Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this brief closing address at the end of Day 5 of the KI Retreat, Ven Thubten Dondrub offers practical guidance for continuing study and practice with the chapter on patience that formed the retreat’s focus. He quotes advice from the Dalai Lama on reading the chapter daily in small segments, describes it as foundational to all Dharma practice, and recommends the Lamrim meditation structure participants learned during the retreat—either in the full traditional form or a simplified version—as a sustainable daily practice. He emphasizes that consistent analytical meditation on the Lamrim, even briefly, makes one’s human rebirth meaningful, and closes by encouraging the regular recitation of the Vajrasattva mantra, which can be done throughout the day, not only in formal meditation sessions. Pitched at retreat participants already familiar with the materials.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 33. Day 5 Dondrup final words.mp3
UUID: fd771db9-d068-4283-ba0a-3addb959baae
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: KI Retreat (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2005 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 3.3 minutes
Words: ~486
Spent all this time studying this chapter and some of you may not get the chance to hear the rest of the teaching from Geshe la. Geshe la will continue this teaching at Buddha House sometime. But it takes you to the library anyway. It takes you to the library. But also I would highly recommend people just reading this chapter again and again.
This is way to practice patience. And if you practice patience, then all the other Dharma practices come together. I once asked His Holiness how I should practice patience. The Dalai Lama said, ‘Just read this chapter every day, or a bit of it every day. I highly recommend just reading a few verses every day.
Three verses one day, the next three verses. And in a very short time you can read the entire book. This is the best book in the entire universe, there’s no doubt. It’s got everything in it. Well not completely.
All the sūtra is in it and the perfect preparation for tantra. And just another advertisement is that since we did these meditations and teachings, I would highly recommend if you’re not doing any practice or you would like to improve your practice or re establish your practice, do what we’ve been doing every meditation session going through that. You can do it in a more complicated version, like I left out the four immeasurables. You can always add the four immeasurables. There is certainly no harm in meditating on loving kindness and compassion and so on.
But you can reduce some of the prayers. But the way we did it is basically the traditional way, a little bit abbreviated, the traditional way to meditate on the Lamrim, especially going through the whole Lamrim before you actually meditate on a specific topic. Even if you do up to that every day, it’s fantastic. If you can spend a little time doing some analytical Lamrim meditation every day, this means that one’s precious human rebirth that day is worthwhile and meaningful. One hasn’t wasted it.
And then at night rejoice in your merit and apply the four opponent powers with Vajrasattva. Because once you get familiar with it, can be done very quickly. Not that the point is to do it quickly, if you think, Oh, I don’t have time, it doesn’t have to take as much time as we did. Because I talk a lot and just anyone leading it, it takes more time than when you think it yourself or just read it and especially when you become familiar with it. And don’t forget the Vajrasattva mantra.
You can say it all the time. It’s not just on a cushion, you know, in some little room somewhere with incense burning. It can be said all day long, especially when you realise you’ve done something negative. Instantly say Vajrasattva mantra. Thank you very much.
Thank you.