Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 24-minute session, Ven Thubten Dondrub teaches the foundational prayers and meditations for recognizing the endowments of human rebirth. He begins with detailed instruction on proper meditation posture—spine alignment, head positioning, and the connection between physical form and subtle energy—then guides students through the nine-round breathing exercise to clear obstacles. The core teaching focuses on generating refuge: first, the fundamental decision to master one’s mind by relying on the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; then, expanding this into Mahāyāna bodhicitta by contemplating the kindness of all sentient beings and generating the determination to achieve enlightenment for their benefit. He walks through the complete refuge liturgy including prostrations, offerings, confession, rejoicing in virtue, and requests for blessings, concluding with a recitation of the Lamrim prayer on the graduated path. Suited for practitioners beginning a structured meditation practice or retreat.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 5a. Day 2 Prayers for Meditation 8 Fortunes 10 Endowments.mp3
UUID: bfe0879a-9645-44e0-9389-b1dc72c90e9a
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Meditations DTL (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2006 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 23.7 minutes
Words: ~1,922
So If you’d like to join in the prayers at the beginning, these are on page twenty four or twenty five of volume one, the morning prayer section. It would be good to have a piece of paper just to mark that, to take all these. And just to be prepared, that one in the Lamrim prayer section will go to page seventeen. So this morning we’ll concentrate on that part of the precious human rebirth which is recognising the endowments that we have, the personal and environmental encouragements or endowments that make it easy for us to practice the Dharma to liberate our mind. So again we begin by sitting comfortably in the correct posture as much as possible.
Really putting not taking the posture for granted. It’s really very important to be able to especially if you’re fairly new to the dharma to make sure to learn how to do this properly from the beginning so that the spine is well aligned and the upper body position centred well and being able to hold the body upright but in a relaxed way. And also positioning the head well, that’s very important because the Vairochana posture is intimately connected by sitting in it correctly, it enables the subtle energies of the body, of the subtle body to move correctly, and this very directly affects our mind. So if we can really put effort into checking how to place the head correctly so that it’s not tilted down too much or lifted too high, this really helps a great deal to pacify the mind and to have a clear meditation and to train to have the mind to have your eyes open just a little bit, but without looking what’s in front of you, having an unfocused gaze. And then just for a short time, placing your awareness at the crown of the head and then moving it down through your body just to fine tune your posture.
So having prepared our body to meditate, we then begin to prepare our mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise. And with each in breath, imagining this very soothing, blissful white light coming in from the Buddhas blessing our mind to be able to meditate correctly and gain the realization of the precious human rebirth with each out breath, imagining and breathing out all our obstacles and disturbing thoughts and so on, especially all the obstacles to realizing this meditation. We breathe those out in the form of thick black smoke. And then on that neutral mind, we then develop a virtuous mind by cultivating the thought of refuge, which involves the fundamental decision to take control of one’s mind, to master one’s mind, recognizing that I have to do this because my mind is the source of all happiness and suffering, all experience. It’s my disturbing thoughts that are the root source of every kind of problem and pain and difficulty I’ve ever experienced.
So I have to control, subdue those disturbing thoughts, at the very least and and cultivate the positive potentials within my mind. And we make the decision to wholeheartedly rely on the triple gem as the way to be able to do that because we need a perfect complete unbetrayable method, and that can only come from the pure mind of enlightenment. So in generating that mind of refuge, we visualize or just think of the presence of Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us. As Geshe was saying yesterday, Buddha mind is always present. So to help us be aware of that, we visualize that mind taking the aspect of Śākyamūni Buddha seated on a magnificent lion throne with cushions of lotus, sun and moon.
The whole appearance, the very embodiment of renunciation, wisdom, and bodhicitta. If you know how, it’s very good to try and visualize the whole field of merit, but at least think of Śākyamūni Buddha as the embodiment of all the triple gem. So on the basis of this fundamental refuge, we now cultivate the Mahāyāna refuge of bodhicitta, wishing to take refuge not just to have a good rebirth, not just to achieve liberation, where we not only subdue the disturbing thoughts but completely determine to eliminate them. More than that, generate the mind now to take refuge, follow the path in order to achieve the full state of enlightenment, the full potential of my mind, so that I have all the qualities that can benefit sentient beings perfectly and repay their kindness. Because I only exist because of other sentient beings.
I can only survive because of them. Every good quality, every good experience I have arises depending on the kindness and help and support and qualities of sentient beings. And every sentient being has been my mother and father many, many times. So thinking of their unbelievable kindness, we generate the wish to repay it. And recognizing how much suffering sentient beings have, then the best way to repay that is to free them of all that suffering, to help free them of all that suffering its causes, to help them experience the highest happiness and its causes.
So to do that, I must achieve enlightenment. So think of the presence of all these kind suffering beings surrounding you, starting with your mother of this life on your left, then your father on your right, family, friends, and helpers behind those who’ve harmed in some way in front, and then all other beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, 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 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 and present the clouds of every type of offering, actual and imagined. I declare all my negative actions accumulated since beginningless time and rejoice in the virtues of all holy and ordinary beings. So we just spend a little bit time doing that practice of rejoicing, which means just thinking about our own good qualities and good actions that we have engaged in in previous lives, just feeling happy about that and the fact that other ordinary beings like myself also have done many good things, are doing good things, practicing the Dharma. We rejoice that there are others who are practicing far more intensely and purely and consistently than myself.
How wonderful that is. And then there are beings who are actually on the path, on the path to liberation, how wonderful that is. There are those who are even more wonderful, are on the path to enlightenment or bodhisattvas. There are ārya bodhisattvas of the different levels. There are the buddhas.
And most wonderful of all are our own spiritual masters. How wonderful that there are all these holy beings practicing so wonderfully. All of these all of these good actions, the source of happiness while trapped in saṃsāra and but also the source of the happiness beyond saṃsāra. 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. So I think the Śākyamūni Buddha, the field of refuge, is very pleased with us. Because of that, the lion’s throne dissolves up into the lotus sun and moon, and then the Guru Buddha seated on these comes to the crown of our head, turning to face the same direction as ourselves. And then we make a strong heartfelt request to Śākyamūni Buddha for our mind to be completely free of all disturbing thoughts, negative imprints, obscurations, all obstacles to being able to meditate single pointedly, all obstacles to that we have to understanding and realizing the preciousness and rarity and meaning of our optimum human rebirth. To think Śākyamūni Buddha happily responds by sending this powerful stream of blissful white light and nectar from his heart into us that causes all of these obstacles to leave the mind in aspect of a very thick black liquid that pours out from the lower part of the body dissipating, becoming nonexistent.
And then spontaneously from the Guru Buddha’s heart flows blissful golden light and nectar coming into us, blessing our mind to be able to meditate correctly, single pointedly, and gain the realisation of the complete recognition and understanding of the preciousness of our human rebirth. So then we do the glanced meditation on the whole path, page seventeen of the Lamrim section. The kind and venerable guru is the foundation of all good qualities. Correct devotion to him is the root of the path. By freely seeing this and my great effort, please bless me to rely upon him with great respect.
Understanding that the precious freedom of this rebirth is found only once, is greatly meaningful, and is difficult to find again. Please bless me to generate the mind that unceasingly day and night takes its essence. This life is as impermanent as a water bubble. Remember how quickly it decays and death comes. After death, just like a shadow follows the body, the results of black and white karma follow.
Finding firm and definite conviction in this, please firstly always be careful to abandon even the slightest negativities and accomplish all virtuous deeds. Seeking samsaric pleasures as the door to all suffering, they are uncertain and cannot be relied upon. Recognising these shortcomings, please bless me to generate a strong wish for the bliss of liberation. Led by this pure thought, mindfulness, alertness, and great caution arise. The root of the teachings is keeping the pratimoksha vows.
Please bless me to accomplish this essential practice. Just as I have fallen into the sea of saṃsāra, so have all mother sentient beings. Please bless me to see this, train in supreme bodhicitta, and bear the responsibility of freeing migratory beings. Even if I develop bodhicitta, if I don’t practice the three types of morality, I will not achieve enlightenment. With my clear recognition of this, please bless me to practice the Bodhisattva vows with great energy.
Once I have pacified distractions to wrong objects and correctly analyzed the meaning of reality, please bless me to generate quickly within my mind stream the unified path of calm abiding and special insight. Having become a pure vessel by training in the general path, please bless me to enter the holy gateway of the fortunate ones, the supreme vajra vehicle. At that time, the basis of accomplishing the two attainments is keeping pure vows and samaya. As I have become firmly convinced of this, please bless me to practice these vows and pledges like my life. Then having realised the importance of the two stages, the essence of the vajrayana, by practising with great energy, never giving up the four sessions, please bless me to realise the teachings of the holy Guru.
Like that, may the gurus who show the noble path and the spiritual friends who practice it have long lives. Please bless me to pacify completely all outer and inner hindrances. In all my lives, never separated from perfect gurus, may I enjoy magnificent Dharma. By completing the qualities of the stages and paths, may I quickly attain the state of Vajradhāra.