Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 113-minute session, Ven Thubten Dondrub introduces core elements of a daily Tibetan Buddhist practice for students new to this framework. He opens with the blessing of the speech—a tantric technique using visualization and mantra to purify and empower one’s words—then moves through the six preparatory practices that form the foundation of meditation: cleaning one’s space, setting up an altar, making prostrations, generating refuge, visualizing the Buddha, and cultivating motivation. The heart of the teaching covers the practice of prostrations to the thirty-five Buddhas, a powerful purification method using the four opponent powers (regret, refuge, remedy, and resolve), which Ven Thubten explains in detail: visualization of Shakyamumi Buddha with the other Buddhas arranged in five colored rows, recitation of their names, and full-length prostrations. He stresses this is not obligatory but traditional in Gelugpa practice, offers practical modifications for beginners (sitting prostrations, shortened versions), and illustrates the method’s importance by recounting how Tsongkhapa himself completed over three million prostrations in retreat. Throughout, he balances comprehensive teaching with encouragement to start small—even three prostrations daily establishes the habit—and answers questions about homework assignments and visualization techniques. Pitched at practitioners of mixed experience, from complete newcomers to those with some Buddhist background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2014 01 14 DB Daily Practice Week 2 140114.mp3
UUID: 4f7354c2-a189-4408-9ae7-9cf2b14d5739
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Daily Practice (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2014-01-14
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 113.5 minutes
Words: ~13,743
And the suffering that they’re undergoing right now. So the fact that in order to become a Buddha to benefit all these beings that involves following the path and to follow the path successfully I have to understand the path and so that’s why I need to study listen to the teachings study them and develop a daily practice of integrating those teachings the Dharma into my life for my own sake, for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through teaching the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So we can imagine the Buddha being pleased with our motivation, showing this by coming to the crown of our head.
When directly above our crown we imagine the Buddha dissolving into light and that golden blissful light pours into us blessing our mind. Then we can enhance that positive state of mind by just briefly doing a mind round breathing exercise which was part of the homework. I hope people are familiar with it now. We just do it for a short time to help establish a calmer, clearer, more concentrated mind that we can use to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. Okay.
Thank you. So before we start, there’s just a bit of organization to do it because I didn’t get it all done before we started. Firstly, has everyone got a copy of that? If you haven’t, there are some of you may have got two copies because I think if you did the previous course or one of the previous courses this was also given out so if you realize you’ve got two copies you could bring some back because I think we’re running out but who hasn’t got a copy of this now because I think there are a couple of people who’ve joined just tonight so oh everyone’s got one Yeah. Because it’s part of the reading and good.
Great. That’s terrific. So did everyone has everyone got an an outline of the what we’re going to do week by week. It’s not absolutely vital to have that but just in okay. Did you get one?
Oh, you’ve got that? Cried. How did you get that? Have you got one? And all right.
Were you here last week? Yes. The blue lady. Oh, yeah. Okay.
Blue lady. Sorry. Alright. So I think I’m going to give out a whole lot of stuff now to avoid confusion later. Is that okay?
But you’re not supposed to look at it now. You’re supposed to listen to me. Right? That’s but you can look at it if you get bored with listening to me. Right.
Firstly, there is the details of how to do the thirty five Buddhas if someone would like to hand that out. We’re going to go through that today. Would someone like to hand out this is the Vajrasattva meditation that we’ll do at nighttime. Someone else like to Rhett, would you like to hand that out? There is a yeah.
There is you know, there is more. There is more. I’ll just yeah. That one. And there’s one more.
If someone else is free to hand out oh, thanks. Yeah. Great. Which one was that? Oh, no.
Oh, no. One thing I wanna emphasize from last week is just a simple point about this course is that in eight weeks, I’m going to try and present because this is what is suggested in the course because I I’m sort of forced to follow the official FPMT presentation of this course and what’s supposed to be taught and everything. So I am presenting all of the things that make up traditionally the basis of a daily practice. So there’s not time to really explain all of it. Each of these things could one could spend quite a lot of time going into detail, and and it seems some people here don’t have much background in many things, so it, you know, I just it’s just impossible.
But the point I want to make is I because there’s people who’ve been practicing quite a while here, so who have know some of these things, some who don’t. So I’m trying to present all the thing the basic components in the Gelugpa Tibetan tradition that are encouraged to the lamas encourage us to do. I don’t expect everyone to take on all these things. I hope it would be great if you did, but this is just to let you know what what it is practiced generally speaking in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. This is very basic stuff because there’s a whole lot more but this is some of the basic things we’re encouraged to do But of course, so you can just I just quickly present these things and you can decide whether you want to incorporate them in your practice.
But as I gave this handout last week which some of you won’t have which was we’re going to also does everyone have a copy of this Thanks. Everyone should have a copy from last week of the daily meditation on Śākyamūni Buddha because that’s what we’re who does not have a copy of that? Three people. Three four people. No.
No. It’s not that. No. It’s much more detail. It’s a booklet.
So you don’t have it. So that’s five copies we need of that. Okay. I think five. Anyway, make five.
We can always use more. So this is what we’re gonna base. This is gonna be the basis of our daily daily practice if you’re interested as a suggestion. But I understand that many people probably won’t want to do all of that. That’s why I gave out last week this very short Śākyamūni Buddha meditation with the prayer of called the foundation of all good qualities.
So I hope you’ve all got a copy of that. Does everyone have a copy of that? No. Who doesn’t? One, two, three.
So we need three copies of this one. The handout I made last week, I can give you a copy at the Right. Yes. Okay. Right.
Now so as I said last week, the Buddhists have this system of, you know, the Kadampa practice. They can expand things infinitely and make it, especially my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, he likes to make things more and more and more complicated, adding more and more things. But if you don’t have time, you can just throw that bit out, do a shorter version of it. Right? So don’t get too upset that I’m presenting lots of things, or you can get upset if you like, but I’m suggesting you don’t.
And don’t think, oh, this is too much, it’s too complicated, I don’t understand at all. It’s just to let you know what’s available, some of the basic things. So firstly, to really start off the day, one of the things that is done is there is this blessing the speech. We’ll just go through this quickly. Much of this comes from like one thing to understand about Tibetan Buddhism is that one of the great beauties, specialties, wonderful qualities of Tibetan Buddhism that makes it unique is that it it incorporates all the three aspects of the Buddhist teachings which are the teachings about how to achieve liberation which is what which is what the Theravada tradition beautifully presents and they that’s all they present the Theravada tradition only talks about the path to liberation how to achieve nirvana but Tibetan Buddhism is a Mahāyāna tradition so it also include includes the Mahāyāna teachings of how to achieve not just liberation for oneself but complete enlightenment so that one can benefit all sentient beings.
But in addition to that, it includes, and it’s the only tradition that does, all the tantric teachings of the Buddha about how to achieve enlightenment very quickly or as quickly as possible, because the general Mahāyāna process of achieving enlightenment takes an inconceivably long time to achieve. And so the tantric teachings are how to achieve enlightenment reasonably quickly depending on how one practices. It can be done in one lifetime, six, no, seven lifetimes or whatever. So the blessing of the speech. Tibetan Buddhism is like a mixture of all of those things.
For very beginners some of the tantric teachings or some of the basic tantric viewpoints and practices are included such as the blessing of the speech because tantra very much emphasizes the the the inner energies that we have of physical energies that are connected to the mind and our speech is very much a reflection of our mind. This is why it is so important to to hear teach not just read books, some hear teachings and to hear them from qualified people who hope, unlike me, know what they’re talking about and allow them not just simply intellectually know the teachings, have a very, very deep inner experience of them. Because when someone teaches from that inner experience their speech is a reflection of that. It it affects it has some power to affect our mind. Of course, depending on how much we are open to it.
If we’re not open to it, it won’t. You can listen to the Buddha and you’ll think it’s rubbish. But if you are open to it, it has, you know, it can have an enormous effect on the mind. And in fact, that’s at the time of the Buddha. You know, the the beings heard the Buddha.
Some of them heard the Buddha one time, and they became arhats because of the absolute purity and power of the Buddha speech. If you listen to his holiness, the Dalai Lama, who is manifesting as one of the great enlightened beings on our planet, one’s mind can be transformed. But only this is the purpose of listening to great lamas. Again, you know, unfortunately, because we’re so deluded, usually one time doesn’t do it. We need to listen many times, but nevertheless.
So our speech is very important. It has it can have great power, and, of course, we can be of we can be of positive influence with our speech. So this is why the idea is of blessing the speech to gives more to give some to add some extra positive energy to our speech so that everything we say has more positive benefit. Right? I can’t explain it any more than that.
So this is the tradition. And ideally, one who blesses the speech, the very first thing before as soon as you wake up, before you say, like you yawn or or say any ordinary words, the idea is to try and say these holy words, these special words, because that starts blessing your speech. And so from then on, everything you say can be beneficial. So it’s quite long. As I said, if if you if this gets too much for you, you don’t understand it, it seems too strange and weird, but you’d like to do some of it, I would suggest the one other thing you could do is on on page two is the mantra for blessing the mala.
A mala, in case you don’t know, is one of these things which you use to keep tabs of how many mantras, you say, which is one of the, of of course, one of the things that is incorporated in Tibetan Mahāyāna Buddhism which is mainly from the tantric tradition of reciting mantras. I would highly recommend if you want to establish a daily practice invest in buying one get get a mala because saying mantras is something really good to say every day. There are many many mantras like this the Śākyamūni Buddha mantra that will be doing, but there’s the mantra to develop compassion of Om Mani Padme Hum. These two mantras are fantastic, really important. There’s the Vajrasattva mantra that we which we will be learning in this course.
Those three mantras are fantastic, wonderful mantras to say, and you can say them all the time. Right? Not just one or two or just one time. If you go to India and you see the Tibetan people or if you go to Tibet and you look at the Tibetans there, none of the people say you know, they’ve a man you know, a mala in their hand practically all day and they’re reciting mantras. My teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s mom who couldn’t read or write used to recite Om Mani Padme Hum about twenty thousand times a day.
And she was just a very simple, uneducated lady who worked incredibly hard all her life chopping wood and just to just to survive and looking after strange foreigners who came and stayed in Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s cave up in Laudo, feeding them potatoes that she’d grown out of the soil. But she managed to save twenty thousand a day, Not while she was watching TV. You know, she worked really hard. Right. Anyway.
Anyway, so the practice of blessing the speech starts with this prayer which in Tibetan goes, which means I take refuge in the Three Jewels. May I become a Buddha to benefit all. So you can say that in Tibetan or English or a combination of both. The idea is to say it three times. The idea of repeating things three times is that hopefully by the third repetition we will have concentrated on what we are saying.
It says firstly purify the truly existent ‘I’ into emptiness as it is empty in reality. I’m not going to explain that. That will take there’s a whole course we’re doing on emptiness, which, actually, I won’t be teaching, but Ian Coghlan because I’m gonna go away to Spain for two months in when is it, to teach in Spain, in June and July, bit of August. So we’re having a visiting teacher who’s was here last year. So he will be teaching the DB course on an introduction to emptiness.
Emptiness or in Sanskrit, Śūnyatā refers to the actual way things exist and to realize the ultimate way things exist is the main purpose of the Buddha’s teachings because that will free us from all suffering when we realize how we exist, how everything actually exists. Not just know, but actually experience, have this spontaneous ongoing experience of our own reality. So that reality, which is the lack of lack of the way things appear now, is referred to emptiness. So if you know how to meditate on emptiness, the idea is to do that first. This is about arises the deity.
This is for people who have tantric practices, so that doesn’t apply I think to most people here. But the next bit we can do. So on our tongue one can visualize an ah so there’s a Tibetan way of writing that but you can just visualize an ah which is red in color. This transforms into a moon disc, a white flat moon disc. On top of that appears a white OM syllable surrounded by the the vows of the Sanskrit alphabet which are called the Ali circling clockwise.
Then surrounding them you visualize the Kali which are the consonants of the Sanskrit alphabet and then surrounding them counterclockwise oh sorry, the consonants are counterclockwise and then circling outside those clockwise this is all on your tongue. There’s a moon disc on your tongue. Are you lost already? We just pretend we can do these visualizations. Is the moon disc on your tongue.
Moon disc. Yeah. Oh, there’s the white bit. Moon disc. And then so then you visualize clockwise the consonant, the vows, then counterclockwise are the consonants, and then finally clockwise, you and they’re standing upright are the syllables of what is called the dependent arising heart mantra, the dependent arising mantra, which is this one down the bottom, Om ye dharma hetu prabhava, hetu teshan tathagato, that mantra, which you might be interested to know is, I think, the first mantra, the first bit of Sanskrit writing that was ever deciphered by the English the Tibetan text. And this is how they discover how there’s a wonderful book which I would highly recommend people read which is called Buddha and the Sahibs, which is about how a whole bunch of different India English members of the the English army who were, you know, stationed in India in the nineteenth century started to discover Buddhist historical remains like the temple in Bodh Gaya and how they started to un because Buddhism had been wiped out in India, and and that almost nothing was known about Buddhism in the West. And then these in British colonels and captains and generals went around in their spare time digging up Buddhist relics and putting together the history of Buddhism and reintroduced it. And this was one of the there were many columns by the great emperor Ashoka all over India, and this was written on it. And it was the very first thing that was translated, then they started to and that led to this discovery of the the amazing treasure of Buddhism.
And for example, when they the English Raj in India, they first unearthed some statues of the Buddha with his curly hair, they thought, oh, he must have been an African. Somehow this African came to India because no Indians have curly hair like that. But then slowly by translating these things, they realized that actually the Buddha was an Indian had been an Indian prince. Anyway, I’m way off the topic because but it’s a fascinating book. It’s really great.
It’s called I have a copy I could lend to some people. Buddha and the Sahibs. The Sahibs. You know, the Sahibs. You you know, the Indian Raj guys.
Anyway, so we’re visualizing these on our tongue. So then what you imagine is that these light beams from the syllables go out and hook all the blessings of ordinary and extraordinary speech in the form of these three mantras, also in form of all the seven precious royal symbols and the eight auspicious signs which we have on in front of the Buddha just where the lotus is. You can see these symbols. These are the eight auspicious symbols. So you imagine those dissolving into these syllables as you recite them.
Basically, you’re thinking that all the energy of the of the Buddha’s speech, of all the bodhisattvas, those living in see, to explain all this would take forever. Anyway, you you just simply all the energy of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas dissolves into the syllables visualized on your tongue. All the blessings of the holy speech are hooked into the three mantras, yeah, as you recite the mantra. So what you do is you recite the vows three times. Om, ah, ah, ee, uu, riri, lili, ee, o r, ama, Svāhā.
You recite that three times. And you you from the vows, you think that this white nectar flows into your body, completely purifying all your negative karma of your body. Then you recite the the consonants of the of the Sanskrit alphabet three times. You do that three times. Again, imagine that red nectar fills your whole body purifying your speech.
And then I recite the heart mantra. I I should’ve I should give you a translation of it, but I’ll probably do that next week. Anyway, it says, So this is in Sanskrit. So as you recite that three times, you imagine that this blue nectar flows into your body, purifying all the negative karma created with your mind. When you’ve done that, you then think that all these vows dissolve starting with the dependent arising mantra, then the consonants, then the vows, then the OM which is in the middle.
They all dissolve into each other one by one, finally dissolving into the moon disc that dissolves transforms into an R syllable and this R then dissolves into pink liquid nectar, and that dissolves into your tongue. So then you think that because of this nectar has dissolved into your tongue, then this blesses your speech. And then you can do the dedication prayer. May my tongue have all the courage of the ones gone to bliss, which is referring to the Buddha’s. May the power manifesting from these glorified words, may all sentient beings be subdued.
Whatever words I say, may all these actions be accomplished instantly. Actually, there’s some error in that translation. I think something’s gone wrong in the typing there of the dedication prayer. That doesn’t make so much sense. I have to check that.
Sorry. So they’re having to bless the speech by doing that process. You can then recite this next mantra, which is for blessing the one’s mantra of mala, which I have now lost. No. I haven’t.
So you recite this Om Rucira Mani Pravartaya Hum seven times, and then you just blow on the mala a little bit like that to if you if you if you’re using one of these things. Yeah. Yes. Yes. By the power manifesting from these glorified words, may all sentient beings be subdued.
Whatever words I say, may all these actions be accomplished instantly. So then I’ve got this mantra to increase all whatever virtuous actions one does, which is So one recites that seven times. So it says that this increases the merit of any virtuous action done with body, speech, or mind a hundred thousand times. The previous mantra for blessing the mala increases the power of the mantra, as you say, ten million times a billion. So this, I I must admit, this is very hard to believe that this is this is the case.
But as as it points out, Lama Zopa explains, these mantras and the power the power they have is explained in these different sutras. There are a more celestial mansion and the sūtra of the wheel of complete dedication. So these are a couple of the Mahāyāna Sutras. Yeah, according to tantra, mantras really do have a great deal of power. So much of the sūtra teams can be explained by logic.
Tantra goes beyond logic because of, I think, because of the way it’s working with much more subtle energies than the ordinary world we’re dealing with. So it it really, I suppose, is a matter of faith. One has refuge in the Buddha and the Buddha’s teachings, and you believe that the Mahāyāna Sutras are the teachings of the Buddha and the Buddha can’t lie, then one has one can place some faith that these mantras do have some effect. Right? I I I don’t think that’s absolutely necessary.
I think a lot of Westerners have adopted this, but you don’t see the Lamas do it very much. Yeah. Anyway, it’s really up to you. I’m just mentioning these things briefly, but this is what what is done. And and my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, is is a big fan of mantras.
He keeps discovering more mantras that are beneficial for this and that, and he wants to pass them on to us. But these things are definitely very commonly practiced in the Tibetan tradition, this of of doing these mantras first thing in the morning. And I have these two other mantras that can also be recited for great benefit. So there’s the what what is called the the Zhung, which is a type of mantra of the exalted completely pure stainless light, which goes And then there’s the mantra taught by Buddha Droden Gyalwa Changchub, which goes, Om Priyade Sarvatathagata, Shirdaya, Garbe, Zola, Dharma, Dattu, Garbe, So one can try that if you’re interested, especially for people who start, you know, learning to do mantras and reciting prayers. So if we recite various prayers and practices, then by doing this practice, it increases the power of all those things so much more.
So that that’s the first thing one can try to do in the morning, establish a daily practice of blessing the speech that way. There are also other ways of blessing the speech if there’s time. There’s another one associated with Mañjuśrī, the Buddha of of wisdom that I’ll explain, but I don’t think there’s time now. Okay. So last week, I was talking a little bit about what are called the six preparatory practices.
So there’s a brief outline of them. So most of Buddhist meditation in the Tibetan tradition, especially meditating on the graduated path, is based on these, what are called, the six preparatory practices because they are preparatory. They are preparing our mind to do meditation so that the meditation will be as effective as possible. And it’s important to to know or it’s very helpful to know that these six preparatory practices originate, at least were first set out in this form, by the great Indian Indian master called Serlingpa, who was one of the main teachers of the great Atisha, who in who was an Indian master, who lived in the the tenth tenth century, who was brought to Tibet, and he was he is considered one of the greatest Indian masters to ever come to Tibet. He was invited by one of the kings of one of the you know, the Tibet at that time was broken up into a a number of different small kingdoms.
So one of the kings of Western Tibet who was very concerned about the decline of Buddhism invited a teacher to come to Tibet to help restore the purity of the Tibetan teachings there. So Atisha accepted that invitation and and lived the rest of his life in Tibet. And he is acknowledged by all the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism as one of the greatest masters of a master called Serlingpa. And Atisha set out these six. He that if you want to gain the the greatest results from meditating on the path to enlightenment, then there are you have to do certain things.
And so the first one is, well, basically, you need a nice place to meditate. So the first thing is you clean the room. You clean that space. And it has great benefit just in doing that. And and as an example to illustrate just the benefit of cleaning just cleaning with the right motivation, there’s a story from the time of the Buddha where there was a very old man who was very, very, very unbright, not very intelligent, understand the Buddha’s teachings and practice.
So the Buddha just told him, all you need to do as a monk is just clean the monastery. Just sweep it every day. And the Buddha said to make that meaningful as you’re sweeping the monastery, just recite this kind of slogan, out with the dust, out with the stains. But this monk, who was very old and very dumb, was so not, you know, not because he wasn’t intelligent at all, he couldn’t even remember that phrase. He so after a long time, he remembered out with the dust, but he forgot out with the stains.
And then other times, he remembered out with the stains, couldn’t remember out with the dust. After more than years of sweeping the monastery all day long, you know, he eventually remembered the whole phrase at one time, and he would happily recite this phrase as he cleaned the monastery day by day. And at some point, he realized that there was a subtle meaning to it didn’t just literally mean cleaning the dust and stains, but he realized it meant getting rid of the delusions and the subtle imprints of the delusions from his mind. And because he did it with such incredible devotion to the Buddha, he became an arhat called Chuta Pantaka. So it’s very good to clean the space, to live in a clean environment.
Because the our environment, you know, isn’t a reflection of our mind. You know, we live in a polluted world, a more and more polluted world because it’s a reflection of our minds, the the minds of all sentient beings. Our physical environment is a karmic, you know, yeah, product of the sentient beings that live in it. Yeah. Quiet places, clean places, we need to be around people who have nice minds, good minds.
Yeah. It’s it’s not helpful hanging around with negative people if one’s trying to follow the spiritual life. It it harms us. You know? We need you know?
Someone’s very advanced. They can hang around with mass murderers, and it doesn’t affect them. But for us, it really affects us. So it’s it’s really nice to create a clean, peaceful environment with beautiful images that remind us, you know, the Zen tradition so I just have a little dig at the Zen tradition. They don’t you know, they they keep things very plain.
They don’t have hardly any images at all. A lot of Theravadins are also like that, which is nice in its way. But the Mahāyāna tradition, especially the Tibetan tradition, they’re really into having, as you can see, lots of images. And especially my teacher, he likes lots and lots of images of Buddhas. He doesn’t need them, but we do.
Because you just see them, even if you don’t understand what they are, they have some positive effect on our mind. They might they’re putting a a positive imprint. And, you know, they are reminding us about something, more than just this very ordinary life that we unfortunately tend to get caught up in. So it’s very helpful to have images in our home if one can manage it. So the first of the preparatory practices is to clean the room.
The second is to set up an altar. You only really need to do that once. You don’t set it up every time. But then the idea of having set up the altar is to make some nice offerings, the traditional way is to at least have the set of water bowl offerings. So I explained that briefly last week.
And and then the next step is would just be prior to sitting down to meditate, one makes prostrations. So I I explained the three ways of prostrating. The simple one of the hand prostration, then there’s the short prostration, and then there’s the tantric long prostration. So one can make so at the very least, especially if if one has taken refuge, we have a commitment to make three prostrations first thing in the morning, first thing in the evening. If one feels even if one hasn’t taken refuge, but one has a feels a connection to the Buddhist teachings and the Buddha, then it’s really nice to do the three prostrations before sitting down to meditate.
So at least one can do the three prostrations. But what we can do at as part of our prac morning practice or some other time, but I’ll I’ll just explain it here, is the practice of prostrating to the thirty five Buddhas because this is one of the super powerful ways to purify the mind. And as I mentioned last week, in establishing a daily practice, what we want to try and do is establish a practice which involves three basic things of purifying our mind, getting rid of the rubbish, putting in some positive imprints, just generally, and thirdly, putting in deepening our understanding of the dharma. Developing our wisdom, our compassionate wisdom. Right?
Those are the three things. So to purify the mind, there is the method of applying the four opponent powers, which I talked about briefly last week, of developing regret for one’s negative actions. That’s the power of regret. The power of reliance on our refuge and Bodhicitta. That’s the second of the opponent powers.
The third opponent power is the power of remedy, which is doing a virtuous action to counteract the negative. So in that context comes prostrating to the Buddhas and also the Vajrasattva practice. In the Tibetan tradition, these are considered the two most powerful practices to can do to purify the mind. So I I wanted to so I wanted to talk about those, or at least the prostrations this today. They’re good to do first thing in the morning ideally.
I mean you can do them anytime but the tradition is to do them in the morning as a practice. Right. So again some people will feel that this is too much I can’t cope with this practice. I was pretty horrified when I first heard about it. But you do get used to it.
But again, what I’d like to explain is that in doing this practice, and it is explained in in this book. It’s all set out there. There’s firstly an explanation of it, and this is part of your homework to read this part of the book tonight or during the week. It’s set out on starting page seventy eight. The benefits of prostrating and so on how to do it.
The actual practice is also in the appendix and there’s a very beautiful colored picture of what one tries to visualize, which I have a slightly larger version of here. So, again, you may feel it’s just really too much. And I’m I don’t believe in it, and it’s too complicated, too painful. But, again, there are a couple of ways one could try to do it if you feel that there’s maybe some benefit in doing it. The normal way one could do it is just simply to sit and recite the practice.
Right? Rather than doing the actual physical prostrations, if you you don’t want to do them or have some physical problems to do them, one can just simply sit there and, you know, you could put your hands together in the in the this basic prostration and recite the practice and also try and visualize what’s appropriate. That that’s still something fantastic to do and is effective, is powerful. But if you can, one can try and do the physical prostrations. You can do do it the short prostrations, but the tradition is to do the long prostrations for this practice.
This practice is taught in relationship to doing the the long prostrations that I explained last week. Is this all sort of clear so far? Have I yeah. Okay. So just very simply, you can read the the more detailed explanation in this book during the week.
But just in a nutshell, what we this what we try to visualize to purify the mind is firstly Śākyamūni Buddha and he the Buddha is seated on a throne, and that throne normally, we visualize the or try to visualize the Buddha, the tradition is you think that the Buddha is seated on a throne, sort of, you know, a throne, and that throne is held up on each corner by eight snow lions. These snow lions symbolize the eight great bodhisattvas who uphold the Mahāyāna teachings. But in this case, because this is a purification practice, one imagines eight white elephants because the elephant in Buddhism is a symbol of the mind, because the uncontrolled mind is like a wild elephant. Wild elephants, especially in the rutting season, go completely bananas, and they are extremely dangerous. But then a tamed elephant even this like, in in Tibet in Tibet, in India, elephants were like well, they they were all over the place, especially in ancient times.
Even even nowadays, you know, they they you know, people get killed in villages by elephants running amok and whatever. And they’re huge. You know? So they they were the biggest scariest thing on the planet at the time. So, it became a symbol of the uncontrolled mind, how dangerous it is.
But even this huge monstrous thing can be tamed by can be tamed. So it’s a symbol that we can tame our mind. Yeah. So you visualize these two, eight white elephants, white for purity, the purity of the mind. So there’s two at each corner holding up this throne.
On the throne is a lotus which symbolizes the mind of renunciation, complete renunciation. Then on the the lotus is a sun disc symbolizing the wisdom that destroys the darkness of ignorance. Then on that is the moon disc that symbolizes Bodhicitta. Then the Buddha is seated on the center of the moon disc. Right?
Okay. So then from his heart, you imagine that there are these rays of light, and on the tips of these rays of light appear the other thirty four Buddhas because there are thirty five Buddhas that make up the field of Buddhas that we are visualizing. And these Buddhas all made vows in the past that they would help any sentient being who calls them calls their name to purify their mind. And because of the power of the vows of these beings that they made and the great merit they have as Buddhas, there is some effect on our mind just by saying the name of the Buddha, prostrations to them. All of this is explained in one of the sutras.
Right? Not just it’s not something made up by the Tibetans. These these come from the sutras from the Tripitaka, yeah, the sutras of the Buddha. So, anyway, so so you visualize five rows of Buddhas. The first row has six Buddhas.
The other four rows have seven Buddhas in each row. There are different ways of visualizing the thirty five Buddhas. This one taught by my teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche although it looks complicated is by far the simplest. Very easy. So the first because each row all the Buddhas look the same, they all have the same color and they all have the same Mudras.
So it’s if you know one, you know the lot in a sense. So the first row of Buddhas are blue in color, and they’re all sitting in the same posture as Śākyamūni Buddha with the right hand in the earth touching mudra, left hand in the meditation posture at the navel, but without the begging bowl. Right? So these are all blue in color. The only difference is in the whole scheme is the third Buddha who is called the king of Naga lords.
His head neck and head is white, and behind him, has an aura of seven snakes or nagas. Right? The glorious Lamat Tsongkhapa, who is the founder of the Gelug tradition that we follow here, Early in his career as a teacher, he went off in retreat with a few of his disciples to a place called Wolka Cholung, which is quite some distance from Lhasa, and eating only a few juniper berries every day that’s all he ate, just a couple of juniper berries every day He did a practice to purify his mind where he did he did three and a half million prostrations to the thirty five Buddhas on a stone, which he wore a groove in by the time he finished. I when I went to Tibet in eighty seven, I saw this I went to this place. One of the best things I’ve ever done in my life was to do a little pilgrimage to this place.
Absolutely beautiful, amazing place. And the rock is still there, this slab of stone, which unfortunately was broken in half during the cultural revolution that sort of swept China and Tibet, but it’s still there. So he he did a hundred thousand prostrations to each of the these Buddhas, and this was the first one he actually saw. He actually the Buddha appeared to him. Anyway, so the second row of Buddhas, there’s seven of them.
They’re they’re all white in color, and they have this mudra, which is the mudra called the mudra of supreme enlightenment, something like that. No. Like yeah. Like that. Okay.
The third row of Buddhas are all yellow in color, and they they’re sitting with their right hand right arm out with the right hand sort of like the Buddha has his hand down like that. They have their hands open like that, and the left hand in the meditation posture. Then the next row of Buddhas, there’s seven. Right? They’re all red in color, and they have their hands in the meditation posture at their laps.
And the last row, they’re all green in color, and they have their hand hand in the mudra of which is sort of giving protection, which is something like that. A bit like that. A bit like that. Your choice. And the left hand in the meditation posture.
Then below them, one can also visualize for extra merit and purification the eight medicine Buddhas. I won’t go into details about them at the moment. We will just try and focus on these. All all of these, you don’t have to visualize these others. This is the essential practice if you can try to do it.
So there’s the Buddha, and from his heart come these other Buddhas. So then what one does so one tries to visualize all of that. If you can’t visualize that, at least try and visualize Śākyamūni Buddha, right, and think that all the other Buddhas are manifesteachings of him. So so then the main thing is that to try and you recite the name if if if people could open that that text that they’ve got about the thirty five Buddhas. Everyone’s got their handout.
It’s called prostration to the thirty five Buddhas. Is it time? I don’t have a you don’t have a copy? You don’t have a copy of it? Yeah.
The whole idea, Arnold, is to have these things here. Can I just borrow one quickly? All right. Yep. Okay.
Thanks. Sorry. So in general practice, what one tries to do is incorporate the the the four opponent powers. So as you stand there, one firstly, you try and visualize the fit you know, all all of these Buddhas and then you generate regret for all the negative actions that once that we know that we’ve done in this life with our body, speech, mind. And then we can also think that in past lives, you know, we’ve had infinite past lives, there’s been infinite time for all the negative conditions to come about where we’ve engaged in every imaginable negative action.
So some of the imprints from those negative actions have already ripened, but still many negative imprints exist in our mind. And if we don’t purify them, they will ripen, and the only way they ripen is to bring great suffering, not only in this life, but cause, you know, low you know, terrible rebirth. So this is why this practice is taught to to use this precious human rebirth to get rid of these these imprints. Yeah. It’s it’s a yeah.
So what so one of things like that. I you know, I’ve done all these negative actions in this life, but I must have done all these terrible things in past lives. You know, are only gonna bring suffering, and they’re obscure the imprints are obscuring my mind. What you know, how unfortunate. So we develop this sincere regret.
Then we generate strong refuge in the triple gem of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, try and generate a Bodhicitta motivation for purifying, not just wanting to be free of suffering, but wanting to purify our mind so that we can follow the path to enlightenment and benefit others. Because while my mind is obscured, I can’t really benefit other people very much. You know, we all try and do good things for other people, but often we are not we don’t succeed very, you know, well with our efforts. Why? Because we don’t know how to do things completely, perfectly.
Why? Because our mind is obscured, and also it gets mixed up with self-cherishing. You know, we have these good intentions, but a little bit of ego gets caught and pride and, you know, this and that gets caught, fears and jealousies and all sorts of rubbish gets mixed up with it. So we if if we could get rid of all that, purify all that, we could not only we would be so much happier ourselves, but we would be so much more effective in benefiting others. So that’s why we need to purify, not just for our own sake, but especially having this thought for the sake of others so I don’t cause them harm, but I can be of real benefit.
I’m I’m I really want to purify my mind. So then with with that attitude, then you apply the the remedy, which is visualizing the Buddhas and and then prostrating to them. So then the idea so to make the practice really effective, there are these three mantras that firstly one can recite. If you don’t recite all three, the main one to recite is the first one, which goes: So one recites that three times. You can also recite the other two mantras either three or seven times.
So that increases the power of the practice one does, the power to purify the mind. And as you recite those mantras, one does the, you know, the the three prostrations. So then you recite the following where it says, homage to the confession of bodhisattva downfalls. I and then you say your name. So if you have a refuge name, you can say your refuge name.
I so for example, myself, I, Thubten Dondrub, throughout all times, take refuge in the guru. I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Sangha. One recites that three times, and then one starts prostrating to the Buddhas.
So firstly, to the Śākyamūni Buddha, so you recite you say to the founder, Bhagavan, Tathāgata, arhat, perfectly completed Buddha, glorious, conqueror, Śākyamūni Buddha, I prostrate. So saying that, you then do the full prostration. And so with each each each Buddha, ideally, the best way to do it so you visualize Śākyamūni Buddha, you recite his name, and you prostrate to him. Then the next Buddha, you say his name, prostrate to him. Yeah.
Like that. You make one prostration to each Buddha. So that would mean a total of thirty five prostrations. Or there’s three yeah. Right?
The super best way in one sesh I know I know this is just gonna kill you. I shouldn’t say all these things, but the tradition is to do three rounds completely. So that is a total of a hundred and five prostrations plus three prostrations at the beginning is a hundred and eight. This if you do that, it is said this can purify any kind of negative action you’ve done. Of course, that’s if you do it with the four opponent powers properly, you know, having the right refuge, the right regret, the right concentration properly.
But what often happens is that people don’t even do thirty five prostrations. You can just recite the names very quickly as you’re prostrating. I have to explain that more. Anyway, but as you as you recite the name and prostrate to the Buddha, you think that light is coming from that Buddha, purifying white light is purifying you of all negativity. When when your body touches the ground, especially your forehead, you can imagine that a replica of that particular Buddha that you’re prostrating to dissolves into you.
This generates great bliss in your mind. Then you start to stand up quickly thinking you’re bringing yourself and all sentient beings out of cyclic existence. Alright? And then having done that, you prostrate to the next Buddha. Yeah?
And as you’re prostrating, you you can try to imagine that all your past life bodies that engaged in negative action are prostrating with you. And, also, to make it more powerful, you try and think that you’re you know, just how we visual you know, the visualization we do when we take refuge, mom, dad, family, friends, helpers, everybody, they’re all prostrating at the same time. And you try and think that because I’m prostrating because I have refuge in all these Buddhas, and I’m prostrating, and I’m purifying my mind, I am causing all sentient beings to take refuge, prostrate, and purify their minds. So if I stop, they’ll stop. So I have to keep prostrating.
That gives one energy to do the practice. You won’t want to stop because it’s so much fun because you’re purifying all sentient beings. Right? I shouldn’t say this, but a number of yoga teachers have told me that this prostration practice is physically one of the best things you can do for your body. But one shouldn’t have that motivation.
That’s a worldly motivation. This is to purify the mind, but it actually is also very good physical exercise. Maybe so that might encourage you to do it. It’s a pity I’m teaching it now because it’s at the hottest time of year, but anyway. So this is very roughly the practice.
There’s more details. I’m gonna explain this again tomorrow night. You can come again tomorrow night here at seven fifteen if you’d like more explanation, and we’ll actually do the practice tomorrow night if anyone comes. Just to scare you even more, in the Tibetan tradition, there is a there is a practice of doing a retreat of doing a hundred thousand prostrations to the thirty five Buddhas. If you if one wants to do a great tantric retreat, a three year tantric retreat, you have to do this retreat first.
There are there are four preliminary practices you have well, in the Gelugpa tradition, there are eight nine preliminary practices you have to do, one of which is this, plus the Vajrasattva. But students in the Tibetan tradition, everyone is encouraged to do this practice. Everyone is actually encouraged to do the retreat of a hundred thousand in this lifetime if you can, either in a retreat or as a daily practice. You can accumulate the hundred thousand day by day. But at least you could try sometimes.
Even if you don’t do it every day, you could do it every second day, every third day, once a week, but every day. And, yeah, his holiness, Dalai Lama, does this every day. He’s now seventy five. All my Lamas do this every day. No matter how old they are, they do it every day.
No matter where they are every day without fail. If you go to Tibet, you know, you see these old Tibetan ladies, old Tibetan men prostrating all day long. Up and down. Down. Down.
If you go to Bodh Gaya, you see all the Tibetans, not all the Tibetans, but many Tibetans, young, old, they have a cup of tea. You know, they have their flask of tea, their, you know, Tibetan version of sandwiches, which is their tsampa and everything. You know, few prostrations, chat, cup of tea, few more prostrations, chat, cup of tea, you know, go down the shop to have a chai, back, some more prostrations all day long, chat, you know, relax, have a little sleep, more prostrations. Yeah. So we can try.
Yeah. And, of course, more Westerners, by the way, have done this practice. Many have done this, you know, not just a hundred thousand. Some have done, you know, quite a few hundred thousands of this. Right?
So I don’t think it’s just something that people did in the past or, you know, Tibetans do or something. People are doing this practice. So any questions before we break for a cup of tea? Sorry. That was very quick.
But yes. Can I have a look? That’s not right. That’s a mistake for sure. What?
Oh, yeah. Infinite. Oh, you just delete that one. That’s all. It’s just an extra one.
Yeah. That’s all. Yeah. Just before I left out the vital thing, in a sūtra that explains all this, I can’t remember the name of it, it’s called something like the Pratikramana Sūtra which is content in another sūtra. Basically, all this explanation is in the I think Avatamsaka Sūtra.
I think it’s in the Avatamsaka, one of the super great sūtra Mahāyāna Sutras. It mentions that merely reciting each of these Buddha’s names in faith purifies eons of negative karma. This is what Śākyamūni Buddha said in this sūtra. You just say the name even without the prostrations, but the prostrations and everything else makes it more powerful. If you say it with not just saying the name is not gonna do anything, but if you have refuge and you say it with faith, because these Buddhas made this promise in the past, it purifies eons of negative karma.
That’s why this practice is taught. So my teacher says, if you want to really pure if you want to do really good business with the Buddhas to make a lot of profit, then the smart, skillful thing is to recite these names many, many, many times. Because each time you say it, eons of karma are purified. So the idea is, as you’re prostrating to that Buddha, you try and say that Buddha’s name many times, not just once, but as many times as possible. Because every time we say it, so much karma is purified.
Because how else are we going to purify our mind? What other method? No method we think up is going to work. This this is a method that the Buddhas have taught for us to purify our mind. And all the great lamas of the traditions do this practice.
Have been doing it since it was introduced by the Buddha. Thank you very much. Leah? People who didn’t get a copy of the thirty five Buddha practice, you all have this book right? Everyone said it is in here the explanation and the actual practice itself starts on page a hundred and twenty.
Page a hundred and seventeen has got a long motivation by Lama Zopa Rinpoche but the actual practice is on starts on page a hundred and twenty page one twenty, so you can use this book if if you wanna try doing this practice. As I said, the so the third preliminary so the third thing is the third of the preparatory practices is the refuge practice. The first part of which is making prostrations. So the minimum is to do three prostrations. Right?
I mean, if especially for refuge people. As I said, even if you don’t if you don’t sort of relate to some of these things, I mean, the idea I could can I suggest to experiment? If you don’t experiment, you don’t know what what effect it could, you know, have. And the effect may not be, you know, instant, of course. So it’s worthwhile trying to do it for a while at least.
So I’ll ask some prostrations, either, you know, three or you can do the elaborate prostrations to the thirty five Buddhas as a way of purifying the mind. And then the next part, as it set out here, is to sit in the Vairochana posture. So there’s the seven physical parts of the posture, which that’s all set out in your student material. You’ve got that. And then the part the next part of that is the is the breathing exercise, the nine round breathing exercise.
So that’s also set out in your student material. So most people I’ve explained that before a few times. So does does anyone have any questions about that? And so that’s all fairly straightforward, clean, clear. Yeah.
Please don’t be shy in asking questions. You know, please don’t think that the you know, you’re you’re asking a too simple question or, you know, really it’s really good to ask questions. It’s very important to have to understand, you know, things and not be shy. Right. So there, this third step in that in that third preparatory practice is to generate refuge, and then part of that is to visualize Śākyamūni Buddha in front of oneself.
Just briefly, of course refuge is a so some people come to these courses not particularly wanting to become Buddhist but use Buddhist ideas and practices. So that’s fine. But essential within actual Buddhist practice, one of the core things is is taking refuge at some point. So you you take refuge to commit oneself to being a follower of the Buddha, of following the Buddha’s teachings. So essentially, refuge involves a number of things.
It’s firstly, feeling a strong connection to the Buddha, believing in the, you know, in the existence of the Buddhas and that that their mind is free of all faults, having all good qualities. And because of that, one has complete confidence that the teachings of the Buddha are true. So and and the teachings explain that we have a mind, that our mind is the source of all our experience. The more we understand that and believe that, it’s obvious that if we if we want less suffering, more happiness, then we have to take care of our mind. And if we start to understand through our faith in the Buddhist teachings that our mind is something that is beginningless and endless, then to take care of our mind, we need a method, and not just any method, but a method which is complete, perfect, unbetrayable.
So where can we find such a method, a perfect method, only from a perfect source, and that is the Buddha. And that’s why we entrust ourselves to the Buddha, to the Buddha’s teachings, and the great practitioners of those teachings who are called the Sangha. So taking refuge is committing oneself to take care committing oneself to taking care of one’s mind and and to and to use the Buddha’s methods to do so, having decided that the Buddha is complete, perfect, unbetrayable, and that the teachings of the Buddha are complete, perfect, and unbetrayable. That’s what taking refuge really involves. So yeah.
So that is the very basis of all practice. So every practice begins when we listen to teachings, when we meditate, the when we wake up in the first thing wake up first thing in the morning, the idea is to try and generate that thought of refuge that I’m I have to take care of my mind. I’m gonna use the Buddha’s methods to do so because the Buddha, you know, is a perfect being. His teachings are a reflection of that perfect mind, so I can I can totally rely on those methods? They’re complete.
They won’t betray me if I practice them properly. Anyway, we can now relate these six preliminary practices to this. So if everyone could open their text, the daily meditation so this was written by put together by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. So having made three prostrations, yeah, you we sit down, check our posture, do the nine round breathing exercise. The purpose of the nine round breathing exercise is just to bring some basic calmness and clarity into the mind to get rid of the gross confusion.
It’s it’s not meant to be a complete meditation practice in itself. It’s a preparation to meditate. So when it does those nine round cycle for one or two or three cycles, then you feel, oh, my mind should be okay. One has established basically a neutral, a calm, neutral mind, then one starts to cultivate a really virtuous mind. And here, one can do it by cultivating the preliminary motivation.
So we’ll just go through this briefly. Rinpoche always expresses things in a very powerful extreme form which might freak some of you out but that’s Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s style. So he says, but this is how Rinpoche thinks. And and if we want to get to to be like Lama Zopa Rinpoche, unfortunately, most of you here haven’t met him. There will be a chance if you go to Bendigo in October, September, October.
I would highly recommend you think about finding the time, saving your pennies to go and receive some teachings from Lama Zopa Rinpoche because the chance to meet truly great practitioners is very rare, it’s very special and it’s also very important. It’s incredibly important to meet great practitioners. Chance to do so is quite rare and when we have a precious human rebirth, that’s when we have the chance to know about and the freedom to meet these people, to connect with them, and to be guided with them. And there is no doubt that Lama Zopa Rinpoche mean, I’m a little bit biased because he is my guru, but but there is no doubt that he is Jeff definitely one of the great Tibetan practitioners on the planet right now. There is no question of that.
Yeah. There’s no question. It’s not just something I say or think that what I say or think doesn’t count, but the great the great masters say this about Lama Zopa Rinpoche and his holiness, the Dalai Lama says it also. So the the chance to meet someone like Rinpoche is is really, you know, important. Know?
So think about it. Best thing you can do till in your life is to meet someone like that. Anyway, so Rinpoche says, and this is what we should try and think, something like this. How extremely lucky I am that I’ve not died yet because we could die at any moment. You know?
That’s the the reality. We are going to die. Death could come at any time. So we wake up and think, wow. I I’m still alive.
I haven’t died. That’s that’s amazing. I’m especially lucky that my death didn’t occur last night because it did for many people. Consequently you know, for example, just yesterday in in Perth oh, no. They didn’t.
But people well, in Australia, people die in fires, you know, even even in the city. And none of us think that we’re going to be caught in a bushfire, you know, in our home or, you know, some bushfire, some incredible fire. But it happens, and it happens in our country regularly. You know? We don’t think this is going to happen.
And the people who die, you know, burning in these horrible fires don’t think this is going to happen to them. But it happens just things these horrible things just just like that. They happen. Yeah. But so it’s it’s kind of wonderful and fortunate that I’m still a human being, a state that is extremely rare.
You know, there’s a few billion human beings, but compared to all sentient beings, it’s it’s a it’s a tiny handful. It’s just a tiny handful. It’s very rare to be a human being, but especially here, Rinpoche is referring not to any kind of human being, but someone who’s met the Dharma, has some faith in it, the ability, and the freedom to practice it. That kind of human being, which we are, more or less, is is very rare, unbelievably rare because it’s immensely difficult to create the causes to be in that situation. So this is not all.
I have a perfect human rebirth, which is extremely rare. I’ve met the virtuous friend, meaning the the the guru, the qualified guru. Even if we haven’t yet, we are in a position to meet such beings, and they reveal the unmistaken complete path to enlightenment. So such a person is extremely difficult to meet. And I have met the Buddhadharma, which is also extremely difficult to meet.
As I often say, because I think it’s it’s pretty mind blowing, that, you know, there are millions and millions of people on this planet now who will never even hear the word Buddha in their entire life, let alone have any idea what it means, let alone have any connection with the Buddha and the Buddha’s teachings. Yeah? They have no idea. So to meet the teachings and here meet meaning, you know, is means to connect with them. So that’s extremely rare.
So given that I’ve met all of these extraordinary fortunate circumstances, I should not waste my life in any way. I should make my life as useful as possible for infinite other sentient beings. Their peace and happiness depends on me. Yeah? Because I’m connected to every sentient being.
If I improve myself, I can benefit. You know? However much I work on my mind, people benefit because I will cause them less harm for a start. I’ll be, you know, more more nice to be around, less repulsive. And slowly, I’ll I’ll become actually beneficial to more and more beings.
It’s it’s very important to remember that or have some awareness and faith that we have that in one sense, we are karmically connected with every sentient being on the earth, on the planet, in universe, but at any point in time we have stronger karmic connections with some people than others, good or bad strong karmic connections. And in the teachings it explains that as one gains realizations on the path, then those people that we have these strong good and bad karmic connections with, these are the people that we are able to benefit. So the more we practice, we are sort of drawing in a sense these people to us whom we can benefit. And then when we achieve enlightenment, we are able to directly be of incredible benefit to so many people because we have these strong karmic connections with them, good and bad. So our family, for example, you know yeah.
If if we if by by ourselves practicing well, it actually benefits our family in the long run, the people we’re connected to. Whether they know about it or not, we will be able to connect with them, you know, in in I I’m not explaining this because I don’t understand it myself very well. But am I making any sense there at all? Yeah? Yeah.
Yeah. So just one one way of repaying the kindness of your mom and dad is to be a good practitioner because they will benefit as we purify our mind and gain realizations. Their peace, sentient beings’ peace and happiness, depends on me, and my happiness is only received from their kindness. Insofar as my life fulfills the greatest usefulness for other sentient beings, it becomes the means to achieve success and happiness for myself as well. So the purpose of my life is to free all sentient beings from suffering and its causes, which is negative karma and the disturbing thoughts, and to lead them not only to the ultimate happiness of self liberation or nirvana, but to the peerless happiness of enlightenment as well.
So this is my responsibility. So this is what we can try and cultivate that thought that it that it is my responsibility to benefit all sentient beings. Why? Because every sentient being has benefited me, so only I can repay that kindness. That’s you know, the Buddhas are benefiting sentient beings, but they’re not fulfilling my obligation to repay the help, the kindness I’ve received.
Only I can do that. That’s my responsibility. And the only way I can really fulfill it is to become a Buddha. I’m responsible for the happiness of all sentient beings. Why?
Oh, because whether my actions are helpful or harmful to them depends completely on my own mind on whether I have compassion or not. By generating compassion immediately, I therefore benefit as numberless other sentient beings. At the very least, I don’t harm them. The ultimate purpose of my life is to work perfectly for others. In order to fulfill that purpose, it’s necessary for me to achieve the state of full enlightenment, omniscient mind.
And in order to do that, I have to actualize the path to enlightenment in my mind. Yeah. I have to make it a reality in my mind. Yeah. Therefore, I’m going to do ordinary actions and virtuous actions from the two types of motivation, the causal motivation and the motivation in the moment.
This motivation is causal. So this is like a general motivation for trying to cover everything we do for the day. And then there’s the the motivation in the moment. Like, just before we do something, we can try to bring to mind, you know, the Bodhicitta motivation for doing it. We can have the Bodhicitta motivation in the morning, which is very general saying, whatever I do today, may it be for the benefit of others.
But then as we’re doing things, you know, in the moment, we should try and also make it as effective as possible by having that conscious bodhicitta motivation. Yeah? So it this becomes the best motive virtuous motivation for transforming all my actions from this moment on. Its best course of happiness and its result is enlightenment. May all my actions become only causes for me to achieve enlightenment.
Blah blah blah. So that’s the motivation. So then here is where we can do the prostrations. Right? And there’s another mantra one can recite, prayer and mantra.
This was a very favorite of Lama Yeshe. Every time Lama Yeshe gave teachings before he started, before he sat on the throne, Lama used to recite this man this prayer, and we would all prostrate together. Lama Yeshe is depicted over in far right, that picture there. We should have more pictures of Lama Yeshe here. Because he’s the the inspiration for this center and the whole organization that this center belongs to, who, again, was a sublime being.
Yeah. So this prayer, if you want to know it, in Tibetan, it goes, So one could recite that prayer three times as one’s doing prostrations. So then you sit down. So is it it’s at this stage when you sit down that you could do the the the Vairochana check do the try and sit in the Vairochana posture and do and do the nine round breathing. So then what one can then do, which is part of the tradition, is the prayer of purifying the place because the idea is rather than thinking that one is in a very ordinary samsaric place, one is in a in a like in a pure land, a perfect environment where we can invite the Buddha.
So so the I’ll I’ll just chant the prayer in Tibetan so you’re just familiar with the the tune because this is all getting recorded so you could learn these things if you like. So it goes, So as you recite that either in Tibetan or English you imagine as described in the words in the translation. So there one imagines filling that pure space with all sorts of different kinds of offerings constantly multiplying. So there’s this mantra that one can recite to him, which is called the offering cloud, a mantra or Dharani, which blesses and multiplies the offerings you’ve made, the ones you’ve actually set out, but also whatever one visualizes, causing each Buddha to receive these offerings. So whatever one visualizes by reciting this mantra, the Buddhas receive those offerings so that much merit we create.
So this mantra is normally recited very quickly. So I’ll just recite it in medium speed. So it’s done three times. So one recites that three times and then recites the prayer which is the extensive power of truth which says by the power of truth of the three rare sublime ones, the blessings of all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, the great wealth of the completed two collections, and the sphere of phenomena being pure and inconceivable, may these piles of clouds of offerings arising through transformation by the bodhisattvas, aryasamantabhadra, manjushri and so forth unimaginable and inexhaustible, equaling the sky arise and in the eyes of the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the ten directions be received. So the expression of truth is is believed to have great power to remove all sorts of hindrances and obstacles.
So this is why that is done at this point. And so then having done that, having done those preliminaries I’ve really run out of time. One does the visualization. So I think the visualization of the of the Śākyamūni Buddha is straightforward. You you can read that.
As you read that, you try and visualize the Buddha in front of you. If we go to page eight, also, as you are visualizing the Buddha in front of you, you then think of all sentient beings surrounding you. One can read what Rinpoche has written there, composed there, and then as one’s visualizing, Śākyamūni Buddha, one can recite this refuge either one can recite the normal refuge in Bodhicitta prayer that, is in the in the student material, or if you want to do this elaborate practice you can recite the refuge in Sanskrit which is set out here and explains what you do is that as you recite Namo Gurubhyah, you recite it a number of times, say for example seven times, and as you recite it you imagine this white light coming from Śākyamūni Buddha purifying you of all negative karma created with gurus in present or in past lives. Right. Then then you recite Namo Buddhaya you a number of times.
Again, you think white light comes from Śākyamūni Buddha, purifying you of all negative karma created with the Buddha’s this in past lives. Then you do recite Namo Dharmaya several times like set for example seven times again thinking this white light and nectar comes from the Buddha into yourself purifying you of all negative actions created with the Dharma in this and past lives and then you recite Namo Sanghaya seven times again the white light and nectar purifying you of all negative actions done in relation to the Sangha in this and past lives and then at the end of that you think that now you know you’re completely under the guidance of triple gem, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. So can I suggest in the homework to try and do at least that much of the text as your morning practice up to there? Then from there, you go to we’ll skip a part for the time being and read on page fourteen the section on the graduated path to enlightenment. So that up up to, but not including the request to descend to the crown.
You just recite, reflect briefly on the path to enlightenment. Because this prayer, was composed by Lama Tsongkhapa, you know, sets out the stages of achieving enlightenment. So just read through that. And then dedicate the merit, which is on page seventeen, the two dedication prayers on page seventeen. So one can try to do that.
Okay? Well, I I I will try and explain all these things in more detail as we go along. Or yeah. Any questions? Yes.
Well, you could find it in volume one of our prayer book. There’s the gold prayer book here. These are not for borrowing though. You could read it here. You could probably if you went online if you went to the FPMT website, it’s probably there.
But if you googled in general the king of prayers yeah. But if you go to the FPMT website, there’s lots of things there. But that’s quite long. Yeah. Just just keep it to what I’m doing so as at the moment if you can.
Right? Just to you don’t wanna take this is quite a lot of stuff. Sorry, I’ve kind of bombarded you. There’s too much to teach in these courses, really. Black foods are sentient beings, meat, eggs, garlic, onions, and radish.
They’re black foods because they produce various obstacles. Eating meat is an obstacle to developing compassion. Garlic and onions produce a lot of wind, which is an obstacle to meditation. Eggs produce desire. Some people charge out and eat lots of eggs now.
Radishes, the same as wind. Produce lots of wind. Does everyone have a copy of the homework? No. Oh, now available.
Oh, great. Could I have one? So just be oh, I’m sorry. It’s a little bit over Greg, could you just pass me? Is it there?
No. It’s not there. I just wanna try and ex I think I can so the people who only got one can make it. Okay. May be a little bit confusing.
So in reading, it’s there’s the to read the blessing of the speech, which is a handout you’ve all got. And then in the student material, there’s an article called making life meaningful. So if you could read the pages eleven to sixteen, but there is the book called make life meaningful. So please read pages seventy nine to a hundred and four, which is about the thirty five Buddhas. Also, if you’ve got time, because that’s quite a bit of reading, in the student material there is an article by Lama Zopa Rinpoche called the great value of being a human being and there’s a section in there about the the precious the meditation on the precious human rebirth.
Some some of you or maybe are not familiar with this. This is a very good meditation to be familiar with, and the first part of that meditation talks about the eight freedoms. So if you’ve got time, if you could read about those eight freedoms that would be fantastic. Even if you know about them already, it’s good to read it again and and reflect on it. So, also, be it’s really good to write down anything you don’t understand, words, concepts, ideas, so I can try and explain.
Yeah? And or also ask me in class because there’s no point me mentioning all these terms if you if people have no idea what what’s being talked about. And and one thing to understand about the student material is most of it is taken from talks by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. So Rinpoche in his talks covers a huge gamut of things and is referring to many things, some from the tantric tradition. So there’s some things in the in these in these articles that, you know, people as beginners wouldn’t know about, and some of it is a little bit irrelevant to what we’re dealing with.
But if you if you want to know what Rinpoche is talking about, you can ask me if if there are terms and ideas that come up. You know, what what in the world is that bit? You know? What is he talking about? Right?
So I think that’s it for tonight. Oh, no. Is there more about the homework? Yeah. So for the the daily meditation, if one could try to integrate whatever I’ve talked about tonight starting with blessing the speech, doing the prostrations, going through the text.
Yeah. From from doing three prostrations to a hundred and eight, however many you can manage, no prostrations. Yes. Please try and do some of it because that’s the whole idea of especially of this course is to really try and practice some of this stuff. Yeah.
Start to gain some familiarity and get the mind, body accustomed to establishing some kind of daily practice. Yes. That’s the whole idea. That’s what Rinpoche is suggesting is a basis for beginners for a daily practice. As as we get on within time and years and things, there’s things that could be added to it, or that practice could be eventually replaced by other ones, but this is Rinpoche is saying, this is a good place to start.
Yes. That’s what I was trying to say. Yeah. That That’s what I was saying. So just to like, yes.
I know. I know. It is. But so I’m so I’m just this is just a way to show you that so you can start with three prostrations. That’s what I’m trying to say.
You know? And sometimes you could, you know, experiment with doing the thirty five Buddhas at another time or in the morning, yeah, or not at all. But I’m just trying to emphasize that in all the four schools of Tibetan tradition, you know, the prostrations are an integral thing and doing yeah. In some of the other schools, it’s emphasized even more than in the Gelugpa tradition. Yeah.
Actually, in the like, in the Kagyu tradition, practically, as soon as you walk in the door, you’re almost forced to do a hundred thousand prostrations. The lamas tell you, you’ve gotta do a hundred thousand. I’m not gonna teach you or you don’t you know, if until you do that. Really? Oh, no.
I’ve exaggerated a bit. Sorry. So I did exaggerate. But they they’re very strong on doing lots of prostrations and and hundred thousand Vajrasattvas and things. So the but it’s your choice.
Of course, it’s one’s choice, and some people here aren’t even Buddhists, saying they haven’t taken refuge. So that’s what I’m trying to emphasize. I’m giving you the full monty simply because some people are interested in some of these things. Some of you are not. So it’s your choice what you do.
But one thing you don’t do, don’t get upset by it because it’s your choice to do it or not. It’s not there to punish you. It’s it’s the the Buddha gave all the there’s millions of things to do. They’re all offered by the Buddha to choose from to develop the mind. It’s our choice.
Thank you very much. But one thing we do is dedicate the merit. 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 Bodhicitta mind not yet born arise and grow.
May that born have no decline but increase forevermore.