Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 73-minute guided meditation session, Venerable Thubten Dondrub leads practitioners through a structured reflection on the precious human rebirth, focusing on the eight freedoms and ten endowments that create optimal conditions for Dharma practice. After preliminary practices including refuge, bodhicitta generation, and the Lamrim prayers, Dondrub systematically walks through the five personal endowments: having a human body with capacity for practice, being born where the Dharma exists, possessing healthy faculties, avoiding extreme negative actions, and having faith in the teachings. He then explores five environmental endowments: being born in a fortunate eon when Buddhas teach, living when teachings flourish including tantra, having access to realized masters, benefiting from the monastic order, and enjoying the support of Dharma friends and resources. Throughout, Dondrub emphasizes the miraculous rarity of having all these factors aligned in a single lifetime, and ends with a determination to use this opportunity wisely.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 8. Day 2 Meditation 8 Fortunes 10 Endowments.mp3
UUID: 24fa3435-d988-46b7-87ff-b7cbff87ada7
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: KI Retreat (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2005 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 73.0 minutes
Words: ~4,298
So we’ll just do a little bit longer session this morning, not too much longer. Maybe if it fits in, I’ll just take a make a break somewhere where people could stand up for a few seconds. So this morning we’ll do some meditation on the ten endowments of the precious human being of recognising that we have these. So again we start by sitting in a comfortable position, the correct Vairochana posture as much as we can, particularly paying attention to the positioning of our spine and upper body. Also the positioning of our head is important so that we don’t have our head tilted down or lifted too high.
So if one’s spine is straight and one pulls the shoulders back just a little bit and lifts the head and tucks the chin in slightly, the positioning of your head should be correct. So we fine tune this by placing awareness on the crown of your head and moving your awareness down through your body just for a short time, also checking any tension in the body. So having prepared our body, we prepare our mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise to establish a calm, neutral mind. With each in breath, one can imagine breathing in blissful white light from the Buddha’s that blesses our mind to gain all the realizations that we are going to meditate on. With each out breath we imagine all our disturbing thoughts, the negative karmic imprints, all obstacles to meditation leaving in the form of black smoke that completely dissipates and becomes non existent.
So then recognizing that it is our own mind that gives rise to all our suffering, all our happiness, and therefore the only way that we can reduce and eliminate our suffering and establish pure lasting happiness is to work with our mind correctly, then we generate the mind of refuge, recognizing that by ourselves there’s no way we can do this. We need to rely on a perfect method of working with the mind and that comes within Buddhist teachings. And we can trust those, we can generate a refuge in them because they come from the enlightened mind which is free of all faults and possessing all good qualities. So we can generate a strong refuge in enlightened mind of the Buddhas, in their teachings and in the great practitioners of those teachings, the Sangha. So try and generate as strongly as possible that strong refuge in the Triple Gem, at the same time visualizing the field of refuge in front of oneself, at the very least, Śākyamūni Buddha seated on the lion throne, lotus sun and moon, all in the nature of transparent radiating light, the Buddha appearing as a pure, fully ordained monk holding a begging bowl in his left hand.
So we recognise that since beginningless time we have been trying to achieve happiness and avoid suffering. But our mind being obscured by ignorance, self grasping and by self-cherishing, we haven’t really understood how to accomplish this. We haven’t really understood the extent of our suffering or or the true nature of of happiness and its causes. So in our confusion, we have been continuously following the self-cherishing thought, believing it will lead to happiness, whereas in fact, it just creates the causes of more suffering, more cyclic existence. And in our self-cherishing, we’ve not only caused harm to ourselves but have been no benefit to others and actually caused harm to them.
So in this one life, having met the Buddhidharma, we can begin to understand all the mistakes that we have made, are making, and be and can begin to change that whole pattern, Giving up the self-cherishing thought, cherishing others more than self. Even if we only want our own happiness, this is the best way to bring it about. But if we recognise how much suffering exists in sentient beings’ minds, how much potential they have for more suffering, And when we recognize that these beings are not separate from us, Some appear as friends, most appear as strangers, some appear as enemies, but the reality is that they’ve all been kind to us in countless ways, especially when they’ve been our mother. But even when not our mother, we’ve relied on the kindness of sentient beings directly and indirectly in every life, and we’ll continue to do so until we achieve enlightenment. Recognizing this and recognizing that we have the potential within us to achieve enlightenment, we can then generate at least the effortful bodhicitta mind, thinking that no matter what, I must achieve enlightenment, not only for my own sake, but especially for the sake of the kind suffering Mother sentient beings.
In order to repay their kindness, I must achieve enlightenment. To achieve enlightenment, I have to follow the path. In order to follow the path successfully, I have to understand that path. This is why I need to meditate on the teachings again and again, not only to gain a clear understanding of them but to actually realize them in my mind, to transform my mind into the path. So this is why I’ll do this meditation this morning.
So to help cultivate that bodhicitta mind, we think of ourselves surrounded by all the different kinds of sentient beings of the six realms of cyclic existence, visualizing them in human form if one finds that easier, but thinking that they’re experiencing the sufferings unique to each realm. So we begin by thinking of our mother 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. I go for refuge until I’m 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 thinking 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 visualize offering up the entire universe, the cyclic existence, all the beautiful things in it, especially those that we’re most attached to.
We offer this to the field of refuge, wishing to be completely free of all attachment to these things, believing that they have any inherent value to any giving up the idea that that we can achieve real happiness depending on these things. So in this way we free our mind and open our mind to receive the blessings of the Buddhas, the blessings that enable us to understand the Dharma correctly, to be able to meditate on it correctly and gain the valid realizations that bring our mind not only to liberation but enlightenment. So then if we turn to the Lumrim prayers to page twenty seven. Nature that embodies all the Buddhas, source of all pure transmission and realization Dharma, principle amongst all the aryasamgha, I take refuge in all magnificent pure gurus. Please bless my mind to become Dharma, the Dharma to become the path, and that path to be free of all hindrances.
Until I achieve enlightenment, may I, just like the bodhisattva, Śāntideva, generate devotion to my guru in thought and action, see all the actions of my guru as excellent and fulfil 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 easily lost, realizing 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 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. 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 fulfill 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 a 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 now having prepared our mind in this way we can now direct our mind to the topic at hand, which is thinking about the Ten Endowments, recognising the Ten Endowments. Firstly again we can just briefly reflect on the eight freedoms, just briefly recognising that have although our mind is obscured right now, we do have this Buddha nature, this Buddha potential. The mind has this potential to know everything completely, purely, the potential for complete omniscience that is combined with complete, perfect, all encompassing great compassion and every other pure positive quality. But that potential is completely obscured or not completely obscured, but is obscured. But when we have the precious human rebirth, we have the optimum conditions to begin to free our mind and achieve not only liberation but complete enlightenment.
But we need to recognize that we have those optimum conditions. We need to recognize the incredible meaning of our precious human rebirth, how incredibly rare it is, how difficult to obtain. And then we can raise this this joyful energy to take the essence of the precious human rebirth by following the path to enlightenment. So just recognize right now that we have the incredible freedom of not being trapped in any of the lower realms. We’re not in the the extreme lower realms of hell or any equivalent human rebirth like that of which there are so many.
We’re not trapped in the preta realms, the hungry ghost realms. We’re not trapped in an animal body. Just that itself means we have so much freedom, not the freedom for our delusions to run wild, the freedom for our self-cherishing to go berserk. It means we have what it really means is that we have the freedom to practice Dharma. How incredibly fortunate that is.
Reflect how actually it’s even fortunate that we’re not born in the god realms, where although there’s incredible pleasure far beyond what a human being can experience, that that pleasure doesn’t last. The potential for suffering is still there. And in the god realms, there are no conditions to practice Dharma in most cases. So again, there’s no real freedom in those realms. So how fortunate not to be in that situation right now.
And then we can rejoice that right now we are free of those most difficult human situations, being born in those very uncivilized areas where there is so much violence and bigotry. No belief in spiritual values and so on. We’re free of being born with defective senses, having wrong views, and being born at a time when the enlightening influence of the Buddhas doesn’t exist at all. So what we need to focus on right now very strongly, really put this strongly in your mind, in your heart, that although I may have difficult circumstances in my life, it’s not exactly what I would like. What I need to recognize is that I am free, completely free of the most difficult things that make it hard, if not impossible, to practice the most important thing in life, which is the liberating Dharma.
That is what I need to recognize and and appreciate. So now we can contemplate recognizing that not only do we have these eight freedoms, but we have these ten endowments or encouragements. Not only are we free of the things that hold us back from practicing the Dharma, that weighed us down, there are many things that are actually encouraging us, making it easy to practice the Dharma, as easy as it possibly can be. This is what we need to recognize and appreciate. So there are what I call the five personal endowments.
The first is that just the mere fact that we are human makes it incredibly easy to practice the Dharma. Some animals possibly have less obvious suffering than human beings. Some animals have a reasonable degree of intelligence but no animal is able to read the Dharma, understand it. So just because we have a human body and a human level of intelligence that this gives us so much opportunity. With this body we can do prostrations, make mandala offerings, water bowl offerings, so many things with our body, speech and mind.
Especially as a human being, one can practice tantra, the fast way to enlightenment. One needs a human body with all the substances of a human being to practice tantra. Some gods can practice Dharma, but they don’t have a body that enables them to practice tantra. So one can reflect that, as Geshe was saying yesterday, one has had infinite numbers of rebirths. Infinite numbers.
And so just now, just briefly, this one time, I have this human rebirth. This itself is something quite extraordinary, amazing, and fortunate. Then reflect that even if I’ve had more than one human rebirth, even if I’ve had quite a few human rebirths throughout cyclic existence. In most, if not all the previous times, I’ve been a human being. I haven’t been born in a place where the Dharma is existing and flourishing.
But this one time, I’ve achieved that. I’m not only human, but I’m in a place where the dharma exists. How amazing. This is unbelievably rare in time and space. Most human beings on this planet don’t exist in a place where the Dharma exists.
Most human beings on this planet have never heard or seen the word Buddha. Then consider that even if I’ve had quite a few births as a human being, even being born where the Dharma exists, I’ve been born with imperfect organs, an imperfect body, an imperfect mind, mentally disturbed or born blind or deaf or something like that. But this one time, I’m I not only have a human body born where the dharma exists, I have a healthy body and mind. For these three things to come together is really miraculous, incredibly rare. So then we can reflect that perhaps I’ve had quite a lot of rebirths as a human where the dharma exists, even having a healthy body and mind.
But in previous rebirths, in most of them, I’ve probably created one of the extreme negative actions such as killing an arhat or killing one’s mother or father, wounding a Buddha or causing a division, a schism amongst the Sangha. These these actions are so negative that whatever positive things I do have have very little benefit in this life. One is immediately reborn in the lowest realms after this life. But this one time, that hasn’t happened. This one time, I’m human where the dharma exists, with a healthy body and mind free of the most extreme negative actions.
This is unbelievably rare. It’s it’s almost a miracle that all these things could come together in one lifetime, And it gives such incredible opportunity to practice the liberating Dharma. And then reflect that perhaps in given the vastness of time, it’s possible that I’ve been born human where the Dharma exists, with a healthy body and mind and free of having created the five extreme actions. Maybe I’ve had such a rebirth quite a few times. But in most of those other rebirths, even though I was born where the dharma existed, I didn’t have any belief in it.
But this time, this time, I have that belief. Maybe I didn’t even have it earlier in this life but now I do. So this is something truly amazing, unbelievably fortunate. This is the most wonderful endowment, encouragement of all. There are many human beings much more intelligent than myself, have much more fortunate conditions than myself, but they have no faith in the Dharma.
So if people would like to, we could just take a minute’s break just to stand up and stretch if you’re finding a little bit need to. Just also trying to maintain that mindfulness of what we’re reflecting on. So just again reflect how amazing it is that all these five personal factors have come together in this one rebirth. This is not just something that has happened by chance, a fluke. This has causes, definite causes that one’s own mind has created in previous lives.
But for all of these causes to bring about this particular result in one lifetime is like a miracle. One could have faith in the dharma but not be born in the place where the dharma exists. So for all of these five factors to come together, we’re experiencing them right now. We take it as something ordinary but it is actually, literally, extraordinary. Very few human beings on this planet have all these five factors together.
The fact that we do means we have so much opportunity, power, to practice. If we recognize that, it may not come again for many, many lifetimes. We may have many rebirths in the future, possibly as a human, where we’re far richer, have many more resources, have a much healthier body, a much more attractive body, have much more influence and more so on, more intelligence, etc, etc. But we may never have the faith in the dharma that we have now. So we need to recognize that we have the most important factors.
There isn’t a better rebirth somewhere, a better situation somewhere. We have the optimum situation for getting on with the task of practicing the liberating Dharma. So this is especially true when we begin to recognise that not only do we have the incredible good fortune of these five personal endowments, we also have the environmental endowments that encourage us, make it easy to practice the Dharma or as easy as possible. The first of these may be a little bit difficult for us to appreciate but this is the fact that we have been born into a fortunate eon, which means that over the vastness of time there are periods when the Buddhas, of the karma of sentient beings, aren’t able to appear and teach the Dharma. So these are called the dark times, when the enlightening influence of the Buddhas, of spiritual values just do not exist in the world.
Imagine what that would be like. But we’ve been born in the fortunate eon when a thousand Buddhas are going to appear. So we’ve appeared we’ve been born at the time of the fourth of these thousand Buddhas, Śākyamūni Buddha. And this is incredibly important because Śākyamūni Buddha is one of the few, maybe one of only three Buddhas who will teach the tantra. So we’ve been born in the in this fortunate But more than that, we’ve been born at a time when the the the teachings of the Buddha, all the different kinds of teachings that lead to liberation, the teachings that lead to enlightenment, and the tantric teachings, all exist, are still flourishing.
It is taught that a time will come when the teachings of the Buddha will disappear on the from this earth. One won’t be able to see a single word of the Dharma, not a single image of the Buddha anywhere. But right now these teachings are flourishing, existing. So we can access them if we recognize their value. There’s nothing stopping us from accessing these teachings.
Directly and indirectly, these teachings are are affecting the world anyway, influencing us. More than that, we’ve been born into an environment where not only do the teachings exist just as words and books and so on, but there are realised masters of all the lineages existing. So this is the living Dharma is present in our world, in our environment. We have the opportunity to meet such beings. We have the freedom to to to meet such beings.
Recognizing the importance of making contact with such beings, we can do this. They exist. They are teaching. That’s their wish, their purpose in life. We can meet such beings.
So it’s important to reflect that in relation to this point that when we actually meet such realized masters, and not only just meet them or receive teachings from them, but we develop a strong connection to them, a mutual connection and develop devotion to them, we establish a disciple master relationship, then this is when the precious human rebirth becomes complete and perfect. So on top of that we have also the extra good fortune that the monastic order exists, that the Buddha himself taught that it is necessary for the monastic order of fully ordained monks and nuns to exist in order for the Dharma to exist and flourish. The Buddha himself said that where the Sangha exists, meaning a community of four fully ordained bhikshus or bhikṣuṇīs where the Sangha exists, I exist. So this becomes a definition of a religious country. Through the existence of the Sangha, one is able to take various levels of vows and so on.
So we need to recognize how fortunate we are to have this situation. In Australia, it’s not perfect by any means. It’s a very tenuous situation, but it is developing. And then the last of the environmental factors, but which is something really vital for us as ordinary practitioners, is recognizing that we have the support, we’ve been incredibly fortunate to be born in a place where we have Dharma friends. Just ordinary people like ourselves who can help us in our practice.
Just think if one was completely alone, one had some interest and faith in the Dharma but was completely alone, how far could we get in our practice? It’s very difficult. So just having even one or two Dharma friends who share our interests, understanding, who can support us emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, even financially in some cases, is incredibly important, incredibly helpful. And we have dharma centers, Dharma books, all the things exist in our environment, everything that we we need, we have retreat centers. It’s all there, everything we need.
It’s begging to be used. Everything to make Dharma practice as easy as it can be is is in our environment. We just have to recognize that and use it. It’s just up to us, our imagination. And reflect how in the vastness of time, in previous lives I could have been born with all the personal factors existing, born when the teachings didn’t really exist anymore.
I was born with faith, but no, the teachings didn’t really exist or with very degenerate. Or I was born with the teachings flourishing, but no no great masters of the teachings. No monastic order, born at a time when maybe I met great teachers, but I had no support in my environment, no friends to help me in any way. But now all the factors are there. Everything is complete.
This is perfect, precious, the optimum human rebirth. Such a rebirth may not come again for an incredibly long time because the causes are so difficult to create. So we can bring this contemplation to an end by making a strong determination not to waste this precious human rebirth. For all these eight freedoms and ten endowments to come together in this one lifetime is really amazing, incredibly fortunate, incredibly rare, incredibly meaningful. It’s a precious human rebirth, but because I can achieve finally what everyone wants to achieve, which is freedom from suffering and real happiness.
No other rebirth can bring that about. So I can’t I I’m I can’t waste this life in meaningless worldly things. I must be mindful every day that I have this amazing human rebirth, the chance to practice the liberating Dharma for my own sake, for the sake of all sentient beings. Then think that the Buddha on the crown of one’s head is extremely pleased with what we’ve been contemplating. Because of that, the Buddha happily dissolves into blissful golden light, which comes down through the crown of our head, Blessing our body, speech, mind, especially filling our mind blessed to gain a complete and stable realization of the precious human rebirth.
So then we dedicate the merit on page twenty six, twenty seven. You who are uphold the Sugata’s moral way, who serve as the bountiful bearer of all, sustaining, preserving, spreading Muni’s victorious doctrine, who masterfully accomplished magnificent prayers honoring the Three Jewels, Saviour, myself and others, your disciples, please, please, live long.