Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 110-minute session, Ven Thubten Dondrub moves beyond concentration practice to explore analytical meditation—the cornerstone of Tibetan Buddhist study and transformation. After establishing motivation through bodhicitta, he contrasts two meditation methods: placement meditation (focusing on a single object like the breath) with analytical meditation (investigating a topic through logic and reasoning). He explains why analytical meditation matters: blind belief crumbles easily, but understanding rooted in logical analysis creates stable, lasting conviction. Dondrub walks through how to analyze a topic by examining arguments, testing counterarguments, and drawing on teachings, personal experience, and reason—using impermanence as a worked example. He stresses that intellectual understanding alone isn’t enough; the goal is direct insight that transforms the mind. He concludes with analytical meditation on the Four Immeasurables, particularly loving-kindness and compassion, showing how logical investigation into suffering and happiness naturally cultivates these qualities. Pitched at practitioners with some Buddhist background who are ready to move beyond basic meditation technique into rigorous philosophical inquiry.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 12 01 DB How to Meditate Week 5.mp3
UUID: 600fb4a6-103f-4be2-a591-4aa57ef1f02d
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB How to Meditate (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-12-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 110.4 minutes
Words: ~11,232
Welcome everyone to our fifth and what is our penultimate class. How about that I get a chance to say that word? I think it’s the right one. The penultimate class. So as you know by now I hope it is so important to try and do things with the best motivation because this will bring the best result and in the Mahāyāna tradition the very best possible motivation we can develop doing is called bodhicitta.
So this is the wish to achieve enlightenment so that we can free all beings from suffering and help enlighten all sentient beings. And this way perfectly repay the kindness of mother sentient beings. So please try and generate that motivation or something along those lines for being here and studying this topic of learning how to meditate. Taking care of one’s mind so that one can overcome the disturbing thoughts, cultivate the positive qualities because if we are able to do this we will be able to be of great benefit to ourselves and certainly benefit others. If we free our mind completely, cultivate our mind totally, then we will achieve enlightenment and be able to bring about this ultimate benefit to all sentient beings.
So as I mentioned the main aspects of it that we need to think about in generating bodhicitta is recognizing the great kindness of sentient beings, how we depend on that kindness. We just simply could not exist and develop without it. But also recognizing how all these beings are suffering and what is even worse they’re continuously creating the cause for more suffering in the future. It’s not just that they’re suffering now and that suffering will come to an end but unfortunately as that suffering comes to an end sentient beings in their confusion are over and over again creating more causes for more suffering. So thinking along those lines we can generate this wish to achieve enlightenment so that we can help all sentient beings break out of that situation become completely free of it and develop all their positive qualities and achieve Peerless everlasting happiness.
So to make that motivation more sincere, more powerful, it’s helpful if one finds it so, if beneficial, to think of the Buddha in front of oneself as the source of refuge, inspiration, guidance and think of oneself surrounded by all sentient beings starting with one’s parents of this life. So the prayer if you want to join in is page sixteen. 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 imagine, if you find it helpful, that the Buddha in front of us now comes to the crown of our head and then when directly above our crown the Buddha dissolves into blissful golden light and that light pours down into us blessing our mind.
So then we can reinforce that positive state of mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise just for a short time. Firstly checking our posture. Trying to make sure that our spine is really straight. Our head is positioned in the right way. And then just briefly checking our posture by moving our awareness from the crown down through the rest of our body.
Just briefly. So then doing the nine round breathing exercise. Starting with focusing on the breath coming in the left nostril out the right. One can combine that with visualizing the white light coming in with each in breath. Imagining that brings great calmness and clarity to the mind.
Great peace. And with each out breath in the cycle imagine breathing out all agitation, confusion, suffering, all causes of suffering, negative imprints and so on in the form of black smoke. So now having prepared the body and mind to meditate, take as your object of meditation the breath itself and just let your mind, your mental consciousness focus on just having this simple direct awareness of the breath coming and going. Don’t change your breathing in any way. Just simply observe it in a very scientific way.
Just focusing more and more, letting everything else fade away. Past and present, future. Just let your mind remain in the present moment of observing your breath. Particularly the subtle sensation in and around the nostrils as your breath comes and goes. Don’t create that sensation.
Just let your mind become sensitive enough to observe it, to notice it. So to do that we have to avoid the hindrances of thinking on the one hand and scattering on the other. And to help do that it can be useful to count the breaths. So taking one in breath, one out breath as one complete breath. Trying to follow eleven consecutive breaths.
But if the mind gets caught up in sinking or scattering and therefore one loses the awareness of the count, then one should start from the beginning keep doing that again and again without any sense of disappointment or expectation. So we can conclude the meditation by relaxing our posture, letting go of the object in meditation, gradually opening our eyes. Okay. So in the previous talks I’ve tried to talk, well I’ve talked mostly about, almost entirely about meditation from the point of developing or learning to concentrate the mind more and more. So this is a vital aspect of meditation to be able to take a particular object, particularly a virtuous object, a meaningful object, to be able to place the mind on that object and keep it there.
And in order to keep it there, we have to overcome the hindrances of of sinking where the mind loses energy and becomes dull and sleepy. And or on the other hand we have to deal with the hindrances of scattering where the mind gets distracted by dancing girls and things like that. But especially our own thoughts. So the more we can deal with those, reduce those hindrances, more the mind will stay on the object. And because the mind will stay on the object longer and longer, then the mental consciousness will be able to know that object more and more completely.
People understand, experience that object more and more, which is the whole purpose of meditation. We will be able to understand the truth of the Buddha’s teachings more and more by meditating on them. And we will be able to recognize our own confusion as confusion, as suffering. We will start to be able to know the actual causes and so on. Yeah.
So but the other kind of meditation that is not very commonly known is it is not practiced a great deal or if at all in many other meditative traditions is what is called in the Tibetan system analytical meditation. So this is something that as I’ve said briefly is extremely important in Tibetan Buddhism. But there are four schools of Tibetan Buddhism so I know very little about the other schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The only school of Buddhism I can claim to know anything about is the one I try and practice which is the Gelugpa tradition established by Lama Tsongkhapa. So that tradition emphasizes a great deal the importance of analytical meditation.
But actually the other schools do as well. But the Gelugpa tradition I think puts a very particular emphasis on it. That one has to, in order to really develop the mind, to really bring about a radical transformation in our mind, which is what we’re trying to do, we have to think about things. We have to analyze things. So this is what analytical meditation is.
It’s thinking about things. But it’s not thinking about things in the usual way that we when we as ordinary people think about things it’s just something pops into our head. Maybe good or bad and then we just kind of think about it in no particular well it depends on how intelligent and this and that we may be. But even in very intelligent people thoughts just pop into the head and we just tend to think about them. Know the thoughts go here there and everywhere.
But this is not what analytical meditation is. Analytical meditation especially at an advanced level is something very very precise. And depends on of course knowing the teachings. Like the more we know the Buddha’s teachings I mean, is why one studies the teachings. The teachings actually are topics to meditate on.
They’re not just a bit of information entertainment or something. What the Buddha taught, every part of it is meant to be meditated on in order to integrate it into the mind. So analytical meditation in many ways shares all the characteristics of concentration or placement meditation because you have to but the only real difference is with placement meditation or concentration meditation you have a simple, a single simple object such as the breath or awareness of the body or for example visualizing something. These are the main objects of concentration. Yeah.
Right? It’s just some simple thing. The breath or visualizing for example the Buddha or visualizing a lotus or anything and you can concentrate then you place your mind on that simple object and avoid the sinking and scattering. In the case of analytic meditation you have to we have to avoid sinking and scattering but and we have to place our mind on the object But in this case the object is not just one simple thing but it’s a topic of investigation. It’s a topic to think about, to analyze.
Right? One is thinking about a whole subject that is, you know, aspect of our life, our existence. Right? Because our mind right now is dominated by wrong views and disturbing thoughts. So meditation is remember Do we have any blankets?
Or can we turn the freezer down? Now I’ve got distracted. So, you know, meditation is defined as, familiarizing the mind with what is virtuous true. And what is implied with that is also defamiliarizing the mind, deconstructing all the wrong views we have and the negative tendencies of our mind. So you know we have all these wrong views up to the highest wrong view, the worst wrong view which we see everything as inherently existing when it is empty of inherent existence.
We see things as happiness when they’re suffering. We see things as permanent when they’re impermanent. So we have all these wrong views. Countless levels of wrong views and ideas and misconceptions about things. So we need to undermine those and replace them with the right views.
We have to you know, have to understand, we have to think about our wrong views and realize, understand how they are wrong. Not just blindly believe they’re wrong or something because we want to or because the Buddha says so. We have to understand how these views are in fact wrong and we have to understand that what the Buddha discovered I mean if we want to follow the Buddha if we have some sense that the Buddha was on to a good deal he discovered something really special and liberating and one would like to be like that, then then we need to understand what the Buddha understood. The Buddha taught things and the Buddha said, don’t believe what I said just by because I said it but check yourself. So that’s what analytic meditation is.
We have to check what the Buddha says to see whether this true or not. So we have to analyze it. So another one of my teachers, of my main teachers Lama Yeshe used to call it checking meditation. We just check He often used to say when Lama Yeshe was teaching to us, he would say something and then he would say, Check up. Yeah.
Can we close the door please? We don’t need to have too many distractions. Yeah, good. So we need to check up. So to check up, first you have to hear the teachings, get them explained properly and then one checks up.
Are they true or not? Right? So we have to analyze, we have to investigate, we have to think about, and try and verify the Buddha’s teaching. So that’s what analytical meditation is about. So we have to avoid the sinking mind and the scattering mind so that our mind can be concentrated on thinking about just that topic in a logical way.
This is why in Buddhist monasteries, especially in the Gelugpa tradition, even from monks at a very early age, are taught logic from firstly very simple logic up until the very complicated logic so they can do this analysis properly to check the Buddha’s teachings properly. So most of us are not trained well, I mean, maybe most of us have had reasonably good education, But even so, we don’t use our mind to analyze things really really deeply. But this is what we’re encouraged to do in analytical meditation. And the more we can get into that process the more beneficial it will be. Because we can hear and this is true for all of us I think.
We can hear like, we we come to the Buddhist teachings as novices, virtually knowing nothing. And then you hear something of the Buddhist teachings and you think, oh, that sounds right. That sounds good. Yeah. I believe that.
That’s true. But this is just blind belief. Right? What what what we think is true may be true, but we don’t really know. We just believe it is.
We don’t have any really solid way of arguing proving that it is true to ourselves. We just believe it. This is what is called correct assumption. We can make incorrect assumptions but there’s also what is called correct assumption where what you assume to be true is actually true. But one doesn’t really know why it’s true.
One just kind of feels in some vague way that it is true. So that is helpful, especially when those things are true, to live base one’s life on those things. But that understanding is very superficial and and it doesn’t therefore it doesn’t have much power to change the mind and it takes a lot of power to change the mind because the disturb in the spiritual path, know, you can change your voting patterns and various things like that quite easily. But to change, like, these ingrained habits of our mind, it takes a lot of effort because habits have not just developed. These ways of thinking and experiencing the world and ourselves haven’t just popped up in this life.
These are primordial instincts. They’ve always been there so they have tremendous energy. So it’s not a matter of a few workshops and bingo we’re okay unfortunately. I’m sorry. It’s just not like that.
Lifetimes of work. Lifetimes. But getting the right intellectual and some idea is is the start. But but those beliefs can be very easily shaken. Some smart aleck can come along and say, oh, you believe this.
You Buddhists believe this, but what about that and that and that? And once all beliefs collapse, you know? And and, I mean, this is true in all religions. Most people have just blind belief. People believe in God.
God is wonderful. But then one of their family members dies, and they can’t understand why. Why did God take my wife away from me, my son, my child? And then their belief dies. It’s gone because there’s nothing they’ve just got this blind belief.
And unfortunately this is true for many Buddhists. We just have blind belief. And then something goes wrong and it’s out the window. And so it’s not good enough. So one needs to have something deeper, much deeper, you know, in the long run.
I mean, blind belief can if you know, some people have can have very strong blind belief like extremists. You know, terrorists have very strong blind belief. You know? And some Buddhists have that. You know?
A lot of Tibetan people have that. You know? They have this incredible devotion, but no understanding. But because it’s so strong it can be very helpful. But not everyone has that.
Especially for us I would say as how can we say we’re converts. Maybe not everyone here is converted yet I haven’t managed to convert some people here. So it’s not very strong. So it can be easily shaken. So we need to make it much much stronger.
And that comes from developing and understanding a belief that is based on logic. A logical belief which called correct inference. An inferential understanding. So an inferential understanding of something based on logical arguments is much stronger and that the mind supporting those beliefs is much stable. It’s much more difficult to shake those beliefs because they’re based on reason.
You have some reason for believing them. Yeah? So that kind of belief based on reason and logic that will bring about some real transformation of our mind which is what Buddhist practice is about. You know, if we’ve all gone to school, some of us have gone to universities and we learned in other kind of institutions and we learn all sorts of things. But that doesn’t transform.
It puts information in our minds but it doesn’t transform our minds. The Buddhadharma is meant to transform the mind. It’s about bringing real transformation in the mind away from suffering and confusion to clarity and joy and happiness and peace and contentment and all that good stuff. So to bring that about we need to develop this deeper understanding. And some people, maybe a lot of people, come to Buddhism and particularly meditation, they want to meditate in order to stop all the thoughts in their mind and all the agitation and stress and fears and worries and just want to cool chill out, you know.
And yeah, and people just don’t want to think. And but and but the Gelug tradition is saying you’ve got to think. It’s important to think. The the ability to think is one of the most precious things we have to use our intelligence. human intelligence is something very very wonderful.
Even the most intelligent animal is nowhere near as intelligent as a human being. Alright? So our intelligence is is something incredibly precious. I mean it can also be very dangerous used in the wrong way unfortunately. But our intelligence is our most precious asset because with our intelligence we can understand the Buddha’s teachings.
Yeah. And we can understand what is right from wrong. What is this what is suffering and what is happiness? What and even more importantly, we can use our intelligence to understand what are the actual causes of happiness, what are the actual causes of suffering. Because most people live their life not understanding these things now because they don’t use their intellig we don’t use our intelligence properly.
We don’t analyze enough. We don’t think about things. We think a lot, but we don’t think about the right things in the right way. So the ultimate aim of analytical meditation in all Buddhist practice is to gain realizations of the truth of the Buddha’s teachings. And some of you have heard me say this before because I don’t really know what the definition of a realization is.
But the only example I always give the same example to try and indicate what a realization is which is we all know that we’re going to die. We all know that. Right? But that knowing at the moment is fairly it’s kind of a it’s a belief. It’s an intellectual belief.
It we don’t we haven’t realized it. We don’t have a deep realization of the truth that we’re going to die because if we actually well, maybe some of you have. I don’t know about it. I’m just assuming in general. But the point is when we actually realize we’re going to die, then the way we live our life gets radically transformed.
We don’t waste our life. I mean, that’s why it’s an essential topic to meditate on in the Buddhist tradition. Not to make ourselves miserable and afraid of death or something, but to turn our mind away from meaningless things. Because death can come at any moment. It’s gonna come, and it could come at any moment.
And it’s possible to realize that. It’s possible to gain the realization that not only am I going to die, but I am I could could literally die any moment. Someone who has that realization doesn’t waste a moment of this life on anything meaningless. Right? They may look like they are because but they’re doing it for another reason than why we are.
But actually, you don’t once you realize that, you don’t waste a moment because you know how precious especially if one has a Buddhist understanding. I’m putting this in a Buddhist context. Right? So you see people like His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. He doesn’t waste his life in the moment.
Everything he does, he does it with a conscious reason, with a perfect motivation, yeah, to benefit others. And my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and other great Lamas like that. They don’t waste their life, a moment. Everything is kind of rich with meaning. Everything they do.
When you’re around them, can especially if you’ve been around them a while, you can know that. You can really know that. They’re not wasting a moment. As I’ve explained to many you know, my teacher, like, just doesn’t go to sleep. He never goes to sleep.
He never lies virtually not sometimes. Virtually never lies down. He certainly never lies down to go to sleep. Never. I don’t think since he’s been about five years old has he ever consciously laid down to go to sleep because that’s just a waste of time.
Just a waste of time. Yeah. Anyway, so that’s what we’re trying to get realizations, and that’s done by doing analytical meditation where you think about things so it goes deep into your mind. It’s just it’s not just, you know, floating on the surface of one’s consciousness, which pops up every now and again and you think, oh, I should be a nice person today because I’m supposed to be a Buddhist. So I’ll be And then completely forget for the rest of the day.
Or I’m not supposed to steal or I’m not supposed to do this, you know, because it’s just floating there on the surface. When by analyzing things deeply and it goes deeper into the mind, becomes part of the mind. It’s not just an idea, it’s not a nice thought or something floating around there. It it becomes an integral part of of our mind. As I’ve given this analogy many times before, it’s like this.
Here is a Buddhist thought or Buddhist idea concept. This is the mind. So it’s like a nail. So you hear it, you know, and it touches the mind and it sort of bounces off. And you hear it again so maybe it’s kind of very wobbly there.
And you meditate on it and you kind of so that drives it a bit into the mind. It still doesn’t go very far so It’s easy to fall away and be forgotten and everything or you don’t remember it properly. Oh I heard this nice teaching about, know, but I can’t really remember what he said but it was really nice, very good, but it’s gone. But by meditating again and again, doing analytical meditation again and again, and wrong. Wrong.
Eventually it goes right into your mind. Right? You can’t get it out. Because actually, it’s become part of your mind. It’s not something in your something in your mind.
It’s become an integral part of your mind that it’s become part of you of how you experience yourself, how you experience the world. That’s what we are trying to do. This is what analytical meditation is leading us to achieve. So also with analytical meditation one can say its long term effect result is to bring about these transformations of the mind overcoming our wrong views, negative tendencies. But also in another way of looking at one could say that certain kinds of analytical meditations have the effect of bringing insight, more insight into what you’re meditating on.
Whereas other kinds of analytical all analytical meditation is the same, method, the technique is the same. But with some, because of the nature of the topic, some analytic meditation leads to insight into the topic and some leads to a development of that quality. So to make that clear I’ll give some examples. For example, if one does analytical meditation on impermanence that oneself is impermanent, everything in the world is impermanent, oneself is impermanent. By doing that analytical meditation it won’t make you, it won’t make us more impermanent.
Because some people think, Oh, if I meditate on death, maybe that will create a cause for me to die. If I meditate on my own death, you know, oh, that’s just gonna make me die sooner or something. But it won’t. It will just give one insight into that. A deeper insight.
Right? Which is what we need because we don’t have the proper insights into this fundamental truth. Things are impermanent. And so denying it, living one’s life either denying it or unaware of it is a recipe for suffering. So we need to understand it.
So meditating or doing analytical meditation to understand that everything is impermanent leads to insight that, Oh yes, that’s true. Yeah? So I better live according to it because it’s true. And it’s not gonna go away by ignoring it or pretending things are in another way. They’re just they’re just not.
Right? So we okay? So it doesn’t make things more impermanent. Whereas if you meditate do analytical meditation on loving kindness, one’s loving kindness will increase. This is the way to awaken and develop.
We all have the potential for loving kindness, for compassion, for generosity. So there are ways of increasing or awakening that potential by doing analytical meditation. And so that increases that quality within us. Yeah? Doesn’t lead so much to insight but the development of that quality.
That just naturally happens by doing analytical meditation on generosity, loving kindness, patience, perseverance and concentration. Those qualities develop by doing analytical meditation on things like impermanence. Impermanence doesn’t develop. You just develop an insight into it. Right?
So how you do analytic meditation? Just with other meditations one prepares by doing the preliminary practices of sitting comfortably, especially generating the right motivation, making the determination to be focused only on that, you know, being determined to avoid sinking and scattering. And then, as I mentioned before, with developing concentration or with any topic, you have to know the topic. And you have to know what the purposes of it is. So that’s why especially with analytic meditation, analytical meditation, one has to hear teachings on the topic.
That’s why in the Gelugpa tradition and especially in the FPMT centers such as Buddha House here, the emphasis on teachings is teaching the subjects of the graduated path to enlightenment. Because these are the things to meditate on. This is the very essence of the Buddha’s teachings. And those teachings are things to be meditated on. I once went to a teaching I was my teacher’s attendant so I had to go to the teaching anyway.
But it was in anyway it doesn’t matter where it was. So Rinpoche gave this wonderful teaching on some subject which I’ve completely forgotten what it was about at the moment. But at the end of that topic, the teaching, some young guy in the audience put up his hand and said something like, Well, what you said was very wonderful, but how do you develop that? And the whole point was the whole teaching was explaining how to develop it. You meditate on what was just taught.
Whereas we tend to think, Oh, you listen to a teaching and think, Oh, that was nice. That was a nice topic on kindness or compassion or wisdom. I wonder how you develop it. But the talk contains that you meditate on the talk. You think about the topics, the points, the arguments brought up over and over again.
And the more we think about things the more it brings more questions and doubts. But that’s kind of good because we investigate it more. So it’s really good to have some doubts about things. If you just hear something and sit there and say, Oh, that’s great. I believe all that.
In one way that looks good, but it’s not so good. Because one’s not thinking, you’re not checking. If you say, I believe all of that. That’s why I encourage people to ask questions, it means you haven’t really thought about it properly. Because all of us, if we’re honest, will have some queries and doubts.
And that’s okay. So in Buddhist psychology it talks about or no, is it Buddhist? Yes, anyway. There is this mental factor of doubt which is actually one of the what was one of the delusions. Doubt is a delusion.
And there are three kinds of doubt. So there is if something you can have there’s something which is true and you can have three kinds of doubts about it. You can have the doubt which thinks this this thing, this so called truth is probably wrong. You can have a doubt which thinks, I’m not really sure, it could be right or wrong fiftyfifty, don’t really know. Or you could have a doubt which thinks I’m not really sure if it’s true, but it’s probably true.
That is the kind of doubt is good to have. Especially if we I mean some people here are Buddhist, some people are not Buddhist, maybe have no intention to be Buddhist. But from a Buddhist point of view, a Buddhist is someone who has accepted that the Buddhist teachings are true. Right? Based on believing, having some idea that certain things that the Buddha’s taught really make a lot of sense.
And having some idea that the Buddha is omniscient, that can’t make mistakes. One takes refuge accepting that what the Buddha is taught is true. So but often we don’t know all the Buddha’s teachings or when we hear them we don’t understand them we have all sorts of doubts. But if we have the mind that thinks, oh it’s probably wrong, well this is not very Buddhist. To say the Buddha is probably wrong is not a great starting point.
If we think Buddhas do exist who are omniscient, whose minds are free of all mistakes, they can’t be wrong. So at least we should think they’re probably right. What I’ve heard, what I’m meditating on, and why I’m meditating on it is because it’s probably right. If we start from the assumption that it’s probably wrong then we’re heading in not a good direction from the start. If we think it’s probably wrong there’s not much point meditating on it.
We should sort of go and join another group. Which is perfectly okay. But if we decide the Buddha’s teachings are worth investigating and maybe using as the basis of our life, we at least should have the attitude they are probably right. Right? So on that assumption we try and work out how I can the Buddha says so like with analytical meditation on impermanence.
The Buddha says: Everything that is produced by causes and conditions is impermanent. Okay, so you think: I don’t understand that but it’s probably right. So then you investigate how is it probably right? Well you can see many things which are impermanent which are depending on causes and conditions. So tick, that seems right.
But then you can think, oh maybe there are some things which are permanent. What’s something that’s permanent? Oh, the pyramids are permanent. They produced by causes and conditions. All those guys slaving away built the pyramids.
But look, they’re still here. They’re permanent. But then you check, oh no, permanent means changing moment by moment. It doesn’t mean lasting forever. And actually those things are changing because then they don’t look like what they used to when they were first built.
They got smaller, you know, they’re wearing away. So they’ve lasted a long time but actually, yes, maybe they’re impermanent too. What about oh, but look at the lump of steel, that’s permanent. Oh, It goes rusty. Oh, right.
So what one tries to do is see whether you do believe this is true, that there are obvious reasons, and then you look for maybe your own doubts or arguments that could undermine what the Buddha says. But then because the attitude is that’s probably right, you try and see if there’s another argument that can defeat that argument. Right? And so then one comes to the conclusion, yes, it’s true. Great!
Then I can totally rely on that truth. That’s basically how one does analytical meditation if one can. And of course if you think about it, to do analytical meditation well one needs to know more things. The more one needs to know about the topic, the more one knows about the topic the more material one has got to think about, to check. Because the Buddha’s teachings have lots of arguments to support those those truths.
So for example the Lamrim teachings that some of you, a lot of you would be have some familiarity with. Those teachings have a reasonable amount of argument within them supporting what they are saying. Right? But those teachings themselves are a summary of much broader teachings of the Buddha. Like they’re the extracted essence.
So there are other much more philosophical teachings of the Buddha where the points that are simply made in the Lamrim teachings are gone into much much more complicated detail. So the more one knows that, the more material one’s got to analyze and think about. But anyway, that’s what analytical meditation is in a nutshell. It’s really just trying to logically think about a topic, see that try and see from one’s own so not just blindly believe, oh yeah, that’s true, but understand the logic supporting it, checking if there’s some other arguments trying to refute that and then trying to refute those arguments. Because assuming the Buddha is true, then we see the argument supporting that truth, then there may be some arguments undermining those arguments that support the truth.
So then you try and find some arguments that undermine arguments undermining the truth. Which leads to the truth again. Right? I hope that didn’t get too confusing. So it is a little bit like court cases where you have the two lawyers saying my client, my whatever is innocent because of blah blah blah blah blah and then the other lawyer says, no, he’s not innocent because of this, this, this and this.
And then the other lawyer comes back and said, oh, but your argument about that you said this, this and this is wrong because of this, this, this and this. Therefore my client is innocent. So we’re trying to do that in our own mind. In order to develop real confidence that what the Buddha taught is true. Because the stronger our faith that these are true, then the more we will engage ourselves with those truths.
Right? Am I making some sense? Yeah? So even if one can’t do this analysis very well because one doesn’t know much of the teaching or one doesn’t know much logic anyway. That’s okay.
The main thing is to try and think about these points, you know, to try and analyze them, to have some reasons why one believes this point that the Buddha made is true. So there are three supports for that is logic itself. There are one’s own experience using one’s own experience and also using quotes from teachings from the great teachers and great masters to use all those things. But of all of those things the most important is logic. This is what his holiness he hears His Holiness’s teachings, this is something He emphasizes many many many many times how important it is to have a logical basis for one’s belief.
And yeah. Because in debates, Buddhist monasteries what they do is to win a debate one way to win it is to quote something from the Sūtra that the Buddha said. But His Holiness says, yes, that’s okay. But that only really works if one has an intense belief, faith in the Buddha. We can pretend we have it but if one has this absolutely total pure faith in the Buddha as an omniscient being and you can quote the Buddha says this’ Well if the Buddha said it, it must be right so I totally believe it.
But most of us don’t have that level of faith. We may like to have it. So because most of us don’t operate at that level what we really need is this logic. To have a logical reason for what we believe. This is why His Holiness put so much emphasis in the studies about the mind and working with scientists.
Because, you know, unfortunately, you know, a lot of scientific materialists are arguing that there isn’t a mind, there’s just a brain. This is a horrible view. It’s totally depressing. It’s totally depressing view. Because the whole of Buddhism is based on the fact that there is the fact, the truth, that there is a mind, not a brain.
There is a brain but there is something else, something completely different which is the mind. But it’s very difficult to this is very difficult to prove that there is a mind. Yeah. And it’s not good enough, you know, if you’re if you’re arguing with scientists saying, oh, but the Buddha says there is one. Here it says so in this book.
You know? But especially these days we need people with who can really debate about this and have some proof, some arguments. That’s extremely difficult though because those scientists are very tricky. They’re very clever. They have lots of arguments, scientific proofs.
Oh, anyway, just in conclusion. So in an analytical meditation, what we try so we start out, we prepare our mind in the right way, the right motivation, be determined, be focused. Then you think about the topic and you try and follow some logical sequence and investigate that point from the point of logic, one’s own experience, experience of other people, such like that. Trying to understand that point, you know, experience it more and more as much as one can by investigating it from different points of view. And if at some point, and this is what’s supposed to happen at some point, but you can’t manufacture this and you can’t force it to happen, but ideally at some point you have this eureka moment.
Like, who was it? Who was it? Archimedes in the bathtub? Who was in the bathtub? Who was lying there thinking about he was doing analytical meditation on something and then he said, I have it.
You know, he got it. You know, he got the point. You know, those cartoons when the light bulb pops up above the head. So it’s like that. So when you get that experience in meditation by doing analytical meditation where you get some insight into something where you think: Oh yes, yeah, I get it.
I get this. Now I understand it. Then the idea is if you reach that point then you stop doing the analytical meditation and thinking about the subject. What you try and do is single pointedly stay in that experience. Because by doing that, by focusing on that feeling or insight that you has arisen depending on thinking, analyzing, by focusing on that, concentrating on that, that’s what drives the imprint deeper and deeper into the mind and helps bring about this real transformation.
So you can have little insights, realizations and eventually maybe the really big ones. Any questions? Disagreements? Yes. Only other than you don’t think about it anymore.
You don’t you don’t because you’ve reached the point where the experience, the ones that can happen, is happening. So you just kind of let go of thinking about it and just that feeling, that insight then becomes the object of meditation just like the breath. And so you just stay with it as, you know, it may only be for a very, very short time but you try and stay with it, you know, remain in that state. Not in a yeah. Yeah, you just sit there with it.
Yeah. And then when it fades away then you go on to the next point, the next aspect of the meditation. For example. Sorry? Yeah.
You can or can’t? Yes, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Yeah. People leading meditations is just like a a hell being hand for beginners. But, you know, Milarepa, when he was in his cave, he didn’t have one someone talk leading him through the meditation.
You know, you do it yourself. But of course in the Tibetan tradition there are, how do you say, formalized meditations on this where you don’t just I mean, they’re all set out because they’re based on the teachings. There’s a whole structure that helps you do that analysis to make it easier. But even though there is a structure like a skeleton of the meditation, you do have to fill it out. You have to flesh that skeleton out yourself.
And so the more you’ve heard of the teachings or the more you’ve had some experience related to that topic, the more you can flesh out that that skeleton. Yeah. But it’s definitely something you you yeah. You yeah. The the teachings give you an outline, a guideline, but, you know it’s up to you to make it come alive.
Because you’re trying to deal with your own like some things in the Buddhadharma are relatively easy to understand and also to believe. And that varies for each individual. You know there are many people who call themselves Buddhist who still find it very hard to believe in reincarnation. Other people find that extremely easy. Now I think I’ve lost my body cam.
What am I saying? Oh, anyway, so some people can relate to certain subjects and have experience of certain subjects so it makes it easier to meditate on some things than others. Some topics are easy to think about and get insights into depending on your background and personality and whatever. And some others are very difficult. And some things like emptiness that’s usually pretty difficult for everyone.
But of course this is the ultimate topic to meditate on with analytical meditation. This is really the final purpose is to be able to develop the wisdom realizing the true nature of things. One does that through analytical meditation. You analyze the wrong view seeing how this looks like the way things are but it couldn’t be. Anyway.
We’re talking about sentient beings. Mhmm. Oh, sentient just means having having consciousness. Yes. Yeah.
So a sentient being is a living being that has consciousness. So there are living beings that don’t have consciousness such as plants. Plant, yes. And then there are living beings which have consciousness which are sentient beings. According to the Buddha’s teachings plants don’t have consciousness.
So this is something you could analyze. This is quite difficult to prove by logic. So this is a case where you have to more or less say the Buddha said so. Until we can. Is yeah.
Although there are some indications that plants don’t have consciousness. There are some indications that they do. But it looks like see there are people arguing that they have consciousness but then there are some Buddhist arguments that would indicate that that’s not the case. But then there’s for example things like Buddhists say animals are sentient beings. They are conscious.
They have a mind exactly the same as ours. So certain scientists say wrong wrong wrong except more and more scientists are now saying animals do have consciousness. You can analyze those things. There are many good reasons for believing animals are. Not just because the Buddha said but many reasons to believe animals have consciousness.
Many, many. So that’s what you can do an analytical meditation on. And then from that you can think, you can analyse what are the implications of them. If if if animals have consciousness, what does that imply? What does that mean?
Tea break. In the time that I’ve got left I’d just like to talk a little bit about by way of just some example of the analytical meditation that the Four Immeasurables. So some of you are familiar with the Lamrim or have some familiarity with the teachings on the graduated path. So each each one of those topics is something to do analytical meditation on, but since some of you aren’t familiar with them, I won’t it’s and and some of them are quite detailed. I thought I’d try and explain just a little bit the four immeasurable thoughts.
So the four immeasurable thoughts are the thought of love, compassion, joy and equanimity. One can do analytical meditation on these four immeasurable thoughts and by doing that analytical meditation that helps generate these qualities of love, compassion, joy and equanimity. So I’m just going to say a few words about each one because this is your homework to meditate on the four immeasurable thoughts. So again to really go into this requires a lot of time. I’m just going to make a couple of points.
But in doing analytical meditation on loving kindness or love one thinks about what is love? What is meant by love in a Buddhist context? Because we talk about, you know, I love my dog, I love my parents, I love my children, I love my wife, husband, you know, I love meat pies, I love my football team and so on. So there’s all these things but and they all mean actually kind of different things. So we have this word love in Buddhism which we’re encouraged to develop.
So what what does it mean? So what it means in Buddhism is love is that the mind wanting self and others to have happiness. That’s what it means. It’s wanting happiness. Wanting others, self and others, to experience happiness.
So then one can analyze what is happiness? If love is wanting happiness, what is happiness? So is happiness like sex, drugs and rock and roll having lots of money, is it one of those things or all of those things combined together? So is that what love is, wanting people to have lots of money, lots of power, lots of sex, lots of possessions. Is that what love is?
No, it’s not. Because all those things just represent, you know, having, you know, nice food, money, sex, drugs, rock and roll. What they bring is pleasure. Pleasure isn’t happiness. So you can analyze that.
Is pleasure happiness? Is it the happiness we really want? I mean, we want pleasure, but is that what is is that all we want? The happiness that we really want is something that is complete and perfect and lasting. This is what the Buddha defines as happiness.
It’s something that is completely free of suffering which is pure, perfect, lasting. So one can analyze, Is that what I want? And therefore, is this what everyone wants? Yes they do. This is what the Buddha says.
One can analyze, think about those things. And then one can analyze in developing love, you know, what are the causes of love? What causes sorry what causes happiness? Because actual love is is not just wanting being self and others to have happiness, but also even more deeply, it’s wanting them to have the causes of happiness. Because without the causes, there won’t be happiness.
So then one can analyze what are the causes of happiness. And the Buddha says the causes of happiness are not don’t exist in the external world. There’s nothing in the external world that can cause us to experience happiness. External things in the external world can, roughly speaking, cause us to have pleasure but not happiness. The Buddha says that the actual cause of happiness lies within our mind.
Happiness is a state of mind therefore the cause of it lies within our own mind. Within the virtuous states of mind. All the virtuous states of mind are causes of happiness. So one can think about those, analyze that to whatever extent we can. So then so that’s what love is and how do we develop love towards others or even ourselves.
And basically it comes from the very simple fact of realizing more deeply, knowing more and more deeply that oneself and others do not have it. Love is wanting some self or others to have happiness, meaning you want them to have something that they don’t have. There’s no point wanting someone to have something they’ve already got because they’ve already got it. So that’s why technically you can’t love a Buddha because a Buddha is perfectly happy. You can’t love your Gurus because one should have the view that they are perfect beings.
But you can love people who are unhappy, meaning you want them to be happy. So real love arises from it is a response to feeling or being aware as more and more deeply that this person and this person can be yourself. You realize, I am not happy, but I want. May I have happiness? Because what I have isn’t happiness.
I may have some pleasure. I may have some success. I may have good good health, good fortune, blah blah blah blah. I might even have good looks. I didn’t get those, but some of you may have them.
I may have these things, but I don’t have happiness. And then you can look at your family and friends and realize: Oh, may have success, good fortune, good health blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. But they actually aren’t happy. They don’t have real happiness. And sadly they aren’t their life isn’t isn’t anyway, they’re not creating the causes.
They’re not actually their life doesn’t involve creating the actual causes of happiness. So when one actually sees that, you know, really sees it, then love will develop. And the more one sees it, the more one will want this person to have happiness. So that arises. So love is a thought.
You know, we you know, we have this idea as love is some kind of mushy emotion. It’s a feeling. But it isn’t. It’s a thought. But of course a thought, every thought we have, every state of mind has a feeling that goes with it.
There’s either a pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feeling with every thought, moment, every conscious moment or every unconscious moment we have. Everything we’re experiencing has a feeling. So the thought of love has a very pleasant feeling with it. Yeah. So this really heartfelt genuine, wanting beings, oneself, others to have real happiness.
So you can always analyze what I said. Is is that true? Does that make sense or not? Is that what it’s really about or not? Is the really is the Buddha really spot on there or not?
Is happiness having a million dollars? Is that real happiness? Is that the real cause of happiness, having a million dollars? Being married to Gina Reinhart will make me perfectly happy? You know?
Or the male equivalent. Well some people think so. We live most of us live our life thinking that if I have a billion dollars I will be happy. Because we haven’t analyzed properly. But then you look at the people who’ve got that.
Are they happy? You look at all the people who are beautiful, rich, famous, powerful, sexy, are they happy? They should be hysterically happy. Most of them are just hysterical. Anyway that’s a little bit on that.
Even just real analytical meditation is investigating, analyzing logically but in a very simple way analytical meditation is just using the power of thought. So even just repeating the words, may I have happiness, has an effect on the mind. May others have happiness. May my mother, father, brother, sister, family, friends, helpers. May the people who have harmed me have happiness.
Just saying that has some effect because and trying to make it, even though it may not be very sincere, trying to make it as sincere as possible. Or realizing part of the analysis you think, Oh may my enemy have happiness? And then you see, you analyze and check, Oh I don’t believe it. I want them to be miserable. And then you you you analyze why do I want them to be miserable.
What what what is the benefit? What real benefit will I ever get from my enemy being miserable? Is there a real benefit that may look like a benefit? Or is there actual harm to me wanting my enemy to be miserable? So then by analyzing those things one can maybe get to some point where the thought may the enemy have happiness start to take on some sincerity.
Because one sees there is actual benefit from it. It’s not just empty words. But just saying those words beneficial because it’s putting some imprint in our mind contrary to the negative tendency we have. The Buddha says that. I know it does sound a bit strange, but you have to I didn’t want to get into deep you know, this is the point, see, to be able to analyze this properly and not go completely crazy or get the wrong view, one has to receive the teachings on this that we’ll explain in more detail.
I’m just saying a few things now because some people have some background and there’s some not. Yeah. But I mean this is not to say you know it’s not it may look like but it’s not saying you know the person who kills your wife should be rewarded. It doesn’t mean that. Or that it’s good for someone to kill your wife.
It is not saying that. It’s not saying that at all. Killing people is bad, is negative karma. This is not good at all. Not to be encouraged either.
But, nevertheless the mind this is the thing to investigate whenever you know our mind sending out harmful thoughts to another person whether that is from an ordinary point of view justified or not, those harmful thoughts harm us. They don’t harm the other being. Well a little bit because we talked about sending out bad vibes and stuff. But whatever harm we can cause another person through our harmful thoughts or acting on them is nothing compared to the harm we we bring ourselves by generating negative thoughts to others. Yeah, well one starts yeah, yeah, Yes.
Yeah. That’s great. Yeah. But I think it also does come from people realizing that they’re harming themselves more. You know, that the mind wanting revenge and everything harms oneself.
Yes, oh sure, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Not easy to do but yes. Yeah, that’s why the Buddha advises it. Because it actually, you know, if you yeah again, if you do analytical meditation, if you analyze it, although it may be very extremely difficult to do, one can see the logic of it.
This is the point. So once one starts to see the logical value of it, that it makes sense to think that way even though the convention is to hate people who harm. You know, what is it? An eye for an eye? Lovely.
But what is the response to that? Everyone ends up blind. Yeah? Isn’t it an eye for an eye? You’re all blind.
That’s the yeah. So once one starts to see that, you know, there is some the Buddhist view has a great truth to it, then one can develop admiration for that and move in that direction even though it may be extremely difficult. But through the power of familiarity one can one’s way of thinking changes. Yes, yes. Yep, that’s the Buddha’s view.
So then just very quickly. I’ve got three more immeasurable thoughts. Next one is compassion. So compassion is the response to suffering. It it just like love is wanting others to have happiness, compassion, the meaning of compassion in the Buddhist context is the mind not wanting others to suffer.
And it arises from seeing that other beings are suffering and the more one see also to oneself, the more we see that we ourselves are suffering, the more we see or that see, feel, know, experience that others are suffering compassion can arise. The mind not wanting that suffering and especially at a deeper level not wanting beings to create the causes of suffering because while beings are creating the cause there will be suffering. So then again just with you know we say love is wanting happiness. What is happiness? Then what is suffering?
So from a Buddhist you know from an ordinary point of view the word suffering is related just to pain, physical mental pain, obvious physical and mental pain. But we can analyse that in the Buddhist tradition the term that is translated as suffering which is dukkha the Sanskrit word and Tibetan is dukkha what that is referring to is not just physical and mental suffering but even what we call happiness. What we as ordinary beings call happiness is also actually suffering. Why? Because what we call happiness doesn’t last.
I mean there are other reasons which I won’t go into but one could analyze those reasons if you study those reasons. But the simple reason to understand why what we call happiness isn’t happiness doesn’t really deserve the label is because it doesn’t last. And because it doesn’t last it leaves us with obvious suffering again. Once it stops there’s dissatisfaction. There’s some kind of suffering.
Whereas what the Buddha says only deserves the term happiness is something that always lasts. It’s always fulfilling, always complete. That’s what we want. That’s what deserves the label happiness. And but all of the things we experience that we call happiness don’t last.
So they’re just temporary distractions. So then by thinking about how much suffering oneself has, how much suffering others have, how much oneself and others actually blindly create the causes of suffering over and over again, then one’s compassion can increase, become very deep, very powerful. Because one sees, one recognizes beings are suffering but what’s worse, they keep creating the causes of it and they don’t even know it. People do things sinking this is going to make me happy and it’s actually a cause of suffering from a Buddhist point of view. And which we maybe have by doing analytical meditation come to the conclusion that the Buddha’s view is the truth.
So by analyzing, just thinking about this, you just you look around among human beings which is one thinks about all the different kinds of sufferings human beings experience. And not just the obvious sufferings, even the sufferings of being rich and beautiful and famous and powerful. All these people are also suffering. There’s different kinds of suffering. There’s the suffering of being rich and the suffering of being poor, suffering of being ugly, the suffering of being good looking.
There’s the suffering of being young, suffering of being old, suffering of being a man, suffering of being a woman, suffering of being this, suffering that. There’s so many suffering. If you analyze, if you if we think about think, if we use our intelligence. Actually I watched a program on TV not so long ago made by a very rich American guy, young guy. And it was about his very, very, very rich friends.
And about the suffering and how one of these very, very, very these are not just rich people but like super super super rich people. And one of them said something along the lines that he couldn’t believe how stupid people are to think that because they’re rich they’re not happy they’re what is it? Yeah. And not suffering. Of course, they didn’t want to give up their money, of course, be happy.
But it’s a ridiculous thing that just because we’ve got lots of money, we’re happy and not not suffering. So one can analyse how, you know, if if one’s wasting one’s life trying to be rich, why? Why am I trying to be rich? Is it because I think that’s gonna make me happy? How can being rich make you happy?
Rich can make being rich can make you rich. You can have lots of pleasures but do pleasures make you happy? Then you can investigate what is happiness? What do really want? What do people really want?
Most people don’t know what they really want. They’re not conscious because they don’t think about it. They don’t analyse. They don’t do analytical meditation of really looking carefully, scientifically, objectively investigating. They don’t check up, as Lama said.
We don’t check up. And, you know, society tells us this is this is what we should do, and we don’t check up. But then the Buddha says do this, then you look at the Buddha compared to other people. Who’s maybe a good guide to start to listen to and really check up? So by thinking this allows us to see and feel because feeling goes with thinking.
Yeah? If we think properly we can start to see how much suffering there is and even in people who seem to be incredibly happy or successful. And then we can start to feel compassion for them. Our heart can open and we can even start to see how enemies are suffering. That in fact all the terrible people in the world who do all the terrible they can only do it because they’re suffering.
How can a happy person do negative things? Actually it’s impossible. If one has really experienced peace and contentment, it’s impossible to consciously cause harm, to deliberately harm anyone. So the mere fact that there are people doing terrible things either to oneself or others, that that is proof that they are suffering. Anyway, I don’t have time to talk about joy and equanimity, which are part of your homework, so you can leave them out and just, because they were all oh.
I think I did the homework sheet for it too quickly. Does everyone does could you someone yes. I think I spaced out doing the homework sheet. I didn’t Oh no. Oh no, that’s right.
It’s all okay. So according to the homework it says Wednesday to meditate on loving kindness, Thursday on compassion, Friday on joy, Saturday on equanimity. So unless you know how to do that you could leave those two out and just on Friday meditate on love again and Thursday Saturday on compassion. Just to alternate those two. Okay?
But anyway, those two things loving kindness, compassion these are thoughts that we cultivate by thinking. They’re very special, virtuous, powerful thoughts. We have the potential for them within our mind. So they are cultivated by thinking in a particular way and strengthening that way of thinking and letting go of the other ways of thinking that are counter to that. Because, you know, in in developing love, love is something that we need to develop towards everyone, not just nice people, not just to our friends and family and then other nice people, but to strangers and eventually to enemies.
Real love is something that is impartial. If one can develop a genuine love to one person it’s something that we can feel towards experience towards anyone including enemies. So we have to undermine, you know, to think think of arguments that undermine the arguments we have that up until now we have held on to that support the wrong view that it’s okay. In fact, it’s necessary and good to hate the enemy, not love the enemy. Alright.
Okay that’s it. Puja. Guru Śākyamūni Buddha. We went through this last week. Sorry.
So that was the Śākyamūni Buddha meditation which is in your it’s on page twenty. Yeah. Okay. So while I think of it, just to remind you that next Sunday no not this coming Sunday, but Sunday week is the retreat day for this course. So I’d really encourage people once again to come to it if you possibly can.
It’s from nine thirty. Yeah? No. Nine. Okay.
No. It’s nine. The meditation that you every Sunday, there’s a meditation at nine o’clock. So but we cleverly incorporate the usual Sunday meditation into the retreat. So the retreat is from nine o’clock until three thirty, and we ask people to bring a veg plate of vegetarian food to share.
So we will have it Sunday week, fifteenth. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes.
So I highly encourage everyone to come to that if they can because it is meant to be part of the whole course so that we can, you know, go through together meditations that I’ve talked about. And it is good to meditate together. No, it can have the old black foods in it except the meat one. But yeah, some veggie food. Yeah.
Don’t worry. Yeah. Okay, so we can One final question. Anyway, some people who have never done a retreat, one day retreat, may think it’s something huge, difficult to do. It’s not.
Everyone who’s done them has survived, lived to tell the tale. Hopefully, I think in most cases they’ve enjoyed them. Yeah, so I please, it’s quite easygoing, nothing too difficult. Yeah, you can manage it. Best way to feed the mind.
To nourish the mind. Okay. So thank you very much. So we can conclude. If you’d like to join in we can do the traditional dedication of merit, the positive energy we’ve generated.
We can dedicate that this becomes a cause for us to be able to meditate perfectly and because of that, quickly achieve enlightenment for the sake of all kind suffering Mother sentient beings. 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 bodhicitta, not yet born, arise and grow. May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore.