Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 23-minute guided meditation, Ven Thubten Dondrub walks through a complete Buddhist practice session from posture and breath work through to visualization and mantra recitation. He begins with practical setup—sitting in the Vairochana posture with attention to spine and head alignment—then establishes a calm mind using the nine-round breathing exercise, optionally paired with visualization of white light entering and black smoke of disturbing thoughts leaving the mind. He then moves to breath-focused meditation, using a counting method (up to eleven breaths) to build concentration and recognize mental hindrances like dullness and distraction. The core of the practice involves vivid visualization of the Buddha seated on a lotus throne at arm’s length away, complete with detailed physical description—golden light body, saffron robes, long earlobes, deep blue hair and eyes, the crown uṣṇīṣa. Finally, he guides recitation of mantra while imagining white nectar and light pouring from the Buddha to purify suffering, then golden light to awaken compassion and wisdom, culminating in the Buddha dissolving into light that blesses the practitioner’s mind. Suitable for both beginners and those with some meditation experience.
File metadata (for organising)
File: DB Meditation MP3.mp3
UUID: df187f7a-5c80-4a99-8fdb-7b6b12718da5
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB How to Meditate (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 23.3 minutes
Words: ~894
So again we can spend a little time doing some meditation. So firstly trying to sit correctly as much as possible in the Vairochana 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 of 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, imagine 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 have 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 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 the ear lobes of the Buddha are very long. 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 you 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 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 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 our self, 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. Gradually open the eyes completely to conclude the meditation.