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 guides students through two interconnected evening practices for daily spiritual life. He opens with the foundational motivation for all Tibetan Buddhist practice: recognizing our profound interdependence with all sentient beings and our debt of gratitude to them, which inspires the determination to pursue enlightenment for their sake rather than our own liberation alone. The bulk of the teaching focuses on the Vajrasattva practice as the primary method to purify negative actions—explaining that while all negativity can be remedied through the four opponent powers (regret, reliance on refuge and bodhicitta, the remedy itself, and resolution to change), the Vajrasattva practice is uniquely powerful. He walks through the complete visualization step by step: summoning the deity above your crown, recognizing the symbolism of his form and the seed syllables in his heart, then reciting his mantra while imagining white light and nectar purifying body, speech, and mind in three distinct stages. He emphasizes that visualization need not be crystal-clear; faith and intention matter far more than perfect mental imagery. The teaching closes with practical evening rituals—the sleeping yoga, dedicating merit before rest—framed as ways to make every moment of practice count. Pitched at practitioners new to daily practice, with frequent reassurance that these commitments, though they seem demanding, become natural and manageable through repetition.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2014 02 11 DB Daily Practice Week 6 110214.mp3
UUID: 38025ae8-769b-4200-a2c7-45395edee91a
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Daily Practice (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2014-02-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 113.1 minutes
Words: ~13,967
So welcome everyone to our sixth class on on Establishing a daily practice. So, Rick, could I ask you? Could you move this around? Yeah. Over here.
And could you put hang the Vajrasattva thangka on it, on one of the hooks? Thanks. So just to remind everyone that there can be many reasons for establishing a daily practice, but in the Mahāyāna tradition, the reason we try to establish a daily practice and stick with it is so that we can take care of our mind, reducing, overcoming the negative aspects of our mind, cultivating all the positive qualities not just to make this life enjoyable, not just to get a good rebirth when this life comes to an end, not just to achieve liberation from cyclic existence altogether, but especially by recognizing with the guide of the Buddha’s teachings recognizing how it’s an undeniable truth that we are actually interconnected with everyone. We always have been, we always will be as a Buddha we’ll feel even more connected than we can ever feel as an ordinary being we will feel connected to all sentient beings realizing the immense debt of gratitude we have because sentient beings have been our mother and father countless times. When they’re not our mother or father, they are helping us in every other possible way.
Of course, in any particular life like this life that we know of, there are sentient beings who harm us in some way to some degree. But the vast majority of sentient beings are helping us either directly or indirectly. And so this is true in every life. So whatever harm we’ve received from sentient beings is far, far, far, far, far outweighed by the benefit that we’ve received from them. And which we depend this benefit is not just something kind of like icing to our life.
This benefit is vital to our existence, most of it. And all these beings who we depend on in every way, for every reason, are in a saṃsāra like ourselves. But unlike ourselves, the vast majority of these beings, whatever their suffering they’re experiencing, whether it’s the suffering of being a human, the suffering of being in the lower realms, the suffering of being in the god realms, those beings have no way, because they don’t have a perfect refuge to make sense of their suffering to understand its causes to understand how to genuinely reduce, transform and eliminate that suffering so it will never return. And in the sentient beings are in fact creating the cause for more suffering. I mean we are also doing that to be quite honest But because we have met the dharma, we have the chance to recognize the causes of our suffering and we have the freedom to begin to let go of them, whereas most sentient beings right now, mother sentient beings, don’t have that chance, that freedom.
So recognizing this we can generate the bodhicitta motivation of wanting to establish a daily practice so it becomes part of the process of leading to enlightenment so that we can repay, perfectly repay the kindness of all sentient beings. So trying to think along these lines as much as possible, we can, if you wish to join in, so especially those people who have taken refuge, one should do this. Don’t actually have to, but it is kind of a commitment. We say the prayer of refuge in bodhicitta, which was put composed, but for want of a better word, comes from the inspired mind of the great bodhisattva, Lama Rinpoche. So there’s great meaning to just even say these words, to familiarize the mind with these words.
But to make them as meaningful as possible we try and think of Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as our source of refuge also thinking of Śākyamūni Buddha as the source of all our teachers of the past, present and future and at the same time we try and have a sense of all sentient beings surrounding us. So since that’s extremely difficult to really think of all sentient beings and all their suffering, at the very least we should think of those that we’re connected to in this life. So we think of our mother on our left, father on our right, family, friends and helpers behind us, harmers in front, or disturbers, annoying people, annoy us. Even if we don’t have enemies, we have people who annoy us. Yeah.
So we put them in front, and they may be annoy us for a short time, but that these type that kind of person we think of in front, then as much as possible, we try and open our hearts and minds to all other human beings and all the beings of the different realms of cyclic existence, at least trying to have a sense that in reality, that they the deeper reality is that these beings are only kind to me, they are only kind, that is their essential nature, have only been kind to me, and yet they are only, only suffering. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, 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 think that the Buddha is very pleased with our motivation and shows this by now coming towards the crown of our head. When directly above our crown we imagine the Buddha dissolving into blissful golden light so that that light can pour into us blessing our mind in such a way that we can really understand the teachings blessing our minds so that we can really put them into a practice and establish a daily practice blessing our minds so that we can gain real benefit from that practice real insights, actual realizations that lead us on the path to enlightenment.
So then briefly doing the nine round breathing exercise to enhance that positive state of mind and one can make it more strongly more strong, more effective by combining it with the visualization with each in breath in the cycle. We imagine breathing in blissful white light from the Buddha’s that brings great calmness, clarity, peace to our mind. And with each out breath in the cycle we imagine that we breathe out all agitation existing in our mind right now all confusion, all fears, worries all negative disturbing thoughts, all negative imprints, all obscurations. We imagine breathing all that out in the form of black liquid sorry, black smoke. It dissipates, becomes completely nonexistent, leaving our mind very calm, clear, very positive.
Okay. Thank you. Alright. So what I’d like to do tonight is talk about the Vajrasattva practice and also at least to make sure we cover that and with the remaining time to continue just briefly going through that Lamrim prayer just to give some basic idea of its meaning, especially for those people who have who aren’t very familiar with the the Lamrim graduated path teachings. So in establishing a daily practice what encouraged to do which is what all practitioners of the Tibetan tradition are encouraged to do is do have some formal practice in the morning, ideally early in the morning if possible, but as early as one can manage or at least first thing once you wake up to try and put some positive virtuous imprints in the mind, you know, first thing in the day.
So, you know, if you can do it very early in the morning, that’s best. If you get up really late, you know, eight, nine, ten o’clock in the morning, then at least do it then but you know straight away to grab your mind and put the positive imprints in there the more strongly we do the formal practice in the morning then hopefully it will have the cumulative effect if we do it continuously of helping us to be more aware of Dharma and our mind during the day so that we can act and speak and behave, speak and think in an appropriate Dharma way so that benefits ourselves, benefits others. And then what else is important in establishing a daily practice according to the tradition is to do something at night and especially the most basic thing that all the lamas of all the traditions emphasize is at the very least at the end of the day before one goes to sleep is to reflect over what’s happened during the day and to rejoice in the good things that one’s done. To rejoice. To feel happy that one has done these virtuous things such as doing some practice in the morning but also taking care of the mind during the day if one has taken any vows or commitments such as keeping the refuge commitments.
If you’ve taken refuge there are various commitments to keep so one reflects if I have I kept those, if we’ve taken any of the lay precepts of not killing, not stealing, not lying, not engaging in sexual misconduct, not in taking intoxicants. So if one’s managed to keep those well, one rejoices. But also what other good things one’s done or negative things one could have done, were tempted to do but didn’t do, we rejoice. We rejoice. You know?
Because that makes the the the the merit increases the imprint so much more, the positive imprint so much more. So that’s really good, vital to do. And then following that is then, you know, like in recognizing the good things we’ve done during the day and keeping precepts, we can recognize that maybe there were some commitments we we didn’t keep well, we maybe even broke, and other negative actions, naturally negative, we may have done. So these we should try and purify. And and I think in other courses, I’ve mentioned this and I think I’ve already mentioned it a bit in this course.
According to the Mahāyāna tradition, the Tibetan tradition, there is basically one method to purify any kind of negative action no matter how bad it is. So according to the sūtra teachings, there are what are called the five extreme negative actions, or they’re also called the five uninterrupted negative karmas because if one creates these and doesn’t purify them, then in the next life, one will you know, at the end of this life at the end of the life, one has created those five any of those five in uninterrupted negative karmas, one is born in the lower realms. There’s no interruption between births. You go straight to the lower realms because these are so negative, which are killing one’s either one’s mother or father, killing an arahant, wounding a Buddha because it’s not possible to kill a Buddha, but apparently it is possible to wound one. I don’t understand this, but that’s what the teaching say.
And the other thing is causing a schism between the Sangha of monks or nuns. Actually, this negative karma, the full form of it, we can’t create now. The worst form of it can only be done at the time of the Buddha. But causing any schism be quit between a group of practitioners, a division is is is considered one of the worst kind of actions. That’s why at Dharma centers, it is so vital to have harmony between people.
Because if there isn’t harmony, no matter what is done at the center, it has very little effect. Very little effect. There has to be harmony between I’ve mentioned this many times. Actually, when I first came here, I think I said this when I first got my little opening talk, when there was a when I lived at Nālānda monastery in France, I was there for ten years. So during that time, we had the good fortune that a number of great lamas of the Gelug tradition visited mainly because they they taught at the Vajrayoginī Institute, which is one of the FPMT centers, which is just fifteen minutes away.
So we would grab these lamas. Well, would invite them to come and give a talk to the monks, a little pep talk. And, every every lama who came to give their pep talk, the main thing they said, they all said this, is that for the monks there, the most important thing was not sort of studying emptiness and blah blah blah blah blah and doing meditating on tantra. The vital thing for the monks living at the monastery was to be harmonious together. Because if that didn’t happen, nothing they did would work.
Yeah. Anyway, so I got carried away there once again. So the point is those five negative actions are so negative. Anyway, they’re extremely negative, but they can be purified by apply this one method, which is applying the four opponent powers. So I don’t want I’ve explained this before, and to explain it properly, you know, could go on a long time, but just very briefly, the four opponent powers are the power of sorry, regret, developing sincere regret, not guilt, but as because guilt is actually itself a type of ignorance and a kind of a dull heavy mind that doesn’t, like, encourage us to do virtue, whereas whereas regret is is a type of wisdom that clearly regret just simply sees, recognizes that something is negative and it and therefore, it can only have a suffering result.
And the nature of regret is that, like, as as part of it, you know, if you see that something you’ve done is negative and it’s only gonna bring suffering, then you won’t want to do it again. You will have some wish. Within that sense of regret is some wish not to do it again. Right? A simple example I always give is if by mistake you reach into the medicine cabinet and you want to take a pill to relieve a headache and you take some rat poison in the you know, you drink the rat poison, you don’t feel guilty.
You just think, wow. That was dumb. That was really stupid. I am going to get really sick now or possibly die. I don’t want to be that stupid again.
I will be more careful in reaching into the medicine cabinet in the future. Right? So that’s regret. It’s not guilt. You don’t, you know, you don’t sort of punish yourself and feel you’re evil and terrible.
You just think, oh, dumb, not clever. You know? Won’t, you know, suffering coming. So this is what regret is about. So the stronger the regret, and the more quickly one applies it to the situation, the more one brings about purification.
Another of the four opponent powers is the power of reliance which has two aspects. It’s the one power, the power of reliance, but it it it has two components relying on on one’s refuge and the other component is relying on one’s power well, anyway, one’s own bodhicitta, however much we can generate that mind. So why this purifies just very simply is that if we think about it, all all our negative actions of body, speech, and mind are done because either we have no refuge in the triple gem, especially the essence of refuge is having developing some belief, faith, understanding of the law of cause and effect. And so the more we have faith in that, the more we will avoid negative actions and engage in virtuous actions. So why we engage in negative actions is either because we have no refuge or we have it but we forgot it or we didn’t forget it, we just ignored it due to the power of our self-cherishing.
So by reaffirming, trying to regenerate refuge, it purifies the mind. For those people who take refuge, who have studied the teachings on refuge, one of the benefits of taking refuge sincerely is from the moment one takes refuge and keeps refuge and practices it, it purifies the mind continuously. And by that, I don’t mean singing the song we just did. You know? Sangye cho dang.
Just singing the song does the reason to sing the song is to remind one what refuge is about, of of which is about taking care of the mind. Yeah. And relying on the Buddha’s methods to do so. Anyway, so there is a second aspect component of that power of reliance is relying on one’s own bodhicitta or one’s we don’t have actual bodhicitta but we can have what Lama Zopa Rinpoche calls effortful bodhicitta whereby thinking about the causes of bodhicitta a type of, you know, a very superficial momentary bodhicitta can arise. And again, if you think about it, all of the negative actions that we’ve ever done, will do, are due to our self-cherishing.
Yeah? And bodhicitta is the total opposite to self-cherishing. It’s the mind that is determined to give up self-cherishing and only cherish others perfectly. So the more we can generate, some sincere form of bodhicitta or even wanting to generate bodhicitta and directing the mind in that path then that is great purification. So if we can combine those two that becomes a very powerful remedy the power a powerful antidote which is the power of reliance.
So another of the four powers is the power of resolution, which is making the determination to avoid negative actions in the future. Either all negative actions in general or very specific ones that we’re trying to stop. If we recognize we have bad habits, then we can focus on those and make determination to avoid you know, a a particular negative behavior of body or speech or mind or, you know, whatever. And as my teacher make makes the point, it’s not very although it’s what it’s good to have, of course, have the motivation, the wish to be able to give up those negative behaviors forever, it is not realistic in most cases to make the resolution, like, from tomorrow, I will never do this negative action again because we probably will. And we know that we probably will because the habit is so strong.
It’s like giving up cigarettes. For most people, it’s not wise to say, usually, you know, from tomorrow, if you’re smoking fifty cigarettes a day, to say tomorrow, I’m not I’ll I’ll never do it again because it’s almost guaranteed one will. But so it’s much cleverer, wiser, skillful to think check. You know, if I put real effort, you know, really put concentrate on trying to avoid this action, how long can I stop for? Is it is it a month, three weeks, two, one week, six days, five, four, three, two, one day, half a day?
Whatever you think I you know? I I can I can really manage that, then you make that commitment to the Buddhas, you know, to yourself, but also to the Buddhas and trying to have a sense that you’re promising the Buddhas or your guru both that I’m going to avoid this action or, you know, this group of actions for this period of time? So then that becomes, you know, a skillful way to avoid the action. And as I’ve said before, you know, if if we manage to keep that promise then we rejoice and when that period of time is finished we make a similar commitment or you know and but also step by step lengthen the the time. And the from but on the other hand, if we fail to keep the commitment, then we don’t we can’t give up, which is what the self-cherishing wants to do.
You know, the self-cherishing says, oh, well, you know, Buddhism is, you know, impossible for you. You’re a disaster. You know, the guilt, you know, I’m a terrible person. I can’t purify. I other people can do this.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tibetans can do this.
Indians can do this. You know, people in the past can do this, but not me because I’m so terrible and evil and I’m doomed. I’m, you know, hopeless evil kind of weird, creepy person. Right? That’s what our self-cherishing you know, our self-cherishing tells us I’m fantastic.
But when it’s suitable to get out of things, you know, the easy you know, to cop out of stuff, oh, you know, I can’t. I’m I’m I’m I’m really a disaster. So the only way is one has to make the commitment again, the promise again, pure you know, apply the four opponent powers again and be more realistic, make a shorter period of time or try the same length of time. And if one fails again, again, one can’t say, oh, it doesn’t work for me. The only thing is to try again until it starts working, which it will.
And so then the the the fourth of the opponent powers, which is the one we’re gonna talk about tonight, is the power of remedy. So this is doing a virtuous action to counteract the negative things we’re trying to purify. So this can be any virtuous action, but in the tradition oh, again, I’ve forgotten. There are six particularly virt powerful virtuous things one can do. Now I can never remember them.
What are they? Well, the the most powerful is but it’s the one that works the least for us because we we’re we’re only beginners is to meditate on emptiness. If one know understands emptiness, if one really has some good understanding of emptiness and meditates on it, that is the best purification. But, at least we can try that. So also another is to recite sutras or read other read teachings to put to put really positive imprints in the mind.
Of course, these things have to be done in conjunction with the other three opponent powers. Right? And sincerely. Another is said to be reciting the names of Buddhas, such as reciting the names of the Medicine Buddha, reciting Om Mani Padmi hum which in a sense is reciting the name of the Buddha of compassion, Chenrezig, reciting Amitābha Buddha’s name. And but within that practice of reciting the names of the Buddhas, the most powerful one is the one we’ve already talked about a bit, which is reciting the names of the thirty five Buddhas combining with visualizing them and prostrating to them.
That is the most super powerful of those. Alright? Then another one is making holy objects. Tsatsas, either making holy objects, repairing holy objects, as statues, thangkas, dharma texts, printing dharma texts, statues, stupas, books, thangkas, tsatsas, you know, these small little images, anything like that. So either making them oneself, repairing them, or sponsoring the making of them or the repairing of them.
Those things are very good to do. Is it the six? That’s we’re on to four. Where are we? Yes.
Next one is is making offerings to the to the triple gem, which sounds like buying your way out of it, but it really has to be done sincerely with the other four three opponent powers. Making offerings to the guru, triple gem. And the the sixth one, which is the one we’re gonna talk about tonight, is one of the most powerful is to do the Vajrasattva practice. Why I’m pointing over there is because this is a depiction of the deity Vajrasattva. So Vajrasattva symbolizes, embodies so this this practice comes from the tantric tradition.
So idea ideally, in the past, one would not be able to do the practice without receiving the proper initiation from a qualified lama. But and, ideally, it’s best to receive the initiation because this makes the practice far more powerful and far more effective for the mind. But because it is such a beneficial practice, the lamas encourage people to do it, at least the daily practice, without the initiation. Because it’s not always, you know, one especially in the West, you know, it’s not always possible to, you know, to meet a lama who’s qualified to give the initiation. So until one does, it it it one can still do the practice on a daily basis without the initiation.
So the tantric deity Buddha Vajrasattva embodies or symbolizes the the indestructible natural purity of our mind. So this is what we’re trying to access in a sense and relate to in order to purify our mind. So in what what we there’s there’s an elaborate ways of doing this in the little have you all got the copy of the text, the little booklet, the short Vajrasattva? It was given out before. Does does everyone have one with them?
Good. Great. When when I get these handouts, please try and bring them every week because sooner or later, I’ll refer to them or use them. So so this text is an abbreviated version of the actual the the standard practice. And, again, if you don’t have to of course, there’s there’s there’s no way I or anyone can make you do this at night.
Has everyone got a copy? No? Well, let me know because, unfortunately, I’m not clairvoyant. But I I’m not clairvoyant, but I have spare copies. So So this is an abbreviated version and put together by Lama Sopa Rinpoche.
I’ve modified it just a little bit. And and, again, just you can use your imagination. Oh, what? Oh, no. Okay.
You can leave things out if there’s no time. The the the essential practice is to try and visualize the deity on your crown. And and when I say visualize the deity on your crown, you don’t worry about if one can’t actually visualize. You you imagine, you pretend you are. Some people, you know, I’m very jealous, seem to be able to visualize very easily.
No matter what it is, they can do it. Most people, including myself, find it very difficult to visualize. But, so, of course, if one really can do it, that’s best. It’s most effective. Although not necessarily because some people can visualize, but it it’s not done with any real sense of refuge or devotion or concentration or whatever.
So the main thing is again sorry to have some faith in the practice. To have faith in yourself, some faith in the practice. And you just imagine the Vajrasattva is there. But, you know, however much one can actually get a sense of Vajrasattva being there is better. But even if you can get some white light, you know, just a bit of even if it’s a bit gray white light something.
But if yeah. So don’t take that visualization too concretely that it’s not working or it’s wrong if one’s not actually a hundred percent got this crystal clear image of the deity above one’s crown. But in so one visualizes the deity above the crown, one recites the mantra, and you imagine this white light and nectar coming from the deity from yeah. And in into you through the crown of your head. And one of the vital things to try again to imagine, if you can actually, you know, experience it in some way, that’s super best, but even if nothing you just pretend it’s happening, you try to imagine that this light and nectar is blissful.
Yeah? Because we’re not trying to punish ourselves in purifying. It’s not like the more pain we experience, the greater the purification. Actually, the more bliss we can feel. But if we don’t feel any bliss, don’t think, oh, it’s not working.
It’s not like that. It doesn’t work like that. Because if we do the practice, it definitely is purifying the mind. It is definitely purifying the mind. One should become a hundred percent convinced of this.
It’s definitely purifying the mind. Whether you know it or not, it’s definitely doing something. There’s no doubt. No doubt about that. Yeah.
So then one imagines that all what it one’s negativities leave the mind in the form of black liquid. Of course, the negativities, the negative imprints aren’t anything physical. This is just a technique. But the technique was invented, for want of a better word, by the Buddhas. You can’t get a better inventor than the Buddha.
Right? This is what we have to trust. This wasn’t invented by some Tibetan. So many people think Tibetan Buddhism was invented by Tibetans. This is not invented by Tibetans.
This comes from the Buddha, from the tantras which weren’t written in Tibet. They were the teachings of the Buddha in India that were brought to Tibet. So it’s a technique just like using meditation techniques some people have taught like to cure cancer you imagine these you just visualize things eating up your cancer. So to some some extent it works if you can do that. This isn’t even a Buddhist technique.
It doesn’t come from the Buddhas. It just comes from ordinary human beings thinking up things based on techniques coming from India. But it works to some not always, but to some extent it works because as, you know, many people say, like myself, I can’t visualize. And Lama Yeshe used to say when people said that to him, but my dear my dear, you’re visualizing all the time. We are visualizing all the time.
We have a we are visualizing ourself in a particular way. We have a concept of who we are. We hold images all the time. We we’re not conscious of this, but we have images of other people, the people we like. We have good visualizations of the people.
We we project this nice image onto them. People we dislike, we project this ugly image onto them. Yeah. We conceptualize about people. We visualize them in certain ways.
We’re doing it all the time. We see a nice piece of clothing and we visualise how wonderful this would make me look, how sexy and attractive and blah blah blah and whatever. Or me driving in this car or whatever. We are visualizing all the time and that affects our reality. We visualize what the world is like.
We have a concept that the world is either good, bad, or this or that. And, of course, it changes with time, but we and that that way we think about the world, we see the world is what we experience to some it determines how we experience the world. So by visualizing the trying to, you know, put ourselves in this positive state of visualizing this happening, the more we can think it’s happening, it will happen. It is happening, but the more we think it’s happening, we let ourselves go into that, the more it will be effective. So that’s the main thing is to do it actually with faith.
And you don’t have to re pronounce the the mantra correctly. I mean, that’s good, but it’s not necessary. There are many stories, you know, about yeah. Oh, anyway. There’s no time for anything.
There’s almost time to finish. Anyway, there’s a story. I I I get them all botched up, but there was what what happened? Anyway, some very simple peasant Tibetan was taught a mantra by a lama, and he misunderstood the mantra, misheard it, and he pronounced pronounced it in this ridiculous way. But he had incredible devotion to the lama, you know, and the mantra.
So whenever he recited it that way, it it benefited him. It worked. Then some monks, some, you know, ritzy monk came along who was thought he was self he was very clever and highly educated and he heard this peasant and said, oh, you’re ridiculous. You’re not pronouncing it properly. You know, you idiot.
It’s pronounced like this. So the poor little guy started pronouncing it in the correct way, and then it stopped working because he didn’t have any faith because he he liked the way his lama had told and he he trusted his lama. But now this smart aleck monk told him it was like this. This was the correct way. So he did it the correct way because the smart aleck monk told him to do it that way.
But then he didn’t really have the feeling for it, and it didn’t work. And then along came the alarm and said, forget the smart aleck monk. Do it the way you like. And he did it, went back, and then it worked again. Alright.
So that’s the basic thing. The basic thing is just to you know, so you gotta do that very quickly. You know, Buddha on your head, the Vajrasattva on your head, recite them, or, of course, apply the four opponent powers. That’s the essential thing, having the regret, some refuge, some bodhicitta, some faith in the remedy, and and want wanting to do it with a sense of not wanting to engage in negative actions again, and then you try and concentrate as much as possible and recite the mantra and so like that. So that’s the essential thing, but so it’s all set out here in words and some extra prayers, etcetera, etcetera.
So the the just the just quickly, the description of the deity. So you visualize, like, just a cubits above your crown, there is a lotus, a a multi petaled pure white lotus in the nature of light, transparent, radiating light, which is not a lotus, you know, it’s it’s it’s the Buddha’s mind. It’s the omniscient mind appearing out of compassion to purify us, Then floating horizontally on the lotus or just above the lotus, a little bit smaller in diameter, is a white moon disc that symbolizes bodhicitta, great compassion, etcetera. And then seated on this in the center, just above the center of the moon disc is Vajrasattva who has a hollow body, of white light. So yeah.
Does that make sense a hollow body like a balloon a hollow body of pure white light. So Vajrasattva is seated with his legs crossed in the vajra position so that the right foot is resting on the left thigh and the left leg the left foot is resting on the right thigh. Then his lower body is adorned with a silk like garment of many different colors you can imagine whatever colors you like. Silk like it’s not silk because it’s made out of dead worms. This is the mind of the Buddha appearing as a robe that’s incredibly beautiful and precious.
And the lower upper body is bare but he has also across his shoulders some silk like scarves but also his holy body is adorned with these different jewels and the jewels symbolize the six perfections of generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration, and wisdom. So just as we ordinary human beings like to adorn our body with jewels to make ourselves look more beautiful and attractive, The Buddhas are most attractive because they have these six ornaments of the mind. So all of that, you know, it’s a physical image, but it’s a representation of utterly pure mind. Right? So oh, anyway.
So the Buddha’s, Vajrasattva has deep blue hair and it’s tied in knots. Some of it is tied in knots directly above the crown of his head and some is hanging over his shoulders. And then he wears a crown which has five sort of points, and these symbolize the five wisdoms of a Buddha. And then he has three strands of jewels necklaces. Sorry.
One sort of close to his neck, one at the level of the breast, one hanging down to the waist. And he has these jeweled armlets on both arms. There are these armlets and bracelets, a jeweled belt, and also, as you can see on his feet, there are these jeweled anklets. So these symbolize the six perfections, the six perfect qualities of the enlightened mind. And so you imagine that his body is very youthful, sixteen, which is the perfect age.
After sixteen, we degenerate. We fall to bits. So his peers I mean, like like sixteen. You imagine his face is extremely beautiful and peaceful, smiling. Although he’s on the crown of your head, he’s looking directly at you with incredible compassion and wisdom and love and affection and acceptance.
He’s not blaming us for the negative things we’re doing. He has complete perfect compassion for us. So then, his hands are holding these two implements, these two tantric implements, which is the bell and dorje. So this is a a Dorje, so it has many symbol symbolisms in tantra just but the the the simple basic one is that it symbolizes bodhicitta. The dorje literally means, or literally, dorje is made of two words, dor je. Je means lord. Dor means stone. So it’s the lord of stones, which refers to a diamond. So it it’s referring to something indestructible, which is the which is the pure mind, but also the bodhicitta mind is indestructible. Yeah.
Of of a of a a a Buddha, that mind is utterly indestructible, never changes, is perfect, complete, that utter determination to only benefit all sentient beings perfectly all the time. So there’s that indestructible Bodhi mind. And and so that is held at the heart to symbolize that this is, you know, the very essential wish of the enlightened mind, which we are trying to identify with because we have that seed within us. That’s part of our Buddha nature. And so in the left hand, the the Vajrasattva holds a bell, which is resting on the left left knee.
So the bell symbolizes emptiness at which I think I’ve explained before because the sound arises and only exists dependently. It arises dependently. It doesn’t exist inherently from its own side. It can only exist depending on this little clapper thing on the casing casing of the bell and the handle and you have to have someone to hold the bell and then you have to have some movement and you have to have air and then you have to have people with ears to hear the sound. No one hearing it, no sound.
So put all those things together, depending on all of those things, there is a sound. But no sound exists from its own side, not depending on anything. The sound is is not all the it’s not it’s not the movement. It’s not the bell. It’s not the clapper.
It’s not any of those things. It’s not all of those things put together. It’s something that momentarily arises depending on all of those things. And that’s all the sound is. It’s empty of existing from its own side, and everything is like that sound.
And, also, it’s you know, that sound, the bell symbolizes impermanence that everything is changing moment by moment. So and also emptiness and bodhicitta, those two things together are what what brings about enlightenment. Enlightenment is that indestructible unification of bodhicitta and emptiness or the wisdom realizing emptiness. So that just briefly is the symbolism of the deity And also what we try to visualize is that in in the heart in the heart chakra, which is not the physical heart, but in about the level of here was that the sternum? In but in right in the center of the chest is the heart chakra.
So you imagine that there is a tiny, tiny white moon disc there, and then around the standing upright, around the edge of the moon disk, you know, like here’s the moon disk. So standing upright, you know, around here are the hundred syllables of the Vajrasattva mantra that you’re all going to memorize because it’s not easy. It doesn’t work very well just to read it. I mean, first, you have to read the mantra, but one for it to really work, you know, one needs to memorize the mantra. And it will come if you do it regularly.
As I’ve mentioned before, at least from my very bad memory, there’s very few mantras and prayers I have consciously put effort into sitting down and memorizing. All the ones I do know have come basically from repeating them more or less daily or fairly regularly. But of course you can put effort into actually memorizing them. Just quickly, are there any questions so far? Yeah.
Oh, the six these are the six perfections, what I call the six perfections or the six paramita or the six far reaching attitudes, which is in order, generosity, morality patience perseverance or enthusiastic effort concentration meaning single pointed concentration and then wisdom Okay. So in a group, mantras are when we do group practice, it’s just logical, at least for some time, to chant mantras out loud, and you chant them with some kind of tune. And there are various tunes one can use and so on. But mantras are mainly meant to be recited, you know, by oneself, not out loud, but quietly. So you you can just yourself hear them.
Other people shouldn’t be able to hear them, and you recite them fairly quickly, actually, quickly as possible. But, yeah, not so quickly that it becomes just a blur and meaningless because one should be able to recite it quickly so that, you know, each syllable is distinguishable. You you know what you’re saying. In a sense, you know you’re saying the syllables. You don’t have to know the meaning of the syllables.
Right? Because that somehow does generate some energy. If doing your mantras slowly by yourself, can, you know, can be a bit chanting them out loud slowly is can be very nice, but the main way is to recite them quietly like that because but that is also a beginner’s practice because the ultimate way of reciting mantras is something completely different at very advanced level. Any questions? We’re or less okay.
We’ll get to that. Yeah. No. We’ll definitely demo. Right.
So just quickly, we’ll go through the little text here. I won’t read it all, but because I hopefully you know, like, during the week, if you have any question problems with the words, the meaning, or anything, then please, ask in the homework or ask me in the future classes. But, so it starts with where are we? Page four. So there’s the actual practice.
So the visualization, you think of your parents on either side. You have the normal visualization. You can then so that yeah. So then you can think of the Buddha in front of you as you recite the refuge formula generating that refuge three times, then you generate the power of regret. So you have the choice of reading what is there, which was written by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and this is to get a sense of, you know, one’s created negative actions and how they can only ripen a suffering, and when that suffering comes, how unbearable it is.
Yeah? And so we develop regret. And combining that with us to make that sense of regret even urge more sense of urgency to remember how I could die at any moment. So I really and and if if I die, this negative karma, some of my horrible negative karma could ripen and throw me into the lower realms. And once I fall into the lower realms, it’s incredibly difficult to get out.
Even if it’s difficult to believe in being reborn as an animal or a preta or the hell realms, just imagine, you know, we could be reborn as a human being, but you think of the the places and situations, even in Australia, one could be reborn in families and situations where it is, you know, it is really hellish, where there’s, you know, there’s no money, no education, the you know, not just the family, but the whole environment is full of violence and drugs and lawlessness and, you know, this and that. And there’s no chance to do anything. You know, you may be born as you know, I mean, you you know, if you live in go to India and you go to Bihar, one of the poorest, most horrible provinces of India where where the Buddha manifested enlighten. Bihar, the state of Bihar is called Bihar is a corruption of the Sanskrit word Vihara, which is Buddhist temple because there were so many monasteries there before. But now it is a place of absolute corruption and poverty and horror in many ways.
But you see these kids of the so poor, but you look in their eyes and they are so smart, intelligent little kids. There is so much potential there. And then you look at their mothers who are, you know, only twenty years, twenty five years older than them, and they look like forty or fifty. And those people, like their eyes are dead. Their life has been destroyed by poverty.
Then there’s no hope for them. Yeah. And they’re living where the Buddha lived. Yeah. And tourists from all over the world come there to, you know, take those places.
But those kids can’t make any use of it. Never will be able to. I mean, maybe one or two, but they just don’t have the circumstances. And all you know? And then yeah.
Anyway yeah. So you don’t have to think about the hell realms and the pretas. You know? The it’s just we could be reborn as a human being where there’s no chance to practice again and only to experience all our negative stuff because those people are abused and cheated in so many horrible ways. The violence and corruption of those, you know, is so bad there.
You know? Because when you’re down at the bottom of the heap, you know, you just get you know? You have not you can’t protect yourself, and you’re just used. You’re enslaved and cheated and used. Right?
No. Did it sound like I said that? No. No. If you create the cause, you get the effect.
If you get born in a poor family in Bihar, you created the cause in the past. You may have all wonderful qualities, but when the conditions ripen, then the karma ripens. When the conditions come, if one hasn’t purified this is the point! If we haven’t purified our karma, sooner or later the conditions come and then it ripens. So this is the point we need to see that we need to purify these imprints because they’re there and we’ve got the best chance to do so now.
Yeah. And this precious human rebirth can end long before we die. You know, we can go crazy. We can you know, our body can get mangled. All sorts of things.
We can go blind and deaf. So then the second part of the power of reliance is when generating bodhicitta, trying to wanting to purify the mind not just to avoid suffering oneself, but seeing that while I’m suffering, I can’t benefit others, and I will actually probably harm them. So I want to benefit sentient beings. I want to repay their kindness. I want to help them to not suffer, not make more suffering for them.
So that’s why I want to purify my mind so that I can follow the spiritual path more effectively. So thinking like that, you you imagine that the Buddhas, the enlightened mind, the dharmakaya responds, and so you then think that lotus appears, the moon seat, then Vajrasattva, or you can imagine it all happening at once. You yeah. If you have a teacher, a guru, that you’re connected with, then you think that Vajrasattva and and the guru are the same, you know, exactly the same, inseparable. Also, to do it completely, At Vajrasattva’s heart is a moon disc, and I said on the around the edge of the moon disc are the syllable are the are the are the syllables.
So here we have the moon disc at his heart, and standing upright are the the syllables of the mantra. But in the center in the standing upright is the syllable hum so you can visualize it as in English syllables just like that or you can try and visualize the Tibetan letter which looks something like like that, which is, in this case, it’s white, and that symbolizes the very essence of Vajrasattva’s mind. So every deity has a mantra, and every deity has what is called a seed syllable that symbolizes the very essence of that deity’s quality. So in this case, it’s a white hum, which we try and visualize in the standing in the center of the moon disc. Okay?
I’m waiting for the trap door to Okay. Okay. So then what one can do is as you visualize Vajrasattva on your crown as much as you can or at least think that Vajrasattva is there, then you make a, like, a really strong heartfelt request to Vajrasattva for your mind to be purified of all the negative karma, negative the negative imprints to be purified of all the negative imprints created when one engaged in negative actions of body in this life and in all past lives. Because this method can purify things that we know of, that we’ve done in this life, but everything we’ve done in the past. And the point is that we can know by logic, by inference, that we must have done in past lives every conceivable negative action.
Because we’ve had so many lives, there’s been time for all the conditions to come when we’ve done very terrible things. Because we all have self-cherishing, and right now, our self-cherishing isn’t too strong. And we we all of us here, you know, we all have different sort of lives and situations and whatever. But generally speaking, all of us here are very fortunate people. Hopefully, we don’t have too many, you know, horrible things happening in our life.
And but it’s it’s really worthwhile sort of checking honestly, but to realize, you know, when we look at the stories of what other people have done, the terrible things that other people have done, including killing other people, murdering people, it’s because mostly their self-cherishing has been involved. They’ve been in conditions where their self-cherishing can’t cope, either because of fear to themselves or because they’re surrounded with so much temptation. You know? There’s all these people who are or family or friends or relatives who have got so much money, and I don’t. You know?
And it’s it’s always there, you know, tempting me. So whereas yeah. You know, it’s really interesting to think about how easy it is to be nice when everything’s going on in your life. When you’re surrounded by nice people, I mean, it’s and it’s a it’s a pretty nasty person who is nasty to nice people. Yeah.
It’s kind of more you know, it’s easy to be nice to nice people who are being nice to you. Right? But when people aren’t nice to you, it’s much more difficult to be nice to un nice people. That’s the real challenge. Anyone can be nice to nice people.
That doesn’t require any effort. Usually. It shouldn’t. But it does require for us as ordinary people effort to be nice to unpleasant people. Yeah.
And if they’re too unpleasant, we we not only find it impossible to be nice, we start to find it easy to be quite nasty ourselves. Then all sorts of things happen. So we’ve done all these horrible things Fortunately, of the the negative imprints from that have already ripened. We’ve experienced all the horrible suffering results. But we don’t know what things haven’t been purified, and when we don’t know when the conditions will come that will that will, lead to the ripening of those things, those karmas.
You know, there’s so many weird, weird, weird things happen to people in the world, and that any of those things could happen to us because maybe we’ve created the same actions in the past. So we’ve got the chance to purify now. So, anyway, I’m getting carried away. So we think, you know, wanting to purify the negative actions of body that we know we’ve done, but also all every other possible negative action of body such as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct. So so you make that request, and then as you recite the mantra, you imagine this white light and nectar coming from Vajrasattva from the syllables in the heart flowing down his body.
It comes down into us through the crown of our head and fills our whole body. And as it fills the body, we imagine that all those negative imprints from negative behavior of body, leave the mind in the form of black liquid, and it pours out from the lower part of our body and disappears, becomes completely nonexistent, and we and we imagine our whole being filled with this blissful white light and nectar. So a demo of the mantra. So, unfortunately, the mantra, I should have changed it, is written here according to the Sanskrit phonetics, but it in the Tibet the Tibetans don’t pronounce it exactly that way anymore. So it’s it’s generally good to follow the Tibetan tradition because they are our teachers.
So it goes something like this. You know, when you’re chanting it out loud. Okay. So that’s chanting it slowly. But when when one just I mean, if you want, you find you enjoy it and find it more effective, of course, you can chant it out loud yourself at home doing but, of course, it takes much longer to do it that way.
But my recitation of mantras, I think, is about average. Some people can do it incredibly fast. But, otherwise, you know, when you’re doing it quietly by yourself, you know, you do something like Like that, but not out loud quietly and even faster if you can. Right? So so since we’re encouraged to do at least twenty one of the long mantras at night, it’s good to do seven purifying the body with doing that visualization, the white light nectar pouring into us and the negativity is leaving from the lower part of the body to purify our negative actions of body.
And we should think of specific things we ourselves have done either that day or in this life, especially those. But, you know, also think in general, I must have killed and, you know, all sorts of stuff in past lives. Okay. When you’ve done finished the seven, then you make another request to Vajrasattva to purify one’s speech, to purify the negative imprints from negative actions of speech done in this and past lives, such as, especially, lying, divisive speech, where we use our speech to cause division between people or maintain a division between people who are not getting on, or increasing the division, harsh speech, which is using our speech to, you know, ridicule people, put them down, criticize them, you know, upset them in any way, even just using one’s speech to make unpleasant noises to upset people or, you know, in you know, using swear words to upset people. If you know there are people who really don’t like hearing rude words, you say rude words just to upset them.
If there are people who quite like rude words, then using them maybe doesn’t become harsh speech, but using it deliberately to upset people is harsh speech. Even teaching the Dharma to people who are not ready for it becomes negative speech. Yeah. If Just blabbing the Dharma to anyone and it can actually cause them misunderstanding and upset them, that is negative speech. And the other one is idle gossip, meaningless idle gossip.
Sometimes described as, what is it, discussing the joys of saṃsāra, which is said to be the least negative but the greatest waste of time. Okay. So those yeah. So, again, as we slightly different visualization. This time, as we recite the mantra, we think the the nectar and light comes blissful into us.
But this time, we imagine that the nectar and and light fills our body from the lower part of our body upwards like a cup being filled. And as the cup the the vessel of our body is filled with this light and nectar, The negative imprints from kill from harsh speech leave the mind and float on top in the form of black liquid, floats on top of the white light and nectar that’s filling the body. And then this black goo comes out through the crown of our head and again dissipates, becomes nonexistent. Okay. So when we’re purifying the body, the negative black goo leaves from the lower part of our body.
When we purify our speech, it comes out through the crown of our head. And, again, by the end of the seventh repetition, we feel that we’ve completely eliminated all those negativities of speech. And the whole being blissful white light nectar. And then finally, to for the the third part, when we make a strong request with with sense of regret, etcetera, to purify all the negative actions done in this life and past lives with our our mind itself. So particularly the three non virtuous actions of mind are covetousness, ill will, and wrong views.
So then this time as we recite the mantra, we think that that from every syllable of the mantra and the at Vajrasattva’s heart, these intense flashes of light come out like bolts of lightning, and just instantly all these negative imprints of our mind disappear. And it’s again, it’s you know, these bolts of lightning are are, you know, extremely blissful. And and in the in the teachings, says you imagine just like when you turn the light on in a dark room, then the darkness disappears. So the same way, these bolts of lightning instantly eliminate all these negative imprints from the mind. So, again, try and recite seven mantras, and, at the end, one thinks now now I’m com I’ve completely purified my mind of all imprints.
So we’ll just just before we take a break so any questions? Is that okay? So there’s just a little bit more to do, but we’ll take a tea break now. Christina, I said at the beginning, you don’t have to do all of this. This is best, especially as a beginner to to to firstly try and do it well to be familiar.
But the essential thing is just visualize Vajrasattva on your head. Yeah. Say the mantra, white light and nectar coming and purifying. Right? Combined with the four opponent powers, feeling the regret, having a sense of refuge, bodhicitta, and the you know, wanting not to do these things again.
But by going through this, it it makes it more you know, doing it more elaborately, it more yeah. This is just to help make it more effective. And this is an abbreviation of the actual meditation practice. There’s when you do the retreat where of a hundred reciting a hundred thousand Vajrasattva mantras, then the sadhana is much longer. Not that much longer, but it’s longer.
It’s more elaborate, more details. But the whole purpose of is to make make the whole thing come alive. The more abbreviated you do it, unless one has a lot of or, you know, established a lot of familiarity, it it it tends not to have so much substance. Does that make sense? But also once one has done the elaborate practice for some time, because one has some developed a familiarity with the practice, then you can do the very brief one way, it still has the same power because you you already develop that familiarity.
Okay. Does that make some sense? Yeah? No. No.
No. No. No. People who especially, you know, these should only be can only be used if you’ve received initiations. And, also, because there are different levels of initiation, you can only use them according to the level of the initiation.
Yeah. But when I do the elaborate sadhana meditation practice of this deity deity, you use the Dorsian bell. But not just the visual. You don’t hold the the things in yeah. No.
You don’t pretend you’re vajra Saphon and hold it. No. You don’t do that. Okay. Tea break or coffee break, water break.
For those who didn’t get enlightenment in the break time, you can have it at the end of the class. Okay. Before I go on, just while I think of it, we’ve got two more classes after this, and then there’s the retreat on Saturday, the something around first of March. So I would encourage people to come for that if they can because then we will really be able to put all this together and practice it together so you can really hopefully get a taste of the whole thing. And so please register for this because it’s good to know how many people will be coming for it.
Yes. Okay. So just continuing. We’ll finish this Vajrasattva. So then having having recited the mantras, then and the tradition is to to do twenty one of the long mantra.
Then having done that, what’s important is to really try and generate this strong faith as much as one can that one really has purified through that practice. Because of because depending on one’s own, you know, however much one has cultivated the four opponent powers, however much and depending on the fact that there are the Buddhas and the the there is the the the mantra itself has its somehow its its own power. It doesn’t inherently exist. But the nature of fire is to burn. Fire does the fire doesn’t inherently exist, but it does have its own intrinsic nature, which is it burns.
All fire burns. So mantras do not inherently exist, but they do have their own intrinsic qualities. And the quality of the Vajrasattva mantra is to purify. It doesn’t. If you chuck a few more logs on the fire, the fire will get bigger and hotter and if you fan it, it will get hotter.
But, you know, nature of the fire doesn’t change. It’s burning. So the nature of the mantra is to purify. But depending on all these other factors, one’s own faith, the way one does it, how long one does it, how much concentration, etcetera etcetera, it will purify that much more. But no matter what, it will just merely saying it will purify to some extent because that’s its nature.
So I want you to think that so the way to make that as real as possible is you think that so having finished reciting the mantras, you think that Vajrasattva on your crown speaks to you. He actually talks to you. He says the words are child of the race, which is referring to being someone who has a connection with the Mahāyāna tradition. You have faith in enlightenment and the path to enlightenment. So Vajrasattva says to you child of the race, your negativities, obscurations and broken and damaged pledges have been completely purified.
So since Vajrasattva is a Buddha and he can’t lie, then one should have strong faith that this is really true. I have purified my mind. So then the next thing is to apply the power of restraint or resolution, the fourth of the opponent powers, which is making the determination to avoid specific negative actions for specific periods of time. So you make that promise to Vajrasattva, trying to have a strong sense of the Vajrasattva is is oneness with all the Buddhas. And if one has a guru, if one has that relationship, really thinking you’re promising your guru who is, you know, oneness with all the Buddhas or is a channel for all the Buddhas.
So you make that promise, and then having made that promise, you think that Vajrasattva is extremely pleased by that because that’s what, you know, all the Buddhas want us to, you know, practice virtue. They want us to become free of suffering. So when we do something that is taking us in that direction, they are extremely, extremely happy. As the Lama’s explained in the teachings, it’s like a parent who has this just natural, incredible, love for their child, even if their child is is a really ratbag naughty kid who just does wrong things all the time, still the mother or father loves that child. But if that child who’s been a real problem all their life suddenly does something good, then the parent is so happy that finally their child is doing something right.
Finally, they are so happy. They always love the kid. They will always love it no matter what he or she does. But when it does something good, that makes them so happy. So it’s like this with the Buddhas.
They love us. They see us doing all these ridiculous, stupid, self-cherishing things, but they still love us. But when we start to do something good practicing the Dharma purifying our mind it makes them so happy. So that’s what we imagine. The Vajrasattva is so happy that we’ve made this commit.
We’ve purified our mind for the sake of others, and we’re making this resolution to avoid negativities as much as possible in the future. So because of that, you know, because Vajrasattva is so happy, he shows that by melting into this white light, this intense super blissful white light. And the reason he melts into that light is dissolves into it or becomes just that massive light is for that light to come into us and and bless our mind. So that light pours into us and so we become even more blissful. We imagine becoming super blissful and think that that is blessing our mind our our body’s speech and mind.
We try and think that our body becomes blessed by Vajrasattva’s body. Our speech becomes blessed by Vajrasattva’s speech, our mind becomes blessed by Vajrasattva’s mind. And one way to think, relate to that is to think that with this blissful energy coming into us that blesses our body so that it becomes harder for our body to do negative things and easier to do use the body in a beneficial way. That due to the blessing of the Buddha Vajrasattva’s speech, it becomes harder for our speech to become negative and easier to use our speech in meaningful ways to, you know, to tell the truth, to not not be harsh, but actually for our speech to be really kind and helpful and encouraging and so on. And our mind being blessed by Vajrasattva’s mind, we try and develop this faith that it becomes harder for our mind to go in negative ways of thinking and easier to follow the Dharma path.
Right? So there, to make it completely perfect, one meditates a little bit on emptiness. However, one understands that. But since I haven’t explained this, what emptiness is, to some people, anyway, this is a huge topic. So I think I’ll leave that.
So for people who have no familiarity with this topic or have had teachings on it but haven’t made any sense of them yet, just leave that for the time being. But if you know a little bit about emptiness, then it’s good to reflect on that. And then one finishes by dedicating the merit as usual. Okay so that’s the practice. So that is very good to do at night, at the end of the day.
Of course, it’s good to you know, if you do something negative anytime, it’s good to apply the four opponent powers immediately and to do this practice. You know, quickly visualize Vajrasattva, recite the mantra as much as possible. But at least try and do it in the evening before one falls asleep. Because then once if one dies one can have a good rebirth because one’s and one can have a good sleep and have good death because one’s purified the mind one’s in a positive state. So just another thing as a daily practice.
Again, some people are freaking out that there’s just so much stuff to do, but it’s all because it’s unfamiliar. Once you get familiar with it, it’s not such a big deal, really. It’s you know, it seems to be lots of words and lots of things and lots of prayers and lots of concepts to put together. But, really, if one gets into the habit of doing these things step by step, it really isn’t such a big deal. And you may think, oh, you can say that because you’re a monk, but, and maybe I can, but there are many well lay people who do not only this, but much more as a daily practice.
Much more. You know, living you know, married people with kids and everything, the whole shebang, they do it. Lots of you know? I’m I’m not trying to make you feel bad about that. I’m trying to say that it is possible.
It’s not that this is just what monks and nuns do or Tibetan people do and only in Tibet. This is what a lot of Buddhist practitioners, not just Tibetans, but Europeans, Asians all over right now do. I know people who do these practices. Lots of prostrations, you know, many things. I friends well, many years ago, they had two sons, but both their sons became monks.
One disrobed, one is still a a monk. But, they used to run the FPMT center in in Auckland, Tārā Institute center in Auckland, in New Zealand. So, the husband, he was a builder, carpenter. So he had a full time job running carpenter business. He built a numb helped build dharma centers, stupas in his part time.
That wasn’t his actual paid job. That was extra apart from his job. He built dharma centers, stupas, memorized Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra, entire book. Two kids, wife. Yeah.
Did many pros they they built a retreat house in the backyard. Husband and wife would alternate doing retreats. One would look after the kid, the other one would do a retreat. And the the wife was the director of this dharma center. Amazing stuff they did.
Wife did at least a hundred thousand prostrations. Yeah. At least. Yeah. So the all these things are possible.
It just depends on our, you know, seeing what’s important in life. I mean, people different people have different situations, of course, but, you know you know, really, this is not so much. It’s not such a big deal. Don’t visualize it’s a big deal because then it becomes a big deal. It’s not a big deal.
But then also don’t give yourself a hard time if you can’t do it. Just try your best. Yeah. Please. So just another little thing as as an evening ritual to do is which is also encouraged is in in this, of course, is much more difficult for people who are married or have a partner, especially if the partner is not Buddhist.
But this is the sleeping yoga of to make one sleep really effective is to lie lie to go to sleep lying in what is called the lion posture. So this is the posture that the Buddha adopted when he passed into parinirvana, And this posture is said to be the best posture to go to sleep in. So because one’s p sleep will be very peaceful, free of, bad dreams, etcetera, etcetera, very restful and so on, and helps the mind to be in a virtuous state. And so what one does so so especially those people here who’ve taken refuge, you have the commitment to do three prostrations in the morning, and there is commitment to do three prostrations in the evening. So one can do those just before you go to bed.
You know? You visualize the Buddha seated on your pillow. He’s seated there. You make three prostrations. Even if your husband or partner is laughing at the dive, you can do it.
Maybe it’s too embarrassing. And then when you lie in bed, you imagine that you put your head in the lap of the Buddha, so you’re protected by the Buddha as you go to sleep. And then you lie in the the lion posture, which is to lie on your right side. It’s much better to sleep. If nothing else, it’s good to sleep on your right side rather on than on your left or on your back.
But to lie sleep on your right side, and you have your your legs outstretched so that, you know, you have your one one above the other, and you put your left, that’s it, left arm resting on your left leg, and you, block your right nostril with that finger of your right. So you lie like that and go to sleep like that. At least if you can’t do this for very long because it’s very strange and uncomfortable, at least, you know, like his Holiness the Dalai Lama says, it’s good. At least, you know, just for, like, a a few moments when you first lie down like that is good. So then that helps to make one’s sleep peaceful, relaxing, healing, recuperative and virtuous And it’s also very good to consciously think as you’re going to sleep or just as you lie down to think that I’m sleeping to rest the body in order to get up and rest to once again practice for the sake of sentient beings.
So then it makes one’s sleep a virtuous practice. In Abhidharma, it talks about there are virtuous states of mind, non virtuous states of mind, and then there are neutral states of mind. There are four neutral states of mind, which means they can become positive or negative determining depending on what your motivation for doing them is. So sleep is one of these neutral mental states, But it can become negative if done just purely out of self-cherishing. But if one goes to sleep with a genuine thought, I am sleeping in order to refresh my body and mind, in order to be able to once again leap into the fray of practicing Dharma and challenging myself, cherishing and cherishing others, then with that motivation, every moment of one’s sleep becomes virtue, becomes the creator of merit.
So then one wakes up and does the daily practice. At least trying to generate, you know, the good motivation for today, thinking, you know, I could die today. Death is coming. I could die at any moment. And if I’m going I could die today.
So if this is possibly my last day, what should I do? Practice Dharma. What Dharma? Especially bodhicitta. What does that mean?
It means giving up self-cherishing as much as possible, cherishing others. So that’s what I’ll do. Okay. Any questions? How much oh, actually that’s it, isn’t it?
Really? For tonight, I didn’t get onto the Lamrim. Next week, we’ve got two more classes. Has everyone got their homework sheet? Please collect your homework sheet.
Please do the homework. Some people haven’t been doing it. Please try and do it. I hope it all makes sense what the homework is. Just very quickly, one person has this concern, I hope that this doesn’t embarrass him, about doing things, like the rituals of prostrations and so on, making offerings, but with not really having faith in these things.
So I don’t know if I can really answer this problem because, of course, the more faith we have in doing these practices, the more they will work. But and and developing faith is not something that one can just magically create in a sense well, in one sense, one has it or not. It doesn’t inherently exist, but I suppose the reason we have some faith in the Buddha’s teachings or not is is is this is a karmic result of past lives that we are born with some you know, some people have absolutely no faith in the Buddha’s teachings. Some people think the Buddha and the teachings are the work of the devil. But some people think they’re wonderful.
So that faith arises depending on past things. But even if we have faith in general in the in the Buddha or the Buddha’s teachings, you know, there’s specific things that we have more faith in than others. If I’m honest, there are certain aspects of the Buddha’s teachings I find difficult to relate to and under not understand or, you know, some things I don’t understand, but some things I find difficult to accept that, you know, this this is true. Other things is is not a problem at all. But I have a general faith in the mind and in the potential for minds to achieve enlightenment.
I think the Buddhist you know so I have this general faith in the Buddhist teachings, the essential teachings, and I feel that all of the teachings are interconnected. You can’t sort of separate them all. So they range from things which are extremely simple to things which are extremely profound and complicated, but they’re all part of the one thing. So because I have faith in the essential things, I have some faith that the other things even if I find it very difficult to relate to that they must be true. And I don’t and there are some things I have you know, the Buddha himself said in his holiness and encourages this that we should really try to not have blind faith but really understand because the more we understand the more our practice is based on something really rock solid, indestructible, vajra like.
But I have to confess there are things I don’t understand at all but I just have faith in. I just have blind faith that they’re okay. And because there’s no way to really understand them at an ordinary a lot of the Buddhadharma, I feel, is accessible to logic, but some of it, especially some tantric things, difficult to logically work out. But I think part of my blind faith is at least based on the fact that I’ve had the good fortune to meet really great lamas, the real thing. And somehow, these lamas practice these things, and they have un you know, unquestioning devotion to these practices.
So they teach them with incredible faith and devotion and some of that just flows, you know, affects oneself that you if if it’s if these lamas practice it and you see what incredible qualities they have, and I don’t some of you may maybe have yet to meet someone like Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Unfortunately, Lama Yeshe has passed away. But when you’re in the presence of these beings, they have such presence. They have such amazing qualities. Or, you know, maybe you’ve met his holiness, have been to his holiness’ teachings.
So they are what they are because they practice all of these things, all of these things that little dodo me is talking about. They practice them all the time. So I think that’s some basis for having some faith in these things. But also by doing them, even if one doesn’t have much faith, if you give them a chance you may find there is some effect. And then it’s because of that one’s faith in those things which wasn’t there before, can start to develop.
But if we don’t do them at all, we’re never going to find out whether they have any validity. And I don’t think it means you, one is being a hypocrite in doing these things without faith. But also with time, one can discover the meaning behind those things. It takes a lot of time to explain the meaning of every single thing. You know?
You know? There is a reason why the the teacher is supposed to sit on the throne. There’s a long story. Why? Going back to the time of the passing of the Buddha.
And I don’t know if you noticed, but when I get on the throne, I click my fingers. When I was very young in the Dharma, this is what Lama Yeshe used to do, and it used to make me quite angry because I thought he was giving a finger snap for now you peasants bow down to me, and that made me really angry. But then I discovered in the teachings, the teacher’s supposed to do that because this is to remind you this is impermanent. So it’s telling yourself, you’re getting on this throne, but don’t get your head in a, you know, in a knot because you’re just there for a moment. Don’t, you know, think you’re someone special because you’re getting on the throne.
It’s all impermanent. Right? So there’s a meaning behind it. It’s a ritual, but it has quite a good meaning. And everything we do has an explanation.
Everything. All the prayers, why they’re said, every part of the meditation posture is related to highest yoga tantra understanding of the mind and the winds and channels. That if you move if you do this, it affects movement of the winds, which affects your mind. Yeah. Everything has an explanation.
Yeah. This thing, every little part of that in the tantras has an explanation what that refers to. Yeah. It’s not a pretty, you know, decoration. It has a very profound explanation.
But it takes years to learn it all. But the main thing is to have some confidence, I think, where one’s faith can increase is that it comes from the lineage going back to the Buddha. And and all yeah. So if we do it, even if we don’t understand it, but we have faith that there are people who did it with understanding and they keep doing it and they teach it, they pass it on to others because it worked for them, it had a benefit for them. So that’s all I can say, I think.
So there is also the ritual of dedicating the merit because we’ve put all this time. You’ve had to sit there and listen to me blah blah blah. So this is actually quite meritorious, believe it or not. Some positive imprints in the mind that weren’t there before. So we can make we can dedicate that those imprints stay there so that they bring the maximum benefit, and the maximum benefit is for them to become somehow part of the process of an enlightening me.
Enlightening you, the me is, you know, me. Me. Me. Yeah? So it’s worthwhile going through this ritual.
And as my little ritual is, I can never find the page, but I have denied. 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 body mind, not yet born, arise and grow. May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore.
So it’s also one of the traditional rituals that at the end of the teaching, three prostrations are are made to the triple gem. So