Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 36-minute session, Venerable Thubten Dondrub teaches the foundational Vajrasattva purification meditation from a structured daily practice. He begins by establishing the mental framework through refuge and a strong recognition of negative karma accumulated through body, speech, and mind across countless lifetimes, emphasizing regret rooted in Mahāyāna compassion—not personal suffering alone, but the harm to one’s capacity to benefit others. He then guides step-by-step visualization: Vajrasattva as one’s guru and all Buddhas appears above the crown, holding vajra and bell, radiating from a white hum and hundred-syllable mantra. As practitioners recite the mantra three times, white nectar and light progressively purify physical, verbal, and mental obscurations, which appear as black liquid draining from the body. He instructs the commitment to refrain from harmful actions, starting with whatever period one can sustain, and closes with Vajrasattva melting into light that dissolves into the practitioner, followed by reflection on emptiness and detailed dedications and prayers. Pitched at those who have received Vajrasattva initiation and are ready to practice a complete purification sadhana.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 4. Day 1 Meditation Vajrasattva.mp3
UUID: 25e98f3a-c062-44a8-a5a0-44234636b142
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Meditations DTL (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2006 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 36.5 minutes
Words: ~2,646
Well, it’s actually if you go to the daily meditation practices in this book, there’s the Guhyasamāja, page six. There’s the refuge prayer there. So if you go from there to the Vajrasattva. Pages Vajrasattva will start on page six. So it’s very important to combine this practice, all purification that occurs from the Buddhist understanding or in the Mahāyāna tradition through applying the four opponent powers, the most important one of which is regret.
And then there is the opponent power. What are they called? Opponent powers. Opponent opponent powers, yeah. And then there’s the opponent power which has two aspects of generating refuge and generating bodhicitta and then the power of determination to avoid the action and then there’s the power of the remedy which is doing the virtuous action. So this is, in this case, doing the Vajrasattva practice itself, the visualisation and the mantra.
So this practice Lama Zopa Rinpoche put together combines all of those things. So, again, we can sit by start by sitting comfortably, Establishing a calm, neutral mind, doing the nine round breathing. And then we generate the mind of refuge, visualizing Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us and ourselves surrounded by all sentient beings as I’ve described earlier. Really, as we say the prayer, we make the determination to direct one’s mind in that safe, sound direction of following the Buddha’s teachings that will lead us away from all suffering and direct us to the path that leads to complete liberation and enlightenment. So in that mind of refuge, we become aware of all the actions of body, speech and mind that we’ve created, that at the time we may have believed they were perfectly okay, but now with Dharma understanding we understand that these actions were negative, can only bring suffering, especially in our future lives, when those the negative karmic imprints ripen.
To really think of the negative actions that one has done in this life, honestly openly admit these, recognising that if we don’t purify those it imprints from these actions, then they can only ripen as suffering. So we generate that basic regret, recognizing the suffering that is going to come if we don’t purify our mind, but also trying to generate the Mahāyāna attitude that regrets these negative actions, not simply because they’re going to bring suffering to me, but the negative imprints I’ve generated by doing these negative actions of body, speech and mind have obscured my mind and therefore makes it very difficult for me now to understand the Dharma, to practice it and realise it, which means I’ve made it very difficult to do the thing that I most want to do, which is to benefit sentient beings, to repay their kindness, to stop their suffering. So this is really the saddest thing of all, the thing to most regret, that I’ve made it difficult for myself to be of vast benefit to others by engaging in these negative actions in this life and in past lives. So we can read together the words regarding the power of regret.
Almost every action I do twenty four hours a day is motivated by worldly concern, attachment to the comfort of this life. It is like this from birth to death in this life, and it’s been like that from beginningless rebirths. Nearly every action I have ever created has been non virtuous, the cause of suffering. Not only that, but continuously, I’ve also been breaking my pratimoksha, bodhisattva, and tantric vows. Worst of all, I’ve created the heaviest of negative karmas in relation to my virtuous friends, getting angry at them, generating wrong views, having non-devotional thoughts towards them, harming their holy body, and disobeying their advice.
Having these negative imprints on my mental continuum is unbearable. It’s as if I’ve swallowed a lethal poison. I must practice the antidote right away and purify all this negative karma immediately without a second’s delay. Many people my own age or younger have died. It’s a miracle that I’m still alive and have this incredible opportunity to purify my negative karma.
Death is certain, but its time is most uncertain. If I were to die right now, I would definitely be born in the lower realms. Because I could not practice Dharma there, I would remain in the lower realms for countless aeons. Therefore, how unbelievably fortunate I am to be able to purify my negative karma right now without even a second’s delay by practicing the Vajrasattva meditation recitation. I’m not practicing this Vajrasattva purification for myself alone.
The purpose of my life is to release all hell beings, pretas, animals, humans, the asuras, suras, and intermediate state beings from all their suffering and its causes and lead them to unsurpassed enlightenment. In order to do this, I must first reach enlightenment myself. Therefore, I must purify all my negative karma immediately by practicing the Vajrasattva meditation recitation. So with that strong regret and that strong wish to purify the mind combined with the wish to do that for the sake of others, combined with that strong refuge in the Buddha’s teachings and particularly trying to cultivate a very strong refuge in this particular practice of Vajrasattva, feeling, thinking that definitely it can purify the worst things I’ve ever done. There’s no doubt about that.
So in that state of mind, imagine that out of great compassion, the Guru Buddhas manifest as Vajrasattva above the crown of my head. So firstly, what appears just a couple of centimetres above the crown of your head, you imagine there appears a very beautiful white lotus in the nature of radiating light. This is the mind of the Buddha. And then above that, there appears just slightly smaller in diameter, a white moon disc. And then imagine seated directly above the center of the moon disc, there appears Vajrasattva.
Imagine Vajrasattva with a body of pure white light. He has one face and two arms. His right hand is holding the vajra at his heart. The left hand holding the bell, resting at the level of his hip. You visualize that he’s seated in the vajra posture with his legs crossed.
His lower body is adorned with a very beautiful multicolored silk like robe, and his body is also adorned with many different jewels that symbolize the six perfections. He’s wearing a five pointed crown and earrings and rows of necklaces and armlets and bracelets and jewel belt, jewelled anklets. His hair is a deep blue color. Some of it is tied above the crown of his head, some is falling over his shoulders. So we visualize if we have a guru that Vajrasattva is inseparably one with our own guru and with all the Buddhas.
Vajrasattva symbolizing the indestructible purity of mind, purity of the Buddha’s mind, the purity, indestructible purity, fundamental purity of our own mind. So think that Vajrasattva is one’s root guru, the holy mind of all the Buddhas, the dharmakaya, who out of unbearable compassion embraces me and all other sentient beings, appears in this way, in this particular aspect, to purify me and all others. So then think that at the heart of Vajrasattva is a moon disc standing in the center of that moon disc, which is white, is a white syllable hum. You can visualise it in the Tibetan form or just in the English letters. And then around that clockwise are the hundred syllables of the Vajrasattva mantra, radiating white light.
So then we recite the mantra. As we recite the mantra, firstly we’ll purify the negative actions of speech sorry, body, all the killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, being engaged in. So as we recite the mantra, we think of those actions that we’ve done and we imagine that this blissful white light in nectar comes out from the hum and the hundred syllables of the mantra and down through Vajrasattva’s body, down through the moon and lotus, down through the crown of our head and it begins to fill up our body with this blissful white light and nectar And as it does so, it washes out from our mind all these negative imprints generated by negative physical actions. And they take the aspect of ugly black liquid that pours out from the lower part of our body and completely disappears so that the body is then just this filled with this blissful radiating white light and So keep reciting quietly to yourself for another five times, doing the visualization as strongly as one can. So then think with regret of all the negative actions done with speech, in this and past lives, of lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, and meaningless idle gossip with strong regret for engaging in these negative actions.
We request Guru Vajrasattva to purify us of all of those imprints. We think Vajrasattva happily responds, sending this blissful white light and nectar again down from his heart into us. And this time we imagine as we recite the mantra, the nectar pours into us and begins to fill us up from the bottom of our body upwards, moving upwards. And as the liquid and the nectar and light fills our body from the lower part upwards, we imagine all the negative imprints appear in the form of this very ugly black liquid floating above the top of the nectar until, as the nectar rises up to the top of our body, all this black liquid then pours out from the crown of our head and completely disappears. And, again, the body is filled completely with this blissful radiating white light and nectar.
None of these imprints remaining at all. And then thinking of all the negative actions done with our mind, in this and past lives, engaging in covetousness and ill will and wrong views With strong regret and strong refuge, we request Guru Vajrasattva to purify our mind of all these imprints. Vajrasattva happily responds. As we recite the mantra, we visualize that these brilliant flashes of light come from the hum and the mantra at Vajrasattva’s heart. And in an instant, just like when the light is turned on in the dark room, the darkness instantly disappears.
We imagine with each of these blinding flashes of light, they fill our whole body, our whole mind, and utterly destroy all those negative imprints. So then think that from the crown of one’s head, Guru Vajrasattva now speaks to us and says, ‘Child of the race, your negativities, obscurations and broken and damaged vows have been completely purified. So really strongly focus now on generating that strong faith as much as you can that all these imprints have been purified. So now we can get to the opponent power of determination by promising to Vajrasattva to avoid negative actions as much as we can from now on. So we can recite this together, top of page ten.
Before Guru Vajrasattva, I vow never again to commit those negative actions from which I can easily abstain and not to commit for a day, an hour or at least a few seconds those negative actions from which I find it difficult to abstain. So thinking of those actions that you do find it difficult to avoid, at least promise to Guru Vajrasattva that for a particular period of time, no matter how short, you promise, I will definitely avoid that action of body or speech or mind for that time. Definitely, I will do that. And as you make that promise, really have the thought that after that period of time is finished, I will again make the promise for another period of time to avoid that action. So in this way, I can step by step build up the length of time which I can avoid negative actions.
So then think again, very strongly, really believe, feel this that Guru Vajrasattva is extremely pleased with what we’ve done and what we’ve promised. And because of that, imagine that Vajrasattva now melts into light. This incredibly beautiful, blissful white light, and that light now comes down through the crown of our head, pervading our whole being. And we imagine our body, speech, and mind become inseparably one with Guru Vajrasattva’s holy body, speech, and mind. So then reflect as much as one can, as strongly as one can, that in emptiness, there is no I, no I that creates negative karma.
In emptiness, there is no action of creating negative karma. In emptiness, there is no negative karma created. And then we dedicate together, due to all these merits of the three times collected by all the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, myself, and all other sentient beings, which appear to be real from their own side, but which are empty, may I, who appears to be real but is empty, achieve Guru Vajrasattvas enlightenment, which appears to be real but is empty, I lead all sentient beings who appear to be real but are totally empty to that enlightenment which appears to be real but is empty by myself alone who appears to be real but is also totally empty, nonexistent from my own side. May the precious bodhicitta, the source of all happiness and success for myself and all other sentient beings, be generated within my own mind and in the minds of all sentient beings without even a second’s delay, and may that which has been generated be increased. May I and all other sentient beings have Lama Tsongkhapa as our direct guru in all our lifetimes, never be separated for even a second from the pure path that is greatly praised by the conqueror Buddhas, and actualize the complete path, the three principal paths and the two stages of highest yoga tantra, the root of which is guru devotion within our minds as quickly as possible.
Just as the brave Mañjuśrī and Samantabhādra have realized things as they are, I dedicate all these virtues in the best way that I may follow after them. Whatever dedication the three time victorious ones gone to bliss is praised as best, in the same way, I also perfectly dedicate all these roots of virtue so that I may perform good works. And then we can finish with the long life prayer for Geshe la, which is in a separate booklet on page eleven. Om Svasti, I pray to the divine assembly that bestows immutable light, to please bestow the siddhi of deathlessness on my root guru whose kindness is without equal, who is vajradhara embodying all the conquerors of the three times. I pray at the feet of my glorious guru who bestows unfortunate disciples the stages of the paths of Sūtra and Tantra that forms the inner essence of the Muni’s teachings and compassionately and fearlessly disseminates the conqueror’s words.
May this great guide for migrating beings have a long life who possesses all the characteristics of a holy spiritual friend, such as pure and the three vows, undaunted and altruistic, qualities derived through experience from hearing, contemplation and meditation. May this great holder of the tradition of teachings have long life, who teaches the pure paths of sūtra and tantra without contradiction as they are, who protects the essential states of the yogis of method and wisdom of the two stages and beautifies the saffron robe through diligence and practice. May you live long protector who is held in the lotus petals of pure white light and spreads the teachings of the conqueror with all embracing skill and means to eliminate the darkness of confusion of mother migrating beings. By the strength of my pure intention, the truth of the nondeceptive dependent arising of karma and effect, and the pure precious blessings of my guru, may the meaning of this prayer be quickly and easily fulfilled.