Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 39-minute meditation guidance session, Venerable Thubten Dondrub leads practitioners through a structured contemplation of impermanence and death. He begins with practical instruction on managing the mind during meditation — avoiding dullness, agitation, and distraction through mindfulness and invocation of the guru. The core reflection starts with recognizing the preciousness and brevity of human rebirth, then moves methodically through three key insights: that everything produced from causes and conditions must be impermanent; that subtle, moment-to-moment decay underlies all apparent solidity, illustrated through the analogy of a bell’s sound fading irreversibly; and that death is both certain and potentially imminent, with no fixed lifespan or protection available. He concludes by contrasting how attachment to worldly concerns will prove useless at death, whereas cultivated virtues like compassion, faith, and a calm mind offer genuine refuge. The teaching is pitched at practitioners already familiar with Buddhist basics and ready to internalize the urgency that drives serious practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2b. Day 1 Meditation Impermanence.mp3
UUID: f9a5ff17-2c7c-4c0a-837c-a412605e74f4
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Meditations DTL (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2006 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 38.7 minutes
Words: ~1,974
So having prepared our mind in this way, make a strong determination now that I’m really going to focus all my energy of my mind onto thinking about impermanence and death. I won’t let my mind come under the sway of different hindrances, I won’t allow it to become dull, sleepy, bored and so on. I won’t allow it to get agitated by sounds or sensations in the body or distracted by my own thoughts. As soon as any of these things happen, I’m definitely going to let go of them. Or if if they become very strong, apply the opponent powers if I know the antidotes to them.
At the very least, if if you don’t know the particular antidotes, at least recall the guru buddha on your crown and imagine this blissful powerful light comes from him instantly dispelling whatever hindrance you’re facing. So then we go back to the meditation. So we can begin by reflecting that we have Buddha nature and we have a precious human rebirth. We have the optimum chance to begin to free our mind of all suffering and confusion, and to awaken our mind to its fullest potential to benefit others as well. But this this freedom we have is not going to last because we’re going to die.
And it’s not sure that in our next life, we will have the same opportunity because the precious human rebirth comes with causes, and those causes are incredibly difficult to create. So I’m gonna meditate on impermanence of death so I don’t waste this precious life. And what do I waste my life on? Mostly on attachment to things that are not going to last. So I need to realize how everything is impermanent, changing, and decaying without any real essence.
So just briefly reflect that everything that we understand as being obviously impermanent, how the weather changes, how things grow old, things break and decay. We see these things around us all the time. We know when we think about it that many, many things are impermanent. They don’t last. And if we check out, which we can do again now, just to remind ourselves, everything that we know of as being impermanent, changing, It has come into existence originally depending on causes and conditions.
It was produced, manufactured, depending on causes and conditions. And if we reflect, we can begin to see that in fact everything that we experience, everything that we know, starting from our own body outwards, The whole universe has arisen depending on causes and conditions. And the Buddha taught that everything that arises is produced, is created depending on causes and conditions, is impermanent. It’s not just that some things that we’re aware of that depend on causes and conditions are impermanent. Anything that owes its origin comes into existence depending on causes and conditions, No matter how small, how big, how solid, how long lasting it may be, it is impermanent.
It is changing. It is decaying. It’s very important to reflect how the obvious gross change that we perceive of something becoming very old, breaking down, falling apart, and so on. This obvious gross impermanence occurs because there is subtle impermanence, that things are changing all the time. It’s not as though something is permanent and then at the end it becomes impermanent.
Every phenomena, depending on causes and conditions, is undergoing subtle change every moment. It is decaying every moment until there is this final destruction. Then if we investigate why is it that something that is created depending on causes and conditions is impermanent, why is that? What is the reason? What makes something impermanent?
The simple answer is the mere fact that it was created, the mere fact that something owes its origins to causes and conditions means it’s impermanent, decaying. It doesn’t require any other factor to make it impermanent, to make it change, to make it decay. Because something is produced depending on causes and conditions, that phenomena has no power from its own side to remain the same. As soon as something comes into existence depending on causes and conditions, in the next moment, that phenomena changes because the causes and conditions change. It has no power from its own side to remain the same beyond one moment.
In the next moment, it changes, it decays, and in the next moment, it decays again and again. An example of this that we can reflect on is the sound of a bell. It comes into existence depending on causes and conditions, and then moment by moment, it fades away. Nothing makes it fade fade away. It’s simply it has no power to maintain itself if you just listen.
That sound had no power to remain the same. There was nothing to sustain it because it originated due to causes and conditions. Everything that we are attached to is like that sound. Everything that upsets us is like that sound. Everything that seems so solid is, in fact, no more substantial than that sound.
Also it’s good to reflect that like that sound, it comes into existence in a moment depending on causes and conditions. In the next moment, it fades away. And that process is irreversible. You can’t make the sound come back. Once the once it’s been created, it starts decaying, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
This applies to everything. Just because we are born, we will die. Just because there is a meeting, there will be a parting. So then reflect as strongly or honestly as you can that I myself, I am definitely going to die because this body has arisen depending on causes and conditions. It’s decaying moment by moment.
It’s aging moment by moment. That process, no matter what I do, is irreversible. So I am definitely going to die. Reflect that despite having this amazing, precious human rebirth and death is going to happen, I find so little time to practice the Dharma. When I was young, I never thought about it, didn’t see the need.
When I get really old, I will have no ability to do so. In the middle, so much of my life has taken up so many unnecessary things. As we have all heard, if we sleep eight hours a day, that’s a third of a twenty four hour day gone in sleep, which means a whole third of our life is spent just sleeping, with our mind focused on darkness. Realizing these things, make a stronger determination as you can that I’ve got to practice.
I have to do something with my mind now while I have the chance. So then allow your mind to be more and more aware, sensitive to the fact that not only am I going to die, that’s definite, But my death really could happen at any time, at any moment, even today. My lifespan, human lifespan, isn’t fixed. human beings die at any age. Some manage to live to be quite old, but some human beings die in the in the womb.
People die young, middle aged, old. What that means is that I could die at any time. It doesn’t mean that other people can die at any time. It means I could die at any time. It means I could die today.
And we all know and when you read about how people die in so many ways. There are so many things that can cause the death of a human being. There are all sorts of sicknesses, diseases, malfunctionings of the body. There are all sorts of outer causes for human beings to to die. Other human beings kill human beings.
Animals kill human beings. Insects, snakes, all sorts of other beings. human beings have died from all sorts of accidents, some very common, some unbelievably freakish and rare. People die from natural disasters. Just reflect now on how many ways it is possible to die.
And the meaning of that is that I could die from any one of these causes. And the meaning of that is this could happen at any time, even today. We read about some person who dies in some very unusual way, very rare, completely unexpectedly. It means that this could happen to me. I am not immune to anything that other human beings are subject to.
People who have got on buses or trains to go to work that they’ve got on every day for years, and then one day the bus or the train blows up. That could happen to me. There’s no way I can say, this could not happen to me, or something similar. And that means I could die at any time. And think how little protection we have from all of these things.
In fact, there’s nothing that completely protects us, that can keep us alive. There’s no medicine that will keep us alive forever. No food. Nothing. In fact, even these things can cause death.
So we should come to the conclusion that really I have to practice now, not postpone it, delay it, procrastinate, but really intensively practice the Dharma now. And then reflect that when death comes, that moment when the death process starts, when the mind leaves this body forever and goes into some completely new experience, a new realm, a new body. Isn’t it obvious that only Dharma practice is going to help at that time? Or the results of Dharma practice. That when the body, the mind is leaving this body, it’s so important the mind will be calm, stable, strong, not frightened, not distracted, be in a virtuous state, have qualities of love and compassion, faith in the guru and the triple gem.
If the mind have has those qualities established, death won’t be frightening or difficult, and there will be a good rebirth. But just following my attachment to family, friends, wealth, fame, reputation, having a beautiful body, healthy body, all the things that take up so much time, are they gonna help me at the time of death? Isn’t my attachment to all these things actually gonna be a huge hindrance? Reflect that when death comes, when the death process starts, it will be too late then to train the mind to be calm, clear, concentrated, virtuous, faithful, devoted. One won’t be able to cultivate those qualities at the time of death.
We needed to have spent a life cultivating them and pretending to have developed, or just pretending to have developed faith and devotion and love and compassion, that’s not gonna help at the time of death. It’s only having developed these genuine qualities. So make the determination to use this precious human rebirth to practice the Dharma, to give it priority, to practice it now, and to practice it sincerely, wholeheartedly. So then recall the Guru Buddha on your crown. Imagine the Buddha very pleased with us, and because of that, imagine the Buddha dissolving into light and that blissful golden light coming down through the crown of our head, pervading our whole being, and filling our mind especially blessed to be able to gain the complete realization of impermanence and death.
And through that, the mind that completely turns away from attachment to this life and is directed to seeking liberation and enlightenment. The dedications, if you’re not familiar with them, are on page twenty six, twenty seven. And we can do Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s long life prayer if you’d like to join in, if you have any connection with Lama Zopa or would like to make one. You who uphold the Subduer’s moral way, who serve as the bountiful bearer of all, sustain and preserve and spreading Mañjuśrī’s victorious doctrine, who masterfully accomplished, may there be auspicious prayers honoring the Three Jewels, savior of myself and others, your disciples, please, please, live long.