions are reciting the names of the Buddhas. So there is a practice of the practice of purifying with the thirty five Buddhas. So this is a very elaborate practice where one visualizes thirty five particular Buddhas which are depicted in this small painting here. One makes prostrations to them and recites their names. So this is associated with a particular Sūtra in which the Buddha says if you recite these Buddha’s names with faith, then this can purify eons of negative karma.

So this is one of the main practices in the Mahāyāna tradition that is done in not just in Tibetan Buddhism, for example in the Chinese tradition. They have the same practice of prostrating and reciting the names of these Buddhas. This is something that in the Tibetan tradition is encouraged to do every day first thing in the morning. Also, one can recite the name of Amitābha or Menla, which is the medicine Buddha. Anyway, I know this may sound very weird.

These are things one has to have a lot of faith in. There is no way one can, with a scientific mind, see how these work. But in in the spiritual path, you know, at some point, one can generate bodhicitta and enter the actual path to enlightenment. And at a very high level there are said to be once you generate bodhicitta, there are what are called the ten bodhisattva levels. There are ten stages of the path to enlightenment once one’s generated bodhicitta.

And at at about I’m not sure. I’ve never found out. I or I’ve forgotten. At around the eighth level, bodhisattvas make very specific vows of what they will do when they become Buddhas. So these vows are not like the feeble pathetic little vows we make and break so easily.

These are made, you know, with people with my you know, people who have developed intensely powerful, incredibly pure minds based on an enormous amount of merit. So it is said that these vows have enormous power. So for example, these Buddhas, the medicine the thirty five Buddhas made vows that when they achieved enlightenment, if people called on them, they would help and purify their mind. So how this actually works, I don’t know. But the Buddhas made these beings made these vows.

So by calling on their names, it has some effect on our mind. This is all actually all of this, how it works, again, is an aspect of subtle, dependent arising, the law of cause and effect. So the second one is the Vajrasattva practice. The break I want to explain this and you’ll get a little booklet and the whole homework for this week is trying to do this practice. Another one is to read Buddhist texts because all Buddhadharma is countering our delusions.

So, you know, reading the the text with a lot of faith, with regret, with refuge, with a strong wish to purify the mind, this is putting a really positive imprint into the mind to counter the negative imprint that was generated by engaging in a negative action. So one can read any text, but what is particularly encouraged is to read texts on emptiness. So emptiness refers to the ultimate nature of phenomenon because it is by realizing that ultimate nature that we destroy ignorance, the source of all suffering. So these are the most profound teachings of the Buddha. So they are said to have the most profound effect even just by reading them.

It put even without understanding, it puts a positive imprint in our mind. Of course, the more we understand, the more benefit there is in reading them. So some of you may have heard of the Heart Sūtra, which is the shortest explanation of the wisdom teachings of the Buddha. So this text, which is only really only two pages, is is that is fantastic to read many, many times over as a way to help purify the mind. Of course, the most powerful way, the most virtuous thing to do to purify the mind is to actually meditate on emptiness.

But to meditate on emptiness you have to understand the topic properly. So this is of course the most difficult purification but it’s the most effective, the most powerful. But once one has studied the emptiness teachings and got a right understanding and then one meditates on them, this is the most powerful way to purify the mind. But even attempting to, trying to do it with the right faith and sincerity, even that is extremely powerful. Then another way is now again, this can sound like you’re trying to buy buy our way out of doing negative things, but we have to remember it has to be sincerely and it has to be mixed with the other opponent powers of regret, strong deter you know, determination to avoid negative actions, strong reliance on bodhicitta and refuge.

But and then on the basis of those things, making Buddhist statues, thangkas, which refers to paintings of holy images, the Tibetan term, printing Buddhist texts, making stupas such as this white object here which symbolizes the mind of the Buddha. These are holy objects. So making them, repairing them, sponsoring the making of them are considered very virtuous actions. Good to do. So these six virtuous actions are good to do anytime, not just to purify negative karma.

These are actions that are great to do at any time. But specifically, if if one wants to if really strongly purify the mind, these are great things to do. Some of you will know that my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, is building a giant statue of Maitreya Buddha in Bodh Gaya. It was going to be five hundred feet high. That got too complicated, so now it’s only gonna be about two hundred feet high.

So this is an example of making images of the Buddha. So some of you new people can say, well, this is all rubbish and, you know, religious hoo which may it may be. But many, many people have engaged in doing these actions over hundreds of years and seem to have developed a strong faith belief that these things do work. For example, Lama Tsongkhapa, the founder of our tradition, who is considered apart just from an ordinary point of view, one of the greatest scholars who has ever existed in Tibet and one of the greatest philosophers the world has ever produced, who has written the most profound profound profound text. He spent one retreat where he only ate a few juniper berries every day.

That’s all he did. He’s in in that retreat, he did many of these practices of Vajrasattva. He he did three and a half million prostrations to thirty five Buddhas. He did a hundred thousand prostrations on a rock outside, out in the open air. A hundred thousand prostrations to each of these Buddhas.

I have seen this rock in Tibet. I went to the holy place where he did it called Wölkha Cholung. And he wore a a groove in this rock by prostrating on it. So he he was no dodo. He was no, you know, stupid, you know, ignorant twit who did things because people told him to.

He this man was an intensely brilliant, you know, holy, holy being, and he he did this practice among others. And of all the great Lamas do it, everyone, his holiness every morning does prostrations to the thirty five Buddhas. You can see it on video. All the great lamas do it. Even very old ones do these things.

And if you do it, you can feel it’s doing you good. If you’d I know if you do a a purification retreat and I have done you know, at least gone through the motions of doing so, then you you can definitely feel some effect at the end. Your mind feels lighter. You you have you have some more energy to practice, more interest to practice because your mind is pure purified. Often doesn’t last very long, but at least one can feel that there is a definite effect.

Many years ago, Lama Yeshe, when he was alive, got all his students or as many as possible to come to Bodh Gaya for some special teachings and well, we did all sorts of things there. And in Bodh Gaya, there is the main stupa built right next to the the holy tree where the Buddha achieved enlightenment. But around that main stupa, which is very large, there are many, many, many other stupas of all different sizes that were built hundreds and hundreds of years ago. And one of them was adopted by the students of of Lama Yeshe to clean up because they get very dirty because the Tibetans and everything offer not they can’t do it anymore because it’s become all very politically correct, but they would cover these places with wax candles and light them, the wax would melt all over the place and make horrible messes and everything, but it was terrific. Loved it.

So, anyways, a group of the students there decided they would clean up this one particular big stupa in the in the grounds of the Mahabodhi temple and, you know, swept swept it and everything. And so many of the people said afterwards how what what an effect it had on them, which is what in the teachings it says, you know, cleaning stupas, circumambulating stupas purifies your mind. And you can think, oh, this is just nonsense, but then you can do it, which is what we’re in shut up. This is what we’re encouraged. And which I would encourage everyone who’s doing this course and future courses is that, as I said at the beginning, this course is trying to encourage you to get involved.

Right? Even though I talk a lot and don’t let you get involved, but by doing the homework and meditating on it. Because if you meditate, there’s a chance to get some taste of what I’m talking about, to really think about it, let it go deeper into your heart, which is another word for your mind. Right? And just very quickly, and then I’ll stop, is the sixth of these very virtuous things is making offerings to the Sangha, to the triple gem, and to one’s gurus because these are considered holy objects.

So by making offerings with, you know, with regret for negative actions, with faith, etcetera, etcetera, doing it very purely, strongly, sincerely, then this can have great purification. Particularly making offerings to the Guru and there there are three kinds of offerings one can make to the Guru. The simplest is actually giving physical off offerings, stuff, giving stuff to the Guru. Real Gurus don’t need the stuff, don’t want it, but by giving it, one creates merit. They’re the highest object because they are the beings who can lead us to enlightenment.

The the the second kind of offering is the offering of service, of of of of taking care of of the Guru in in various ways, helping the Guru in all the things the Guru is doing to benefit sentient beings. So this is incredibly virtuous. And the third type of offering, which is said to be the highest form of offering, is putting into practice the Guru’s advice and teachings. Because that’s what the the real Gurus exist. They exist to teach us and guide us on the path.

So when we practice what they teach and advise, this is the best offering we can possibly make and the greatest purification. And my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, says that following the Guru’s advice is the greatest this is the fastest way to enlightenment. It brings about the greatest purification of the mind, accumulates the greatest merit. And especially following in in following the advice of the guru, what brings the greatest merit and purifies the mind most is following the difficult advice. Just very quickly, in in the life story of Milarepa, you know, he killed thirty six people.

So then he met his guru, Marpa, whom he developed great devotion to. So Marpa being a highly realized being, seeing the incredible negative karma Milarepa created in order to purify Milarepa’s mind, he made him do all these things. And Milarepa did them with total trust and devotion to his guru. And because of that, he was able to purify his mind and achieve enlightenment. And there’s a famous story about how Milarepa told Milarepa to single pointedly build a stone tower, which this tower is did exist because there are actually photographs taken of it in about nineteen fifty before it was destroyed in the the Cultural Revolution when the communist Chinese took over Tibet.

So until then, it did exist. But the amazing thing is and this was a very tall stone tower. So when Milarepa built it, he had to carry all the stones by himself to the side and then pile it up and make a tower. When it was finished, Marpa said, I didn’t tell you to put it there. I told you to put it over there.

So pull it down and put it over there. So Milarepa did that three times, And he never lost one iota of trust and devotion that what Marpa was doing was totally for his benefit. And because of that, he he followed this difficult advice. And at the very end of his life, he his his main disciple was a monk called Rechungpa. And towards the end of of Milarepa’s life, before he was just before he died, he he took Rechungpa aside, his most beloved disciple, and said, I am now going to give you the most profound teaching of all.

And he pulled up his he took off his clothes. He pulled up his his cotton cloth and showed his backside to him all his back, which was totally scarred by carrying all the rocks he had done when he was young. And he and he was saying, like, yeah, follow the guru. This is the best teaching. Yeah.

So that’s the way to purify the mind. But anyway that’s the tough one. So, anyway, it’s important to do virtuous actions to purify the mind. So if we can combine those four things, we can purify the mind, which is so important to do. Because if we don’t, karma imprints are gonna ripen.

They have to. And they can own the negative ones can only bring suffering. And, of course, once they ripen, it’s very difficult to stop the process. We just have to bear it. But we don’t have to.

We can purify. And, oh, just the one point, and then I really stop. One thing to understand is that this process of purifying the mind with the four opponent powers, it not only purifies negative things that we’ve done in this life that we know that we’ve done, it can purify anything in the past, even if even those things we don’t know directly consciously. But we can understand by logic that in past lives I must have done every kind of negative thing because there was time to do it and the conditions sooner or later. So I’ve done every negative thing in the past.

Some of those imprints have ripened, but some haven’t. So one can re generate regret that due to ignorance and self-cherishing, I engaged in negative actions. One can make the determination to use this in future lives not to do this stuff again. One can regenerate refuge in bodhicitta and use this life to do virtuous actions to purify it. And then our life becomes really meaningful.

And we’re really preparing to have a good future, not only for ourselves, but for others. Thank you very much. Tea break. Before we go on yes? Have I said meditate on a word?

Oh, I didn’t mean just the word, but sorry. Yes. Yes. Okay. Somewhat we talked about this just before with one of the students who doesn’t seem to be here at the moment.

Right. Anyway no. She’s not. Anyway, what basically means think to reflect. Analytical met there’s two kinds of meditation.

There’s concentration meditation where you are focusing on one object, one simple object without really thinking about it. And and this is what most people identify as meditation, but it’s actually only one aspect of meditation. The other type, which is, you know, is is not well known, but is emphasized in the Tibetan tradition and most particularly in the Gelugpa tradition, which we follow here, which is called analytical meditation where you think about a particular topic so you don’t allow, you know, negative thoughts to arise. You don’t allow even positive thoughts to arise which are unrelated to the topic. So it’s still a type of concentration and you analyze a particular topic about, say, kindness.

What is kindness? What is its benefits? What know, is it good? Is it bad? Some people say kindness is ridiculous.

Why be kind? Who needs kindness? And and you reflect about it. You like impermanence. What is impermanence?

What does it mean? Why are things impermanent? What’s this what’s the implications of things being impermanent? You think about, you know, compassion by thinking about the suffering of others. What is the suffering of others?

You think about it. Or like the you meditate on the law of cause and effect. Is it true? You know, what what what what indicates the the truth of this? What is indicating it’s not true?

Or and and in Buddhist meditation, of course, what we’re trying to do is come to an understanding that what the Buddha taught is true. But, of course, we’re not trying to just blindly believe because the Buddha you know, that doesn’t really help. And the Buddha said, don’t believe because I just said so. He said, check. Because if you check and come to that conclusion yourself, it would be so much more powerful than just blindly believing.

But so from a Buddhist point of view, if we have refuge, we do believe that what the Buddha said is true, but then we have to try and feel and discover that it is true by checking, you know, what what indicates that this is true, what indicates that it’s not true, and then the things that we which we believe may counter the Buddhist truth that we need to try and counter those. So it’s not very concentrated questioning? Yeah. Questioning oh, it’s logical analysis. It’s contemplation, reflection, investigation.

Yeah. And and it is incredibly important and incredibly helpful because as I was as I was saying earlier before the class started that, you know, if we have any connection with the Buddhist teachings, most of the teachings, if even if you well, even if you don’t believe in them, that they’re true, you can see that there’s some kind of coherency and and something that you can understand about them. And especially if you believe them, that itself is good. But just that intellectual understanding of something is very superficial. It doesn’t have much power.

It has a certain power, especially at the beginning because, you know, in in my own case, be before I met the Buddhadharma, I had no belief in any kind of religion, future lives and none of this stuff. I just wasn’t interested and then I sort of fell into Buddhism. Shplunk came out believing. What am trying to say? So I had some very simple understandings because I heard almost nothing of the Buddhist teachings.

But that understanding, that belief had a profound impact on my mind because it was so different from what I, you know, how I lived my life. But then, so it it and it so it has a big impact at first, but but the old habits and negativities and and tendencies are always there. And so just intellectual belief isn’t gonna change them. You have to you have to trans you have to bring these deeper into the mind so that they become like a a living part of your mind. And that’s what really that’s what transforms the mind.

That’s what meditation is about. It’s to transform the mind. It’s to educate the mind in in the the right way of experiencing. So one has to do that again and again and again. Because, you know, honestly, we we can believe these things quite strongly, but it’s it’s hard to make it go deep into the mind.

So that’s why we have to go over these things again and we easily forget them. We we need to imprint this understanding in our mind because it’s so easy for it to be forgotten. And if it’s forgotten, it can’t it can’t benefit us. Like, the more the the the the dharma is really active in our mind, you know, we can recall all the bits just like that, then they can really help us. You know, if if if we’re controlled by a lot of desire or anger and we can if we can instantaneously have the thought, this is all impermanent, it’s not gonna last, then now we can subdue our anger and craving.

But if if we can’t remember things are impermanent, then we’ll ask. We can say the word, but we haven’t really remembered what that really, really means. So, you know, analytical meditation is really important. That’s why it’s the the homework. Because you can listen to me and oh, you know, this is fantastic.

This is all wonderfully true. Or you can think, oh, this is really stupid and primitive. And but if you go home and reflect on it, you can hopefully for those who think what what what you’ve heard is good and true and helpful, by thinking on it more, meditating it more, it becomes more it moves the mind more. And those people who go home thinking that was really stupid and primitive and whatever, if you think about it, maybe maybe you start to see, oh, that maybe there was some something in that. There’s something in it.

And oh. I’ve gotta go through this. But I’ve gotta say this anyway. Various people in in the homework brought up the point that they they found some of the the this teaching a bit hard to take, especially because it was so kind of factual. The more factual, the harder to believe.

And I have to confess to some extent, have the same kind of thing. Once when I heard had the explanation, the commentary given on the the monk’s vows which I have, which I have, what, two hundred and fifty three, then the more I understood these vows and how you know? Anyway, I shouldn’t even say this in public. It was less inspiring. Something about it was less inspiring than when I didn’t really understand what the vows meant and how you could break them and not break them.

It it it’s it’s it’s hard to explain. And and sometimes when you look at certain things and they’re so concrete, it it does look like they’re made up. It’s just too kind of and maybe some of it is. But I have a genuine, you know, as as as my mind is capable, I do have a genuine belief, faith in the Buddhadharma. But and especially the core stuff.

Some bits, you know, maybe are up for debate, but there’s a there’s a big danger when you debate too much of this stuff because you can throw the baby out with the bathwater. And I think the main point with, like, the ten non virtues and all that detail is all of these teachings are like guidelines. We shouldn’t take them too concretely. I’m not saying one that that they’re just, you know, wishy washy, but it’s a mess. But sometimes there’s a tendency for people to take it too concretely and worry too much about it it it’s exact it’s the it you know, it’s exactly like that.

The the main thing is to get some general idea and of of what these teachings are directing us towards. And I think for me, one always has to go back to why do things happen? Why do things happen? And there’s really only three answers possible. There is the the the religious the Christian or the theistic answer that there’s a god who is doing everything in his his her mysterious way.

And that may be true. But the Buddha teachings give many suggestions that such a being doesn’t exist. But it may be true. Maybe the the the put it God does exist and there is a creator controlling. That’s one explanation.

The other explanation is that, you know, is the materialist one that there’s, you know, it’s just there was a big bang and, you know, this, that. I don’t know what that you know? But there’s nothing much. There’s no real explanation for anything. Things just happen.

Yeah. I won’t quote the two line expression that goes with that, but you may be familiar with that one. What happens? You know, something happens. Things happen.

There’s that explanation. There’s no real reason, deep reason behind stuff. Know? And the third reason is basically the Buddhist explanation that things can’t happen, don’t can’t exist without a cause. Yeah.

And everything else is trying to look into that and indicate it at in a in a way that we can understand. Alright? That if you do this, it’s gonna have these kind of effects. It will have some kind of environment. This environment is not separate from us.

This is the thing. You know? How come we, I, am experiencing this and other people aren’t? You can say, oh, it’s not fair that I’m experiencing something bad or I’m experiencing something better because I’m better or, you know, god is blessing me or punishing me. Or there’s the Buddhist answer.

Anyway, so quickly, quickly, there is this practice called Vajrasattva. So I’ve I’ve given myself time, of course, to do justice to this. This is a very profound practice which actually comes from the tantric teachings of the Buddha. So ideally, technically, to do this practice, one is supposed to have taken refuge and to have received the actual initiation from a qualified teacher to do this practice. But because it’s considered so powerful and beneficial, these days the Tibetan lamas have taught us this and encouraged people to practice it without even having refuge or taking the empowerment.

Basically, what’s involved is you visualize so Vajrasattva is a deity that is depicted not so very well here in this black and white picture. So and this day all the deities or Buddhas symbolize although all deities are enlightened beings and have all the qualities of a Buddha, the deities symbolize or encapture a particular enlightened quality that we can relate to. So for example, over here this Thangka, the standing Thangka symbolizes eleven armed or thousand armed Chenrezig, the Buddha of compassion. So that deity has all the qualities of the Buddha, but particularly that image embodies and the practice associated with that deity help us to develop the quality of great compassion. And Vajrasattva, the deity Vajrasattva symbolizes the intrinsic purity of mind.

All minds are intrinsically pure and perfect. Right? And so by real trying to relate to that intrinsic purity of our mind, we can purify our mind. So one visualizes this deity on the crown of one’s head. And as you recite the mantra, which one imagines this white light and nectar coming from the deity, coming into the crown through the crown of your head and filling one’s body with light and nectar.

And you imagine that as that fills your body, your whole being, at the same time, it’s expelling all your negativities, which you can imagine take the form of really disgusting black liquid, and it is forced out of your body and disappears, and you’ve become in the nature of blissful white light and nectar. And that’s the way to purify the mind. So this is a very profound practice that all the Lamas of the Tibetan traditions follow. And there is a particular retreat which where you which I have well, I’m not anyway, I have done this retreat or at least gone through the motions of doing this retreat where you recite a hundred thousand of the Vajrasattva mantras. It takes three months to do it.

And so that’s really helpful for purifying the mind. And everyone in the Buddhist Tibetan tradition is encouraged to find time in their life to do this retreat if you can possibly. But if not, it’s it’s really important to try and do this practice every night because every day we create negativity so we need to purify our mind and the sooner the better. So there’s a short version of doing this which which I’m well you can read through it but basically so you one visualizes Vajrasattva as firstly, you mentioned there appears this lotus, a multicolored lotus. Above that is a white moon disc lying horizontally on so you have a lotus moon disc on top and then Vajrasattva.

And you imagine Vajrasattva has a a white body, a hollow body, like a balloon just to outline a hollow body of pure white light. And, Vajrasattva is sitting with his legs crossed in the vajra position or what’s commonly called the Lotus position. And he’s holding in his hands, a Dorje and bell. So the bell in in his left hand and what is called a Dorje in his right hand. So the bell symbolizes wisdom.

Wisdom is the ultimate nature of reality. I I won’t go into why these things is too complicated and takes too long. But anyway, a bell symbolizes wisdom. And the Dorje symbolizes bodhicitta, great compassion and bodhicitta. And so he’s holding the the Dorje at his heart, and he’s holding the bell in his left hand resting on his left knee.

And one imagines that he’s wearing this lower robe, which is made of something like silk, but is but is actually a reflection of his mind is. You mentioned the whole thing, the lotus, moon, his body, all the ornaments are a reflection of the enlightened mind. The enlightened mind manifests in this form for our benefit so that we can purify our mind. But it looks like he’s wearing a robe of something because silk is traditionally considered the most beautiful, precious type of material. So you imagine something like that, different colors.

And then he’s wearing he has his hair is a deep blue color. Don’t ask me why, but it’s a deep blue color. And some of it is tied in knots above the crown of his head, and some of it hangs over his shoulders. And he’s wearing all these different jeweled ornaments that symbolize what are called the six perfections, which are the perfection of generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration, and wisdom. So just like ordinary people like to adorn themselves with beautiful jewels, a Buddha is adorned with his perfect mental qualities of generosity and so forth.

And so that’s symbolized by the jewelry. So he wears a five pointed crown, and that symbolizes the five wisdoms of the Buddha. And he has these jeweled earrings, very big jewel earrings. He has three strands of jeweled necklaces, one which is sort of close to his throat, one that hangs down to the the nipples of his breast, and one that hangs down to the navel. And he has these jeweled armlets and bracelets.

He has a jeweled belt and also jeweled anklets. So his upper body is bare except for the the these these jeweled ornaments, and he has these, like, silk like scarves over his shoulders. So you imagine that Vajrasattva has his lips are a deep red. His eyes are kind of long, narrow shape, and the eyes themselves are deep blue color. And you imagine that this gets more complicated at Vajrasattva’s heart in the heart chakra, not the physical heart, but in the sense of the chest, the center of his body, there is a tiny little white lotus and standing clockwise around that lotus, standing upright are the hundred syllables that are white in color of the Vajrasattva mantra.

And then as you recite the mantra, you imagine that from these syllables at his heart, this pure blissful blissful, this is the keyword, blissful white light in neck that pours down into you, and it generates this incredibly blissful feeling throughout your whole body and mind. The more bliss you can generate or imagine you’re generating, the more you purify your mind. So it’s it’s it’s not like the the oh, I shouldn’t say this. It’s not like the Christian thing where you have to beat yourself to death to purify and make yourself miserable. It’s quite the opposite.

The more bliss you can feel for having generated negative things, the more purification. Why? Because a blissful mind will never engage in negativity. Only unhappy minds engage in negativity. The more blissful we can become, the more virtuous we will be.

But you don’t become blissful by get by sex, drugs, and rock and roll. This is not the way. Not the main way. That’s just a kind of very limited kind of bliss. Okay.

So mantras. Every deity has a mantra, and and my one of my main teachers, Lama Yeshe, once said the best explanation I’ve ever heard of how mantras work is that Lama Yeshe said that every quality of our mind, such as love and compassion and wisdom, has some kind of vibration, some kind of energy, some kind of vibration. And mantras act like tuning forks. So if you have a tuning fork and you strike it, anything in the room that has the same frequency will vibrate to that to the frequency of the tuning fork. So if you if we recite mantras with faith and concentration and devotion, then that mantra has a vibe like, an energy of vibrancy that that equates with a particular quality of mind that we have within us.

So it helps awaken that. So by reciting this mantra, it helps awaken, bring to the forth that pure quality of our mind that is free of negativity. So the mantra is in the center of the book. It’s long. It’s a hundred syllables, and it’s pronounced in the Tibetan tradition a little bit different than it says here.

Anyway, I’ll I’ll I’ll if if I’ll I’ll read it to you, recite it. There’s also a way of chanting it. Oh, I’ll probably chant it now. So it goes like this. So, anyway, in reciting mantras, you can chant them out loud, like, especially as a group, one can chant them out loud slowly, out loud quickly.

At home, when you’re doing mantras by yourself, the main way to do it is quite quickly but very quietly. You’re supposed to say them so that you yourself can just hear them but no one else could. You can also recite them just in your mind without saying them at all. But traditionally, one recites them very quietly. But here, I’m just gonna chant it out loud.

So it goes something like this. She will be happy to know there is a short version of this mantra. So if you do the long one, traditionally, we’re encouraged to do twenty one mantras to help purify the mind. The short mantra should be recited at least twenty one times and the short mantra is Om Vajrasattva hum. So you can manage that one.

If you can’t do the long mantra because the homework is to do this practice every day. Just check it out. So in doing the practice, we’re trying to purify our body, speech, and mind. So what one can do is you you request firstly the Buddha you generate refuge and or whatever way you can, a good heart, generate regret, thinking of the negative actions you’ve done in this life with your body, such as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct. You think that in past lives, I must have done all of these actions many times before.

Right? We must have because sooner or later, we would have been born in places where the conditions brought it about. It’s always very you know, it’s easy to be nice when you’re surrounded by nice people. If some, you know, some guy walks in here and starts screaming and shouting us, then our niceness will tend to fade away. So there’s been time in saṃsāra for us to be in pretty terrible situations.

So where we’ve killed, steeled, raped, robbed, everything, you know, molesting little children, a whole lot. We’ve done it all. All of us. Many times. Many, many, many times.

Every worst form of all of us have done this. It logically follows. None of us are little little angels, you know, and all of how terrible this person is. There’s a great old English song about there but for fortune go you or I. So just because of some good karma now, we’re not in that situation.

But before, we were. Anyway, so by logic, we can think and so therefore, we can regret, oh, that I did those things. So we can so then you then you recite the mantra, mention the white light nectar coming down into you. And again, it doesn’t matter how well you can visualize this. Most people aren’t great visualizers.

The main thing is to try and do it. Try to do it. Yeah. And just imagine it’s happening. And and and try to imagine that this nectar is actually making you blissful.

Terrifically blissful. And, anyway and and and and you imagine that it’s causing all those negative imprints to leave your mind in the form of black liquid and that pause. So as the white light nectar comes in, it forces this black liquid out from the lower part of your body. And you imagine it disappears, and you’re filled with this blissful white light and energy. So you can do that for seven mantras if you’re doing the long mantra.

And at the end, you think you’re your negative karma of body is purified. Then you make a request to Vajrasattva, who is the Buddha, same as the Buddha, to purify your mind of all negativities created with speech in this and past lives. So then you recite the mantra again, the white light nectar comes in. This time you imagine the nectar fills your body from the lower part upwards like a cup being filled. And as the body is being filled with this white nectar, then the negativities leave your mind in the form of black liquid float on on top of the white nectar and gets pushed out through the crown of your head, the black stuff, and disappears.

And, again, one filled with blissful white light and nectar. And then finally, one request to purify vajras the negativities of mind of covetousness, ill will, wrong views. And you think that as you recite the mantra, this time as you recite the mantra, these flashes of lightning come from each of the syllables of the mantra, Vajrasattva’s heart. And instantly, all those negative imprints from the non virtues of mind just disappear like as as the traditional analogy is given, like when you turn on the light, the darkness just is gone in a flash. Thing is is nonexistent.

So these are the three ways to visualize with this practice. And at the end, the idea is to have the strong faith that one has definitely purified the mind. And the more you believe it, the more you have because that’s the way the mind works. And then you imagine so then you complete it by making the the opponent power of resolution. You make a promise to the Buddha, Vajrasattva, I’m not going to do this negative action for this period of time.

I’m not gonna do that negative action for this period of time. You think Vajrasattva is really happy and he dissolves into you. Blissful white light absorbs into you. Finished. So this practice is in the Tibetan tradition is encouraged to be done every night before you go to bed.

So you can have good sleep, wake up refreshed. Like that. So it’s all set out here. Hope it makes some sense. Please try to do it.

If you find you don’t connect too much to Buddhism, it’s a bit you know, feeling you’re getting getting too much indoctrinated, you could at least think of, you know, maybe just a sphere of white light on your crown and the the light coming into you. But I would you know, if you have some feeling some connection, if you’re not too frightened by Buddhism, I I would recommend trying to do it, the whole thing, the full Monty. Yeah. Just see what happens. But the main thing is to have some faith that it does work because this is a practice that all practitioners in the Tibetan tradition, all the four schools use have used for thousands of years to purify the mind.

It’s considered one of the most powerful practices to do. Om Vajrasattva Om, o m, Vajrasattva hum, h u m. Om Vajrasattva hum. You haven’t got one? There are more out here to collect.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry. We’ll finish meant to have discussion. I’m gonna give all these apologies.

Meant to be discussion group again tonight, but we run out of time. So one one question, disagreement, suggestion, Desperate kind of something. Come on. Be brave. That’s already assumed you’re already doing those things.

This is to purify the mind specifically. Just to conclude, just to keep you, you know, in suffering a bit longer, One thing to understand between doing a virtuous action and doing a virtuous action to purify, it’s a little bit like, you know, when you’re earning money and if you have no doubt, no debts, you know, when you get your salary every is it still I don’t know these things because I haven’t worked for so long. Is it a salary, isn’t it? You get it once a month in the bank or something? So if you have no debts at all, then say you’re earning, I don’t know, what, a thousand dollars a week.

I suppose that’s a poverty wage these days. There’s no I don’t know. I won’t tell you how the maximum I ever earned when I was anyway. So you get a thousand dollars a week and you have no debts, then then you put you can put all of that money in the bank apart from what you have to eat and everything, but, you know, you can save all of it. Right?

So that’s like just creating virtuous actions. It all goes into the bank of your mind. It all becomes merit. But if you have a lot of debts and you’re earning a thousand dollars a week, most of that money has to go to pay the debt, and you have no money to go in the to save in the bank. So that’s like when we have a lot of negative imprints and we have to purify them.

We have to do virtuous actions to purify, to counteract the negative imprints. But those virtuous imprints don’t become merit, if you know what I mean, that we can that’s gonna ripen this good stuff. It’s gone into counteracting the negative. It’s gone into paying off the debt. Whereas if we don’t have debts, whatever we earn we can put in the bank.

Right? Do you the so if we don’t if we don’t have to purify the mind, all our virtue all the virtuous things we do become merit accumulated there in our mind which can be the source of ongoing happiness, etcetera etcetera etcetera. But if we have to do virtuous things to purify our mind, we have to put in all that good energy and it’s for a good purpose of purifying the mind, but it doesn’t take us any further. It just keeps us from going down in a sense. Am I making sense?

Does does that make yeah. That’s why the Gelugpa tradition is called the Gelugpa tradition, the virtuous tradition, because it emphasizes practicing virtue. Because if we are really virtuous, then the more virtuous we are, the less we have to purify. We don’t have to waste our energy paying off our debts. We can use all that good energy to becoming rich.

Rich in dharma, that is. Yeah. Now I’ll stop. Thank you very much for being so patient. We can at least dedicate because we have generated some really good imprints in our mind.

So we can dedicate them if you would like to. Page twelve. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious Bodhimind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore.