Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 63-minute session from Venerable Thubten Dondrub’s 2005 Patience Retreat, students receive guided meditation on impermanence. After establishing calm through posture and nine-round breathing, the teaching moves through refuge in the Triple Gem and Mahāyāna bodhicitta motivation, using the Foundation of All Good Qualities prayer. The core meditation then explores impermanence in two layers: first, the gross impermanence of everyday change visible around us in relationships, environment, and possessions; second, subtle impermanence—the constant moment-by-moment decay of all conditioned things. Drawing on the principle that whatever is produced by causes and conditions must inevitably decay, Dondrub uses concrete examples like a fading bell-sound and a wilting flower to illustrate how nothing escapes this law. He connects this insight directly to practising patience: why grasp at, resent, or become jealous of impermanent phenomena? The teaching stresses that awareness of impermanence is the universal antidote to delusion and an essential counter to worldly preoccupation, enabling genuine Dharma practice and a death met without shock or regret. The session ends with a dedication of merit and three prostrations.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2. Day 1 Meditation Impermanence.mp3
UUID: 30a2625e-bb96-49b0-abef-c9766777ee33
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: KI Retreat (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2005 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 62.7 minutes
Words: ~3,742
Meditation session is doing as I did this morning, going through that same preparation. Just a different topic. We’ll finally get there. So this morning we’ll do a little bit of meditation on impermanence and thinking about why we should think about death. So again if everyone could open that page twenty five of the morning prayers and also in the Lamrim prayer we’ll also go through the Foundation of All Good Qualities again, which is page seventeen of the Lamrim section in volume one of the prayer book.
So again we begin by sitting in the correct posture as much as possible, comfortably. Just placing your awareness at the crown of the head and moving it down through the body, just fine tuning your posture and just checking for any points of tension. So having prepared the body, we prepare our mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise to establish a calm, neutral mind. We begin the cycle starting with observing the breath coming in the right nostril and going out to the left, doing that for three consecutive breaths, changing and focusing on the breath coming in the right nostril and out the left for three breaths, and then for the last three breaths of the nine rounds of the cycle, observing the breath coming in both nostrils and going out both. So having established that calm, neutral mind, we now on that basis cultivate a very virtuous mind generating the devotional thought of refuge in the Triple Gem, recognising that it is our own mind that gives rise to happiness and suffering.
So we have to work with our own mind in a wise and skillful way. If we think when our own body becomes sick by ourselves, there’s very little that we can do. We depend on doctors and medicine and nurses and so on. So to work with mind, the diseased mind, is something far more profound and difficult. By ourselves, we’re hopeless, helpless.
That’s why we need to take refuge in the perfect doctor the Buddha, the perfect medicine the Dharma, and the perfect helpers the Ārya Sangha. So try and generate that strong devotional mind in the Triple Gem, visualizing the field of refuge in front of yourself or at least the central figure of Śākyamūni Buddha, oneness with one’s own root guru, seated on a magnificent lion throne lotus sun and moon. The Buddha with a body of golden transparent radiating light. And at the same time, on basis of that mind of refuge, we cultivate the Mahāyāna refuge, wishing to work with our mind not just for our own benefit in this life or even in future lives, not just simply to achieve liberation from cyclic existence but recognizing how not only in this life but all past lives we’ve depended on the kindness of others. And we will continue to do so until we free ourselves from cyclic existence.
Recognizing that kindness we can generate the bodhicitta mind, especially recognizing that these beings who have been so kind to us in so many ways, especially giving us the kindness of the mother again and again. These beings are now trapped in immense suffering without any refuge. So generate the mind that really wishes to follow the path in order to achieve the complete state of enlightenment, in order to repay the kindness of mother sentient beings. So we visualise all these sentient beings surrounding us, starting with our mother of this life on our left, our father on our right, the rest of our family and friends behind us, antagonists in front, and then all other sentient beings of the six realms. We can never visualize them in human form but imagine them experiencing the sufferings that are unique to each of the different realms.
The sufferings that we contemplated this morning. Think how we’ve in our confusion and our ignorance, we’ve been following the self-cherishing life thought all this life, all our past lives. And we follow the self-cherishing thought believing that this will bring us happiness. We believe the lies that our self-cherishing tells us. We grasp at the false appearances that ignorance creates and we end up only with suffering.
Now with this precious human rebirth we have this amazing chance to understand all the mistakes that we’ve made And more than that we can we have the freedom to reverse the whole process. We have the chance to follow what all those beings who have become Buddhas have followed: giving up the self-cherishing thought, cherishing others more than self. So make a strong determination that this is what I’m going to do, I’m going to dedicate this precious human rebirth to that process in this life and in all future lives. And may this retreat be a very important part in that process. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly.
By my practices of giving and other perfections, may I become 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. So just for a moment we can spend a little time doing that practice of rejoicing.
Rejoicing in our own good qualities and the merits we’ve accumulated in this and past lives, thinking how wonderful that is, rejoicing in the qualities and merits of all other ordinary beings, then of those who are practicing very purely, very intensively, those who have actually entered the paths. Rejoice in the qualities of the bodhisattvas, the buddhas, and especially our own gurus, thinking how wonderful that is, how wonderful that such beings exist doing such amazing things. 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. Then we imagine offering up all of the universe, especially the most beautiful things, especially those that we’re most attached to.
We offer these up to the Buddhas, the field of refuge, really wishing to be completely free of any attachment to such things, so that this opens our mind to receive the blessings of the Buddhas. So then the Foundation of All Good Qualities on page seventeen. The foundation of all good qualities is the kind and venerable guru. Correct devotion to him is the root of the path. By clearly seeing this and applying great effort, please bless me to rely upon him with great respect.
Understanding that the precious freedom of this rebirth is found only once is greatly meaningful and is difficult to find again. Please bless me to generate the mind that unceasingly day and night takes its essence. This life is as impermanent as a water bubble. Remember how quickly it decays and death comes. After death, just like a shadow follows the body.
The results of black and white karma follow. Finding firm and definite conviction of this, please bless me always to be careful to abandon even the slightest negativities and accomplish all virtuous deeds. Seeking samsaric pleasures is the door to all suffering. They are uncertain and cannot be relied upon. Recognizing these shortcomings, please place me to generate the strong wish for the bliss of liberation.
Led by this pure thought, mindfulness, alertness, and great caution arise. The root of the teachings is keeping the pratimoksha vows. Please bless me to accomplish this essential practice. Just as I have fallen into the sea of saṃsāra, so have all mother migratory beings. Please bless me to see this, train in supreme bodhicitta, and bear the responsibility of freeing migratory beings.
Even if I develop only bodhicitta, but I don’t practice the three types of morality, I will not achieve enlightenment. With my clear recognition of this, please bless me to practice the bodhisattva vows with great energy. Once I have pacified distractions to wrong objects and correctly analyzed the meaning of reality, please bless me to generate quickly within my mind stream the unified path of calm abiding and special insight. Having become a pure vessel by training in the general path, please bless me to enter the holy gateway of the fortunate ones, the supreme vajra vehicle. At that time, the basis of accomplishing the two attainments is keeping pure vows and samaya.
As I have become firmly convinced of this, please bless me to protect these vows and pledges like my life. Then, having realized the importance of the two stages, the essence of the vajrayana, by practicing with great energy, never giving up the four sessions, please bless me to realize the teachings of the holy guru. Like that, may the gurus who show the noble path and the spiritual friends who practice it have long lives. Please bless me to pacify completely all outer and inner hindrances. In all my lives, never separated from perfect gurus, may I enjoy the magnificent Dharma.
By completing the qualities of the stages and paths, may I quickly attain the state of Vajradhāra. So then imagine that Śākyamūni Buddha is very pleased with oneself and also the whole field of refuge. The whole beings dissolve into light, absorbing into Śākyamūni Buddha, then the lion’s throne absorbs up into the cushions of the lotus sun and moon, and the Buddha seated on these now comes to the crown of our head. The Buddha then turns around facing the same direction as ourself. So then make a strong, very heartfelt request to the Guru Buddha to be completely free of all the obstacles that prevent one meditating correctly and realizing the impermanent nature of all things.
Think the Buddha happily responds by sending this continuous stream of white light and nectar into oneself. And this washes away all disturbing thoughts, negative imprints and all the obstacles to doing this practice which take the form of thick black liquid that leaves from the lower part of the body, completely dissipates and becomes nonexistent. Then imagine the continuous stream of golden light and nectar comes from the Buddha filling our whole being, blessing our mind to be able to correctly meditate on and gain a correct stable realization of impermanence. Now we can, having prepared our mind, we can direct our mind to the topic at hand which is thinking about impermanence. And while we’re doing this we can also imagine that the Buddha remains on the crown of our head creating this very protective environment in which to meditate and continuously blessing our mind.
So we can reflect that one of the main things that keeps our mind attached to the appearances of this life that acts as a condition for us to develop attachment to things we believe are pleasurable and aversion to things we believe as unpleasant. It is our belief that these things that we experience, our self and all phenomena are actually permanent, not changing moment by moment. We see something beautiful and we get attached to it believing that beauty, that pleasure is permanent. We get angry with unpleasant things because we feel that negativity, that harm is something permanent. We grasp that this life itself is something permanent.
Believing this life, we limit ourselves to just attachment to the appearances of this life. All the energy of this precious human rebirth is wasted in the eight worldly concerns. So now it’s important that we allow ourselves to be aware that of the impermanence of things, that things are actually constantly changing. Nothing really remains the same. Nothing really lasts.
At least we can begin by reflecting on gross impermanence, allowing ourselves to be aware of the obvious changes that occur all around us. Just thinking that when we look, our situation in life may seem to have some permanence to it. But if we think about it, everything around us is changing. The natural environment itself changes. The man made environment changes, Our human relationships change.
Just allow yourself to be really clearly aware of that. And as we allow ourselves to be more and more aware of how much does change, how so many things do change when we look at it, when we observe objectively, We can at the same time be aware that all of these things that we can clearly see do change are products, they have come into existence depending on causes and conditions. All the natural features of this earth have been shaped by causes and conditions. The man made environment is due to causes and conditions. The very earth itself has come into existence depending on causes and conditions, the universe itself.
The Buddha pointed out that actually everything that arises depending on causes and conditions that has been manufactured, produced, born, created depending on causes and conditions is impermanent, changing constantly. So then reflect that there may be some things that one experiences that one thinks are somehow unchanging, permanent, immovable, static. But then if you investigate the nature of those things, there’s nothing that we can find in our world, in our world of ordinary senses, doesn’t arise depending on causes and conditions. Everything that we experience depends on causes and conditions. It is a product of causes and conditions.
So whether we see it or not it means that that thing is impermanent, it’s changing. It’s not possible that there are some things that exist depending on causes and conditions that are impermanent, but there are other things existing depending on causes and conditions that are permanent. That just simply isn’t possible. So then we can reflect a little deeper that why we can observe gross impermanence, that even things that seem to be unchangeable for long periods of time do eventually change and there’s some one can finally observe gross impermanence. The reason that occurs is because subtle impermanence is existing.
That things not only change over long periods of time but we can observe. But why that happens is because everything is actually changing moment by moment. There is not a single moment when things remain static. In the very next moment the thing changes. And in the next moment, it changes.
More importantly, as things change moment by moment, they actually decay moment by moment. This is the real meaning of impermanence. That something arises depending on causes and conditions And it remains in that state, that new state of being created for merely a moment. In the next moment that same thing arises but it arises somewhat less than the previous moment. It has decayed and in the next moment it arises, similar to the previous moment but somehow a little less.
So everything is decaying moment by moment. And for some things, such as a mountain, a ball of steel, it takes a long time before we can notice the decay, the change. But it is happening moment by moment. For other things, that decay is more easily noticeable. If we take the example of a flower which is picked when it’s in full bloom, placed in a vase of water, At first, it’s very fresh and vivid, looking beautiful and vibrant.
One week later, we look at that flower in the vase, and it’s wilted and died. It’s probably only after a few days or a week that we notice the change, but the change has been happening all the time, moment by moment. Moment by moment, something similar is arising, but it’s not the same. It’s a little less every moment. And then we can ask ourselves why is it that products, depending on causes and conditions, are impermanent?
Why is it? What is the reason that they decay moment by moment? What is the explanation for this? And the Buddha taught that there is a very, simple explanation and that explanation is the reason why things that are produced by causes and conditions are impermanent. The reason is simply that they are produced by causes and conditions.
The mere fact that something is produced comes into existence under the power of other things means that it has no power from its own side to stay the same beyond a moment. In the next moment it has to decay. Because something is created, that means it will decay, it will come to an end. Because something is produced, it will fall apart. Because something is born, it will die.
There’s no other reason, no other thing is necessary at all. To illustrate that we can reflect on a sound that depends on the bowl or the bell and the clapper and the movement and the air and so on. Depending on all these conditions and causes, a sound comes into existence. But then it fades away moment by moment. Nothing causes it to fade away other than the mere fact that it was created.
For example. Nothing stopped that sound other than the fact that it was created. And reflect that that process of the sound decaying moment by moment is irreversible. Absolutely nothing, including the Buddha, can make that sound come back. One can create a similar sound, but it’s not the sound that faded away.
It will never ever come back. Once something is created, produced, born, it decays moment by moment irreversibly. So reflect how in fact, in reality, everything that we are experiencing, although it may appear solid and permanent, is in fact no different than the sound of a bell fading away moment by moment irreversibly. All our possessions are like that. The city we live in, the town we live in, our clothing, the food we eat, the natural environment.
Absolutely everything is no different, no more substantial, no more permanent than the sound of a bell fading away irreversibly. Since this is true, what is the point of being attached to impermanent phenomena? What is the point of getting angry with impermanent phenomena? What is the point of being proud about impermanent phenomena or jealous of impermanent phenomena or fearful of impermanent phenomena? Just reflect how much of the time, because of being unaware of impermanence, all the energy or much of the energy of our precious human rebirth, which could go into practicing the liberating Dharma, goes into following the eight worldly concerns.
All the objects of the eight worldly concerns are completely impermanent, insubstantial, like the sound of a bell. Reflect how our very own body comes into existence depending on causes and conditions. So because of that, it does mean that we will definitely die. This body is decaying moment by moment, is aging moment by moment irreversibly. The self-cherishing thought doesn’t want to think about impermanence and death, but our self-cherishing thought is the source of all our confusion and suffering.
But from a wisdom point of view, it’s incredibly important to think about impermanence and death. The more we think about it and gain some deep awareness of it, this is the greatest antidote protection for us, for all our delusions. Every delusion has its particular antidote. The one antidote that opposes all the disturbing thoughts is awareness of impermanence and death. And particularly in this context where this retreat on practicing patience, Awareness of impermanence and death is a great antidote that helps us practice patience.
Why be angry if everything is impermanent? If we really understand that, if we really experience that everything is impermanent, why be angry, Why be jealous? Attached. This awareness is incredibly liberating if we allow it to be. On the other hand, if we don’t think about impermanence and death, all the precious time of our precious human rebirth will be wasted in ordinary things following the eight worldly concerns.
Even if we get to practice the Dharma, the liberating Dharma, if we don’t allow ourselves to think more and more deeply about impermanence and death, our Dharma practice will be a lot of procrastination, always putting off our practice, our main practice, always thinking this time later in the year, later in my life to do serious practice. Day by day, we always postpone our Dharma practice because there’s something more important to do. And the self-cherishing thought says, there’s time. Later on today, I’ll do it. And even as we practice Dharma, if we don’t have a deep understanding of impermanence and death, still the Dharma we do, as we’re doing it, isn’t very pure.
It’s mixed with all kinds of worldly thoughts and ambitions. Especially it’s important to reflect that if we don’t allow ourselves to think about impermanence and death now, then when we die, which we will definitely do when we die, we will die with regret. We won’t have prepared ourselves. Death will come as a shock. We won’t have practiced purely, therefore we will have created all sorts of negative karma, and then there will be lots of fear and regret at the time of death.
On the other hand, if we allow ourselves to have the courage to use this life to think about impermanence and death, then this helps make our life meaningful. It forces us to decide what is really worthwhile to spend our life’s energy on. And the great benefit of allowing ourselves to have the courage to continuously face the reality of impermanence and death is that when death finally comes, it won’t be a shock or a surprise. So we can die with a mind that’s prepared without fear, without regret, knowing we’ve led a meaningful life. So bring the meditation to a conclusion by making a strong decision to allow oneself to be more and more mindful in daily life of how all things are impermanent, changing, decaying moment by moment irreversibly, and that one’s death is definitely going to come.
Therefore, I have to practice the Dharma, practice it now, and practice it purely. Recall the Buddha on the crown of your head. Imagine the Buddha is very pleased, happily dissolves into light, that blissful golden light comes down through the crown of our head, blessing our body, speech and mind, especially blessing us to gain a deep abiding realisation of impermanence and death. So then we dedicate the merit. Page twenty seven.
Thank you very much. We can finish with three prostrations.