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 practitioners through foundational meditations on emptiness as part of a longer retreat. He begins with the Vairochana posture and the nine-round breathing exercise, then establishes refuge through visualization of Śākyamūni Buddha and reflection on the interconnectedness of all sentient beings. He leads a full refuge recitation and the four immeasurable wishes. The core teaching unfolds through the Three Principal Aspects of the Path: renunciation (recognizing saṃsāra’s unending struggle), bodhicitta (opening the heart to all beings caught in suffering), and the wisdom realizing emptiness (understanding how phenomena lack true, independent existence while still functioning interdependently). Pitched at practitioners already begun a meditative retreat on emptiness.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 17a. Day 5 Prayers for Meditation Emptiness.mp3
UUID: 48abc9f0-4f65-4655-bea8-2ed819b54191
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Meditations DTL (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2006 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 18.9 minutes
Words: ~1,406
To do this, we have to prepare our mind carefully and firstly our body by sitting correctly as much as we can comfortably in the seven points of the Vairochana physical posture. Place your awareness at your crown and move it briefly down through your body to further check the positioning of each part of your body. Dissolving the points of tension by being aware of how one is unconsciously holding on to that, and there’s that tightening around various points and unconsciously pulling inwards. When we become aware of that, we can begin to let go of that. And then the eighth point of the Vairochana posture is to do the nine round breathing exercise.
As we do that, visualising blissful white light coming in from the Buddha’s blessing our mind, breathing out all disturbances, negativities, which we each out with in the form of black smoke. So then generating the mind of refuge. To pacify our mind, We need a perfect method. With faith in the pure mind of the Buddha, we can trust that the teachings of the Buddhas contain these perfect, unbetrayable methods. That if we understand them correctly, practice them correctly, will definitely bring the correct result that we seek.
So we visualise Śākyamūni Buddha as the very embodiment of all objects of refuge, all the qualities of the objects of refuge appearing out of great compassion from the formless dharmakaya state of enlightenment, manifesting on a golden lion throne with cushions of light of sun and moon, a pure body of golden radiating light in the aspect of a pure renunciate, the embodiment of wisdom and compassion. As we take refuge in that mind of great compassion for all beings, that holds all beings equally with compassion, then we ourselves can become aware. Through that, we become aware of all sentient beings, how they are suffering, no matter what realm they’re in, no matter what situation. While in saṃsāra, beings are only suffering, And all these beings I’m intimately connected with. They’ve been my mother a vast number of times, my father, best friend, have saved my life an infinite number of times.
They have sacrificed their life for me in countless ways, many times. I just simply cannot exist without other living beings. Just that is an incredible kindness from their side. So I can’t just, as I depend on them moment by moment, practice for my own self. It’s like having starving people growing food for you when you consume it all.
So think of the presence of all these beings surrounding you, trying to feel their suffering right now, their helplessness. Starting with your parents on either side, family, friends, helpers behind, arms in front to include them within our circle of compassion. And then as much as possible, as much as you can imagine, as much as it is real for you, think of 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 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. Please. 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’ll go through the three principal aspects of path. I’m so impressed. The Buddha’s very pleased with us. Imagine the golden lion throne dissolves into light and then the Buddha seated on the lotus sun and moon comes to our head, turning to face the same direction as ourselves. And then make a heartfelt request to the guru Buddha for one’s mind to be completely free of all negative thoughts and the imprints from them, all obscurations, all hindrances that one finds in practicing meditating on emptiness, especially on this most difficult topic of being able to understand the wrong view of inherent existence that we have and trying to understand the correct view of how all things are empty.
Existing but empty. To think the Buddha happily responds, sending powerful white light and nectar from his heart into us, causing all those hindrances, problems, the negativities to leave the mind in the aspect of a very thick black liquid that pours out from the lower part of our body, dissipates, becomes nonexistent. And then golden light in nature comes from the guru’s heart into us, blessing our mind to be able to meditate effectively with concentration, blessing our mind to gain the unmistaken, stable realization of the empty nature of oneself and all phenomena. Although things exist, they don’t truly exist from their own side. Although they appear and function, they’re completely empty with true existence.
Through the three principal aspects of the path. Again, we’ll start with the third paragraph. So again, as we say this, think that it’s Śākyamūni Buddha in our crown who is speaking to us in this way. Without real renunciation, there is no way to end your struggle for pleasure sought in the seeds of conditioned existence and to cling to such existence will utterly enslave you. Thus, at the outset, seek the will to awaken.
Freedoms and richnesses are hard to find, and life does not last long. Keeping this always in mind will alter the priority you give to this life. Thinking again and again about the unvarying relation between actions and their effects and the sufferings of cyclic existence alter the priority you give to future lives. Meditating in this way, when your thoughts are turned night and day towards liberation, and not even for a moment do you entertain a wish for the splendours of cyclic existence, then you will have given birth to the will to awaken. But even such a will, if not conjoined with complete opening of your heart, does not serve as cause for the perfect bliss of highest awakening.
Thus, those of you who truly understand go on to develop the supreme awakened heart. Think about what is happening to your mothers, how they are swept along in the currents of four raging rivers, bound by the near unbreakable chains of compulsive actions and held in the iron grip of self grasping. Think how they are enveloped in the thick darkness of ignorance, are born into limitless lives, and in those lives are relentlessly made to bear the three sufferings. Thus give birth to the highest of hearts. But even if you were to instill within you the will to awaken and the awakened heart, Without the wisdom realising reality, the awakened mind, still you have no way to cut the root of conditioned existence.
Thus work with the means of realising dependent arising. Whoever sees the unerring relation between a cause and its effects in all things of cyclic existence and beyond, and brings to an end holding them as real, has entered onto the path that pleases the Buddhas. As long as the two, appearance as infallible dependent arising, and emptiness as freedom from assertion as true, appear distinct one from another, you have yet to realise the subtlety of thought. But when they are no longer alternate but coincide such that in the mere seeing of the infallibility of dependent arising, definite knowledge totally destroys the way you perceive of things as real, then your analysis of the view is complete. Moreover, the extreme of true existence is dispelled by appearance and that of nonexistence by emptiness.
If you understand the way emptiness finds expression within the context of cause and effect, you no longer will be captivated by extreme views. Then when you have realised just as they are the essentials of the three principal aspects of the path, resort to solitude, intensify your joyous effort, and quickly, my child, my child fulfill your ultimate aim.