Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 108-minute session, Ven Thubten Dondrub introduces visualization meditation, a cornerstone of Tibetan Buddhist practice rooted in tantric teachings. He begins by clarifying a common misunderstanding: visualization is not daydreaming, but a disciplined mental practice using the mind’s eye rather than ordinary sight. The session covers the purpose of visualization—to plant positive imprints and awaken our Buddha nature—and explains why traditional thangka paintings serve as meditation aids. He then walks through a complete visualization of Śākyamūni Buddha in painstaking detail: the multicolored lotus, sun and moon discs, the Buddha’s hollow golden body, specific hand positions, facial features, and ornaments, emphasizing the importance of starting large and building the image through repeated description before resting the mind on it. Dondrub addresses the integration of mantra recitation, comparing mantras to tuning forks that activate dormant qualities like compassion within us. The teaching culminates in a full guided visualization that moves from building the Buddha’s form in front of you, to receiving purification, to transforming into the Buddha yourself, to radiating light outward to all suffering beings until they all become Buddhas. Suited to practitioners new to visualization who need concrete instruction and encouragement about the realistic challenges of mental training.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 11 26 DB How to Meditate Week 4.mp3
UUID: fa63f5e6-ba3e-4302-b819-cf77638cb6a9
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB How to Meditate (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-11-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 107.8 minutes
Words: ~9,548
I was emphasizing how important motivation is in meditation, and it’s important in everything we do, whether we’re Buddhist or not, But especially if we’re trying to follow the Buddhist teachings in any way at all, this is something important to do. So although I’ve emphasized motivation, I’m not going to spend much time tonight because I’m trying to find ways to Hello. Is that better? Yeah. Okay.
So if you’d like to join in, the prayer the traditional prayer that is done at the beginning of teachings is on page sixteen. As we do this prayer, the tradition is to sort of think to think of the Buddha or visualize the Buddha in front of oneself as one source of refuge, inspiration, guidance, and at the same time, if one to help make one’s motivation as as sincere and real as possible to try and think of sentient beings surrounding you. So the tradition is one thinks of one’s mother on the left, father on one’s right, the rest of one’s family or one’s friends and helpers behind, harmers in front. And then as much as one can thinking of all other human beings, and also if one has any belief in the other realms of existence as taught in the Buddhadharma, the the realms of animals and hungry ghosts, the hell beings, the different kinds of gods and the Bardo beings, we try and think of all of those as well with that thought, wanting to work with one’s mind to reduce and eliminate the negative aspects which cause harm, which bring suffering to ourselves, cause harm to others, and to develop those inner qualities that will bring genuine peace and happiness to ourselves and enable us to be a vast benefit to others.
So and the highest form of that is developing bodhicitta, the wish to achieve enlightenment in order to perfectly benefit all sentient beings without exception. Shog. 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 if you find it helpful, one could imagine that the Buddha in front of you is very pleased with your motivation and shows this by now coming to the crown of one’s head.
When directly above your crown, imagine the Buddha then dissolves into blissful golden light. That light then pours into you, blessing your mind so that your mind becomes very calm, clear, very still, very awake, very alert, very bright. So now we can spend a little bit of time doing some of the the meditation that I’ve been talking about. So firstly, we can just check our posture, trying to sit as comfortably as as possible in the correct posture, particularly paying attention to the positioning of our spine so that it’s really straight and our upper body is is is centered so that we’re not leaning forwards, backwards, or to either side. Just place your legs in whatever way is comfortable.
Put your right hand on top of the left, the thumbs lightly touching so that your hands are resting in your lap close to your body, but so that your upper arms or your arms are the upper arms are not touching the sides of your body. It can be helpful to lift your shoulders up and back a little bit, then relax them. And then straighten your head, tuck your chin in slightly to position your head correctly. Have your mouth lightly closed, your jaw relaxed, the tip of your tongue resting at the back of the top row of teeth at your palate. Have your eyes just a little bit open directing your gaze just a short distance down in front of you but without actively looking.
So then just check your posture just briefly by placing your awareness at the crown of your head and then just for a short time, not very long, move your awareness continuously down through your body just being aware of any sensations, particularly noticing any points of tension. Through awareness of those points of tension, one can begin to let go of that. So having prepared your body, now prepare the mind to meditate by focusing on your breath and do the nine round breathing exercise combining it if you feel comfortable with the visualization. So starting with being aware of as you breathe in both nostrils, just focusing on the breath coming in the left nostril, going out the right for first three breaths, then reversing for the next three breaths, focusing on the breath coming in the right nostril out the left. And then for the final three breaths, focusing on the breath coming in both nostrils and out both.
And as you’re doing that with the in breaths, one can strengthen it by imagining breathing in very soothing white light coming from the Buddha. Brings great clarity and peace into the mind. With each out breath in the cycle, imagine that you breathe out whatever agitation is existing in the mind right now, any suffering, causes of suffering, disturbing thoughts, negative imprints. You breathe that out in the form of black smoke. It dissipates, becomes completely nonexistent.
So then conclude the nine round breathing exercise and the visualization And having prepared the mind in this way, now just focus on the meditation exercise of being, in a very simple way, mindful, aware of your breath coming and going. Just focus on the breath coming in both nostrils, going out both. Trying to be aware as much as possible of that subtle sensation in and around your nostrils. Just focusing on that. Let everything else, past, present, thoughts of the future, everything good or bad that is not awareness of the breath, just let go of it.
Don’t pay attention to it. Don’t give in to it. Just let your mind fully experience the breath as much as possible. And to do that, it can be helpful to count the breaths. One in breath, out breath, you take as one breath.
Try and follow eleven consecutive breaths. But if you get caught up in one of the hindrances of sinking or scattering, then you need to go back and start the count from the beginning. Keep doing this without any sense of expectation or disappointment. So bring the meditation to a conclusion by relaxing one’s concentration and just gradually opening one’s eyes properly. K.
Thank you. So just to emphasise that when we train our mind to be more concentrated by placing the mind trying to place the mind on one object and keep it there. We have to expect, because we haven’t trained our mind, that our mind won’t stay on the object for very long. It we we do experience these hindrances of either sinking or or scattering or or distraction. So particularly when distraction happens, one one thing to help bring the mind back to the object is to simply label whatever is happening whether it’s a sound like some of the sounds coming from next door.
You just label it sound rather than getting upset by it, or getting interested in it and working out what’s going on. You just realize all it is is a sound. It’s not a good sound. It’s not a bad sound. It’s just a sound.
Or you can just label it distraction. And then you bring the mind back to the breath. Try to focus on the breath again. Or if it’s a sensation in the body, again, rather than getting upset about this pain or getting interested in some nice feeling happening, it’s just a sensation or it’s just distraction. You just say distraction and bring the mind back to the breath.
And particularly with thoughts, you know, we have all these fascinating stories going on in our mind. Good, bad, and so on. And but really, all they are are thoughts. It’s just a thought. Just thought.
Or it’s really in this context, it’s just a distraction. It’s nothing else but a distraction. So by labeling it that way, that can help to wake up and realize what’s going on so we take the mind back to the breath. So, like I said last week, we have to make this choice that the object of meditation right now, because we’ve decided to meditate, is the most important thing. So we have to try and keep that in focus.
Like I said, we can’t stop external sounds and thoughts and whatever yet, but we we do have the ability to choose whether we’re gonna focus on them or not. And it’s a little bit like those with movies and cameras that they can that they can you know, you can focus on what’s in front and everything behind is just all blurry. So it’s like that. Or you can make everything in the background really crisp and clear so that is just as important as what’s, you know, the main characters. But we don’t want the background all crisp and clear.
We want that to be to fade away. We don’t so we want to try when the sounds come, the sensations, the thought, we want to be able to kind of keep bringing the focus back to the breath or whatever the object, the chosen meditation object is. So the process is we choose an object. We know why, what the purpose of meditating on that object is as much as we can. We then we place the mind on that object, and then we have to practice mindfulness to keep it there by checking for the hindrances of sinking, scattering, and then we have to simply put the effort to let go of those distractions those hindrances.
Alright? There’s no other way. That’s it. That’s basically it. And if we’re not willing to do that, we’re not going to be able to concentrate our mind, develop we won’t learn to focus our mind, strengthen our mind.
But by training our mind this process more and more, the great benefits are that we gain mastery over our mind. We become a master of our mind rather than our mind, and particularly our negative mind, our disturbed thoughts. The more concentrated our mind is, the more our disturbing thoughts are subdued. And by concentrating the mind more and more the mind becomes calmer and clearer. And that calmer, clearer mind is able to understand things better.
The purpose of Buddhist meditation is to at least start to at first understand the Buddhist teachings, but by concentrating on them we will eventually be able to actually realize them which means that we don’t have just an intellectual understanding of the teaching but it becomes like an inner knowing. So by learning to meditate and develop some degree of concentration however much concentration we have our ability to focus our ability to understand things increases because why we can’t understand things in many cases is because our mind can’t stay on the object long enough to work out what it means. And especially if it’s something complicated. But we all have the ability to understand everything. We have this Buddha quality within us. One of the features of geniuses is that they have sort of natural concentration.
Einstein could spend hours just is that most you know, top what really distinguishes the the super great sportsman in everything, including racing car, driving, tennis, the whole lot, from the others, apart from all the physical skills and stamina, is the ability to concentrate on what they do. The more they can concentrate on what they’re doing, the better they do it. They defeat the opponent who can’t concentrate as well. It’s very interesting. You know?
I never realized that. But they that’s what they do. They’re able to super concentrate. Nothing. There’s only what they’re doing.
They’re totally focused on it. But of course from a Buddhist point of view what they’re focusing on is pretty pointless. I might win them a few million dollars of course. But you know yeah. Anyway, I won’t go on anymore about that.
And, so also our memory improves, increases because when we are really focusing on experiencing something at the time, it makes a stronger imprint and that’s why we can remember it. Why we can’t remember things very well is because we weren’t really focused on them when they were happening. We may have thought we were certain to who we were, but the more we can really hone in on things I’m with a concentrated that makes them strong imprint. Okay. Okay.
Tonight’s topic. I’m up to tonight’s topic. I’m very proud. I better not say that. Pride becomes comes before a fall.
Right. So, tonight’s topic, if you are aware of it is oh sorry, before I do go on, any questions? Do you have any questions about what I’ve said so far in the course or anything you’ve experienced? Any difficulties? Anything?
Please don’t be polite or shy. It’s all a hundred percent clear. What I’ve said. It’s all. Alright, Sean.
Not very, very hard, Christina. Just hard. Just hard. It’s not very, very hard. It’s hard.
But it’s hard for everyone. Doesn’t come unless one’s got very strong imprints from past lives, all of these things don’t come easily. So one shouldn’t be put off by hard or difficult or takes time. Yes. It takes time, and it’s somewhat difficult, but so, you know, well worth to do.
So many benefits for oneself and others now and in the future. That’s what we have to kind of motivate ourselves with understanding those things. Alright. Since there’s not a welter of questions coming, so the topic tonight is about, visualization, meditation. Visualization meditation is a very significant part of meditation in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, not so much, if at all, in other Buddhist traditions, but certainly in Tibetan Buddhism because Tibetan Buddhism is very much influenced by the Tantric teachings of the Buddha.
And that certainly involves a lot of the tantric practice involves a lot of visualization. So visualization meditation is also a type of concentration where one creates an image in the mind with the mental consciousness and then holds onto tries to hold on to that image for as long as possible. So what is the purpose of visualization in Tibetan Buddhism? Maybe before answering that, someone, I don’t know if they’re here tonight, mentioned in a previous homework, think this has been because of what I said, I think, in the very first talk because I was sort of making a bit of a joke about people who just let their mind wander and visualize all sorts of things or let anything pop into their head. And I was saying that this is not meditation.
So the person made the comment, So this means creative visualization is not meditation. Well, can be. The point is that because tantric involves visualization, you could call creative meditation, but it’s something that one sets out to do and there is an exact way of doing it and a purpose. But just letting any kind of nice images pop into the head in your head or mind and then let you know, go with those and see what happens. That is not meditation.
That is just really coming under the category of distracted mind. But controlled visualization is a very significant part of Tibetan Buddhist practice. But it it doesn’t involve just letting anything pop into your mind. You you know what you’re going to visualize and so on. So what is the purpose of visualization in Tibetan Buddhism?
I can’t talk in any detail about tantric visualizations and their purposes. But in general what I can say is that what one visualizes in Tibetan Buddhist meditation, of course all the objects are virtuous objects, particularly what one visualizes are different Buddhas. All these paintings around the room, which are called in Tibetan, tankas. A thangka is is actually an aid for visualization. You have it in order to it’s not just a decoration or even, in fact, it shouldn’t be seen as a decoration.
At one level, of course, they’re there just to remind one of the Buddhas in one’s practice, but they they developed as meditation aids. You have them. You look at the image and then you try to so you look at it with your eye consciousness, but then you try to recreate that image with your mental consciousness, not with your eye consciousness. But all of these images are even just to look at them with the eye consciousness make positive imprints in the mind. I think I said a couple of weeks ago, our world, even more than ever before, we are bombarded because of advertising and so on with all sorts of negative images, which are really much of it is about attachment, and it’s designed to develop cause our attachment to rise and think, I want that.
So it agitates the mind and puts, whether we would like it or not, some extent, puts some negative imprints in our mind. So the purpose of Buddhist visualisation is to put positive imprints in our mind. And remind us of the Buddhas and their incredible qualities. So when we look at these images and even try to visualise them, even if we don’t understand the deep meaning of them, all the all the mudras and colors and and what each Buddha represents, still it is putting a positive imprint in our mind. You know, the Buddhas themselves, as I’ve said many times before, I don’t know whether the Buddha for example, like, the historical Buddha is depicted in this statue behind here in front of you behind me.
So whether the historical Buddha really looked like that I don’t really know and I don’t particularly care. But it is a beautiful image and the Buddhas from their side decided they want us to see them that way. They’ve created that image Because the Buddhas, how the mind works, understand that that image has a very positive effect on our mind whether we know it or not whether we believe in Buddhas or not. But especially if we look at it with some faith and devotion it has even a greater effect. But also by doing visualisation what it does is because every aspect of the visualization is is, has a positive virtuous meaning, then it it it helps bring about great purification in the mind, and it helps to accumulate merit and put positive imprints in the mind.
And so in Tibetan Buddhism there’s a great emphasis on doing analytical meditation, which I’ll talk about next week, where we analyze and think about particular topics such as compassion. Everyone, I think, who has got any kind of decency wants to be a compassionate person, wants to be more compassionate. So most people don’t know how to go about that. But the Buddhist tradition shows how to meditate and think to develop to one’s potential for compassion. One uses one’s intellect to cultivate compassion.
Because many people think of compassion and, you know, love and etcetera as a sort of an emotion. It’s this kind of feeling you have. But actually compassion isn’t a feeling. It’s a way of thinking about people and things or sentient beings and oneself. But of course, it’s a virtuous, positive, realistic way to think.
But, of course, in thinking that way, there is a feeling, a very positive feeling that goes with it. Anyway, so in the Tibetan tradition one cultivates one’s inner potential for compassion through doing analytical meditation but another way of doing it is by visualizing the Buddha of compassion which is who is depicted in that thangka over there, the white one. That’s Chenrezig or Avalokiteśvara, the Buddha of compassion. There are different versions of the Buddha of compassion. That one is with a thousand arms.
There is one with four arms. Are six armed Buddhas of compassion. Anyway, so there’s that image and there’s a mantra that goes with it. So by visualizing and reciting the mantra, this also helps to awaken that potential for compassion within us. So if you combine those two things doing visualization of the Buddha of compassion and doing analytical meditation on compassion you end up with a very powerful way to awaken one’s inner potentials.
And of course just by taking the image of a Buddha, it’s very virtuous object. So and if one has any connection with the Buddhadharma, I think one thinks that the image of the Buddha is is extremely beautiful. Because of that, it you know, hopes that it’s relatively easy to keep the mind on that image and therefore it’s a good image to take as a way of developing concentration because we need an object to develop concentration. So we can use the breath but the breath isn’t as such a it itself isn’t a virtuous object. It’s a kind of a neutral object.
Whereas if one takes the image of the Buddha as a way to develop concentration, it has this twofold benefit. You develop concentration by visualizing the Buddha and you make these really positive imprints in your mind. And, also, I think it helps develop one’s refuge in the Buddha by by by visualizing the Buddha so strongly, it develops one’s sense of faith and devotion and refuge in the Buddha. So these are some of the benefits, and this can apply to all the other deities such as Avalokiteśvara and Tārā who’s depicted over here. The green Buddha.
So deities are all all the deities are also all Buddhas because the Buddhas have infinite qualities So the deities represent a a particular enlightened quality. And so by focusing on them, it helps us develop or awaken that potential that we have within us. So this thangka here, this amazing one here, the central figure is the medicine Buddha. So by focusing on that Buddha, it can help us to awaken this ability to bring about inner healing and our potential to be able to help heal others. Right.
So all of the Buddhas and all of the deities also have mantras associated with them, which are in Sanskrit. And as one visualizes the Buddha or the deity, one can combine that with reciting the mantra of that deity. And so that that mantra embodies the the the enlightened quality that that deity represents. So for example, the mantra of Avalokiteśvara is Om Mani Padmi hum. So that mantra is said to embody the quality of compassion.
So by reciting that mantra a lot and particularly strongly focusing on it, it helps awaken that potential for compassion within us. Exactly how, I don’t know, but that’s what they say, and it does seem to work. So there are mantras to develop wisdom, mantras to develop all sorts of inner qualities. And my one of my main teachers who is Lama Lama Thubten Yeshe, who’s depicted in that photo on the far right over there, just the so he he what many, many years ago, he explained he gave the best explanation I’ve ever heard of what how mantras work, which was he he gave this analogy that reciting a mantra is a a bit like hitting a tuning fork. So when he said that when you hit a tune different tuning forks have different vibrant what do call them?
Vibrations. Frequencies. Frequencies. So whatever has that frequency when you hit the tuning fork, it that whatever object in the room that has that frequency vibration frequency will vibrate. Yeah.
In the same way, when you recite a mantra, it has a particular kind of vibration, a particular kind of energy, and that helps to awaken that energy that already exists within us, but which is suppressed, obscured. Because we have the potential, we have every Buddha quality within us. That is our Buddha nature. So by reciting the mantras, it helps. It doesn’t mean it happens all of a sudden.
You’ve become unbelievably compassionate in that moment. It’s not that easy, unfortunately, but it helps to start awaken that that quality more and more. So these are some of the reasons to practice, to train in visualizing and the recitation of mantras. So how to how to do it? Well, reciting mantras is relatively easy.
You just say them. Well, there’s various ways to say them. The the tradition is in a in a like, in a group situation, mantras are often chanted fairly slowly out loud together. So that creates quite a nice energy, and we might try that tonight if I don’t talk too much. And so we’re gonna because I wanna talk a little bit more about check visualizing Śākyamūni Buddha.
And the mantra of Śākyamūni Buddha is Tayata Om Muni Muni Maha Muniye Svāhā. So this particularly helps to really subdue the mind. When the mind gets really agitated, it’s really helpful for just calming the mind. Yeah. Subduing the mind.
So, yeah, so one chants it a little bit slowly, out loud, but the main way of reciting mantras is because, you know, most practice should be done individually, privately, because we’re trying to work on our own mind. So when one is doing practice oneself privately, mantras should be recited just very, very quietly. And in fact, the mantra should shouldn’t really be heard by anyone else. You recite it so that you you you yourself can just barely hear it. And the mantra should be recited fairly quickly, not slowly, but quite quickly.
But far but not so fast that you’re not res you meant you know, reciting each syllable. But some people can recite mantras unbelievably quickly. But in in a very advanced tantra, you don’t even recite them at all. There’s a much more profound way of doing it, which, yeah, that’s, you know, at a super advanced level. But that’s the ultimate purpose of of reciting mantras is to be able to learn you know, you’re the mind by reciting them in these very ordinary ways to be able to do this very, very, very subtle practice much, much later on.
So with visualization, again, just to repeat, visualization is not done with the eye consciousness. It’s done with the mental consciousness. As I tried to point out, I think, in the first talk, meditation is working with the mental consciousness. We’re trying to shut down our, as much as possible, the five sense consciousnesses. And when one develops complete concentration or Samādhi, as it’s called in in Sanskrit, the the sign of achieving Samādhi is the five sense consciousnesses are become completely inactive.
They’re completely shut down, so there’s nothing disturbing, interfering with the mental consciousness. It’s free. You know? It’s just it’s just left alone completely for once. So it can really, do its job.
So this is what we’re trying to do with visualization meditation where we’re trying to use the mental consciousness to create a mental image. So the way to do that well, one as one part of it is, for example, if one is trying to visualize Śākyamūni Buddha, then one has an image of the Buddha that you look at first, either a statue or like a photograph of a statue, a photograph of a Thunka of the Buddha. And it’s good to have a picture or an image that you really, really like, that you you find very beautiful and attractive and pleasing. So then you look at it in order to know the object because, yeah, as I’ve said a few times already, to meditate, you have to have an object and you need to know the object. So in this case, you need to know what the Buddha looks like and all the details.
Like, because so a Buddha what you visualize with the Buddha is is the lotus, and then above the lotus is a sun disc and then a moon disc. And then the Buddha is sit seated above the moon disc with the legs in the vajra position. And, the robe is like that, so the right arm is bare. You know, you don’t get it the other way around. You’ve gotta get the right the right side.
You can be familiar. The left hand is resting in the lap, deep blue begging bowl filled with nectar. And the Buddha has these very long ears and long narrow eyes. They are deep blue. And his hair is a very deep blue, very curly.
Each hair is individually they don’t all mix up. They’re not all matted. They’re quite separate. Each hair is separate. It’s all curls to the right and it’s a deep blue color.
And then there’s a sort of a bit another lump of hair above the main bit. And then there’s a golden, what is called the uṣṇīṣa, which is actually the crown of the head popping up above his hair. He also has a white hair in the in his forehead that also curls to the right. And very, very long eyelashes like a bull. There are beautiful descriptions of every part of the Buddha’s body that one can read in the sutras or in other texts.
Because the Buddha has thirty two major signs and eighty minor signs. And nails are a copper color. And there are webs of light between his fingers and his toes. So one tries to visualize all of that as much as possible. And the lips are a deep red colour.
And on his hands and on the soles of his feet are the svastika mark — no, no, sorry. The thousand spoke Dharma wheel, the Dharma chakra, which is where anyway, if you look in that in below the the Medicine Buddha, there’s a table with all these colored balls and things and flowers. And poking above is this is this golden thing that that’s a thousand that is meant to represent the the Dharma wheel, the thousand spoke Dharma wheel. Anyway, the Buddha has these on his soles of his feet and on his palms of his hands. So anyway, you look at an image and you try to know all those details, become familiar with them, and then in meditation you you you no longer look at the object.
You then try to remember it and build it up with your mental consciousness. And the way to do that is actually a type of analytical meditation where you actually think. How about that? You think. So many people think you can’t think in meditation.
What the type of thoughts we don’t have in meditation are negative thoughts and just uncontrolled thoughts, anything popping into the head. Here, in order to meditate, one then goes through the image. So you tell yourself as a way of helping to build up the image in the mind, you know, there is this lotus, and the lotus has many, many petals, and you can and they’re all different colors. Right? So you tell yourself that.
Now there’s this lotus, and it’s in the nature of light. Yeah? It’s like translucent light so you can see through it. You know, the color is definitely there. The shape is there, but you can see through it.
It’s not solid. It’s not concrete in any way. And then yeah. So then you tell yourself there is this moon sun disc hovering above the lotus, and it’s smaller in diameter. It’s not the same diameter.
It’s not bigger. The sun disc is a bit smaller in diameter. It’s not touching the lotus. It’s sort of like floating above it just a little bit. And then above that is a pure white moon disc.
Yeah. Again, that’s hovering above. It’s not on the sun disc. It’s a little bit above. Again, it’s a bit smaller in diameter than the sun disc.
Again, it’s all translucent radiating light. That light, one imagines, is oh, okay. All of the image, the Buddha’s body, the lotus, sun, moon, one tries to have the sense that this is all the Buddha. The Buddha is manifesting in this way. It’s not like there’s a a lotus that the Buddha is seated on.
The Buddha’s mind is creating that lotus. The Buddha’s mind is creating the sun disk. The Buddha’s mind is creating the moon disk. And the Buddha’s mind is creating the Buddha’s body. So then we try to visualize the Buddha’s body.
We think of the Buddha’s body as like a hollow body. It’s not solid. It’s like a, you know, a balloon. So, you know, this this the rubber of the balloon creates the the the shape. So there’s the the outline of the Buddha that which is the the the body of the Buddha.
There’s just that shape created by colored light, but it’s empty inside. It’s hollow, completely insubstantial. So you can see through the Buddha’s body. It’s the Buddha’s body is gold, golden light. Incredibly beautiful golden light.
It’s not an ordinary human Buddha body. So then you imagine his legs are crossed in the vajra position so that the foot is resting on the right thigh and the right leg is resting on the left thigh. So you can see his feet because his body is covered in these saffron colored robes. So saffron if if if you put if you dissolve saffron petals in water, they turn yellow. It goes yellow.
But robes doesn’t refer to yellow color. Saffron, if you buy saffron, which is dried petal of a particular kind of flower, saffron is actually a kind of reddish color, brickish red color, a rusty red color. Usually, in paintings, the Buddha’s robes are always painted gold, but actually one is supposed to visualize the robes of and these days monks wear of goldy yellow robes. But actually, it should be more this kind of rusty red color that one vision but you can visualise yellow if you like that better. Yes.
So the the robe is sort of covering the lower body, but you can see the Buddha’s holy feet. And and and because his feet are upturned, you can visualize the Dharma chakras on the soles of his feet. And, so you visualize so that the the upper his upper body is bare, although because he’s wearing this robe, you know, you you only see this part of his upper body. And the right arm is outstretched with the hand resting on the right knee with his fingers touching the moon disc. This is called it seems a bit contradictory here, but it’s called the earth touching mudra because when the Buddha was sitting under the Bodhi tree just before he manifested achieving enlightenment, Mara tempted him and said, oh, you’re not going to get enlightened.
You’re hopeless. You’re just a big fake. You haven’t been doing any serious practice. You’re just messing around, sitting under this tree for a short time. And the being who became the Buddha said, I’ve been practicing for lifetimes and lifetimes.
And then he touched the earth and he said the earth is my witness’ then the goddess who lives inside the earth came out and said ‘Yes, I have been around here a very long time and I have seen this great being practicing for many, many lifetimes’. So that is why it is called the earth touching Mudra even though in this case he is sitting on a moon disc. I hope that didn’t get too confusing. And so then you visualize, you tell yourself that the the the the left hand is resting in the lap in the meditation posture supporting a deep blue begging bowl. We imagine the begging bowl is full of nectar, the nectar that overcomes all suffering.
And then we visualize the face by thinking how the face is extremely youthful, very peaceful, incredibly beautiful, very majestic looking with the long ear lobes which symbolize that the Buddha is aware of the suffering of all sentient beings. And very long, narrow shaped eyes with the the what is it? The iris? The iris. Yeah.
This deep blue color, very long eyelashes. Then you visualise deep red lips. You tell yourself the hair is a deep blue colour. Each hair is curling individually to the right. And above is the golden uṣṇīṣa.
So you tell yourself all those things. And then so you build them up, and then you sort of then from the top to the bottom, you say, well, there’s the uṣṇīṣa, the hair, the eyes, you know, long, narrow, the deep red lips, long ears, smiling, peaceful face, looking at me with great compassion, then all the other description down to the lotus. So you do that a few times, from the top to from the bottom to the top, top to the bottom. And then at some point, you stop telling yourself or describing those things, and then you try and just hold single pointedly whatever is appearing to your mind, even if it’s hardly anything at all. You just try and hold that, Even if it’s just a bit of orange color or gold color, you just hold that.
And when you get distracted, the mind goes into sinking or distraction, then you have to notice that then you put the effort into building up the image again because you’ve lost it, it’s gone. So then you have to put the effort into reminding yourself Lotus, sun, moon, hollow body, etcetera, etcetera. And then you stop, and then you do it again. And one has to so by doing that over and over again for however long it takes, eventually, one will be able to train the mind to visualize the Buddha and then one can keep their mind on that image longer and longer. So that’s the way to do it.
You don’t sort of sit there and just wait for the Buddha to appear in front of you and not put any effort. One has to put this effort into creating the image. Alright. And you also visualize that the Buddha is about an arm’s length away from you at the height of your forehead, so about there. Yeah.
Not too far away. Like, you could just reach out and touch the Buddha. And you you visualize the Buddha to be about that high from the base of the lotus to the top of the Buddha’s crown about an arm’s length. And I know what do call that? The forearm.
Yeah. So that’s the basic method to visualize. Any questions? Yes. When you start doing this, you start large.
Not too large, like this is this is the way. Yeah. So I I wanted to avoid saying this, but now I have to because and and so in in the teachings, it says in the explanation of what you do is you start that’s big. As you get proficient because you if one is honest, you know, if you the first time you try, unless you’re incredibly lucky or you got strong imprints from the past, you won’t be able to visualize the Buddha. Hardly anything will appear, if any.
Maybe a bit of shiny yellow light if you’re lucky. Depends how good you are. Some people can you know, are are more naturally able to visualize than others. There are people who can do that. But then when it comes to visualizing Buddhas maybe anyway.
But, you know, imagine one is able to do that, then to to make one’s concentration stronger, you make the slowly, over time, you make it smaller and smaller. But you don’t do that at the beginning. The trouble is people the way our minds work, our ego works, we say, I’m going to start small because I can do it, and that’s wrong. You have to admit I can’t do it. I’m just a beginner.
I start big. Yeah. Not like, yeah. I can do it with a little one. Because that’s very difficult to visualize, to be able to really do it, because the idea is to be able to see it clearly.
You know? Because at first, one can’t do it clearly, generally speaking. So first one gets some kind of general thing even like the outline. And then you try and fill in the details and see them clearly, if one can. Also what you do is that even if you can’t visualise, you pretend you are.
You don’t fool yourself because you know you’re pretending, but you pretend you’re visualizing. You don’t think, oh, the Buddha’s not there. So I can get all depressed and I can’t visualize the Buddha’s not there. It’s not there. You have to tell yourself, yes, the Buddha’s there.
Even if I can’t see the Buddha, actually, I can see the Buddha. The Buddha is there. Beautiful. Oh, very nice. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I should have made that a bit more clear.
It’s it’s useful to take, an actual statue or painting, but it’s not like you try to then absolutely replicate that. Use that as a basis because the Buddha that we try and visualize or any, you know, Tārā or, you know, Avalokiteśvara or whoever, you try and make it like a living being, not not a human being, but it’s light in the nature of light. But it’s it’s not just kind of like a neon light or something like that. It’s like this vibrant this is a mind. This is the Buddha.
This well, that yeah. That’s okay for a while. Don’t worry too much. It’s it’s it’s all a process of getting you know, weeding through things. No.
As I said in Sanskrit, all mantras are there is no such thing as a Tibetan mantra. No. According to the tradition because, because if you translate most mantras into into English, well, they don’t really translate. I mean, they do have a meaning, but it’s very obscure and it’s not, you know, it’s not a grammatical sentence as such. Or some are, but no.
No. We don’t. You know, you can find the meanings of you know, the main ones, but the the the argument is that Sanskrit or is a language of the mind. You know, for Western languages are languages of the senses. They are very good at describing external reality.
Our languages are not languages reflecting a knowledge of mind. Whereas Buddhist belief, the Sanskrit language does reflect the mind. It’s a language of the mind. So it has a particular power because of that, which is lost by just, because it’s not just even though in Sanskrit, of course, it has the mantras have meaning. The the intellect, you know, the the the just the meaning as such is not the important thing.
Some something more is going on than just conveying something intellectual. Just as was trying to say before, you know, that we have this expression. What is it? A picture is worth a thousand words. So when one visualizes the Buddhas, it has it conveys so much nonconceptually nonconceptually or, you know, far less conceptually than words do.
So a mantra is doing the same thing. It has a meaning, but it has more than just that intellectual meaning to it. Okay. Tea break? Peter?
It’s going. Alright. So what we’re going to do now is we’re going to meditate on visualising the Buddha and reciting the mantra. So this is all set out, but you don’t read it because I’ll I’ll do it for you. But if if you turn to page twenty of your student material, if you’ve got that, because the mantra is there.
So and we’re going to recite it out loud a little bit and quietly. So, usually, many people are very shy in reciting mantras out loud, but I would encourage you not to be shy and just go for it. Just do it. Don’t be shy. We’re all friends here.
So just sit comfortably in the correct posture as much as possible. Then just calm the mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise just for a short time. So then if you find it helpful, just rather than thinking one is sitting in this room surrounded by people, It’s as though one was sitting on the top of a mountain. And just all around, there’s just clear sky. It’s incredibly still and quiet.
And there’s just a clear sky all around you. So then imagine that directly in front of you, just an arm’s length away from you, at about the height of your forehead, there appears this incredibly beautiful lotus. Many petals, different colors, all in the nature of translucent radiating light. And then above the lotus appears a little bit smaller in diameter a golden radiating sun disc floating horizontally above the lotus. Then imagine that floating a little bit above the sun disc is a pure white moon disc.
A little bit smaller in diameter than the sun. Then imagine that seated above the moon disc appears the magnificent form of Śākyamūni Buddha, Having an incredibly beautiful body, a hollow body of golden radiating light. The Buddha, Śākyamūni, is seated with his legs crossed in the vajra position. His body is adorned with the saffron robes of a monk. Saffron robes of a monk.
So that the right side of his upper body is bare. The left is covered by saffron coloured robe. His right arm is outstretched with the hand resting on his right knee with the fingers pointing down, touching the moon disc underneath him. His left hand is resting in his lap in the meditation posture, supporting a begging bowl that’s deep blue in color, the bowl full of blissful nectar that overcomes the cause of all suffering. Think that the Buddha’s face is extremely beautiful, youthful, smiling.
He is looking directly at yourself with intense, great love and compassion. But one is aware that at the same time as the Buddha is perceiving oneself, he is fully aware of all other beings in the same loving, compassionate way. Think that the the, ear lobes of the Buddha are very long. His lips are a deep red color. The shape of his eyes is somewhat long and narrow.
And the iris is a very deep blue. The hair of his head is a deep blue color, each hair individually curling to the right. And above the hair on the top of his head appears the radiating golden uṣṇīṣa. So just try and hold that image however much appears as strongly as you can. Don’t give in to sinking or scattering.
Just let hold your mind in that image. So as you maintain that visualization, make a heartfelt request to the Buddha for your mind to be free of all confusion, all suffering, all disturbing thoughts, all negative imprints from negative actions. So then think that as you recite the mantra, the Buddha happily responds, sending these blissful rays of light, white light, from every part of his body. And that light pours into you, eliminating all that confusion, suffering and negativity. Imagine that as a result your mind becomes very calm, very clear, very bright, very blissful.
So continue reciting the mantra to yourself quietly, continuing the visualization. Just try and focus strongly as much as possible, trying to generate the strong feeling, thought that now my mind is completely purified. So now think that the Buddha in front of you starts coming towards the crown of your head. And as the Buddha does approach you, the Buddha becomes smaller and smaller. When directly above the crown of your head, imagine that the Buddha now turns facing the same direction as yourself.
And then the lotus, sun, moon, and the Buddha, all of this dissolves into a massive, brilliant golden light, and that blissful light then pours into you through the crown of your head. Imagine this generates an incredibly blissful feeling throughout your whole being. And imagine that, actually, this this ordinary body, this suffering body that grows old, gets sick, dies, that body just dissolves away. Becomes completely nonexistent. And in its place, imagine that you now appear as Śākyamūni Buddha.
Imagine that there appears in the space where you are where you are seated as incredibly beautiful lotus, multicolored in the nature of light. Above it, the sun disc, and above that, a moon disc. Then you, not with this ordinary suffering body, but an incredibly beautiful body of golden light is seated. You have a pure, hollow body of golden light, and you are seated with your legs crossed in the vajra position. You’re wearing the saffron robes of a monk.
Your right hand outstretched with your right hand resting on your right knee, the fingers touching the moon disc underneath you. Your left hand, resting in your lap, holds a deep blue begging bowl full of wisdom nectar. Your face is very youthful, radiant. The ear lobes are very long. Lips a deep red color, the eyes somewhat long and narrow, and the eyes deep blue.
The hair on the head of your head, the crown of your head is deep blue, and above is the crowning golden uṣṇīṣa. Just let your mind dwell on that image, that you are now experiencing yourself, your true nature, as a Buddha. Imagine as a Buddha, you are aware of the suffering of all sentient beings surrounding you, family, friends, helpers, harmers, all the different beings of cyclic existence. So think that out of great compassion, as you recite the mantra, from every pore of your body as the Buddha, rays of light go out, touching each sentient being. And as they do so, each being becomes free of all suffering, all causes of suffering, and each of these beings transforms into a Buddha.
So that at the end, no suffering sentient beings exist. The whole of space is full of Buddhas. So think of especially the sufferings of human beings, all the different kinds of sufferings human beings are experiencing. You can think of particular people, family members or friends, problems and sufferings they’re experiencing right now. You imagine that you as a Buddha send out these rays of light that touch them, reach out to them, and all their suffering is dispelled.
All its causes are eliminated, and they transform into Buddhas. They realize their true nature. So imagining the whole of space filled with Buddhas. No sentient beings left. Just perfect Buddhas.
Then imagine all these Buddhas filling all of space. They all dissolve into light. And that blissful light absorbs into you from every direction. All this blissful light, this blissful golden light dissolves into you so that all beings dissolve into your heart. So then we can conclude the meditation by thinking that actually all of this was done just at the level of my imagination.
I haven’t become a Buddha. I haven’t been able to enlighten all sentient beings. But how wonderful if I could do that! And within me right now exists the potential to do so. I have Buddha nature that will never be destroyed.
So no matter what, I must use this and all future lives to realize this Buddha potential, to help all beings realize their Buddha potential. There is nothing more meaningful, more wonderful than that. So we can conclude the meditation and the session by if you would like to join in dedicating the merit which is on bottom of page sixteen 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.
Okay, thank you very much. Rhett, could you just pass me one of the homework sheets? Thanks. Just like to explain the homework a little bit. I hope everyone took the homework sheet or and and did all the other things.
But So the homework for this week, if I hope everyone tries to do it, because this is really part an essential part of this course is to do the homework rather than just come and listen to me, go blah blah. The whole idea is to try and practice this blah blah yourself. Because yeah. So the idea is to sit in the Vairochana posture, do the body awareness just very, very quickly, briefly, then do the nine round breathing with or without the visualization, depending on whether you find that helpful of the white and black you know, the white light, black smoke. Then the idea is on the different days, and I’ve marked them, is to like, on Wednesday, tomorrow, the idea is to do the Śākyamūni Buddha meditation.
So I’ve just got GSB. That means Guru Śākyamūni Buddha. So that’s okay. Thursday is to do the mindfulness of breathing meditation. You know, just breathing in, breathing out, observing, you know, being aware of the subtle sensation around the nostrils.
So that’s abbreviated as MOB, mindfulness of breath. Friday meditation is to, after the nine round breathing exercise is to do the mindfulness of breathing for a little while and then do the Śākyamūni Buddha meditation. Like that. So in doing the Śākyamūni Buddha meditation you have a few choices. You can do the whole thing like we did now or if you find that a bit too Buddhist and religious you can just, keep keep it very simple and just do the visualization of the Buddha, the very first part of just building up the image of the Buddha as as because that that’s just like a cons a pure concentration exercise.
But that Śākyamūni Buddha meditation is a very beautiful, powerful practice coming from the tantric tradition It has, you know, great, great, great benefits to to do it. It’s a purification, helps you develop compassion because you think about all sentient beings suffering. You imagine taking on all their suffering or not taking it on, eliminating it. You you and yeah. So so many many things there.
Some people say, oh, there’s too much to do. But in some cases, especially for our minds, having lots of things to do keeps the mind interested. If you have one simple object to meditate on it can be very difficult and boring. Whereas if you’ve got a few things to focus on, it can be quite helpful. Like, there’s the visualizing the Buddha.
There’s the light. It’s thinking of sentient beings and so on. And it’s planting the seeds because one day, believe it or not, I hope you believe it, one day, we will be a Buddha that can just send out, you know, you know, these rays of light are symbolic, of course, of what a Buddha can do. A Buddha’s mind can go out and touch a person in such a way that, you know, their whole life changes. The whole everything starts to all suffering starts to fall away, all confusion.
So when we’re a Buddha, we can do that Just like even I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t even say this. But, hopefully, even hearing the Dharma spoken by a dodo like me, it can have some positive effect on your mind and life if you let it. If you don’t let it, of course, won’t. But even from someone like me, it can have some incredible influence in your life.
If you actually have the good fortune to meet the great lamas who are realized beings, then their words have even greater impact. And they’re not manifesting as Buddhas. But then there are Buddhas who, due to sentient beings’ karma, manifest Buddhas. When you meet one of those, Wham. We’ve got it made.
But we can do that. We have the potential to become Buddhas where everything about us will enlighten others. Everything. Yeah. And that that thing of imagining all sin all Buddhas dissolving into you is is, is also it’s and into your heart.
It’s it’s a way of developing some acceptance for sentient beings, that you open your heart to all sentient beings realizing that they actually have Buddha nature. Your mother and father, brothers, sisters, all your family, all your friends, everyone you can’t stand and dislike, and everyone who dislikes you, all human beings, all animals, all sentient beings have Buddha nature. If you remember that, we can open our hearts and accept them into our heart rather than rejecting and having aversion and indifference and so on. So doing this meditation has many, many profound psychological effects. And it will keep you off the streets.
Okay. Thank you very much. So for those who feel comfortable, we finish, with, three prostrations to the triple gem.