Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 41-minute guided meditation, Ven Thubten Dondrub leads practitioners through a detailed contemplation of the eight freedoms and ten endowments—the foundation of the Lamrim path. He begins with instruction on handling meditation obstacles like dullness, distraction, and agitation through mindfulness and antidotes. The main body systematically covers each freedom: birth outside the lower realms, the god realms, places of cultural chaos, and states of sensory or spiritual deprivation. He then walks through the ten personal and environmental endowments that make spiritual practice possible: human rebirth, access to the Dharma, healthy body and mind, freedom from the five extreme negative actions, faith in the teachings, a fortunate aeon, the existence of authentic teachings and masters, the monastic community, and spiritual companions. Throughout, he emphasizes the rarity and temporary nature of these conditions and closes with a visualization of Ratnasambhava Buddha and dedication prayers. Suitable for practitioners working through the foundational Lamrim teachings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 5b. Day 2 Meditation 8 Fortunes 10 Endowments.mp3
UUID: 85513640-3c7c-4161-8088-1d6c012dc7ea
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Meditations DTL (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2006 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 40.8 minutes
Words: ~2,190
So having put energy into preparing our mind to do the Lam Rim meditation now makes strong determination to really keep one’s mind within the borders of the meditation, not letting it come under the influence of different hindrances dullness, sleepiness and so on or at the agitated mind that becomes distracted by external sounds or sensations in the body and particularly it happens because of being distracted by our own thoughts. As soon as any of these hindrances arise, we should be mindful that they have arisen, immediately let go of them. If they become stronger, if we’re not able to do that, we have to apply the antidote, if we know how. If we don’t know specific antidotes, then which we should learn. At least think of the Guru Buddha, the crown of one’s head, and think that this powerful white light comes instantly, eliminating the hindrance, and then we go back to the meditation, the analysis.
So we can begin our meditation by reflecting how despite the fact that we have this indestructible Buddha nature, it’s been obscured since beginningless time and therefore, we’ve been trapped and wandering in cyclic existence, never experiencing the happiness we want and always experiencing the frustrations and dissatisfaction that we don’t want. And this goes on in this life, and we allow it to go on because we we fail to recognize the incredible opportunity we have to be free, and more than that, to help others, all our kind mothers to be free of suffering. In the teachings, it gives the simple example of a beggar who has a diamond and doesn’t even know that it’s a diamond. So they have something incredibly precious, but it’s no use to them because they haven’t recognized it. Seems incredibly stupid, but we are the same because we have something far more precious than a diamond, and we don’t know it.
We have a precious human rebirth. So we have to recognize what we have, the optimum chance to free ourselves, to discover our Buddha nature. If we just think, if we felt the preciousness of our life, its real meaning, how could we ever waste that life on ordinary things? So then briefly review the freedom that we have, the freedom from all the most difficult situations that make it almost impossible to practice Dharma. So this is the the fact that we are free of not being born in the lower realms of the greatest suffering, in the hell realms, the preta realms, the animal realms.
We don’t have any of that suffering. We’re even fortunate not to be in the god realms where there is incredible pleasure, but because of that, there is no interest in practicing Dharma because the beings in those realms think that that pleasure is going to go on forever, but it doesn’t. So we’re fortunate not to be trapped in those realms now. It gives us incredible freedom. And then if we think within the human realm itself, we’re so fortunate not to be born in those places in the world, even in Australia, where the people, because of all sorts of circumstances, live very harsh, rough, barbaric kinds of lives with lots of violence, no sense of altruism existing.
We’re so fortunate not to have taken rebirth with defective senses, especially being born blind or deaf. So incredibly fortunate not to have extremely heavy wrong views or to have been born at a time when the enlightening influence of the Buddhas doesn’t exist at all. Even though we we weren’t born at the time the Śākyamūni was alive, the enlightening influence of his teachings still exist in so many ways. But there are very dark times when the Buddhas haven’t appeared at all. So we’re free of all of those really difficult situations.
Just that is incredibly fortunate. And that fortune means not the freedom to chase after worldly things, which we’ve been doing for millions and millions of lifetimes, but the freedom to awaken our mind. When we think of these freedoms, it’s also important to remember that they are very temporary. This freedom, this this precious human rebirth is not permanent. It’s not going to last.
So then what we need to recognize is not only do we have these amazing freedoms from the things that hold us back, make it difficult to practice Dharma, we have been born into a situation that is really encouraging us, endowing us with the ability to practice, to awaken our mind. So we need to recognise that. We have these personal factors, personal endowments that are encouraging us, making it as easy as possible within saṃsāra to practice Dharma, awaken our mind. The first of these is simply that we are human, that we have a human body and human level of intelligence. So with this body mind, we can create virtue in so many ways, and we have the intelligence to understand the Dharma.
And with the human body, and only with the human body, can we practice the highest liberating Dharma of the tantric teachings. Try to reflect how because of beginningless time, beginningless mind, I’ve had beginningless rebirths, an infinite number. Most of those have been in the lower realms. So it’s just amazing even to be born human anywhere on this planet as a human being. Just that is something amazing.
And in addition to that, I’ve been born in a place where the dharma exists. If I wasn’t born in a place it didn’t exist, even if I have many imprints to meet the dharma and have faith in it and so on, if I’m not born in a place where the dharma is, then the condition for those positive imprints to ripen isn’t there, so the imprints can’t ripen. But I have been born this time in a place where the dharma is existing. One can think that perhaps many times I have managed to be a human being before, but in most of those other lives as a human, I was never born where the Dharma existed. But this one time, I’ve managed to be born human in a place where the Dharma exists.
That is amazing. And then reflect that in addition to that, I’ve been born with a healthy body, a healthy mind. Maybe in the past, I have been born human in a place where the Dharma exists, but couldn’t practice it because of a disturbed mind, being blind, deaf, having a very difficult body in some way. But this time, I have I’ve been born human where the Dharma exists and with a body and mind that is fit to practice the Dharma, is able to. This is incredibly amazing.
So in addition to that, I’ve been born having not created any of the five extreme negative actions of killing an Arhat, killing my mother or father, harming a Buddha, causing a schism in the Sangha. These actions are so negative that the suffering result can be experienced even in this life, causing great disturbance in the mind and so on. So in that case, no way to be able to really practice or benefit from the Dharma. So it’s possible I’ve had been born human before where the Dharma exists with a healthy body and mind, but I created ended up creating one of these negative actions. But this time, this one time, I haven’t.
So I have all these factors coming together. And then most important of all is that I have, this time, some faith in the Dharma. There are perhaps many, many people on this earth who have far greater intellectual ability to understand the Buddha’s teachings, And they may understand them intellectually, but they have no faith in them, so there’s no benefit. So I have some faith in the Buddha’s teachings. So their liberating power, because of that, can really begin to free me.
So it’s possible I’ve been born human again, have met the Dharma, had a healthy body and mind, was free of the extreme negative actions. But in other rebirths, where all those factors were together, I just didn’t have any faith. But this one time, I do have that. So this is really the most wonderful thing, most incredible good fortune. So then reflect that in addition to these personal endowments that make it as easy as possible to begin to free my mind, I have been born into an environment that although it’s a samsaric suffering environment makes it as easy as it can be to practice.
The mere fact that I’ve been born at a time, when when the Buddha’s enlightening influence exists, And I’ve been born in what is actually the fortunate eon, where a thousand Buddhas are going to appear. Śākyamūni being the fourth in that line. So we may not recognize it, but that enlightening influence is manifesting in countless ways in this world. The obvious way is in spiritual masters and in stupas and dharma texts and things like that. But also the enlightening influence can exist in countless apparently ordinary ways.
It’s all around. Of course, there’s a lot of negativity in this world, but the enlightening influence is here. And we have been born in an environment where that enlightening influence is palpably present in the form of the teachings. They they still do exist. All of the different teachings, the main teachings of the Buddha, the path leading to liberation, the path leading to enlightenment, and then the very secret teachings that enable enlightenment to happen quickly through tantra, all of these teachings still exist in this world.
We are so fortunate to be born in this world now. And also there are realized masters of these teachings. So we have the chance to meet these beings. Of course, if we’ve met some or even one of them and feel that connection of that person as our guru, then, of course, this makes our precious human rebirth complete and perfect. In addition, we’ve been born in an environment where the monastic community is still existing and flourishing.
The monastic community is needed for the Dharma to survive in the world. The Buddha himself taught that wherever there is a community of four fully ordained monks, that he said in such a place, the Dharma exists and I am there. And finally, it’s very important to reflect how fortunate we are that we have been born in a situation where we have Dharma friends to help us in our practice. For us as beginners in the path, in the practice, it’s so important to have of course, we need a teacher, but as an ordinary person, we need other people like ourselves to help us in so many ways. Just all alone somewhere, it becomes very difficult to practice, to even think of the Dharma, to remind ourselves of it.
But when we have Dharma friends, it becomes so much easier. And through Dharma Friends, we have Dharma centers, retreat centers, all the things that we need. There’s the existence of Dharma texts, statues, thangkas, all the supports for our practice. It’s all available. It is all existing around us.
We just have to recognize it and recognize how incredibly fortunate we are. So what is the meaning of these eight freedoms that I have and all these ten endowments? It means that I have the optimum chance to awaken my mind, to practice the Dharma, to free myself from suffering for all time, and to go on to develop the amazing, enlightened qualities that can spontaneously and perfectly and joyfully benefit others. So Lama Tsongkhapa himself said in relation to this precious human rebirth that we take for granted, Lama Tsongkhapa said, If you knew how hard it is to acquire, living the average life would be impossible. If you saw its great benefits, you would be sorry if your life stayed meaningless.
So bring the meditation to conclusion by making a strong determination to be more and more mindful in every day of one’s life that I have this very precious human rebirth, the optimum chance to practice the liberating Dharma for myself and others, to recognize day by day, moment by moment, the incredible opportunity I have to make my life really meaningful. So then recall Ratnasambhava Buddha on the crown of your head, seeing Buddha very pleased, dissolving into blissful light, and that golden light comes down through your crown, pervading your whole being, blessing your mind to gain a complete unmistaken, stable realization, recognizing one’s precious human rebirth, its great meaning and rarity. That realization awakening one’s ability to completely renounce our attachment to the meaningless themes of this life. So then we can do the dedication prayers, which are on page twenty six, twenty seven of the morning prayer section. You who uphold the subdueers moral way, who serve as the bountiful bearer of all, sustaining, preserving, spreading Mañjuśrī’s victorious doctrine, who masterfully accomplished magnificent prayers honoring the Three Jewels, saviour, myself and others, your disciples, please, please, live long.