Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 110-minute final session of a four-part course, Ven Thubten Dondrub teaches the Buddhist understanding of karma—the law of cause and effect—as the foundation for all spiritual progress. He begins by establishing proper motivation through bodhicitta, the aspiration to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, then explains why understanding karma is essential: our actions of body, speech, and mind create imprints that ripen as happiness or suffering, and only by observing the law of cause and effect can we avoid negative actions and engage in virtuous ones. The bulk of the teaching covers purification practice in depth, presenting the four opponent powers—regret, reliance on the Three Jewels and bodhicitta, remedy, and resolution—which together can purify even the heaviest negative karma. He then walks through the Vajrasattva practice in detail: visualising the Buddha Vajrasattva on the crown of your head as hollow white light, reciting the hundred-syllable mantra while imagining blissful white nectar and light purifying your mind, and watching black liquid representing negative imprints dissolve. He also mentions two other key purification methods: the thirty-five Buddhas practice with prostrations and Dharma recitation, both available as preliminary practices in intensive three-month retreats. Throughout, he emphasises that merit accumulated through virtuous action must be dedicated to enlightenment to protect it, and that consistent daily practice—even brief sessions—rewires the mind away from self-cherishing and toward compassion. Pitched at practitioners serious about the Buddhist path, whether newcomers or those with established refuge.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2015 10 20 DB All about Karma Week 4 20-102015.mp3
UUID: 275c51ba-c0ef-4485-b9e9-e2e80c651ce6
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB All about Karma (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2015-10-20
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 110.2 minutes
Words: ~12,973
Good evening everyone. Welcome to our final session on all about karma. I’m sorry, I thought there was one more after this, but I forgot I was sick one time. We’ve Yeah, apologize for this. It’s been kind of a bit of a messy course, this one, with the retreat in the middle and then me getting sick and everything.
Anyway, so lots of things to try and cover tonight. May not manage. Right. Okay. So as you know, always make the point that, because this is what all the Lamas I’ve ever studied with say, that at the beginning of the teachings it’s really important from our own side to try to listen with the best motivation, because that really determines how much we will be able to understand, how much we will benefit from the teachings.
And also to not only have the right motivation for listening, but also trying to listen in the best way, really paying attention, trying to have an open mind, not a judgemental mind, and also trying to retain what one has heard, which for us is, in this modern day, the day of Instagrams and everything, quite difficult, but that’s also really important. So anyway, as you probably already know by now, according to the Mahāyāna tradition, the very best motivation that one can for studying the Buddha’s teachings is the bodhicitta motivation, which is the motivation wanting to achieve enlightenment, or in other words, to realise the full potential of one’s mind, a state of enlightenment where one is free of all thoughts, has all the positive potentials of one’s mind fully developed and active constantly, and a mind that is completely omniscient, unmistaken. So it is that mind that is able to be of perfect benefit to all sentient beings. So the reason to achieve that state arises because of wanting to repay the kindness of sentient beings, and that arises from understanding how kind sentient beings are to each of us, that we simply couldn’t exist or function without their existence.
So either directly or indirectly, we really depend on all sentient beings. Especially we depend on receiving a mother’s love, and we have received this countless times in beginning with saṃsāra from every sentient being. So that’s one cause of wanting to achieve enlightenment, wanting to repay their kindness, and the other cause is the main cause is recognising that all these kind beings who have been my mother, who have been my father, best friend and so on are suffering in cyclic existence. And they’re having to experience this suffering quite helplessly without any real understanding or protection. And what is worse, all these kind mother sentient beings trying to achieve happiness, trying to be free of suffering, do many things to try and achieve these goals, but unknowingly, most of the things they do actually are creating the causes of more suffering, more saṃsāra.
So when we think about these things, we’re finding the suffering of sentient beings unbearable, then it becomes obvious that the best way to repay the kindness of mother sentient beings is to help them to become free of every kind of suffering. Not only that, but to also help them achieve purest, everlasting happiness. So that’s the reason to become a Buddha, because one can only do that as an enlightened being. As we are now, we don’t have the qualities necessary, the endurance, the wisdom, the compassion, the patience, the perseverance to be able to help all sentient beings. Because it is quite difficult to help sentient beings if one has noticed it’s even difficult to help oneself.
Oneself is quite a problem, so trying to help other selves is also very difficult. So one needs to be a Buddha to do it. And one could think, well, this is a really difficult thing to become a Buddha, but it’s also extremely difficult to remain in saṃsāra. And if we don’t do anything about saṃsāra, it goes on, so our suffering would continue forever. Practising the Dharma is difficult, it takes time and hard work, but it comes to an end with enlightenment.
Also the work of enlightenment is the best thing we can do, the best work we can do, the best activity. It’s the most beneficial, meaningful, rewarding, enjoyable, beneficial and so on fulfilling, satisfying thing to do. So there’s no comparison. We have to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. So that involves achieving enlightenment.
To achieve enlightenment, we have to develop the qualities of a fully renounced mind, we have to develop actual bodhicitta, and we have to develop the wisdom that will destroy the causes of our suffering. And the teaching on the law of cause and effect is the basis for developing all of those qualities. And even if we want less suffering in this life and more happiness, we will achieve that if we understand the law of cause and effect and live by it. Understanding what are the causes of suffering, understanding what are the causes of happiness. So this topic of karma, the law of cause and effect, is really one of the most vital things to understand if one wants to in any way follow the Buddha’s teachings.
So with that motivation, we can study these teachings tonight. So as we say this prayer of refuge in bodhicitta, the traditional way to make that more effective, more powerful, more meaningful is to try and think of the Buddha in front of us as the embodiment of the Three Jewels of refuge, the embodiment of bodhicitta, the embodiment of all the perfect qualities of the Three Jewels of refuge, and at the same time to try and think of all sentient beings surrounding you, starting with your mother of this life on your left, father on your right, the rest of your family, friends and helpers behind you, harmers in front. And then as much as you can, as much as you believe, to try and think of the different kinds of beings of the different other realms of cyclic existence. And having that awareness that these beings are only kind but only suffering. I go for refuge until I am 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 that the Buddha, being pleased with our motivation, comes to the crown of our head and then dissolves into blissful golden light, so that that light can then pour down into you, blessing your mind. So then briefly we can do the nine round breathing exercise just to allow the mind to become a little bit calmer, more clear, more concentrated, so that we can use that more subtle level of mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. Okay thank you So the Buddhist teachings are all about the mind. They emphasise that it is our mind which is the source of all our experience, particularly the experiences of happiness and suffering.
The Buddhist teachings emphasise that if we want less suffering, more happiness, then we really have to take care of our mind. And the Buddhist teachings contain the methods whereby we can take care of our mind, not just in this life, but understanding that the mind is something that goes on forever, will never cease, it will always give rise to experience. It presents the methods whereby we can take care of our mind so that we progressively move away from every kind of suffering, eliminate all the causes of suffering from our mind, and awaken all the qualities, the potentials within our minds, the actual source of real happiness for ourselves and enable us to be of great benefit to others. So to do all this, at the heart of that, is understanding the law of cause and effect. Understanding that the actions of our mind, which themselves have effects, but particularly our mind motivates what we say and what we say.
Also, because it’s motivated by the mind, it has effects, and also our mind motivates what we do with our body, and what we do with our body has effects for ourselves. Of course, what we do, what we think, say and do affects other people, but the law of cause and effect is explaining how it affects ourself, an individual, one person. But that applies to all one persons, if you know what I mean, every individual. Ultimately, we need to To have less suffering, more happiness, we have to stop engaging in negative actions and engage in virtuous actions. So we need to know what negative actions are, what virtuous actions are.
What determines really what a negative action is, is the mental factor that is motivating our behaviour. So if those mental factors are the non virtuous ones, which are reflections of or due to an outgrowth of our ignorance, which is misperceiving ourselves and others, those disturbing thoughts are going to lead us to engage in negative actions that generate negative imprints that bring suffering. Whereas if it is the virtuous mental factors which are manifestations or reflections of the true nature of our mind, such as love and compassion and wisdom, then those actions motivated by those mental factors bring happiness. Of course, what we are ultimately trying to achieve is to stop doing any negative action whatsoever. To do that, we have to stop following our disturbing thoughts.
We have to gain control over our disturbing thoughts and eventually completely eliminate them. That’s the ultimate aim. Also, when we avoid negative actions, not only are we avoiding immediately the causes of suffering in this life and we’re stopping creating imprints that are going to lead to suffering in future lives. But by not engaging in negative actions, it means to avoid engaging in a negative action, it means we’re not listening to a particular disturbing thought that has arisen in our mind that is kind of motivating us to do a negative action. We may see something and think, oh, I could steal that now.’ Just to give a very gross example, which I’m sure doesn’t occur in your mind ever, but you could see something and no one’s around, you think, oh, I could steal that now, ‘ but then you think, oh, this is a negative action, shouldn’t do that, so one doesn’t listen to that action.
And by not listening to it, it is weakening the habit of that disturbing thought. So that itself is another benefit of not which in turn is slightly, ever so slightly, weakening the habit of following our wrong view, the ignorance, which is the very, very source, root source of all our suffering. So there are many reasons to avoid negative actions and to engage in virtuous actions. By engaging in virtuous actions, we’re creating It is bringing some positive result in this life, it’s having some positive effect in this life. It’s creating positive imprints that are going to bring us happiness in the future, but it’s also it means that we are following a we’re engaging in, we’re listening to and acting on a virtuous mental factor, so that’s increasing the habit of doing that, and also indirectly reducing our ignorance.
Slightly, but every little bit helps. Every little bit helps. Right. So basically, if one wants to follow the Buddhist teachings, what we’re trying to do is avoid negative actions. And of course, the immediate reason is for our own sake.
The immediate reason meaning not so much this life, but to make sure that we don’t create the causes to have a bad rebirth, because death is coming, it could happen at any time. Right? So we don’t want to die in a negative state of mind where one of these negative imprints is going to ripen to bring a bad rebirth. I think I’ve lost my point already. I try to explain something and then I forget what I’m trying to explain, the ultimate point.
So the immediate reason for avoiding negative actions is that. So we’re not obscuring our mind and creating the causes of a bad rebirth. But of course, then the greater motivation is to avoid negative actions so that we’re not obscuring our mind, making it difficult to get out of a cyclic existence, to become free of suffering altogether. But the ultimate reason to avoid negative actions is not so much for our own sake, but for the sake of others, because most negative actions that we engage in are also harming others. They’re having definitely a negative effect on ourselves now and in the future, but they’re also harming others.
Who are these others? All of these other beings that we’re harming have been incredibly kind to me in every possible way, so how can I harm them? It’s really important. As his holiness often says, If we can’t benefit others, at least don’t harm them. Sentient beings are already suffering enough.
Every sentient being is suffering, so that’s another reason not to harm them. But even the deeper reason is because these beings have been incredibly kind to me in every possible way, have been my mother. And also, by engaging in negative actions, these negative actions are obscuring our mind, and that is making it So those negative imprints are not only creating the causes Our negative actions are not only creating negative imprints that are going to ripen the suffering if we don’t do anything about them. But those negative imprints right now are obscuring our mind, and that’s making it difficult to follow the spiritual path and difficult to benefit others. So the more we engage in negative actions, it’s just really horrible disaster.
We’re creating causes of suffering from ourselves immediately in the future, we’re harming other sentient beings now, but we’re creating all these obstacles to benefiting them in the future in a really profound way. So this is why we have to observe the law of cause and effect. It’s not about just being a goody goody. It is about being good. It’s about being really good.
Super good, if one can. But being super good is not being a goody goody, it’s just good. It’s just terrific. What we need to try and do is avoid negative actions, engage in virtuous actions, because those virtuous actions are the cause for us to experience happiness now and in the future while we’re in saṃsāra. But also what’s important to understand is that the imprints of the virtuous actions, which are often referred to as merit, the virtuous karmic imprints constitute our merit.
So that merit can ripen if it’s not dedicated properly, it just ripens as some kind of pleasure, some kind of happiness while we’re in saṃsāra. But if we consciously dedicate our virtuous behaviour to achieving a specific goal, to achieving a good rebirth, achieving liberation, especially enlightenment, then it becomes a cause for those things. And we need actually, to gain liberation from cyclic existence, to achieve enlightenment, one needs to gain many realisations, these lasting transformative insights into things such as impermanence and our own death, and the suffering nature of saṃsāra, the suffering nature of other sentient beings, how incredibly kind they are to gain the realisation of loving kindness, and so on. And to gain those realisations, one has to meditate. There are causes for those realisations to arise in the mind.
They don’t just happen. You can’t just pray for them, ‘Please, could I be a nice person?’ One has to create the actual causes for them by meditating on these subjects. But for those meditations to work, there are other things to do, one of which is to purify Oh, didn’t want to say that Anyway, is to purify the mind of obstacles, but also to accumulate merit. The more merit, the more positive imprints we have in our mind from doing virtuous actions, the easier and quicker it is to gain realisations. That is an essential thing.
If you study the teachings, you will start to realise more and more. There are many prayers and texts where it mentions enlightenment is achieved when one completes the two accumulations: the accumulation of merit and wisdom. So the accumulation of wisdom leads to developing the omniscient mind of a Buddha, the dharmakaya, and the accumulation of merit is the cause to achieve the rupakaya, the form body of a Buddha. Just like we’ve got an ordinary body and a suffering body and a suffering mind, you could say a Buddha has this pure body which is nothing like ours. Anyway, a body and a pure mind.
So the cause of that pure mind is the accumulation of wisdom and the cause to have the pure body of a Buddha that can manifest and emanate in countless ways to benefit sentient beings, that comes from the accumulation of merit, ultimately. But every realization we need on the path to enlightenment depends on merit. Also, we have to purify our mind to because our mind right now Our mind has this Buddha nature, but why we’re not experiencing that is because our mind is obscured. So it’s obscured by ignorance, it’s obscured by delusions, and it’s obscured by our negative karmic imprints. And we keep creating those, so we put more levels of obscuration on our mind, which is really sad.
So the more we can get rid of that It’s just like if you’ve been a smoker and your chest is full of all this goo. If you can get rid of some of that goo, you can don’t know, sorry, there’s a doctor looking at me, I don’t know. Anyway, you’ll breathe better, you’ll feel better. So if we get the goo out of our mind, our mind can work better. Mind knows, but figuratively it’s got this goo all over it, you know, like dust I have to mix up a few metaphors here.
There’s all this dust on the mirror of the mind. So if you get rid of that, the mirror can reflect things properly. So the more we do that, the more our mind can the mental consciousness can do its job of knowing more and more. Purifying the mind is incredibly important and accumulating merit. So there’s many reasons to be a goody goody.
Doing good benefits ourselves now, it’s creating the causes of happiness in the future, it’s benefiting others now and in the future, and it’s accumulating the merit that is the basis to gain all the realisations that are going to help ourselves and others. So it’s so important. So again, just to repeat, the three things we try to do Well, there’s more than three things, but in relation to this topic is avoid negative actions, engage in virtuous actions and accumulate merit, but also we need to purify our mind. Not only do we have to stop engaging in negative actions as much as possible, if one starts to believe in all of this, the law of cause and effect, but we’ve already engaged in many negative actions unknowingly or knowingly in this life and certainly in past lives, so we have negative imprints. We’ve had infinite past lives, created infinite negative imprints.
Fortunately, some of those negative imprints have already ripened in past lives. Some have been purified, we purified them in past lives, but we still have infinite numbers of negative imprints in our mind. And if we don’t purify those, they will ripen sooner, later. Remember the four aspects of karma, that once the imprint is there, it will stay with the mind. So especially the negative imprints, unless they’re purified, they stay with the mind and eventually they ripen.
They will definitely ripen as suffering. Unfortunately, the positive imprints can be destroyed. If they’re properly dedicated, they will stay with the mind and ripen to bring their result. But if they haven’t been dedicated or dedicated properly and strongly, every time we get really angry, for example, we wipe out some of our positive imprints. This is why we’re still in saṃsāra.
It’s a bit like snakes and ladders. You climb up the ladder by doing all these virtuous things, and then you get angry. It’s not just angry, think even very strong attachment, desire, pride, jealousy those emotions arise really, really strongly, and it harms those positive imprints, so the teachings say. This is why it is said one should try and dedicate one’s virtuous actions, dedicate the merit as soon as possible to protect them, or at least at the end of the day. The example the Buddha himself gave how this works, it’s just a rough analogy, because we can’t really understand how karma works.
It is really the most profound subject in the Buddhadharma. You could ask me, What is a karmic imprint? What does it look like? And it’s just really very difficult to understand. Don’t.
I lost my mic. Heard something. Thank you. I thought you were going to ask me what a karmic imprint was. But don’t, because it’s impossible to explain what a karmic imprint is, but they do exist.
So anyway, what the Buddha said about how dedication works is he gave this simple analogy that if you put a drop of water on a hot stone, then it instantly will evaporate. But if you put that drop of water in the ocean, it joins all the other water and is protected. So it’ll last much longer. So he said in the same way, when you dedicate one’s virtuous actions to enlightenment, it’s like the mind doing that That mind wanting that action to become a cause of the well-being of all sentient beings is the same thought as all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have. So it’s like you put that thought, that imprint, into the ocean of all the Buddha’s minds.
So it’s not left all alone by itself, like one little thought on a hot rock. It’s protected by the wishes of all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. So something like that. So anyway, it’s important to dedicate one’s merit. Having put all that effort into doing something virtuous, it’s really important to try and dedicate it in the best way and as strongly and sincerely as one can.
But also, yeah, to purify the mind. So this is what I want to talk about now, the practice of purification, how to purify the mind. According to the Mahāyāna tradition, it is possible to purify even the most extreme negative actions possible. So that’s nice to hear. But one should also understand that although it is possible to purify any kind of negativity that one has ever done in this or past lives, one shouldn’t then think, oh, it’s very easy, ‘ which is what I think we tend to think, oh, you just do these things and Bob’s your uncle.
But to create negative karma is very easy. But to purify it is very difficult, to completely purify it. And also, just before we go on, I’ll try and explain this point, but just as a very rough analogy, if you think of a negative karmic imprint as like one of those capsules and it’s full of liquid, right? And if it’s full of liquid, that represents the one hundred percent potential to bring horrible suffering when it ripens, right? So what purification involves is it doesn’t mean you get rid of that pill, that imprint, it just disappears.
What it means is that depending on how much you purify, the liquid inside evaporates. So maybe if you work at it, fifty percent of the liquid goes, meaning fifty percent of that potential to bring horrible suffering goes. So you only get half the suffering result. If you purify some more, you get rid of another twenty five percent, like that. Or you may really purify a lot and only a tiny little bit of the potential is left.
And it will ripen in this life as suffering, not as happiness. The only way one can actually eliminate negative imprints is to eliminate ignorance from the mind, which is the very last thing we can do. That’s the end of the spiritual path, or towards the very end anyway, not the beginning where we are. But right now we have the ability to purify our mind. So by doing various purification practices, one can reduce the potency of some of our karmic imprints.
And so if one does a lot of intense purification practice and you suddenly get ill, you should be really happy, because this is a sign that the negative karma’s ripened, because something’s gone wrong, there’s some suffering occurring. Whereas, on the other hand, someone who lives a very non virtuous life can have lots of good things happen to them in their life. They may become very rich and famous. But this is because by doing all these extremely negative things, they have forced their virtuous karma to ripen in this life. In what it looks like from the worldly point of view, all these really good things.
But their good karma could have ripened by having all the conditions to meet the Dharma, practice it, gain all sorts of realisations, and yet instead they win the lottery or become a successful drug baron or something like that, and have a crystal staircase leading to the second floor of their house, like Mr Escobar had in Bogota. A crystal staircase, a solid crystal staircase. What about if they got a little happy, you know, like really happy? Not just material things, Yeah, yeah, happy, happy. Even happy, happy.
Because remember happiness is just the suffering of change, and it’s the result of good karma. So their good karma ripens, so they have some happiness. But their good karma’s been forced to ripen by engaging in lots of negative actions. So we’re aspiring to not have any Sorry what? We’re aspiring to have bad karma ripen and the good karma safe till next time?
No, not necessarily. But this gives me a chance to quote one of my favourite things that Rinpoche once said, is that I think this You may think it’s horrible, I think it’s really great. Well, that sounds pretentious. Sorry. Anyway Not that I can live this way, but anyway, Lama Zopa Rinpoche once said that, what are we trying to do as a Buddhist?
We are not trying to become happy as a Buddhist. Actually, just recently a book has come out by this young author who’s basically making the same point. A Buddhist is not trying to be happy. We are not trying to be happy in this life. This is not the aim of a Buddhist.
A Buddhist is not trying to have a happy life. Did you realise that? We are not trying to be happy. What we are trying to do is have a meaningful life. We are trying to have a meaningful life.
A meaningful life is much better than a happy life. Happy life means samsaric happiness. Genuine Dharma practitioner is not trying to practice the Dharma to be happy, to have worldly happiness. One is trying to make one’s life meaningful. Maybe not here, but some of you I have mentioned this.
I used to be the Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s attendant for three years. Lost the job, got kicked out of it. But I didn’t manage for three years to do the job, sort of, before I went completely crazy. Occasionally I had to go When William Lama Zopa Rinpoche was in Dharmasala and doing a retreat, Rinpoche would send me to see His Holiness Dalai Lama to ask some various questions on Rinpoche’s behalf. I think it was the first time Rinpoche sent me.
He said, If His Holiness asks you anything personally, ask him to bless you to have a meaningful life, to pray that you have a meaningful life, which I did. His Holiness’s brother, who was acting as his secretary, was very impressed that I’d said that. But of course it wasn’t my idea. It was the Holy Guru’s idea. But really, that’s what we And if you think about it, a meaningful life is a satisfying life.
It is satisfying. Is, it’s no longer When you have a satisfactory not a satisfactory, a satisfying life, one no longer is part of the first noble truth that life is suffering. Whereas if you’re happy, you’re still suffering. When one has worldly happiness, it’s just a subtle kind of suffering. It’s unsatisfying, because one just wants more.
You read all the rich and famous people, they all want something more. I’ve got carried away again. I haven’t got to the topic. Where am I? Purification.
Right. Okay. According to the tradition, especially the Tibetan tradition, not made up by the Tibetans but as it’s presented in the Tibetan tradition, which has preserved all the wonderful teachings of the Buddha that came from India, there’s basically only one method to purify the mind. This is the method which involves applying what are called the four opponent powers. If one is able to apply the four opponent powers strongly, sincerely, continuously, especially as soon after one’s engaged in a negative action it doesn’t have to be then, that’s best one can purify anything with these four opponent powers, which are: there is the opponent power of regret, and this is said to be the most important of the four developing genuine regret.
I’ll go through these in a little bit more detail. Then there’s the power of reliance, which has two aspects: the power of the triple gem of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and relying on the power of bodhicitta. So that’s the second of the two opponent powers. The third opponent power is the power of remedy, which means doing a virtuous action, consciously doing a specific virtuous action to counteract the negative action that one has done. And then the fourth opponent power is the power of resolution, where one makes this strong resolution, commitment to oneself, but especially to the Buddhas, to avoid a particular negative action for a particular period of time, in order to cut the habit of engaging in that negative action.
So if one applies those four opponent powers, it can purify anything. So the first opponent power, just very briefly When do we finish the break? Twenty powers. Twenty powers. Okay.
Oh, good. Sorry, before I rattle on any more, any questions so far? Yeah? Just on the point just then. I was reading Rinpoche’s article from the readings last week, and he mentions how each of the opponent powers addresses one of the righting results.
My question is, do you need to all opponent powers for the whole thing to be purified, or can you apply just one and specifically the results? No, no, you need to do all four. All four, yeah. And in that particular sequence as well? And there’s a lot of Kind of, yes, yes.
Yeah, yeah. Because first you develop regret, and then because of regret you take As a Buddhist, you reaffirm your refuge and try and regenerate the power of bodhicitta, and then you do a virtuous action to counteract it and then say, you know, I’m now going to Well, the last two you could vary. The sooner you make the decision not to do that action again, the better. And then yeah All four. Yeah, all four.
Yeah, yeah. So the power of regret is We have this Yeah. So regret is a virtuous state of mind, and it comes from It’s a type of wisdom, it’s a reflection of our wisdom. Whereas guilt, which could look like the same thing, but guilt is actually in itself is a kind of I think you could say I don’t know, maybe it’s not completely, but it’s almost a negative state of mind and it’s certainly a type of ignorance. So guilt, because it comes from ignorance, tends to make the mind really depressed because you think you’ve done a terrible thing, and it’s because you’re a terrible person, why are you a terrible person?
Or the proof is I’ve done a terrible thing. Why did I do a terrible thing? Only because I’m a terrible person. Why am I a terrible person? Because did a terrible thing.
And it just goes around and around. And then, well, since I am a terrible person, proof I did a terrible thing, there’s no hope for me, so I might as well continue doing terrible things. Because I’m a terrible person. There’s no hope. So it really I’m exaggerating there, but that tendency doesn’t give any energy, inspiration to stop negative actions.
Whereas regret, because it is a type of wisdom or a reflection of our wisdom, regret simply has two aspects. It honestly recognises that because often when we engage in negative actions, we don’t want to admit that we have done something negative. If someone else does the same thing, of course it’s negative and terrible. But when I do it, well, that’s not so bad, it’s okay. Well, it wasn’t really so bad.
I wasn’t really I didn’t really kill them, I just kind of made them bleed a lot, you know? They’ll be okay, you know. Anyway, they were going to die anyway, but, you know, so it really matter, you know. So that’s been anyway. So regret is honestly acknowledging that that was a negative action, and it’s also recognising that this negative action is only going to lead to suffering for myself.
I am definitely going to suffer as a result of doing this negative action. So then one regrets that. You don’t have to think, I’m a terrible person’. The action is bad, it is a negative action, and it’s due to one’s self-cherishing. But it’s not one’s true nature.
But one’s self did do this negative action, and it’s going to bring suffering to myself. So I regret that. I wish I had not done that. That’s really unfortunate. So that’s the basic way to develop regret.
At an even deeper level, if one really has some feeling for the Mahāyāna and bodhicitta, then one can regret from the point of view that this negative action has now generated a negative imprint in my mind which is obscuring my mind. I’ve now obscured my mind even more, and that obscured mind will find it that much more difficult to practise the Dharma, to progress in the spiritual path, to be of benefit to others. So I’ve really messed up. I’ve created not only created Due to my own self-cherishing, not only have I created a cause of suffering for myself, but I’ve created obstacles to benefiting others, the very thing I’m trying to do, which I realise now is the most important, wonderful thing to try to do to benefit others. And I’ve gone and created an obstacle to do it.
So that is a real disaster, how unfortunate that is. So one can develop regret from these two points of view that it’s created a cause of suffering for myself and it’s created obstacles to following the spiritual path. So that’s how we develop regret. Like, if you reach into the medicine cabinet looking for a headache pill and you take some poison, you don’t feel guilt and, oh, I’m a terrible person, ‘ You think, ‘Wow, that was dumb. That was dumb.
I’m now going to get really sick or die because I just took some poison, and actually I was trying to take a headache pill.’ Wow. And if you think about that, implicit in that is the thought, I’m not going to do that again. I’ll try not I’ll be much more careful about what I do in the future.’ So is that the right word, implicit? Or is that there’s some not only regret, but some resolution not to do the thing again? The more genuine regret, the more what goes with that is that other opponent power of resolution.
So then the second opponent power is the power of remedy No, no, sorry, reliance. Reliance on generating This is, of course, taught from the Buddhist tradition. One develops the understanding that, or one has already the understanding or belief that it is by taking refuge and practising it that one can protect one’s mind from every suffering and develop all causes of happiness. Because basically what would The objects of refuge are the Buddha, the Dharma, which is the Buddha’s teachings, and the ārya Sangha. Technically the ārya Sangha, usually we just say the Sangha, but the Sangha also refers to monks and nuns, a community of monks and ordinary monks and nuns like myself. But the object of refuge is not ordinary monks and nuns, but the ārya Sangha.
The ārya Sangha refers to anyone who has real, directly perceived emptiness, the true nature of themselves and phenomena. So that is the object of refuge. So they’re the objects of refuge, and the reason to take refuge, to rely on those objects, is to be free of suffering. And how you do that is practising refuge. And the practice of refuge is recognising that it is one’s own mind.
A Buddhist, a Dharma practitioner, someone who has taken refuge or has it, is someone who recognises We don’t have to have a deep, deep understanding, but some acceptance, acknowledgment, faith, belief that one has a mind and that actually it is one’s own mind that is giving rise to one’s suffering and happiness. It’s not the outer things. They’re just conditions, but really it’s one’s own mind that is giving rise to all one’s experiences. God, there’s so many microphones do. And so the more we recognise that, refuge involves making that determination, ‘I have to take care of my mind.
I will take care of my mind, and I will rely only on the Buddha’s methods to do so, because one’s developed the faith that the Buddha’s methods are the best. I know that’s very politically incorrect, but that’s what a Buddhist believes, that the mind, enlightened mind, is the perfect refuge because there’s no faults, only good qualities, all good qualities, fully developed, fully functioning, all the time, you know, a mission mind that is perfect. So that is the perfect refuge. I can trust that, that mind. And so the methods taught by the Buddha, because they’re a reflection of that perfect mind, I can trust.
So I’m going to use only those methods to take care of my mind. And that’s what refuge is it’s committing to do that. Every time we engage in negative actions, it’s either because we have no refuge, or if we did have refuge, we’ve forgotten it, or we’ve gone against it. So that’s why the power of reliance is to reaffirm our refuge as much as possible. Which means to reaffirm that commitment, I’m going to take care of my mind as much as possible, continuously using the Buddha’s methods.
That’s what I’m going to do.’ And at the heart of that is observing the law of cause and effect. That’s the fundamental method, the most fundamental method. And then there’s the power of bodhicitta. So all of our negative actions, if you check the ten non virtues, what motivates them is our self-cherishing. The thinking just of me now and what seems to be what the self-cherishing thought is only concerned with me, only concerned with me now, not even me, you know, tomorrow or the next day, like, you know, super extreme when the self-cherishing is really, really incredibly strong.
It’s only thinking about, as Lama Zopa says, the nearest moment. The nearest moment. Right? And when you think only about yourself in the nearest moment and the self-cherishing, it also wants things to happen quickly and easily. Very quick, very easy.
So when we’re under the control of that mind, we engage in all the ten non virtues and all the others, because it looks like the quick, easy way to solve our problems and to have instant happiness. Check up. Check up your own mind. And also, maybe I’m just not getting an old grumpy monk But the world is becoming more like a more self-cherishing place all the time. It runs everything very quick, very easy.
Now, me. Why do we have global warming? Because we want we destroy the planet so we can have stuff now. The profits now. The results now.
Don’t think about ten, twenty, thirty, forty years, just now. Just now. And it’s too difficult to change things, so just keep doing it. Whereas bodhicitta I’ll get on to the point. bodhicitta is the very opposite.
bodhicitta is about giving up the self-cherishing thought and cherishing others more and more until one can actually cherish others more than self. So that’s the mind we need to try to reaffirm. Because if you check all the virtuous actions of not engaging in the ten non virtues, of not killing, but also the super virtuous action of like saving lives, nurturing, protecting, cherishing life, not stealing and actually giving, not engaging in sexual misconduct and all those things, to do those things in the moment of avoiding those non virtues or, engaging in the super virtuous form of it, one is cherishing others more than self. To avoid sexual misconduct, you have to think at least for some time, you think of the welfare of the other person or other people that could be affected. In order to not lie, you’re thinking of how other people will be affected.
To not kill, you’re thinking about the other person or the other insect or whatever. You’re cherishing that life, even just for a short time, even just a little bit. So to be able to generate even some form of bodhicitta, some plastic replica of bodhicitta, because the real thing is extremely difficult to generate, But even to admire it and generate the mind admiring bodhicitta and wanting to follow that way of life is incredibly powerful, and we need to put that imprint in our mind more and more to counteract that self-cherishing that always makes the wrong decision, always the worst decisions. Right, okay, that’s the second one. Third one Okay Where are we?
I have to No, we’ll jump that one. I’ll talk about that after the break. The power of resolution is that If we just take one particular action Of course, unfortunately, we engage in many negative actions. Not all of us, but we have possibly in this life, in past lives, engaged in all sorts of negative actions. But if we just take one, maybe today or yesterday or sometime earlier, recently we did something that we feel bad about, we regret, So we generate regret, then the power of reliance, and then we need to think, I really don’t want to do this action again.
But if it’s something that one habitually does, one’s gotten into that negative habit of doing this particular thing, it isn’t wise, it isn’t skilful to say, I’ll never do this again, because it’s almost guaranteed we will. And especially when one makes the promise not just oneself, because the power of this practice relies on not just doing it in relation to oneself, but promising the Buddhas and one’s gurus. So of course, if one has refuge, the more refuge one has in the Buddhas and one’s teachers, then you can’t make those commitments to such holy beings lightly and therefore break them. You have to try to be really committed, sincere. So what my teacher says is that what one should try to do is think that you make a realistic assessment of how long I can avoid this particular negative habit.
If I put real effort into avoiding it, how long could I do it for? And then you make a promise to the Buddhas that that’s what I’ll do, I’ll avoid it for this period of time. My teacher says, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, he was a great, great, great practitioner, so he doesn’t just make up anything that’s not beneficial or whatever, say anything that’s flippant or not meant. Everything Rinpoche says is really only for the benefit of sentient beings. So he says, Even if you promise to avoid something for an incredibly short time is okay.
If it’s something that’s very, very difficult to avoid, then even if you promise to do it only for, like, even a few minutes, I’ll avoid doing it for a few minutes is okay. You put that imprint, but then you have to do it for that. But the point is, you don’t then go back and just Having avoided that action for that particular period, then you try to do it for another, a similar period of time, or even a little bit longer. So you train your mind like that to, you know, step by step avoid that action and make it longer and longer and longer. And the question can arise, well, what if you fail and you make the resolution, I’m going to avoid this action for this period of time, ‘ and you don’t do it, you break it.
Do you give up? No. What you do is you apply the four opponent powers again and make another resolution. And what happens if you break that one? You try again.
And what if you break that one? You just try again, until you keep it, and then you progress. You never give up. No choice. There is a fantastic quote which I always remember I should quote, but I always forget to bring it on the day.
I doubt if I can find it. Also by the way, while I’m trying to find this, is that one thing I forgot to mention is that in purifying the mind, we can not only purify the actions of body, speech and mind that we know that we’ve done in this life, but also we can purify all the imprints of negative actions done in past lives, because through logic we can understand that in past lives there has been the time, in beginningless saṃsāra, for us to be born in every kind of terrible situation. Because really, the self-cherishing thought arises I mean, it’s there, the potential for it is there all the time but it’s when the conditions are there that the self-cherishing will arise. And like if someone if one person is rude to you, a little bit of self-cherishing arises. If there’s two people in the room being rude to you, then your self-cherishing will get stronger.
And if there’s three people in the room being rude to you and they also have baseball bats in their hands, then the self-cherishing thought will start to get really, really freaked out. And then it will think, I’ll do anything to stop this. Like, I might have to kill them or something like that. But, you know, you’re all looking nice at me, so I have no intention of killing you at the moment, mowing you down with a machine gun. But if you thought it got nasty to me, my self-cherishing thought might get really nasty back.
Sorry to say that. I’ve never said that before. But it’s extreme. We think, oh, I would never do all these terrible things, ‘ but this is probably because our self-cherishing has never been threatened so much. But when our self-cherishing is really, really threatened, then, you know, that’s when we go ballistic.
And you read this all the time in the papers, that people have killed their mother, their father. Just recently today, killed their mother, I can’t remember somewhere. Yeah? Or they kill their children or they do all sorts of things. Sometimes it’s over you can you know, arguments about ridiculous things.
People are killing each other because of the self-cherishing thought. So my point is, in past lives there’s been the conditions for our self-cherishing to lead us to do every kind of terrible action. Because ultimately we’re not that different from all the people who do all the terrible Really. We have all the same delusions. We all have the potential to be angry, to have attachment and jealousy and pride, which are the things that motivate the people who have done horrific things, but they were in the position to do it.
So the point is, we can develop regret for all those things. Even though we can’t actually remember them, we can logically infer that we’ve done them and develop regret, recognising those are negative actions, the imprints are there, if I don’t purify them, they’re going to bring suffering and they’re obscuring my mind, making it difficult to benefit sentient beings. Anyway, in a break I’ll try and find this quote if I’ve got it here. Thank you. I’ll have a tea.
Thanks. Yeah. Thank you. So that’s what you’re covering Yes. Yes.
I haven’t got to that bit, but yes. Now this is the last lesson. Yes. Okay, so the third of the opponent powers is the power of remedy. So this refers to doing some particular virtuous action to counteract the negative actions.
So when we’re purifying, we can put effort into purifying a particular action done in this life, or trying to purify everything at once, whatever. So there are said to be six particularly virtuous actions that are good to do in relation to this power of remedy. I’m just going to focus on one because there’s no time to explain them, go into lots of details, but just briefly the six super virtuous actions to try and do. The first of these is reciting the names of the Buddhas, such as the Buddha Amitābha’s name, reciting Om Mani Padme Hum, which somehow mysteriously includes the name of Avalokiteśvara, the Buddha of Compassion, although I’ve never quite understood how his name is wedged in on Mani Padme Hum, but I have faith that it is. Anyways, it’s calling on Avalokiteśvara.
The second of the super virtuous methods to use is doing the Vajrasattva practice, which is what I want to explain, and you all should have a copy of that now, a simple version. And there is a depiction of the Buddha Vajrasattva hanging here, a coloured version of it. I’ll just leave that for the time being. Just briefly, another very virtuous practice to do is to spend time reciting Dharma texts, particularly sutras, especially sutras on emptiness, about the ultimate nature of reality. So an example of that is the Heart Sūtra.
Most of you might have heard of and might be familiar with the Heart Sūtra. So one can recite that many, many times, trying to really focus on reciting that. Probably the greatest power of remedy, most virtuous action to purify negative karma, but of course it’s the most difficult to do, is to meditate on emptiness properly. To meditate on emptiness badly is easy to do, but to meditate on it properly, that’s very difficult. Another one is making holy objects, such as making statues of the Buddha.
In the Tibetan tradition they’ve developed this practice of what are called tsha tsha Do we have any examples? Where? Oh yes, like above the door there are those row of golden images. These are called ‘tsha tsha’. So traditionally in Tibet they were made of clay, you would have a mould and you would stamp out these images in clay of the different Buddhas.
So the belief is that creating these images the image of the Buddha was something very rare and powerful and virtuous, so making these images creates a great deal of merit in the mind and therefore purifies the mind. So making all actual statues of the Buddha, or paintings, or producing Dharma texts not writing new sutras yourself, but printing Dharma texts. So if one can actually do that, also what is encouraged is to sponsor people who can do these things, or also repairing statues and stupas and dharma texts and thangkas and so on. This is considered to be very meritorious. Another one is making offerings to the triple gem and to one’s guru.
But of course this has to be because this sounds like you’re buying a pardon or something like, if you know about what in the good old days of the Catholic church and the chores and everything, where you could buy these pardons for all your sins. But it’s not like that because, of course, it should be done with the other three opponent powers, with genuine regret and refuge and etc. And so on like that. Of these six methods, one of the most powerful, most frequently practiced in relation to purifying the mind is the practice of Vajrasattva. So this comes from the tantric tradition of the Buddha, of the Buddha’s teachings and practice.
So these are the most advanced practices. Traditionally to do this practice, one needs to receive an initiation into that deity because that makes it most powerful. But over time the lamas have said it’s okay for people, especially in recent times when the Dharma’s been moving to the West and Malaysia and various places like that, that it’s okay to do this practice without having received the initiation. But of course it’s much better if you have received the initiation because it makes it much, much more effective. But basically the deities of tantra are Buddhas, and they symbolize or embody a particular quality of the enlightened mind.
So I think one could say that Vajrasattva embodies or symbolises the absolute purity of our mind, of the subtlest level of our mind. Basically what the practice involves is visualising this deity above the crown of one’s head, and then imagining this blissful white light coming from the deity’s heart, pouring down into oneself, and this light and nectar that’s coming from the deity’s heart fills one’s whole being with this blissful white light and nectar, and it purifies all your negative imprints as you recite the mantra of Vajrasattva. So the mantra of Vajrasattva, you can see on the bottom of the first page, is very long. It’s a hundred syllables, but actually you can memorise it very quickly. If you recite it after a few times, really, you just keep reciting, especially if you do it regularly, every day, after a short time, you will memorise it.
If I can memorise it, anyone can memorise it, because I have a terrible memory. As Buddhists, you’re supposed to develop really good memories, but I have a terrible memory. And I do happen to know quite a few prayers and mantras off by heart, and I think virtually all of the things I know Yeah, I’ve never really put effort into memorising they’ve just stuck in my mind because I do them regularly. If you do these things, they just come, after some time you know them. But if you’re intimidated by that, there is a short version of the mantra, which is If you see the first two words of the long mantra are Aum Vajrasattva, so the short version of the mantra is Aum Vajrasattva hum.
Om Vajrasattva hum. So anyone can remember that. But it’s much better to do the long mantra. It’s much more powerful. So okay.
I’ve always forget to do this. Didn’t prepare. Well, could you get the doujin bell from oh, no. I’ll do it. Thank you.
Have to become a bionic man, a bionic monk, implant something in my This is what they’re planning to do with soldiers now, implant things in their brains, so that they Yeah, anyway. Sorry, I got carried away there again. So vajra Satha is depicted holding what is called a vajra in his right hand at his heart. The vajra has many, many symbolic meanings, but the simplest one is that it symbolises bodhicitta, the mind seeking enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. So it’s held at the heart to symbolise it.
It’s the heartfelt wish that it’s an integral part of the quality, of the nature of the mind of the Buddha, of a Buddha. And then Vajrasattva holds a bell in his left hand which is resting on his not depicted very well there, but it should be resting on his left knee. So the bell symbolises the emptiness, the impermanence and emptiness, the ultimate nature of all things, that all things are empty of inherent existence. I won’t explain that anymore at this moment, But So what one tries to do is one visualises Vajrasattva as First thing you visualise a white lotus a couple of centimetres above the crown of your head in the nature of light, and then floating horizontally above the lotus, because the lotus symbolises the mind of the Buddha’s mind of complete renunciation, and then floating horizontally above the lotus, a little bit smaller in diameter, is a white moon disc. So the Thangka painters like to paint a lot this is, believe it or not, is meant to be a lotus, and they like to paint them in all sorts of colors.
But in this case it should be white, it’s pure white lotus. And this is the white moon disc, which is symbolic of bodhicitta. And then you visualise seated above the lotus is Vajrasattvas, who has a hollow body of white light. So it’s like a soap bubble, you know. The body of the Buddha, of Vajrasattva, is like a soap bubble, it’s just like this thin film of light, and it’s completely hollow, it’s completely empty.
Not empty in the sense of emptiness, it is also that, but it’s empty, you know, the body, there’s nothing inside. It’s just this the shape of the being is this pure white light. Do you transparent? Well, haven’t got to that. Yeah, it’s also transparent.
But it’s hollow, it’s empty. Yeah? It’s like a balloon, you know, a balloon. Didn’t like to say that because it doesn’t sound very good. Like a hollow?
No, no, no, no. The shape. It do you do you know what I’m saying? Yeah. Yeah?
Right. Good. And because it’s light, it’s transparent. It’s white light that is transparent. No, that is who’s Let’s have a look to Shavara.
Yeah, no. No, this is Vajrasattva. Vajrasattva is always depicted this way with crossed legs. Some deities have many, many different versions. There’s at least one hundred and eight different types of presentations of Avalokiteśvara.
There’s three versions of Vajrasattva. This is the basic one, simplest one to visualize. Right. Okay, Right. Okay.
Hollow body of pure white transparent light, and that light symbolizes the mind of all the Buddhas. Right? And so you visualize that Vajrasattva’s hair is a deep blue colour. Don’t ask me why Buddha’s hair is a deep blue, but it is. And it’s sort of tied in knots above the crown of his head, and then some of it of his hair is tied in knots, five knots above the crown of his head, and the rest is hanging loosely over his shoulders.
And then as you can see, also his lower body is he’s wearing this lower robe which is of many different colours, like a silk like robe. It’s not actually silk, because it’s all the manifestation of the enlightened mind. One thinks of silk as being the most precious material, so it’s sort of a silk like robe of different colours. He has these silk like scarves over his shoulders, and he has these different jewelled ornaments that symbolise these six perfections of generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration and wisdom. So he has a crown on his head, which has five kind of points or five jewels, which represent the five wisdoms of the Buddha.
And then he has three rows of necklaces, one close-up to his neck, and then one at the level of the breast, and one just below the navel. And he also has these jewelled earrings, and these jewelled armlets and bracelets, and a jewelled belt, and also jewelled anklets. So these symbolise the six perfections. So this is what we try and visualise on the crown of our head. Don’t worry if you can’t visualise very well or visualise at all.
You can just even try and think of some white light, or you just think Vajrasattva is there. The Buddha Vajrasattva is there. And then you try to imagine that in the very centre of Vajrasattva’s chest, at the heart chakra, inside his body, there’s this tiny white moon disc horizontally, yeah, horizontal. And standing around the edge of that moon, just standing upright, are the hundred syllables of the mantra. They’re white in color, again transparent light, and as one recites the mantra, you imagine that this light and this nectar comes out of the syllables and pours down through Vajrasattva’s body and then comes into you through the crown of your head.
One of the key things to try to do, is very interesting and psychologically very important, is to because I have already mentioned that this light is very blissful. This light in nature is very blissful. So this is one of the key practices in tantra, is to imagine that this light comes into you and you feel incredible bliss. And this incredible bliss pervades your whole body and mind. So the more you can do that, the more you purify your mind.
Many people think when you’ve done something wrong you have to make yourself miserable, but as a Buddhist, you do something bad and you make yourself. To purify, you have to generate bliss as much as you can. Because you’re imagining it’s all the good qualities. That white light symbolises the qualities of the enlightened mind, of the fundamental pure nature of mind, of your own mind coming in, in a sense, like refreshing your own mind, re purifying it. Is the bell rung anytime during the mantra?
Oh, of Vajrasattva? I have never heard thought about that before, but no, no, I don’t actually, yeah could be an interesting addition. But I’ve never heard that ever. If you’d like to do that, that’s great. But I’ve never ever heard that ever mention that that’s what you visualise or imagine.
But it wouldn’t hurt to do so. But it’s mainly there just sort of symbolically, yeah. Very quickly, as usual, run out of time and we can’t do it. We’ll do it at the retreat, those people coming to the retreat. We’ll do this little practice a bit.
But there are three ways to purify the mind. To purify the negativities of the body, as you recite the mantra, you imagine this light and nectar filling your whole body, and it’s becoming very blissful. At the same time, you imagine that the negative imprints created by killing and stealing and sexual misconduct and so on, that they leave your mind in the form of this black liquid, this really disgusting thick black liquid, and that pours out from the lower part of your body and just completely disappears, becomes non existent. And at the end of reciting the mantra, you try to strongly feel that your whole being is just this incredible, blissful white light energy. All the blackness is gone, all these negative imprints from engaging in negative actions with your body in this and past lives, it’s all completely gone.
Firstly, request Vajrasattva, you think of particular negative actions you’ve done in this life, think, ‘Also, I’ve done many horrible things in past lives with my body’, and then you recite the mantra and do that visualisation. So then to purify the negativities of speech, as you’re visualising the white light and nectar coming in, you imagine that your body is filled up by the white nectar from the lower part of your body upwards, you know, like a cup being filled, and at the same time the black liquid, the negative imprints leave your mind in the form of this black liquid that floats above the white nectar, and the white nectar pushes the black liquid out through the crown of your head, and again it disappears. And at the end of the recitation you feel again that all those negative imprints are gone, disappeared, non existent, and your whole being is this blissful white light. So one of the key things in practicing tantra, and so in relation to doing this, is it depends on faith and belief. So the more you believe you’re purifying your mind, the more you are.
If you think, oh, this is all rubbish, maybe it works for other people, not me, I’m not really purifying anything, then you’re not. But if you develop faith that you are, you are. And of course, by doing it again and again, one’s faith can increase. If you just do it one time and think, Oh, that didn’t work. Don’t feel purified.
Chuck it in. But if one has faith in the Buddhadharma, and if one has faith that this practice comes from the Buddha, this has been practiced for at least a thousand years or more, which it has been, and is one of the main methods to purify the mind, then one just perseveres and does it, and develops one’s faith. So then the third method to purify the negative actions done with the mind itself, such as covetousness and ill will and wrong views, is as you recite the mantra, think that these intense flashes of light come out from each of the syllables at Vajrasattva’s heart, sort of like bolts of lightning. Just instantly all those negative imprints eliminated from your mind. They’re just gone, just like that.
Because your whole being lights up with these flashes of light from Vajrasattva on your crown as you recite the mantra. So that’s your, oh, you don’t have any homework, but you can try that. Anyway, some people here have been coming to these classes for some time, some people have taken refuge, some people are all new to this. But for those people who have committed to following this tradition, or those who are seriously wanting to, then this is one of the most important practices to do regularly. This is a practice that all the lamas of all the four schools of Tibetan tradition encourage all their students to do every day.
Especially one of the last things at night is to purify your mind by doing this practice. Practice. Just before you go to bed, ideally, is the best time to do it, because then you go to bed, go to sleep, that’s it. So you’ve purified what you’ve done that day, There’s also a retreat you can do where you do one hundred thousand Vajrasattva mantras. Don’t give me that look!
Possible. Actually, believe it or not, I’ve done this retreat many years ago. Should do it again. When Dorje Ling Retreat Centre gets going, the group will definitely organise this regularly to do that. It takes three months if you don’t grow crazy in the meantime.
The long one takes three months. I think the short one takes seven days. What short one? The short ventral. No, that doesn’t count.
That doesn’t count. No. Please don’t say things like that. There’s no. There’s only one Vajrasattva retreat.
You do the long mantra. It takes three months. It’s one of the preliminary practices. Three months in retreat? Yes, all day, every day.
Four sessions a day. It takes about three months. Some people do it shorter. It took me three months. I was the last person in the group.
But for most people, it takes three months. For us to make it part of our daily practice of an evening, what sort of time Do you go through it once seven times? The idea is to do it twenty one times, the long mantra twenty one times. So you would do seven for each, seven for body, speech and If you do the short mantra, you should do at least twenty eight Om Vajrasattva hums. But it’s much better, especially as a beginner, to learn the long mantra and do that.
Even just doing the short one is good. But you apply it with the four opponent powers: develop regret, refuge bodhicitta as much as you can, then do the practice, then finish it with the resolution thinking of a specific negative action or various ones, and think, ‘I will avoid this for this period of time, this one for this period of time.’ Like that. It doesn’t take that long. Sorry? Can we do the whole Sunday?
Yes, yes, yes, don’t worry. We read it out now? Yes, yes, yes. Right. We will make available a recording of me making Tibetan type chanting noises at some point.
Yeah? So it goes like this. Well, okay, two things to know. When you chant it out loud in a group or something, you know, you chant You can do it slowly, which I’ll do. But when you recite mantras normally in practice, you recite them very quietly and quickly, as quickly as possible, but by pronouncing each of the things.
So you’d say this, Like that. But when you chant it, you can do it very slowly or anyway. Do in your head? Yes, can do it in your head, also. In your in your mind.
You do it in your mind. So it goes, Om Vajrasattva Samaya Manupalaya So that’s how it’s chanted, and you can chant it more slowly, faster. But when you recite it, when you’re doing any Like with Om Mani Padme Hum, you can chant Om Mani Padme Hum, like that. But when you recite, you just say it quickly. Yes, sure. But But if you chant it slowly, it takes much longer.
If you want to jump into bed, Om Vajrasattva Om Vajrasattva om But the tradition is not so much chanting. This is done normally. Sometimes it’s very nice just by yourself to do this because it energises, but the tradition is with mantras, they are normally recited quickly and quietly. You’re supposed to recite them so that you can just barely hear them yourself, but no one else can, when you’re doing it by yourself or in a group retreat. Sorry I didn’t have more time to explain it, but if you come to the retreat, we’ll do it, talk about it more.
One of the other practices under the category of reciting the names of the Buddhas is this other practice which I haven’t time to explain, which is prostrating to the thirty five Buddhas. So you visualise these thirty five Buddhas and make these long prostrations to them. So that’s much harder work. But this is also one of the practices that is very, very common, highly encouraged in the Tibetan tradition. Most lamas, including his Holiness the Dalai Lama, does this practice first thing in the morning, where he does one one hundred and eight prostrations every morning at least.
Because they say if you make three full length prostrations to each of these thirty five buddhas, that can purify any negative karma, if it’s done with the other opponent powers. So it’s a very powerful practice. It is also another of the preliminary practices where you can do one hundred thousand of these prostrations in retreat. That also takes three months. Is there an option to do these things, like not in retreat?
All of these things then you go away for three months? Yes, but these days unfortunately it’s very difficult for people to find that much time to go. In the good old days, when I was young, it was very easy to go off and do three month retreats. But yes, you can do them as a daily practice. And even people who have done the retreat still do it as a daily practice, because you can never say, oh no, I don’t have to purify my mind anymore’, ‘I don’t have to accumulate any merit anymore’.
We need to do this all the time if we can. For those people who really want to involve themselves in this tradition, these two practices are really important to try and do, at least the Vajrasattva practice, because it’s not difficult. To visualise perfectly, of course, that’s difficult. But that’s not the main thing, is to have the faith and just do the practice as much as one can. But it is so important to not only avoid negative actions for our own sake, for the benefit of others, but to purify the mind, and we have the methods to do so.
So I think that’s it for this course. Sorry, it only ended up me giving four talks, but All the more reason to come to the retreat if you can, that would be great on Sunday. Hope to see you there, but if not, hope maybe to see you for the next course, which is saṃsāra and nirvana. Is that right? Another fun course.
Sorry? Starting tenth November. Right. Do you do this in the morning, the thirty Well, you can do them any time, but traditionally thirty five Buddhas is done in the morning, Vajrasattva in the evening. But, I mean, you can do them any time.
Any final question? What is what? Lung. Lung. Well, has various meanings.
Lung means wind, but it refers to There’s two kinds of ‘loong’. There’s a ‘loong’ which means a permission to do a practice. So, for example, you can receive the ‘loong’ of a mantra, which means you receive it from a qualified practitioner, the person recites the mantra three times and you repeat it after them, then you’ve received the lung to recite that mantra, which gives it that extra power. Or there’s also, in the Tibetan tradition, when you study a particular text, the person teaching it will read the text and you listen, and that’s receiving the lung, so that it is believed that somehow blesses your mind to be able to when you study that text, you’ll be able to understand it better and more easily and so on. That’s one kind of lung, that lung, which is spelt one way.
And the other kind of lung is there is lung disease. Lung disease is because the wind energy in the body builds up, and that leads to all sorts of different problems. It makes you The obvious effect is it makes you very nervous and tense. And there are different kinds of lung disease based on this which can come from meditating incorrectly, because when you meditate, you’re concentrating your mind. So if you do this in a very forceful way, then the winds because the mind rides on these winds, so that can affect because of your I can’t explain it properly because I don’t actually understand it myself properly, but it’s forcing the winds so that the mind itself can become very agitated and tense.
There are some very dangerous kinds of lung, very painful, but also in extreme forms you can go completely crazy. There’s also a type where you get this very strong pain here in your heart chakra. That’s one you have to really be careful about. But, you know, like, I don’t know what the term these days is, but, you know, people used to talk about having nervous breakdowns. Do people still have nervous breakdowns?
What do they have now? You consider that to be your question. You don’t have a nervous breakdown? No. I think I might have one.
Like it? You know, are you right, though, that’s vatha, there’s an excess of vatha. So nervous breakdown of that thing, that is lung, that is a type of lung, due to lung. Yeah, Prāna, excess prana, wind. Or qi in the Chinese system, it’s qi, wind.
So we can dedicate the merit. So we’ve created some positive imprints by coming to this talk and through the course. So we can dedicate, so that we save these imprints, and by dedicating to enlightenment, then those imprints can become a condition to achieve enlightenment. Isn’t that great? All at Buddha House in Adelaide.
So page twelve, which I can’t find. ‘Tis the merits of these virtuous actions. May I quickly attain the state of the Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious bodhicitta mind, not yet born, arise and grow may that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. Okay, thank you very much.
So because that’s the end of a course, we won’t finish with prostrations, But this becomes auspicious to meet again for the next DB module. And people that have come to bring all their books? Yes, please bring your book, including the Vajrasattva and the thirty-five Buddhas book. I don’t think we’ll do that, but maybe at this time I can talk a little bit about it, maybe not. But please bring the Vajrasattva book and your student material and the little forms to fill out.