Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 63-minute session, Ven Thubten Dondrub guides retreat participants through direct examination of how delusions arise and persist. After grounding the meditation in posture, breathing, refuge and bodhicitta, he identifies six key conditions that activate disturbing emotions: the imprints or seeds of past delusions already present in the mind; encounter with the actual object of attachment or aversion; thinking or fantasizing about such objects; discussing them with others; the company and cultural environment we keep; and habitual repetition. He walks through each, drawing on participants’ own experience, and offers practical first-line defences: avoiding triggering objects and people where possible, cultivating mindfulness to catch harmful thought patterns before they take hold, seeking supportive community, and living more calmly to prevent an agitated mind. The teaching anchors in Buddhist psychology that we ourselves generate our emotional reactions rather than objects causing them. Suitable for practitioners familiar with basic Lamrim and refuge practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 19. Day 3 Meditation Delusions & Antidotes.mp3
UUID: fbc2dbbc-faf9-4e5d-8c9f-b544b0ab144e
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: KI Retreat (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2005 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 63.4 minutes
Words: ~3,764
For the new people here, Lamrim means graduated path. It’s not sort of like a kind of lamb chop, the Lamrim is the graduated path. So for this session we’ll do a little bit of meditation on looking at what causes our delusions to arise. The causes and conditions for our delusions to arise. So there are a number of factors that can act as the conditions or secondary causes for our disturbing thoughts to arise.
So these factors apply to any delusion, whether it’s anger or attachment, pride or jealousy, whatever. There are these six basic factors that are operating. And usually it’s not just one of them but a good old combination of several can cause an attack of delusion to occur. So, again, we can start by sitting comfortably. Comfortably but with some kind of discipline.
That’s necessary. We need to be comfortable but not kind of sloppy comfortable. A little bit of disciplined comfort. In other words, trying to sit according to what is called the Vairocana posture as much as we can but without stressing ourselves out. Part of that posture aspect, correct posture, involves keeping still.
It doesn’t mean rigidly still, but we are a living, breathing organism, it’s not as though we can’t move at all, we should try to avoid a lot of unnecessary movement and also movement that is without mindfulness. If we feel that we need to move, we should do it consciously, sort of thinking, ‘I’m going to move,’ in order to adjust my posture to avoid some pain or something. And then you make the movement and then now I’m finished, now I go back to stillness. So try and do it that way. And then to help fine tune our posture, place your awareness at the crown of your head and move it down through your body.
If one does this practice at home, one can spend quite a lot of time doing that, just moving your awareness down through the body, just checking over and in the body. And this is a very good way to help relax the body and relax tension. But we will just have a very short time to do this. So if you notice any tension, points of tension, one can begin to observe that that tension is maintained by an unconscious pulling inwards, tightening and holding on to that. Much of that is done unconsciously, habitually.
So then through our awareness we can notice that process and just the mere awareness of it, noting what we’re doing, enables us to begin to let go. So we can’t force ourselves to become relaxed, can’t force ourselves to let go of that tension. But awareness of it is a very good condition to begin to dissolve that. So then begin to cultivate the mind, prepare the mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise, combining it with the visualisations can be very powerful. Breathing in the blessings of the Buddhas in the form of very blissful white light, breathing out all the disturbing thoughts, the negative imprints and all obstacles to meditation in the form of very thick black smoke that completely dissipates and becomes nonexistent. And then on the basis of that calm, neutral mind, cultivate the virtuous mind of refuge, that confident, devotional mind of refuge in the Triple Gem of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
Lifting up one’s mind with the thought of the amazing qualities, pure qualities of Buddha mind, the liberating qualities of Buddha’s teachings. And the inspiring purity and realisations of the Ārya Sangha. To help us do that, we visualize Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as the embodiment of all the Triple Gem, the body of radiant transparent light. And combine that thought of refuge with the great compassionate thought of bodhicitta. So the reason for practicing is not just for some temporary benefit for oneself, not even for the sole purpose of achieving freedom from cyclic existence and all suffering, but by recognising that all other sentient beings are trapped in cyclic existence like myself, but right now have far less ability to somehow recognise the situation they’re in or do anything positive to get out of it.
Recognising that. Whereas on the other hand, we ourselves are trapped. We are in cyclic existence. But with this precious human rebirth we have found the key to escape, to get out of it. Rather than digging just a tunnel to escape by ourselves, we have the power, the ability, because of the Buddha nature, our Buddha potential, to enable everyone, all sentient beings, to become free of suffering, free of cyclic existence as we ourselves become free of cyclic existence.
Why should we do this? Because all these beings that appear to us, to our self-cherishing mind, to be so distant from us, so unconnected to us, are in fact intimately related to us. We are tied to every sentient being in so many ways. Through the ties of kindness and benefit and support, protection, through the ties that all sentient beings have been our mother, have been our father, brother, sister, best friend many, many times. When we really begin to see that, we see that we have an incredible responsibility to repay that kindness.
That responsibility is not a burden. It’s an incredible honor and joy to be able to do so. How can we repay that responsibility? That kindness? Sorry, how can we fulfill that responsibility?
How can we repay that kindness? Just giving some present, kind words and so on is not enough. It’s nowhere near enough. Since we want to be free of suffering completely and wish to experience pure lasting happiness, how can we not try to give that to our mothers? So we have to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.
So we visualize all these beings surrounding us starting with our parents on either side. Try to feel this strong connection with all these beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. Reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech and mind.
I present clouds of every type of offering, actual and imagined. I declare all my negative actions accumulated since beginningless time and rejoice in the merit of all holy and ordinary beings. Please remain until the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of dharma for living beings. I dedicate my own merits and those of all others to the great enlightenment. So then we offer the mandala of the whole universe. So as Geshe-la has mentioned a number of times, the things that we experience in this universe are contaminated phenomena produced by delusion and karma, are examples of true suffering. So we don’t offer the universe in that form.
We offer it so that we can become free of our attachment to it, but we don’t offer it in that form to the Buddhas. We offer it by trying to visualise the universe in the aspect of a pure land or many pure lands, also with a wish that all sentient beings, all the kind mother sentient beings can be reborn in such pure lands. So let me turn to the Lamrim section, page twenty seven. Nature that embodies all the Buddhas, source of all the pure transmission and realisation Dharma, principle amongst all the Ārya Sangha, I take refuge in all magnificent pure gurus. Please bless my mind to become Dharma, that Dharma has become the path and that path to be free from all misuse.
Until I achieve enlightenment, may I, just like the bodhisattvas, Ngulchu Thogme and Lodrö Gyatso, practice pure devotion to my guru in thought and action, see all the actions of my guru as excellent, and fulfill whatever he advises. Please bless me with the potential to accomplish this. Knowing that this highly meaningful perfect human rebirth is difficult to obtain and is easily lost, realising the profundity of cause and effect and the unbearable sufferings of the lower realms, from my heart, I take refuge in the three precious sublime ones, abandon negativity, and practice virtue in accordance with the Dharma. Please bless me with the potential to accomplish this. In dependence on this, I am able to attain only the higher rebirths of humans and gods.
Not having abandoned afflictions, I have to experience uninterrupted, limitless, cyclic existence. By contemplating well how cyclic existence works, may I train day and night in the principal path of the three precious higher trainings, the means of attaining liberation. Please bless me with the potential to always train like this. In dependence on this, I am able to attain only self liberation. And as there is not one sentient being in all the six realms who has not been my mother or father, I will turn away from this lower happiness and generate the wish to fulfil their ultimate purposes.
By contemplating the path of equalising and exchanging self for others, I will generate the precious bodhicitta and engage in the bodhisattva’s actions of the six perfections. Please bless me with the potential to train in this way. Having trained like this in the common path, I myself will not have aversion to experiencing the sufferings of cyclic existence for a long time, but by the force of extraordinary, unbearable compassion for sentient beings, may I enter the quick path of the vajrayana. By observing purely my vows and pledges even at the cost of my life, may I quickly attain the unified state of vajradhara in one brief lifetime of this degenerate age. Please bless me with the potential to attain this.
So to think that Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us is very pleased with our intentions that we’ve just expressed, our motivation. So because of that, firstly the lion throne on which the Buddha is seated dissolves into light which absorbs up into the lotus, sun and moon disc upon which we had seated him. He now comes to the crown of our head. Because of his great compassion for us, he comes to the crown of our head and turns around, facing the same direction as ourself. So then we make a strong heartfelt request to the Guru Buddha for our mind to be completely free of all the impediments, obstacles, obscurations, whatever you like to call them, think of them as, that prevent us from meditating correctly, effectively, that prevent us gaining the realizations, particularly of the understanding of how our delusions work.
Think the Buddha happily responds by sending this continuous stream of white light and nectar into us through the crown of our head, which washes away all those obstacles and negativities. They take the form of thick black liquid that leaves from the lower part of our body, and as it does so, it completely dissipates and becomes non existent. Then imagine, visualize a continuous stream of golden light and nectar coming from the Buddha into us, filling our whole being, and blessing our mind to be able to effectively meditate and gain a realization of the way the afflicted thoughts, emotions, the disturbing thoughts function and arise. So make a strong determination as we do this contemplation to keep the mind just on that. Don’t let it wander to anything else.
Remember this is a very precious time, we may never do this again. Death may come in the way or it’s so easy in our busy life to get so distracted by other things. So this time is very precious. I mean, getting to the end of the day and we may be tired but put some effort into not letting the mind become dull and sleepy. Remember the Buddha at the crown of your head.
So any time the mind becomes sleepy, distracted, just quickly recall the Buddha on the crown of your head and feel this blissful white light filling your whole body and mind dispelling whatever obstacle is arising, and then go back to the meditation. So now we can begin the contemplation by just thinking, being aware that the first reason or cause why the delusions arise, you know, moment by moment, is the simple fact that we have the imprints of the delusions in our mind. There is the potential there within our mind. So these imprints of the delusions exist. Every time a delusion arises, the imprint of that delusion is created.
And so there’s that potency, that potential for anger, attachment, pride and jealousy and so on to arise because there is the imprint there in the mind created by a previous moment of anger or attachment. Even a child when it’s first born has those imprints. That’s why at some point even the child will get angry, jealous, proud and so on because there are the imprints in the consciousness. We can briefly reflect that why those imprints of the delusions exist at all is of course because of a previous moment of a delusion, an afflicted thought. Why those delusions exist at all, why is there attachment, why is there anger at all, is because of ignorance.
If there wasn’t this mental factor of ignorance that creates a false appearance of how we exist, of how all things exist, that things seem to exist from their own side, if there wasn’t that appearance that we grasp at as real, there wouldn’t be attachment, there wouldn’t be anger, there wouldn’t be pride or jealousy. So ignorance creates that fundamental mistaken appearance that things exist out there from their own side. Because of that, when we perceive something that is conventionally pleasant, beautiful, we believe that it’s like that from its own side and that’s why we get attached to it. We see ugliness and danger existing from its own side. That’s why we get angry. If we could actually experience it as coming from or dependent on our mind, not just intellectually knowing that but experiencing it, the beauty, ugliness is actually coming from my mind, we wouldn’t get angry, we wouldn’t get attached. So because there is ignorance, there are disturbing thoughts. Because of disturbing thoughts, we have the imprints, the seeds of those disturbing thoughts in our mind. So then we can ask ourselves, what causes those potencies, those seeds, those imprints of the delusions to become active?
Because we’re not angry. But having those seeds of the delusions in our mind doesn’t mean that we’re angry all the time, attached all the time, proud all the time. It’s just that there is the potential for those things to happen. So what transforms that potential into something active? And one of the causes, the proper, the principal one, the strongest one is simply meeting the object.
Which means our attachment rises when we experience a desirable object, thing or person, situation. If there is no desirable object present, then desire attachment is not likely to arise. But as soon as the object is present, in that very moment, attachment arises. Same with anger, when the unwanted experience is there, the disliked person, whatever it is that the self-cherishing doesn’t want to know, experience, see, taste, smell, touch. If, as soon as it’s there, then anger, aversion arises. And when the object goes away, then the delusion begins to fade away also. Just check out your own experience.
So spend some time just reflecting over what are the particular things, situations, or kinds of people that cause my different delusions, disturbing thoughts, afflictive emotions to arise? What kinds of people, situations, things bring about attachment, anger, pride, jealousy? So all of us, you know, have attachment, get attached to things and people, have aversion to things and people. But for each of us, what we’re attached to, who we’re attached to, who we have aversion to is different. We need to recognise the karmic patterns that we ourselves are presently locked into so that we can begin to unravel that process.
From thinking on this point, we can begin to understand that the first line of defense, the easiest line of defense against our own delusions is to avoid the object. I mean, the ultimate aim, the ultimate defence against or perhaps not the ultimate defence, is emptiness, destroying the delusions through realisation of emptiness. But before that, the main defense is developing the antidotes, such as the main defense against anger is patience. But until we’ve cultivated that quality of patience strongly, the first line of defense in not getting angry is avoiding the objects that make us angry as much as we can. I should correct that.
The objects, the people, the things don’t make us angry, that’s our wrong view. We make ourselves angry, and we blame it on those objects. The desirable person or thing, object doesn’t make us attached. We allow ourselves to generate desire and attachment, pride or jealousy. So then we can reflect that another cause for our delusions to become active is even if the object, the person, isn’t present, if we think about it, the delusion arises.
If we think about the object of attachment, things we like, desire, desire, attachment will arise. If we think about the people we dislike, anger will arise. Check up from your own experience. Sometimes we can get more angry thinking about the people we dislike, imagining things they’re going to say and do to us than when the person is actually present. So our line of defense against this is to try to be more and more mindful, to have a calmer, clearer mind so that we can recognize our thoughts as being harmful to us, unrealistic.
Engaging in fantasies of attachment or anger, pride or jealousy and so on, fears and worries, doubts. We have to be willing to recognize that this way of thinking is not helping me in any way. It’s completely unrealistic and destructive. So then another factor that causes our disturbing thoughts to manifest and become active and powerful is discussing these things. We discuss our objects of attachment with others.
We discuss the things we dislike and so on. And that just reinforces our desire, our aversion, our jealousy, our pride, and so on. We can be in a relatively positive, calm state of mind and then we meet up with someone or a group of people who are making jokes about something and we get caught up in that, putting down other people and so on. And the different disturbing thoughts arise this way. Just check up your own experience.
Within that category, in our times, can also include by reading various things, seeing different kinds of movies, reading different kinds of books, magazines, songs, and so on, our disturbing thoughts can arise because of that input. Then another factor that helps our, if that’s the right word, delusions to manifest is the company we keep, the society in which we mix with, that we live in. If we mix with people who have a great deal of attachment, living a lifestyle that is just completely engulfed in attachment and desire, then as ordinary people we will be strongly influenced by that and our own desire, attachment will arise. If we mix constantly with people who are always angry, they see no faults in these delusions. If we mix with people who have lots of pride, constantly putting other people down for various reasons and so on, that can act as a condition for our own disturbing thoughts to manifest. Right now we’re in a very conducive environment and society just here in this retreat where everything is encouraging us to pacify our disturbing thoughts.
When we leave this retreat, almost instantly we’re confronted by a society that says, ‘Follow your delusions.’ And then see what happens. Again, we think about it, the obvious protection, first line of defence is as much as we can to avoid such negative people who have no interest in subduing their minds at all, see no value, no benefit, even make fun of such things. I mean, that’s only for goody goodies and so on. I mean, we need compassion.
We don’t reject such people, but we need to protect ourselves, our mind, from them. And as much as possible, seek out like minded people, fellow practitioners who are at least trying to work with their minds in a positive way. And the final condition or cause for our afflictive emotions to manifest is just the power of habit and familiarity. We get angry with something and allow ourselves to follow that anger so that generates an imprint and the next time something happens in a similar way we get angry again, even more quickly, more easily. And then it happens again, the same kind of thing.
And then we fall into the habit of getting angry. We fall into the habit of just mindlessly following our attachments without any awareness. Again, the first line of defence against this situation is to try to be more mindful of what is happening and just to generally live a less busy life, a less stressful life that just agitates the mind. With the agitated mind, the busy mind, there’s no clarity, no awareness, the perfect breeding ground for all our disturbing thoughts to manifest. So we bring our contemplation to an end by making a strong determination to be more and more mindful in our daily life of all the factors, these six factors that cause the disturbing thoughts, all those potentials to become manifest and active, to really make that determination to apply, to have the courage and strength of mind to apply the antidotes to them as much as one can.
So this will give real meaning to our precious human rebirth. We have the optimum chance to do this right now. Then recall the Buddha at the crown of your head, seeing the Buddha is very pleased with how we’ve been meditating. And then the Buddha happily dissolves into blissful golden light, which comes down through the crown of our head, filling our whole being, blessing our mind to gain a clear realisation of the way our disturbing thoughts manifest. And also blessing our mind to be able to apply the antidotes.
So then we dedicate the merit, page twenty six of the morning prayers. Thank you very much.