Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 113-minute final session of a six-week course on meditation, Venerable Thubten Dondrub guides students through the full structure of a Buddhist practice session—from establishing proper posture and the nine-round breathing exercise, through visualizing the Buddha and making requests for obstacles to be removed, to the core practice of analytical meditation on topics like love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. He emphasizes that meditation is not about achieving temporary peace or quiet, but about gradually training the mind to recognize and eliminate disturbing thoughts while cultivating positive qualities; he uses the garden metaphor of removing weeds while nurturing flowers to explain why both purification and positive development are necessary. Throughout, he addresses common obstacles—concentration difficulties, jealousy, attachment, and aversion—and offers practical arguments and visualizations to counteract them, explaining how even artificial or forced practice of virtuous thoughts eventually becomes genuine through the power of familiarity. The teaching concludes with instructions on dedicating merit to enlightenment in order to protect positive imprints and direct them toward benefiting all beings. Suitable for practitioners new to formal Buddhist study or those seeking structured guidance on meditation method.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 12 10 DB How to Meditate Week 6.mp3
UUID: 2c4af264-daf0-4f53-ac3a-8c0032fb7386
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB How to Meditate (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-12-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 113.5 minutes
Words: ~11,323
Into our last class on how to meditate. So if you would like to join in we will do the traditional prayer which is on page sixteen. So as this is being said, is important that we try and generate from our own side our own personal meditation, to make it as strong and sincere, clear as possible because that tends to that definitely affects, determines, influences what kind of result we get from what we’re doing. So we’re listening to the Buddhist teachings and so to get the very best effect from them it’s good to have the best motivation. And the best motivation we can have is the what is called bodhicitta wishing to listen to the teachings in order to put them into practice, in order to bring about changes in our mind that will ultimately lead to us being totally free of all suffering and all its causes and being able to achieve realize the full potential of our mind and achieve the enlightened state that enables us to not only experience peerless everlasting happiness ourselves, but enable us to help every sentient being without exception to achieve that result.
And the main reason to want to do this comes from recognizing how all beings are immensely kind to ourselves in every possible way. Even those who are not kind to us in this life have been immensely kind in past lives, will be kind in future lives, helpful, necessary, vital to our existence. Yet all these so the more we have that awareness and understanding then this great love can develop towards all sentient beings. And from that great compassion, when we allow ourselves to realize more and more how all beings are suffering. Especially when we understand our own saṃsāra, having a mind controlled by delusion and karma, can start to understand how all beings have minds controlled by delusion and karma.
And that means that they are trapped in suffering, have always the potential to experience suffering. And we can begin to see how beings are unfortunately creating the causes for suffering. So from thinking about those things and having some faith in our own Buddha potential, faith in the Buddha’s teachings, the methods that can help us awaken our potential, then on the basis of those things coming together, we can generate bodhicitta. But until then, even just by thinking about those things more and more, our attitude to sentient beings will change more and more. Our love and compassion for them will increase.
And there will be at least some wish to be, you know, not to harm sentient beings, but at least to help them in some ways. But if we contemplate these things more and more and more, eventually that mind of actual bodhicitta will arise. So as we say this prayer to make it more effective we think of the Buddha in front of us as the very embodiment of all the Three Jewels of refuge and all their qualities. We can think of the Buddha as the embodiment of all the teachers we’ve ever had in the past, will have in this life, will in the future. And we can think the Buddha appears in front of us to remind us of our own Buddha potential.
He appears there to encourage us to develop that potential, to realize it. And at the same time, we try and think of all beings surrounding us, starting with our mother on our left, father on our right, the rest of our family, all our friends and helpers behind us, harm us in front, and then as much as possible all other sentient beings. So we try and get a sense of their their actual their their living presence and how they are only kind and yet only suffering. At least we should focus on those people we’re most connected to in a good or bad way in this life. We have to make it even if we can only imagine our mom and dad.
But if we can a bit more than that, it’s better. So to think no matter what I must achieve enlightenment to repay the kindness of these wonderful but suffering beings. So to do that I have to follow the path. And to follow the path successfully I have to understand the path. And that’s why I listen to the teachings.
And the path involves always working with the mind and the most direct way is through the practice of meditation. So I need to understand what meditation is, how to train the mind in this vital practice correctly. So for this reason, for the sake of all sentient beings, I will study this subject. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the 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 again we can spend a little time doing some meditation. So firstly trying to sit correctly as much as possible in the Vairocana posture. Paying particular attention to our spine and the positioning of our head. And then just briefly checking our posture by moving the awareness from the crown down through the full length of our body. And then just establishing a calm neutral mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise just for a short time.
And if you find it helpful combining that with a visualization with each in breath of the cycle. Imagine breathing in this very calming white light coming from the Buddha that brings great peace and clarity and stillness to the mind. And then with each out breath in the cycle, that you breathe out whatever agitation is existing in your mind right now. Any suffering, confusion, all causes of suffering and confusion, all the disturbing thoughts and negative imprints in the form of black smoke. So finish the cycle the nine round breathing cycle and then just focus without any visualization on the breath coming and going.
Just really let your mind fully engage with that experience So that without forcing it any way, not manufacturing anything, allow your mind as much as possible just to experience only your breath coming and going. Particularly, the subtle sensation in and around the nostrils as the breath comes and goes. Just let your mind be filled only with that experience. So let everything else which is not the awareness of the breath fade away. Don’t pay attention to it whether it’s good or bad, past or future, just let go of it all.
To do that, we have to practice mindfulness to detect the hindrances that prevent that. The hindrances of dullness and scattering. So as soon as they occur, let go of them, bring the mind back to the breath, And to help that process one can count each in and out breath as one breath. Try and follow eleven consecutive breaths. But if the hindrances occur, you have to start the count from the beginning.
Keep doing it without any sense of disappointment or expectation. If you’ve managed to count eleven breaths, then start again. So now move your focus away from the breath to the Buddha in front of you. So imagine that the Buddha is appearing vividly directly in front of you, just an arm’s length away, Seated about the height of your forehead. The Buddha is seated on a magnificent multicolored many petal lotus.
Above it is a sun disc and then a moon disc. All in the nature of radiating light. Nothing solid but clearly appearing. Then imagine that the Buddha has a hollow body of golden light, and he’s seated directly above the white moon disc. He’s seated with his legs crossed in the vajra position, with his body adorned with the saffron patched robes of a monk.
So that his feet can be seen resting on the thighs. His right shoulder, arm is bare. The left is covered by the robe. The right arm is outstretched with the hand resting on the right knee, the fingers touching the moon disc underneath him. From the the robe, his left hand appears out resting in his lap in the meditation posture, supporting a deep blue begging bowl, which is full of wisdom nectar.
Imagine the Buddha’s appearance is very beautiful, youthful. He is looking directly at oneself with great love and compassion, but equally aware of all beings in the same way. Imagine that ear lobes of the Buddha are very long. That the lips are a deep red color. The eyes are also somewhat long and narrow.
The irises are deep blue. The hair of the Buddha’s head is a deep blue color. Each hair individually curling to the right. And above the hair on the crown of the head is the golden uṣṇīṣa or top knot. So just focus on that as much as you can for a short time.
And then as we recite the mantra, if don’t know it, don’t remember it, it doesn’t matter. But if you do try and recite it, as we do so, we imagine this blissful white light and nectar comes from the Buddha pouring into us. And this eliminates all suffering, all confusion, all negative imprints that leave our body in the form or leave our mind in the form of black liquid and pours out from the lower part of our body. So then imagine as we recite the mantra that now golden light nectar pours down from the Buddha into us. And this time that golden light and nectar as it pours into us blesses our mind for all our positive potentials to manifest of qualities of great love, compassion, wisdom.
We think those qualities pour into us from the Buddha, awaken our own potential for those qualities. So now imagine that, visualize that the Buddha now comes towards us, approaches us. As the Buddha gets closer towards us, he becomes smaller and smaller. When directly above the crown of our head, the Buddha turns around facing the same direction as ourself, dissolves into blissful golden light. And then imagine that that light pours down into you, blessing your mind.
So then we can relax our posture, Then gradually open the eyes completely to conclude the meditation. So hopefully doing this kind of thing that we just did is a pleasant experience. Brings some kind of peace and clarity into the mind. But the purpose of doing it is not just to have a pleasant experience, to have some temporary peace and clarity in the mind. It is to train the mind so step by step to, so that even by imagining the mind becoming free of disturbing thoughts it is, planting some imprints in our mind.
It’s also making us aware that we have disturbing thoughts, that they are causing problems to us, that they are the real source of our suffering. So the more we do these visualizations it can shift the mind towards wanting to be free of those disturbing thoughts more and more. To look for the way to do so. The more we imagine receiving the blessings of the Buddha in the form of golden light, awakening all our positive qualities, this puts positive imprints to be able to do this in the future and to work towards it more and more in this life. Because this is the real purpose of Buddhist meditation as I’ve tried to explain.
It’s not just about getting some temporary benefit, some temporary pleasure, peace or quiet or whatever. Buddhist meditation these days is now being used to work with all sorts of illnesses and try some people say that they have been cured of cancer by doing various kinds of meditation practices. Certainly Buddhist meditation claims to be able to do that. That it can cure even very serious diseases in some cases. But and there’s a certain a very particular meditation practice that some of you may know called Tonglen which can be very effective in overcoming all sorts of even very serious diseases.
But as I’ve said before, even if this is the case, we get cured of one disease, we’re going to die anyway. We’re either going to die of another disease or something else. So this is not the real aim of meditation. Because, so we get cured of a disease but we still have to face our disturbing thoughts, other people with disturbing thoughts, difficult things in the environment. What we really need to do for real peace and happiness is to work with our mind if we start to understand more and more, which we can do with the Buddha’s teachings, with the help of the Buddha’s teachings, that it is our mind that is our the real problem, but it’s also the real solution.
Our uncontrolled mind is our worst enemy and the subdued mind is our best friend. And our uncontrolled mind is the worst enemy to other people. Our subdued mind is the best friend of other people. So this is what we need to do if we really start to understand what the mind is, what it actually does. That while we have an un while we have disturbing thoughts and we have no control over them, we’re going to experience suffering and create the causes for more suffering to ourselves and also harm others in various ways.
So we need to, at the very least, subdue our mind. But if we can really gain complete mastery over it so that we can get to a point where we can eliminate those disturbing thoughts and at the same time really cultivate the positive qualities. Because it’s important to understand that no matter how much we cultivate the positive qualities, if we don’t deal with the disturbing thoughts, then however much we cultivate the good qualities that will be undermined. It’s like having a garden. You can cultivate the flowers and vegetables but if you don’t do anything about the weeds you don’t get many flowers and vegetables.
The weeds take over. So one has to work on the weeds but as well and just working on the weeds is not enough. You also have to cultivate the flowers and vegetables, be nice to them, feed them so that both things are necessary. Same with the mind. We have to get rid of the weeds of the delusions, but we have to cultivate the positive potentials.
We need both. And that’s what meditation is about. What it’s really about is developing, insight into what is going on in our mind. Recognizing of this that this aspect of what is going on in my mind is actually harmful to me. It’s detrimental.
It’s it’s leading to all sorts of unskillful, ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. And this aspect of my mind, this is good. This is actually helpful, beneficial. So we need to recognize things and cultivate the positive, eliminate the negative. That’s what meditation is about.
But it’s really about developing insight, going beyond just concepts but being able to develop real insight, direct experience of what is true about ourselves, about everything, especially if we understand that the source of our the very root of our suffering is this ignorance obscuring our mind that creates these false appearances which we grasp at as real. So we have to undermine we have to recognize those false appearances as false. Yeah. But until we can do that, they will dominate our mind and, yeah, and we will suffer. So that’s what meditation is about.
So I don’t know if I can say very much more, than what I’ve said so far in the course. I just want to check some things. Firstly, do you have any questions about, the nine round breathing exercise and the visualization that goes with it? It’s all clear. Yeah?
Because the nine round breathing exercise is traditionally in the Tibetan system they talk about the eight-point Vairocana posture. So the seven points are the physical posture and the eighth point is doing the nine round breathing exercise. And the purpose of it, the nine round breathing exercise is not meant to be a meditation in itself. It’s meant to be a preliminary to meditation. Alright?
It’s meant to get know, subdue like the gross negativity and agitation in the mind. And it should help develop a calm, neutral mind. And one can combine it with the visualization of the white light and the black smoke. So is everyone don’t be shy if you’re not because this is the whole point. Know?
Not much me point not much point me sitting here and talking if people haven’t understood or completely confused about what I’ve said. Yes. Because also, of course, there are far, far, far, far, far, far greater teachers than me like all the Tibetan lamas and so on. But sometimes the Tibetan lamas are very scary in a sense where we get scared they’re not scary, but we get scared of them and they’re very impressive and no one’s brave enough to ask them a question even though they could give the best answers. But with me, you can ask me questions.
I’m reasonably, you know. No. Actually there is a I’ve had debates about this because I’ve ought to be honest, this may confuse you all, sorry. I’ve always understood you start with a right and left and then all these other people told me no that’s wrong. So I’ve changed it.
But then I read, and I have very good reasons to believe it should be right left first according to Tantra. Well not just even Tantra. Yeah. But and actually in in if you noticed in the stewed material there’s a way to do it where it says start with your right. Because actually according to Tantra, the right side is associated with anger.
Anger and compassion. The left side is attachment. Anyway, so by starting with your right side you breathe out the anger energy first because that’s the weakest one. Then the other way you breathe out the attachment energy. And then the third one is ignorance.
So it’s more progressively difficult. So you start with the easy one. Yeah. But I’ve I’ve been doing it for some time, the the left, right, left, right. But, ultimately, at our level, I don’t think it matters terribly much.
But the main thing is like to as you’re breathing in, it’s white light breathing in. Start with the left nostril, white light in, black smoke out, white, you know, three times, then reverse, and then both in. So that’s all clear. Right side. You’re right on Strong.
I think it says so, but oh, I’m confused. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
I’m a little bit confused about it all. That didn’t clarify anything at all, did it? Sorry. Confused everyone. I should never have started that.
Okay so there is anyway so there’s no confusion between that and doing just the breathing counting the breaths. That’s okay. How you can stop the nine round and then you can just observe the breath coming and going without visualization. Yeah. Okay.
That’s at least to know what to do. I just like to make this point. You know? Sorry. It’s a very simple point, but so many people in the homework make the point that they are trying to do these things, but they find it very difficult and they can’t concentrate.
Of course, you, we can’t concentrate. No one can concentrate like that. This is the point or the reason to do it. It is it is not natural for a human being to be able to concentrate the mind. It’s very well I don’t want to say very it takes a lot of time and specific training to do that.
Just like most athletic events are not natural to the body to do, athletes train to do all these strange sports that have been invented. That’s why they have so many injuries because it’s not really natural for the body to, you know, to to do such extreme things. And, like and and also ballet dances and that, they have all sorts of horrible physical problems because what they’re doing is really actually quite it looks beautiful, but it’s really unnatural. So ultimately having a concentrated mind is natural but we’ve never had it because we’ve always had disturbed minds, disturbing thoughts, delusions which prevent the mind concentrating. Right?
So it’s only through very specific training of the mind going step by step will the mind concentrate. So don’t give yourself a hard time that you can’t concentrate even beyond one second. Even to be able to count two or three breaths really, you know, as a beginner is difficult. Let alone twenty one. Some of you say I’ve already got to the second stage.
You may, I hope you have, but it’s possibly quite unlikely because if you know the first stage of Samādhi is being able to follow twenty one breaths where your mind is actually on the object for the whole twenty one breaths. And it’s yeah. And there’s not a lot of other stuff going on because anyone can count twenty one, even I can do that. But in the meantime, a whole lot of junk is going on. You know?
Yes. Yeah. You you actually see the one, you know, like on a blackboard or something. Yeah. No.
That that is definitely a distraction. Well, if if it is, don’t do it. You don’t have to do that. It’s just an aid for some people. Yeah.
Yeah. I I would say so. Yeah. Yeah. Even if you can get rid of it, focus straight away.
Can get, you know, a split second. What? I’ll I’ll never get to two. Yeah. Right.
No. No. That that’s right. Yeah. One should be gentle.
Yeah. First, you yeah. Because in the counting because even someone who can count twenty one more or less count, it’s you’re still not really concentrated. So it’s it’s a type of con it’s a low level concentration where the mind is more or less on the object all the time. But, of course, there’s all this undercurrent going on.
So in that case, it would be okay, but it’s not perfect yet. But, of course, if you get really distracted by the one, you know, totally it’s like I was saying with with noises and things, we can still like, believe it or not, you know, when someone achieves Samādhi, then you don’t you know, you could have, you know, what’s his name, Bon Jovi and his group playing right next to you, and you don’t hear it at all because the the ear consciousness has ceased. That is a sign of Samādhi. You’ve just shut it down and you can do it spontaneously once you’ve achieved it. Right.
So so for us, we we we still hear things, but the point is as I made the point before, we have a choice whether we really listen to it and pay attention to it or not. And of course if we decide to pay or uncontrollably pay attention to it then we’ve lost. There’s no way to have any concentration. But we can try and keep the mind on the object where where the primary focus is the object even though we can still hear, but we’re not really yeah, and of course there’s degrees of that as well if we’re honest of how much we’re really interested in the object and how much we’re, you know, paying attention to the other thing. So if the number flashes it up just a little bit but you don’t really you know, that’s okay.
That’s okay. Because you can’t be perfect at first because you never will get beyond one in a sense and then you just get totally discouraged. Yeah. So you no. That’s what I’m saying.
You can’t. Yeah. Yeah. So you but you don’t yeah. You don’t you know, it’s a matter of how much your mind gets involved and because at some point you you you the object is lost and is totally just listening to the dancing or it can be fifty fifty or sixty forty, seventy Yes.
Yes. So that’s okay. So that’s okay. Yeah. But if you start thinking, oh, I wish that was quieter.
That’s more a serious distraction. Yeah. No. No. No.
No. That that’s the process. That’s the process of of dealing with, you know, something’s coming up and you you don’t feed it. You yeah. That’s all we can do.
Yeah. Right. That’s okay as long as it’s not too distracting. No, you do have to count them of course. Yeah, yeah, mind is thinking one, two, three.
Yeah, that’s okay. I don’t know if you need to do that. Just a quick one, two. Yes. Oh yes.
Oh okay, just very briefly. Yeah. I mean there’s yeah. There’s like there was a very super brief introduction to love and compassion. There’s a whole lot more.
But okay. With so there’s love, compassion, joy and then equanimity. Okay so love is, you know, as I mentioned, if you remember, is the mind recognizing that either self or others lack any genuine happiness, and therefore love is the mind that wants beings to have that love that they that happiness that they don’t have. Whereas joy is the mind that recognizes that someone is experiencing some happiness, some goodness in their life, and one is happy about it and wants that joy and happiness and success that others are experiencing to continue and increase. So one can cultivate joy by just recognizing that there are some people who are practicing well and have I mean, yes, in cultivating the immeasurable thought of joy or yeah that one cultivates the thought sentient beings never be separated from higher rebirths and complete liberation.
So within saṃsāra there are the good rebirths as humans especially having a precious human rebirth and beings in the God realms. So they’re still in saṃsāra and the aim is to get out of saṃsāra. But if if one is stuck in saṃsāra, it’s better to be in the upper realms as a human or in the god realms than in the lower realms. So one rejoices, one feels joy that some some beings have achieved that rebirth. May they always have those good rebirths.
May all sentient beings be able to achieve at least while they’re in saṃsāra those good rebirths. May they be able to achieve liberation and so on. So one cultivates joy that way. And rejoicing is very specifically an antidote to the one of the main delusions which is jealousy. So especially if one is trying to follow what the Tibetan Buddhist tradition encourages.
The Tibetan Buddhist tradition is all about following the Mahāyāna teachings which is about encouraging us to achieve enlightenment to benefit all sentient beings to follow the bodhisattva way of life. So it’s really counterproductive to be jealous. Mean if you check like all delusions when one is jealous, it is it is actually painful. You see someone who is better looking than oneself, more successful, richer, younger, whatever, and and one is one feels jealousy. And that that feeling is actually doesn’t bring us happiness.
The very opposite, it makes us miserable. A friend of mine once described as like being she she said when she feels just like she’s stabbing herself in the heart. So it’s really ridiculous that, and of course our jealousy doesn’t stop the other person being successful or happy or beautiful or sexy or whatever they are. It just makes us miserable. So like all delusions, it’s really stupid.
It’s really, really stupid to be unhappy because someone else is happy. Isn’t it? It’s just insane from, just an ordinary point of view. And from the point of view of following the spiritual path where we want you know, we’re we’re trying to cultivate the mind wanting everyone to be happy because that mind is actually the happiest mind we can have. The more people we want to be happy, really happy, the more we will be happy, actually.
It’s the best state of mind. So to to be miserable that someone is happy is completely counteractive, counterproductive to the spiritual path and especially the bodhisattva way of life seeking enlightenment. Yeah. Yes. Yes.
Of course. I’m getting to that. Yes. Yes. Good grief.
Yes. Back of the room bagging you. Yes. Well, haven’t got to that yet. Just a minute.
Okay. So now where am I? Yeah. So, yeah. So one what we should do, what is what is intelligent to do and is actually very beneficial for ourselves and others is to rejoice in whatever success other people have, the good things they have, especially the spiritual qualities of someone and so on to feel happy about those things.
And this is a good thing in itself. It’s very productive to developing love and compassion. It makes us happy in the moment we’re experiencing it. But it also creates merit. It puts this this positive these positive it’s the easiest way to create merit.
There are three ways to create merit. By doing a virtuous action, oneself, with either one’s body, speech or mind. By doing a virtuous thing, apart from all the effects in this life, it puts these positive karmic imprints, merit, which are the source of every kind of happiness in the future. So the obvious way to create merit is to do things oneself. Another way is to encourage other people to do good things with their body, speech and mind.
If you if you if you if we become the the cause for someone to do something really good, we create merit. And the third way is to rejoice with other people in the good qualities and actions of other people. So it’s the best way you can just lie in an armchair and rejoice that there are people working their guts out to practice it in the Dharma really hard. One just says, Oh rejoice! So great merit is made.
But one starts rejoicing with oneself. It is very important. This is the actual tradition. You start the practice with oneself. You recognize that we recognize that in the past, in the present, and we will in the future I’ll start again in the past we have done good things, In the present, we are doing good things.
And in the future, we will do good things. So we should rejoice. How wonderful. Because that that that that what we have done in the past has create merit. What we are doing in the present is creating merit.
What we are will do in the future will create merit. That merit, those positive imprints can only ripen to bring some kind of pleasure and success and good things while we’re in saṃsāra. And to get out of saṃsāra we need a lot of merit. As well as, I’ve tried to say, as well as actually meditating, we need for our meditation to be successful, we need merit. We need these positive imprints.
This is something that a lot of people don’t understand or don’t accept. People think that all Buddhist practice is just meditating. You don’t have to listen to teachings. You don’t have to study. You don’t have to think.
You don’t have to do anything. You just meditate. And and those people also equate meditation with not thinking. You just close your mind and you don’t think, you know. This is not a meditation.
Right. But we do but actually for all good things to work to succeed, one needs merit. We need these positive imprints. We have to get rid of negative imprints because they are an obstacle to spiritual evolution. Apart from bringing suffering, the negative imprints in our mind like just like what metaphorically metaphorically way down our mind.
Yeah. Whereas, you know, I always try and give this analogy. It’s a little bit like someone who is you may have heard my wonderful analogy before. It’s like one of these high level athletes. So to be a super athlete, you you not only have to have the skill, a particular skill, and in and with the analogy that comes from studying, hearing the teachings and studying them, but you also have to be very healthy.
Yeah? So that’s equivalent to purifying the mind. But you also have to be, how can you say, very strong, physically strong. Not just healthy where there’s nothing impeding your body, but you you, you know, you have to be really strong, fit. And that’s equivalent to having these positive imprints in your mind.
They empower us merit, you know, empowers the mind in a virtuous way whereas negative imprints weigh us down. Anyway, check up yourself, your own experience. The more we do negative things, we and our mind is obscured, when the the more obscured the mind is and you can probably you know, it’s easier to see this in other people, although it’s not so good to look at faults in other people. But someone who is really obscured finds it very difficult to do good things. When we’re really obscured, the more obscured we are, there is less energy to do virtuous things even for ourself.
Can’t even get out of bed. Everything’s too difficult and dark and worrying and depressing and blah blah blah. And and in the same way, it when the mind is obscured, not only is it difficult to do good things, it’s somehow kind of easy to do negative stuff to oneself. Whereas when the mind is more purified, more clear, when there is merit, you know, when we’re doing good stuff, then there’s more interest, more energy to do good stuff. And you have more interest to do it.
That’s because the mind has been empowered. Anyway, so rejoicing is one way. It is just rejoicing in our own good quality. It is okay. Pride is also a delusion, but it is quite valid to be able to recognize I have this good quality if we’ve got it.
If we have a good quality or we have done a good thing, is perfectly okay to simply recognize I have done this good thing. How great. Or I have this good quality. How terrific. But not pride comes in when you think this makes me special, better, superior, blah blah blah blah blah.
That’s pride. Just rejoicing is just simply or well, this rejoicing can go along with what is what is it called? Or just kind of like self respect. You know? I can do this and or I have this quality.
How terrific! Especially in a spiritual sense because I can use this to benefit others. Yeah. So we rejoice. And then you think that so anyway, my teacher makes this point about one rejoices just simply by thinking.
I mean, this is not major, major analytical meditation, but there’s many degrees of analytical meditation, right? But basically analytical meditation refers to using positive thought, virtuous thought. So my teacher says you rejoice by just thinking how wonderful. You think, I’ve done this good thing. I must have done good stuff in the past.
I can recognize the good stuff I’ve done in this life. And I will in future do good stuff because I have put in nature. I will do good things. So how terrific, how wonderful. You just think that to make the mind happy rather than dwell on our you know, sometimes we do have to think about our negative qualities and, you know, admit those and try and purify them.
But we need to balance that by saying, recognizing I have these good qualities, I’ve done these good things. How wonderful, how fantastic. Because this merit this merit is going to bring me some happiness in saṃsāra, but it’s gonna help me get out of saṃsāra. It’s gonna help me achieve enlightenment. So how fantastic.
How wonderful. How wonderful. Rinpoche says you can do it like mantra. You know, just have your mala and just say how wonderful, how wonderful, how how wonderful, wonderful. Yeah.
But then you don’t just focus on yourself. You also think that there are other ordinary people like myself who’ve also they’ve got good qualities, done good things past, present, future. How wonderful! How wonderful! So you rejoice.
And then you think, well, there are other people who are still ordinary people, but they are more spiritually advanced than me. Maybe only a little bit, but they are more advanced. They know more, practiced more, can do this better than me. How fantastic. Rather than being jealous and making oneself suffer and put negative imprints in the mind, one thinks, how fantastic.
How wonderful. Because if you think about this is this little bit I’ve just made up myself, it’s not strictly from any holy text. But if you think about, and some of you have heard this before, but anyway, if you you know, we get jealous because we see someone who is better looking than or some you know, we could get jealous if we see someone who’s better looking ourselves. Yeah? And we get miserable.
But if you think about it, if everyone was uglier than oneself, this world would be really depressing. You’d have to look at all these ugly people. Everyone uglier than yourself. So how wonderful that there are people better looking than me. Isn’t that terrific?
How wonderful. I get we get jealous because there are people who are smarter than us. But if if everyone in the world was dumber than oneself, my god, my Buddha, it would be really terrible. So how wonderful that there are people smarter than me. Yeah?
Or this or that than me. Right? If you think about it. So how wonderful and you know if I was the holiest person in the world, my God, my Buddha, it would be a terrible place. So how wonderful that there are people who are more renounced, more virtuous, more pure, more kind, more compassionate, more this than me.
How wonderful that there are people, even a little bit more than me. How wonderful that is. And then you think that there are people who have actually renounced this life. They have really completely, not pretending to halfway, they’ve done it. How amazing.
How wonderful. And then there are people who are in the path renouncing saṃsāra. They’re actually doing it. How amazing. How wonderful.
And then there are people who’ve completely renounced cyclic existence. They’ve done all the hard work to do that. How amazing. And then there are people who have actually generated bodhicitta. They’ve given up the idea.
They’ve renounced the idea of achieving, of having, experiencing, blissing out in nirvana forever for themselves. They’ve completely let go of that, and they only want to benefit all sentient beings. There are there are actually I don’t know if you believe it or not, but according to the Buddhadharma, there are such people. Well, I think you can meet a few, like his holiness Dalai Lama. Lama Zopa Rinpoche, my guru, is coming next year.
Some of you have been to see him. One of the truly sublime, amazing beings on the planet. Truly amazing. Yeah? So there are these people, these beings who’ve done that, who’ve generated bodhicitta.
How wonderful. And there’s all levels of bodhisattvas. How amazing. And then there are Buddhas. How amazing.
How wonderful. So you make yourself happy just sinking how wonderful that there’s all these people, all these beings doing good stuff, starting from ordinary people like oneself up to the Buddhas. That’s a meditation. By thinking, one thinks. Cheryl, did you have a question?
Oh no, just imagine that. Right then there’s equanimity. That’s much more complicated to explain. But we’ve got a tea break. One more question, comment.
Yeah? I think you’ve got a few things jumbled up. Maybe after the break I’d like to just go through the actual stages which according to the tradition just to make it clear. I’ll try and quickly explain equanimity in a nutshell in three lines and yeah. So yeah, maybe four.
I was planning but it doesn’t look like it’ll happen this time either to have a discussion group, you know, group discussions. So there are some group discussion questions so you can take one just in case it happens And if not, we’ll keep it for those people who are coming to the retreat on Sunday. There will be a discussion group during the retreat on Sunday, this coming Sunday. Okay, thanks very much everyone. Tea break?
Ten minute tea break. So just a little bit about equanimity. Equanimity refers to the mind which is opposite to the mind that sees that tends to label people as friends, enemies, and strangers. While we while we because of our self-cherishing, we tend to, you know, instantly classify people as either friend, enemy, or stranger. And while we do that, this this is sort of again blocking, well, it on the one hand, it it encourages our disturbing thoughts of attachment to friends, aversion to enemies, indifference to strangers, or the neutral person.
So it does that on the one hand. On the other hand, well and because that’s happening, should say, it’s blocking our ability to feel real love and compassion for all beings. So the opposite to that, the antidote to that mindset is developing equanimity where it’s not denying that some people are friendly to us and we have you know it’s more easy to relate to them. There are some people who dislike us and so on and there are people indifferent. So we can recognize that but equanimity is that mindset that remains stable that doesn’t go up and down.
You become happy with friends, unhappy with enemies, indifferent to strangers and so on. But it’s basically stable and and also has a this stable reaction to others wishing them happiness. Whether they wish us happiness or not, we have this mind wanting them, you know, like having a sort of basically basic friendly attitude to everyone. We can still protect ourselves from the enemy and so on, still have friends, not be so close to others, but there is that mind wishing others, having this friendly attitude to others, wishing them some happiness. And the two main factors to think about well firstly, one basic kind of analytical meditation technique that you can use and which is used in the Dharma in all the many if you check for those people who become familiar with what is called the Lamrim which is the teachings which are the teachings on the graduated path which is emphasized very much in our tradition here in the Gelugpa tradition.
One essential factor of analytical meditation in virtually all the topics is where you analyze the benefits of something or the benefits of doing something and the advantage the benefits of doing something and or the benefits of oh god. What am I trying to say? You check what are the benefits of doing this? What are the disadvantages of doing it? Or what are yeah.
So one analyzes. You check. Is is this really beneficial to do? What are the what is the harm of doing it? You know, what is it beneficial to like all sentient beings, to want all sentient beings to have happiness?
What is the harm, what is the disadvantage of wishing all sentient beings to be happy? One checks. What is benefit of practicing the Dharma? What is the disadvantages of practicing it or the disadvantages of not practicing it? One analyzes.
And if you see, if we’re smart people, if we’re wise, and if we can see there are lots of advantages to doing something and many disadvantages in not doing it, we should do it. Whether we end up doing it or not, but at least that should encourage us. Especially if we think in the long term rather than the short term. There may be some what appear to be short term advantages but the long term disadvantages may be far greater. So this is what we have to analyze.
So What we have to analyze in developing equanimity is firstly how you know by analyzing correctly we can come to the conclusion that always just seeing people as friends, enemies, and strangers is actually quite harmful. It brings on our delusions. It blocks our development of love and compassion, and basically keeps us very very limited people. We just we’re trapped in this this little cycle of this, you know, these people are my friends, these people are my enemies, the vast majority of sentient beings are strangers to me. So it’s very you know, it keeps us extremely limited.
And limited what? A limited suffering sentient being. Who wants to be a limited suffering sentient being? Boring. More than boring.
But anyway and then you investigate what are the advantages of equanimity? Well the advantages are in this and future lives many advantages less attachment, less aversion, less indifference, more chance to open one’s heart and develop love and compassion etc etc etc. Now and in the future. That will encourage us to want to develop equanimity. If we don’t see any advantages, why are we going to put the effort?
So there’s that part of doing that kind of analysis, being convinced through analyzing why should I, you know, develop why should I put the effort into developing equanimity? Why should I put effort into kind of reducing this mind that is is so strongly involved with friend, enemy, stranger? So that’s one thing. Then in actually developing equanimity, there are many arguments one can use, but but it takes too long at the moment. I mean there’s a whole teaching on this, but just just for tonight, just to illustrate a little bit how one does some how one can do analytical meditation and how helpful and useful it is, is that the two basic things to help us develop equanimity I think are firstly checking up, analyzing how, you know in in doing equine in in in practicing equanimity, you know, we we want to develop it towards everyone.
But so but first we start with three people. We take a friend, some an actual friend, not a close friend, just a small friend. Someone we are friendly with, not super friendly. Yeah? Because it the people we’re super friendly with, we have a lot of attachment to.
So it’s difficult to reduce lots of attachment. It’s easy to reduce a little bit of attachment. So we think of someone, a friend, but not, you know, a super close friend. Then we think of someone who we don’t like, not someone we really hate and detest if we, you know, if we do have such people because, again, it’s more difficult to reduce a lot of hatred and aversion. But if we have a little dislike for someone, it’s easier to get rid of it, to reduce it.
Right? Skillful means. And then you but then we think of someone who can be a stranger. So we can’t take someone we don’t know at all, you know, because we don’t know them. So we have someone we know, but we’re not really involved with one way or another.
We don’t go out with them. We don’t really talk to them other than to be polite, if if that. But we don’t dislike them, but we just don’t really, to be honest, care too much about them one way or another. Like someone down the street, someone you work with, you know, someone on well, yeah, but someone you see on the bus, it has to be someone you, you know, kind of know, anyway, a stranger. Yeah?
It has to be a real person that you are have some acquaintance with. You think of those three people. And, of course, those three people are human beings. And they all want happiness and don’t want suffering equally. So why do I like this?
Why is this human being my friend? Why is this human being, the enemy or the harmer? Remember, don’t get caught up with the word enemy too much. I know some people do. It’s just meaning you know?
And why is this person a stranger? Why? When we really analyze, and you can check that, actually, deep down, the reason is you check. I’m I’m telling you, but you can check up whether it’s true or not. That it’s why this person is a friend, my friend, is because this person, at in the moment I met them, they what they did, they went along, you know, they fitted in with my self-cherishing.
I’m not saying consciously, but maybe they did, but they made me feel good, which our is what our self-cherishing likes. Yeah? And why is this one the enemy? It’s because they did the opposite. They they went against my self-cherishing.
And why is this person a stranger? It’s because they didn’t affect my self-cherishing one way or the other. They didn’t threaten me. They didn’t, you know, make me feel good. Just blah.
So there’s a blah response. And also check how this happens in one moment, more or less. Really how we as soon as we meet someone, we put them in one of those categories almost uncontrollably and instantaneously. First impressions. Yes.
And they become and the thing is those first impressions become rigidly fixed. And this becomes my permanent friend, permanent enemy, and permanent stranger. So we react in a way that maintains this person as a friend because we’re friendly to them. So, you know, they’re might likely to be friendly back. And we we’re we’re not so nice to the the enemy.
So strangely enough, they respond in the same way which proves that they’re the enemy. And and we don’t do anything particularly nice or nasty to the stranger. And guess what? They remain a stranger. So one should check that.
Yeah? So and we and by checking that, we can start to see that the basis of our relationships is really very false and superficial and artificial. And then the other thing is to realize. So what we’re trying to do is not stop having having the friend as the friend but reducing the attachment to the friend. Right?
And we’re trying to change the aversion to the enemy to something more positive and also the indifference to the stranger. And so that helps. And the other thing is the main other argument to think about is to see that these categories which we fixate on as permanent are actually impermanent. This person, which we why we’re friendly to the friend is because we think they will always be my friend. This person will always like me.
I will always like them. But there’s no guarantee. There’s just really no guarantee in saṃsāra. People change. Our mind changes, other people’s minds change.
So why be so attached? Doesn’t mean I have to stop liking the person, but why be so attached to them? Same, the the enemy. Can I say this person? I know for sure this person will always be my enemy.
We can’t. Same with a stranger. Yes. Oh, in Australia. Yes.
Yes. Yes. On the evil empire and yeah. Everything changes. Yes.
And, well, there’s a thing called divorce. Yeah. So Yeah. So yeah. And especially, to put that in the in the large context that even if someone remains friend all this life, they haven’t always been a friend in past lives, they could be an enemy in my in future lives.
In fact, from a Buddhist point of view, because of beginningless, endless saṃsāra, our best friends have been our worst enemies in past lives, could become our worst enemies in future lives. So why be so attached? Our enemies in this life have been our best friends in past past lives. They’ve been my mothers in past lives. Could be and will be good friends in the future.
So one thinks like that, you know, one thinks like that to counteract the other way of thinking, which we have had since beginningless time, that grasps at friends as being real, inherently existing, permanent friends. No, it’s true. Well there is a story. Maybe half of the people here have heard it. But yeah again the thing is to actually in the teaching it says when you when you work on this, firstly, you you apply all this logic to the friend, then to the stranger, and then the enemy because it’s easier to work with a friend than the stranger than the enemy.
But actually, to be quite honest with myself, I think trying to reduce the attachment to the friend is much more difficult than reducing the anger to the enemy. And it’s it’s because in our mind attachment and love get all confused. Both the actual experiences and our understanding of what the two things are. But what we are trying to do is not reduce the love for a child or for our parents or a friend but the attachment. Attachment which is an English word translating a dharma concept which is referring to a negative disturbing state of mind.
Whereas we use the word attachment as another word for love and affection and feeling there’s nothing wrong with feeling close to someone because we do feel you know, because of our delusions and this a Buddha doesn’t feel close to, you know, some people. The Buddha fields close to everyone. Every we’re exactly the same. So we’re a long way from that. And so we do naturally well, naturally feel closer to some people than other people.
So that’s okay, but the problem is that there’s the attachment where we exact because, you know, sorry, we have to really remember, understand what by thinking about it, what attachment is referring to. So attachment goes with afflicted desire which is a disturbing thought. What does it do? It exaggerates the positive aspect of something. A person or a thing.
Something which we could say is conventionally nice, pretty and we exaggerate how nice it is. Why? Because it makes me happy. Me. I am happy with this.
So it’s really good. It’s beautiful. So beautiful. So someone else would, you know, sees and thinks, oh, that’s nice. But it doesn’t make them particularly happy.
But it makes me really happy for some reason, which is some probably calmer. And so I get so desire, you know, I want this. I I want to be I want to have this. I want to be close to it because it makes me happy. Right?
And then what goes with that is attachment. You you know, because this is my happiness that makes me happy. You can’t let go. It’s painful. It’s no.
Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. So that mindset produces a lot of suffering and problems. And the more we have that, the more we are setting ourselves up to suffer.
So that’s different from love. Which is wanting someone to be happy or even ourselves to be happy. Because, you know, due to attachment to ourselves, something can make appear to make us happy. So we get attached to it like drugs. Drugs make you happy temporarily for sure for a short time.
But so attachment tells you, oh, this is terrific. This is fantastic. You don’t think about the bad effects. You just think about how good it is. It makes me happy now.
Goes to the self-cherishing mind, the easy happy now. Instant happiness. Instant easy happiness. Oh, I like that. No difficulties.
So it must be good. No matter what other people say that you get it predicted and your arms fall off as a result of it or something. All like. So you can’t see the real truth. There’s this whole projection.
So you can do that with everything. And the same with anger. It does the opposite. You know, pains to something far worse than it is. So this is what we’re trying to reduce.
First step. Anyway this is getting long isn’t it? Oh! Done it again! Anyway that’s how to meditate on equanimity basic points.
And with all four of them knowing what love compassion joy and equanimity are one can also think how wonderful it would be if myself and all sentient beings could have could abide or live with love, compassion, equanimity, joy. And you think, would it be wonderful or not? For all if I could love you know, I could love all sentient beings, if every individual sentient being could love everyone. Would that be wonderful or not? Yeah?
Would it be wonderful to have compassion for other beings? You know, like one thinks. And then you can generate even stronger by thinking that may this happen, it can happen, it is possible. Rather than thinking just, you know, or wouldn’t it be nice? One can contemplate how this is actually possible.
It is possible because we all have Buddha nature. So these things are possible. May it happen. It’s got to happen. Because it’s possible.
It’s not just a fantasy. It’s just not a nice idea. It’s possible. And then one can generate these thoughts even more strongly by thinking that I myself will make it happen. Rather than just, oh, you know, I hope it happens.
I hope someone gets it going. You think, I will make it happen. And then the fourth stage is that you make a request to the Buddhas, Please bless me to be able to make it happen. So that’s one way to think that helps develop compassion, equanimity, joy. And so the more we think those things, the more they will affect us.
That’s what analytical meditation does. It’s, you know, it’s this developing this habit, Just putting those thoughts into the mind which we have rarely had before. But in this life we have this amazing opportunity to cultivate these thoughts. You know? Think about that word cultivate.
Doesn’t mean just say them, but actually cultivate them in our mind. Plow them in, you know, fertilize them, train them up, put some trellises so that they can stay there, cultivate them, fertilize them, be nice to them, support those ideas rather than cultivating all this garbage that we’ve generated life after life. That’s what meditation is. That’s the most important meditation. Cultivating these thoughts.
And we can all do this. And some people say, you know, why why why say may all sentient beings be happy? Because I right now, I do hate some people. I don’t want some people to be happy. And that’s true.
But, you know, you can think, well, this is completely hypocritical. I don’t love every sentient being, but we don’t. What? That’s that’s a definition of a sentient being, basically. Because we have a delusions.
We and therefore we don’t you know, we have aversion and indifferent. That’s why we don’t love all sentient beings. But by putting the thought in our mind, and we know it’s not real yet, but we’re putting the thought in there that, you know, by having remember, developed admiration for that thought. How wonderful it would be if I could love all sentient beings. Would that be wonderful or not?
Would it be wonderful if I could have compassion for everyone no matter what they said to me, did to me, good, bad? Would it be beneficial for me or not? So then one puts these thoughts in the mind. And of course they’re artificial and not genuine yet. But through the power of familiarity, by cultivating these thoughts, they become more frequent, more genuine, more and eventually they will become something spontaneous because they correspond with a potential we an indestructible potential in our mind.
We have the potential to love all sentient beings. So this is the way to bring it out. It may seem forced and artificial and hypocritical at first, but by putting these thoughts in the mind, something happens. That’s why we say prayers because these prayers were written by, you know, great beings who had these incredibly pure minds. So putting their thoughts in our mind has an effect, you know, step by step.
So I’ve gone over a little bit of time. Just very quickly, so if I can, the steps the steps. In doing analytical this is to do analytical meditation. What may be be confusing is because I do the steps slightly differently in leading in at the beginning of teachings, but and and in different situations. But the tradition is that from a completely traditional Buddhist point of view, if one feels you have you have your altar, you have your offerings, you you first make three prostrations to the triple gem.
That’s the first step. You sit down in the Vairocana posture as much as you can. Then you do the nine round breathing because that is to calm your mind, bring a neutral mind. Right? So then the next step is to cultivate refuge if one is a Buddhist.
And certainly on the basis of refuge cultivating the right motivation. So at this stage to do that you visualize the Buddha in front of you, all sentient beings around you. Say the prayer if you want. And there’s other prayers you can say like the for the crown of your head, turns around facing facing you. And then what you can do is you make a request to the Buddha to purify for your mind to be free of all the obstacles that prevent you meditating well and all the obstacles to meditating on the particular object topic you’re going to meditate on.
Even if it’s the breath. And especially if you’ve tried to do it before you start to become familiar with what sort of obstacles, difficulties you have. So you think of those and think of the Buddha on your crown because the Buddha is always there. Right? So you think you ask Buddha, please, can I be help me be free of all this?
Yeah? And so you think the Buddha responds by sending this white light and nectar into you eliminating those obstacles. And the more you think it happens, the more it does. Because everything depends on faith. Despite what Stephen Batchelor says, it all depends on faith.
And then you think that the Buddha sends this golden light and nectar into you blessing your mind. So you’ve got rid of the obstacles and then the blessings come for one you imagine the blessings bring out this ability to meditate properly, single pointedly, and particularly to be able to, really experience as it’s meant to be experienced that particular topic and realize it. Right? This is very helpful to do. Right?
This is the tradition coming from the great masters. That’s why we should follow this lineage because this is what they did to get their results. And they taught us this system. Then okay. Where are we?
Yeah. So then if you’re doing analytical meditation on the lam rim, it’s very good to read a what is called a lam rim meditation on the the the the lam rim, the whole stages of path such as what Arnold has here, this prayer called by Lama Tsongkhapa, the founder of our tradition called the Foundation of All Good Qualities. It’s very good to read that because it this outlines the whole path to enlightenment, all the major topics briefly. So that puts my teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche says this is fantastic to read every day because it puts the imprint of the whole path to enlightenment in your mind every day. And even just that makes your life worthwhile for that day.
Because the number of times in saṃsāra we have had the imprint of the whole path to enlightenment in our minds is very rare. So to put the imprint each day is fantastic. So then, just before you actually start meditating on whatever topic you’ve decided to meditate on, what is really important to do is to consciously tell yourself, I am going to be really concentrated. I am going to be really mindful in order to catch the hindrances dullness, you know, of sinking and scattering. To consciously think that.
Right? Because it’s reminding oneself. So having done that, you then engage in the object, the topic. You catch the topic and stay with it. When you’ve finished and if you remember what I said last week if you’re doing this analytical checking meditation the idea is to think about, analyze and if you start to get some little quiver of insight then you stop and just try and hold that.
And then you go on to the next bit of the topic. So on. Then when you’ve finished, at the end, it’s what is really important is to make this conclusion. Yeah. I’ve been thinking about this, so make the conclusion I’m going to be more mindful in my daily life to practice this.
You know, you meditate on impermanence so you make the conclusion, I’m going to be more mindful that everything even though things look permanent, seem permanent, they’re impermanent. I need to be remember that. Or, you know, I need to remember that sentient beings have been my mother. They’ve been kind to me. Even my enemies screaming at me actually have been my mother.
Don’t get angry with them. You know, so to make that conscious connection of integrating what we thought about into our life. And then the last part is to dedicate the merit, that positive understanding, the positive imprint. Because this does two things: it protects it, keeps it there, keeps it alive in our mind, and by dedicating, we direct it to achieving a particular result rather than just ripening in any old way whatsoever. We want that imprint to bring the best result possible.
So we dedicate it to enlightenment. So that’s the way to meditate according to the tradition. Sorry, it’s gone over time. So anyway, that’s the end of the course. I hope this is something I’ve said has been useful.
I hope it has encouraged you to meditate rather than not meditate. To 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. We don’t do prostrations tonight because it’s auspicious to meet again in the future by not yeah. Because it yeah. That’s Buddhist or Tibetan idea. Yeah.
So I hope to see you again either on Sunday for the retreat or on Saturday for the picnic. The Buddha house picnic, which is in going to be at the botanic gardens meeting at the Plane Tree Drive. Plaintree Drive at. Yeah. If you’re everyone’s welcome.
Bring your friends and maybe not a dog. I don’t know. You can not to the no. Right. And, yeah, maybe I hope to see you next year for Discovering Buddhism again.