Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 102-minute final session of an eight-week course, Ven Thubten Dondrub ties together the practical elements of daily Buddhist practice and explains how they work as an integrated whole. He clarifies the two main types of meditation—single-pointed concentration (focusing on one object like the breath or a visualized Buddha) and analytical meditation (investigating a topic logically)—and shows how foundational practices such as cleaning your meditation space, making water-bowl offerings, prostrations, and breathing exercises all serve to purify and settle the mind before sitting down to meditate. He walks through the role of refuge, the seven-limb prayer, and mandala offerings in accumulating merit, then addresses questions about symbolism and practical concerns. The teaching concludes with a broader reflection on how attachment to pleasant circumstances, while natural, can distract from genuine practice, and introduces Tonglen (taking-and-giving meditation) as a method to develop compassion and overcome self-centeredness. Suited for practitioners completing an introductory structured program and preparing for further study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2014 02 25 DB Daily Practice Week 8 250214 PT 2.mp3
UUID: 730a1bdc-bfd5-420d-b6b1-4e52fed60206
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Daily Practice (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2014-02-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 102.2 minutes
Words: ~2,966
To be a support for meditating. They can complement our practicing meditation. And do a little bit of if we’ve got the time, we’ve got the conditions to do a little bit of concentration, really helps calm the mind and but also to do. So to do those teachings properly, one needs to study here teachings on each of the topics. And not just one time, but really the rest of one’s life. Because every teacher will will explain the same topics in different ways, and even the one teacher Structure.
Structure, and and you you don’t get it. But but the way of explaining that or illustrating it can there’s endless possibilities. So You don’t meditate on nothing. You have to have a topic and object that your mind focuses on. So when it’s when you’re doing just simple concentration meditation, the object is just one simple thing like visualizing the Buddha or observing one’s breath or something or observing sensations in the body.
Just one thing. Whereas with analytical meditation, you focus on thinking about in a logical way, investigating at one topic, and you don’t veer away from that one topic. So in establishing a daily practice, one thing I would encourage people to do, especially as we’ve gone through a few things for us, it is about trying to establish a daily practice of meditating on the one to some to some extent. The Lamrim tradition that have now been translated into English. The most famous ones are Lamrim, which is Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.
So that’s, yeah, that’s really important to try to hear the teachings and then read about it, and so then you can meditate on it. So, yeah, so in in establishing establishing a daily practice is part of, like, a whole life story. So all the other prayers in this daily meditation practice are really about preparing the mind, setting up the mind to clear the obscurations whereby from the meditation on the lam we purify our mind. And the the more we purify our mind, the more and that when we apply that purified mind to the Dharma, our mind will be more effective. So these two so these things are well, there’s I I think I I mentioned last Wednesday night for those people who came to talk about I know this was so a couple of weeks ago, I was talking about and Mañjuśrī, what do I need to do to be able to really progress along the path of being all necessary realizations?
And Mañjuśrī basically said, you have mind, So all all the the prayer, like the the ritual of cleaning the room, having an altar, making offerings, all of this helps purify the mind in general, but purify the the mind in the moment so that when you sit down straight after cleaning the room and making offerings, the mind is a little bit more purified than before it did those things. So whatever meditation we do will it it it is being done with just that much more purified mind than it could have been. And it didn’t do that stuff. But it didn’t do those things. Of course, the the better we do those things with more faith, devotion, concentration, happy mind, blah blah blah, and all those things, the more the more it will purify the mind.
Am I making sense? Oh, yes. Yes. That’s good. Yes.
So, again, and and then why there’s the idea that you plan to the encouragement to make prostrations before we sit down and meditate because, again, this is purifying the mind. It’s humbling the mind. It’s helping to open the mind. Of course, all of these things, there’s no question, can become empty and meaningless ritual. But they weren’t designed to become empty and meaningless ritual.
They can be, if done properly, extremely, extremely powerful. For example, if you watch Lama Zopa, prostrations, there’s no question if if he’s going through something as ritual, especially in these days because Rinpoche has had a stroke, and his body has been paralyzed. So no. I knew Richard. I used to be young too, actually, thirty years ago.
And when when I not sure old man. And so when I first met Rinpoche, Rinpoche was very young, extremely thin, and he could prostrate like like like his body one having and the prayers also help with all of that. And the one says this one’s prostrating. And, of course, if one does the practice of the thirty five Buddhas, this is a very And then there’s the practice of of sitting in the correct posture because this helps the flow of our subtle energies in the body. And so if we don’t have to understand this, that this is part of higher tantra.
Of course, if we do understand it, it’s better. But we don’t have to know all of these things as long as we have some faith in them, some trust that it’s all part of the organic Buddhist teachings. So, actually, the tantric teachings of the Buddha give the most profound explanations of the mind and its different levels and how the mind is connected to the body. So by positioning the body correctly, that affects the subtle energies in the body, the movement of the subtle winds in the body, and just that helps to subdue the mind to calm the mind. So that’s very helpful to you.
And then there’s the breathing exercise, the the the nine-round breathing exercise to help reduce the the the gross agitation of the mind so that one’s meditation will be more effective. And then there’s the practice of generating refuge, which is like what distinguishes our practice from important non-Buddhist practices is taking refuge. So that’s really a vital thing to do. I mean, we should be trying to take refuge all the time, which is taking refuge or doing refuge is having that mind that wants to take care of the mind, mind is determined to take care of the mind and rely on the Buddhist teachings to do so. That’s what refuge is and what doing refuge is is taking care taking care of one’s mind using the Buddhist methods method.
They are unbetrayable method. So then there’s, you know, the yeah. The other practices of the seven-limb puja,, the seven-limb prayer, so the different limbs of that, you know, each limb has I think I explained all this. Each limb has its own particular purpose of either helps to purify the mind or accumulate merit. Then there’s the mandala offering of imagining offering the whole universe to the Buddha, this is a way to accumulate merit.
So some of you are fairly new to this course. This is the first course you’ve done, and I’m not sure if you’ve studied the Lamrim at all. Some people here have done some of the Discovering Buddhism courses already, and some of those courses deal with topics in the Lamrim because we we talked about the topics of death and suffering and karma and refuge. Meditate on. But slowly, slowly, one can people easily done.
The the Discovering Buddhism program was developed as a way to try to make it easier for people to really understand what what is it all about and what the practices. But no matter what program one develops, it never works completely because, like, in the case case of this program, some people are joining from that, which is okay. This is the first one I’ve done. But, actually, to do this one, should know quite a bit already. But that’s how it always is, that the only way we’re ever going to really put together the jigsaw puzzle of what what what it is, what one’s supposed to be doing is what one just picks it up step by step, slowly slowly over the years.
And you just jump in and try and you you just jump in and try and make sense of wherever you jumped in. Of courses like this, it was very confusing. But it’s much more confusing in the past than one or maybe I am making it more confusing. Anyway, do you have some questions? I’m not sure.
You may have covered it. Mhmm. I may I may have completely not listened. When we do water bowl offerings Mhmm. And so the idea is that at the end, in every evening, we take them down.
Yes. Can you explain the symbolism of why we take them down in the evening or when we finish a particular session or whatever it is? Because when we when we fill them up, we’re kind of welcoming our guests, aren’t we? We’re kind of seeing the deity to come. Right.
Right. So and if we leave the lights on, because we’re still making light offerings, I can’t get the symbolism of why would I why I take the the water bowls down. So you can make them the next morning. I don’t think there’s any to be honest, I don’t know it, to be honest. I’ve never heard any particular reason, like symbolic reason of of emptying them other than the very practical one, you have to empty them so that you can fill them up to make offerings the next day.
You could just as easily do that as you make the next day. So you empty them. You’re putting them out. Well, a moment. Yes.
Okay. That’s that’s what I was trying to think to myself. So why would I I thought there would be a meaning. Well And there will be somewhere. I’m just not sure what it is.
I I try to avoid some of the kind of can be interpreted to some of the Cultural? Cultural or, well, what’s the word? Mystical or Superstitious? Superstitious or aspects of that. We can we can be Buddhist without being.
Yes. Yes. Yeah. As what is what our karma as human beings. We’ve been born into a situation where there are many nice things.
Of course, there is suffering, but there is there are pleasant things, which is subtle pleasures, kind of pleasant stuff, you know, for sure. But there is a great danger that we can take those all those pleasant things as an ultimate in themselves that this is Yeah. But the great danger is as I said, that one could and let let me and I’m not saying you should stop those things or anyone should stop enjoying those things, but the great danger is for us is to take those as an ultimate order for all of those things together. But the thing is so here I go. But one can, you know, wake up every morning feeling how wonderful life is, but still we’re going to die in the separation.
Oh, Right? And no matter how how long we listen to chirpy birds or listen to, you know, you know, look at bunnies or rainbows or listen to Beethoven or look at Well, the precious is not just the fact that well, it’s not the fact that we’re in a place where which is nice and as such. Well, it is in a sense that because it it the person should be birth needs with a situation where we are not drowning and suffering or we have too much of it like the people. The whole people, everyone is incredibly beautiful, and they’re all young, you know, the time. And it’s all just just super beautiful, the light.
That’s the light show the entire time. And they completely waste all of them. And they practice down for one second because they’re having such a terrific time. You even if one can see all of the reasons, you know, really very illusory or whatever, still we have to recognize we are attached to things and we can’t give up our attachment just like that. It’s something that takes time because it’s dangerous to pretend one is or or or force oneself to be not attached, to be detached.
Because you you can’t force these things. It can only come through real insight into to what what what is going on. So that frees our mind to do something. Why? Well, it is in the sense that it is part of the Lam Rim meditation that we haven’t covered this.
We’re we’re coming to it next course. Then we’ve got Tonglen. This next course. Right? But very briefly, Tonglen is about giving and taking.
You you imagine you meditate on the suffering of others. Well, ideally, you start with yourself. But in any way, you don’t take too much time. You you you try and feel the suffering of another person. So it’s unbearable.
Something you care for. So you imagine you take that suffering from, and you imagine that you take the causes of the person. Extract the causes of the suffering from that person, and you you experience them. You have it. Because if you experience them, they don’t experience them.
And you imagine you could take it in a form of as you breathe in, you imagine breathing their suffering and their causes of their suffering in the form of this black, little, little black smoke. It suffocates your self-cherishing Yeah. It’s a mind training. It’s a mind training to develop love and compassion and overcome self-cherishing. So you imagine you’re doing this, but you have to imagine.
You have to, you know, for it to really super work, one has to get into a mindset where you believe you are taking. Because if you if you do it in a in a kind of what’s the word? Arms length. Yeah. Arms length.
Then then it’s not working. It won’t work. We we have to try and imagine that we really are taking that suffering and the causes so that this person is free of it. And the only way we can be free of it is if I have it. So while I’m enduring it, they don’t have to.
Even if it’s only for five minutes, I’ll take their suffering for five minutes so they have five minutes of freedom from suffering. Or I’ll take it for an hour, a day, a year, forever. Mind is formless. Right now, our formless mind is a mess. It’s confused.
It’s deluded. The the the essence of the enlightened state is pure mind, unconfused, pure omniscient, omniscient mind. That is the state we are seeking, where we don’t have to take any kind of breathing, any kind of body, any kind of body. But that enlightened mind for the benefit of others, not for its own benefit because just that purified mind is absolutely fulfilling. That which is called the enlightened mind is called the dharmakaya.
When we achieve dharmakaya, we’ve got everything we need. Whatever. It goes on. But for the sake of others, oneself, you as Buddha, will be able to manifest various kinds of bodies to benefit others. But, yeah.
Okay. Too great. And you can say, oh, that’s the killjoy, but these people are miserable and not the killjoy. They are happy and terrific. They are much happier people than us.
They can So I might be a killjoy. But I don’t know why. I’m probably moving along. Of ourselves, and sometimes we are horrified by ourselves. So all of that depends in just how mind interpreting who we are, how So, anyway, that that’s one thing.
Also, what is another because that helps us not be so attached. Motivation. Of course, we don’t have the actual body, too, and motivation. But by training them, by establishing it a daily oh, I get it. Sorry.
What this is establishing that this establishing daily practice is really about. What is it really about? It is about training our mind to generate. That’s what we’re trying to establish so that I can build a fresh state of mind. I can practice the the Dharma of giving up self-cherishing, cherishing others.
Why am I working? Working is basically just a worldly activity, but one can transform it by trying more and Yeah. Was always has been recording, but No. Kathy said it wasn’t before. So the main thing is to try practice tomorrow, and I don’t have a need to practice.
We all have a need to practice because we all have a mind that needs to be tamed. We all do. And it won’t go away by itself. So we all have the need to practice. Right?
It’s so important. We have that need for ourselves, but we need to we should start recognizing that my state of mind is affecting others. My state of mind is affecting me. That my mind, state of mind affects Yeah.
I I I I really don’t know. Possibly. But to be a hundred percent That’s true. They Okay. Thank you very much, everyone.
I hope I’ve said something over these eight weeks that has been useful and helpful and encouraged you to establish a daily practice. So hope to see you Saturday for your retreat from nine o’clock. We regularly at Buddha House, there is a meditation. Oh, no. This was given the corrective one hand up.
So if you’re attending the retreat, please fill this one. And there’s also in the student material a service satisfaction survey to fill that. So please bring the student material to the retreat. Any quest more final questions you’ve got, points to discuss? And our next course is how to develop virtues.
So this is the one So because this is the end of the course,