Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 19-minute session, Ven Thubten Dondrub guides a meditation on attachment and desire, core obstacles to developing genuine renunciation. He opens with analytical reflection on the nature of attachment and the six conditions that give rise to delusions, then leads practitioners through a structured meditation: settling the body and mind with nine-round breathing; establishing refuge in Śākyamūni Buddha; expanding refuge with bodhicitta by visualizing suffering beings and committing to work for their liberation; then requesting the guru’s blessings to overcome obscurations before studying attachment. The session concludes with the Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga prayer “Calling the Guru from Afar,” invoking blessings for remembrance of impermanence, genuine renunciation, and unobstructed practice. Suited for those already studying renunciation within a structured retreat context.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 11a. Day 3 Prayers for Meditation Attachment & Desire.mp3
UUID: fdfece10-d5ac-4502-aaa6-f767f1dfae09
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Meditations DTL (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2006 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 19.5 minutes
Words: ~1,330
Nature of attachment because this is what we really have to get rid of and pacify to qualify to be renunciate. All the eight worldly concerns are about basically about attachment. So we’ll look at that a little bit and also in relation to what we’ve discussed in the discussion groups a couple of times, what I alluded to are the six factors that give rise to the condition, the arising of delusions such as attachment, so we can reflect on that. Unless you have another suggestion. Again, we have prayers open ready at page twenty four and then we do the Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga meditation.
It’s in the Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga. Maybe we can do the short poem, the Calling the Guru from Afar, which is on page thirteen. So we can begin by sitting comfortably in the correct posture And placing your awareness at the crown and moving it down through the body briefly just to fine tune the posture as much as we can so that we feel that we can sit comfortably without having to move significantly for the rest of the session. And then pacify the mind with a nine round breathing exercise and combining it with visualizing with each in breath blessings coming from the Buddhas in the form of white light, and with each out breath imagining breathing out all negativities and hindrances in the form of black smoke. And then having right now this very clear awareness that it is our mind giving rise to all experience, through that recognition there is the understanding that if we want to reduce our suffering, enhance our well-being, we have to gain mastery of our mind, pacify to just begin to pacify the disturbing thoughts, begin to cultivate the positive potentials of our mind.
So we as one aspect of refuge is, you know, being determined to do that. I’m going to do that. I have to do that for my own sake, for my for a good rebirth, for happiness in this life, less suffering, and for a good rebirth. I’ve got to do this, and I’m going to totally rely on the Buddha’s methods to accomplish that. So we visualize Śākyamūni Buddha as the embodiment of objects of refuge appearing seated on a magnificent lion throne with cushions of lotus sun and moon, Buddha with a beautiful body of golden light appearing as a pure bhikṣu, embodying great compassion and wisdom.
And then we combine that basic thought of refuge with the Mahāyāna thought of wishing that based on great compassion, recognizing how all sentient beings are trapped in suffering, in their confusion creating the cause for more, and that all these suffering beings have been so kind in an infinite variety of ways, life after life. I am inextricably interconnected and dependent on every living being, so I can’t just work for my own happiness. As I work for my own happiness, I’m totally dependent on others, on these suffering beings. So how can I leave them behind? I have to help them be free of suffering and its causes, help them establish the peerless everlasting happiness of enlightenment and its causes.
So I’ve got to achieve enlightenment no matter what. So we visualize all these beings surrounding us, trying to feel their presence, their suffering, their helplessness, starting with our mother on our right on our left, father on our right, and the rest of our family, friends, and helpers behind us, those who have harmed in front to include them in our compassion, then all beings of the six realms appearing as humans but experiencing the different sufferings of each realm. So to achieve enlightenment for all these beings, I have to follow the path, and the entrance to the path in the sense is cultivating, able to gain renunciation, and that basically means giving up attachment. So for this reason, I’ll do this analytical meditation on attachment and how the conditions for its arising so that I can then renounce that, repeat it so I can recognize these things in order to not follow them. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the stream assembly.
By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all sentient beings be inseparable from the happiness that is free from suffering. May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from desire for friends and hatred for enemies.
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. Think how wonderful it is that there are beings similar to myself who are trying to give up the eight worldly concerns, how wonderful it is that there are people who have actually done so, How wonderful it is that there are those who’ve completely renounced cyclic existence altogether. There are those who have actually developed the wisdom of emptiness, realizing emptiness.
How amazing. How wonderful. There are those who have generated bodhicitta. There are those who have complete achieved complete enlightenment. How amazing.
How wonderful. And then there are my precious teachers guiding me. How wonderful that is. 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.
See, the Buddha in front is very pleased with us. And because of that, the Buddha now comes towards the crown of our head, the lion’s throne firstly dissolving into light, and then the Buddha comes above the crown of our head, seated on the light of sun and moon, and turns facing the same direction as ourself. And then we make a heartfelt request to the guru buddha for our mind to be totally free of all negative thoughts and their imprints, all obscurations, and all obstacles that we face when we practice and meditate, especially on this subject. So imagine Śākyamūni Buddha very happily responding, sending blissful white light and nectar from his heart into us. It eliminates all these negativities that take the aspect of very thick, ugly, black liquid that leaves the mind in that form and pours out from the lower part of the body, dissipating and becoming completely nonexistent.
And then continuous golden light in nectar comes from the Guru Buddha’s heart into us, blessing our mind to be able to meditate effectively with concentration and to gain the unmistaken realization. So then we go to the Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga prayer, calling the guru from afar, page thirteen. Lama think of me. Lama think of me. Lama think of Magnificently glorious dispelling the darkness of ignorance.
Magnificently glorious Guru, revealing the path of liberation. Magnificently glorious Guru, liberating from the waters of Samsāra. Magnificently glorious Guru, eliminating the diseases of the five poisons. Magnificently glorious guru, who is the wish granting jewel, I beseech you, please grant me blessings. Magnificently glorious guru, please grant me blessings to remember impermanence and death from my heart.
Magnificently glorious Guru, please grant me blessings to cherish the thought of renunciation in my mind. Magnificently glorious Guru, please bless me to abide one pointedly and practice in isolated places. Magnificently glorious Guru, please bless me to not have any hindrances to my practice. Magnificently glorious Guru, please bless me so that all bad conditions appear as a support. Magnificently glorious Guru, please bless me to accomplish effortlessly the two purposes for self and others.
Magnificently glorious guru, please bless me soon very soon. Please grant me blessings on this very cushion. Please grant me blessings in this very session. So then having prepared our