Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 23-minute guided meditation, Ven Thubten Dondrub leads practitioners through foundational practices for developing a stable mind and understanding the law of cause and effect. Beginning with posture, breathing, and visualization of Śākyamūni Buddha as a refuge field, he guides the generation of bodhicitta — the awakening mind that seeks enlightenment to benefit all beings — and walks through the traditional refuge and prostration prayers. The heart of the session involves contemplating how cyclic existence arises from ignorance and how understanding karma’s infallibility becomes the ground of genuine renunciation. Dondrub instructs students to maintain strong concentration, using antidotes such as recalling the guru’s blessing when hindrances like dullness or distraction arise. Suited for retreat participants already familiar with Lam Rim meditation practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 6a. Day 2 Prayers for Meditation Law of Cause & Effect.mp3
UUID: 71a8b2b2-3a10-497e-beb3-c1eaaa109cd4
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Meditations DTL (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2006 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 22.7 minutes
Words: ~1,734
My plan was to go through the main points of the Lam Rim, I think. So I’ll be jumping way ahead of where Geshe-la is in the text. We’re not going to get to much of the three principal paths by the looks of it. So that means that we’ll do a little bit of meditation on the law of cause and effect in this session, just to kind of review of the main points. So, again, do the prayers on page twenty four and twenty five.
And then for the Lam Rim prayer, we’ll do the the Lam Rim section, You can do the glance meditation on page twenty seven. So again we begin by sitting comfortably in the correct posture for each other as much as possible. Also if you’re sitting in a chair it’s best to not lean against the back of the chair but hold your back upright, unless you have some problems in the back. Holding the back upright energizes the mind. Place your awareness of the crown and then move it down through the body just for a short time to fine tune your posture, just noting any points of tension, allowing those to dissolve.
Then we start preparing our mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise, combining it with visualising blissful white light, blessing our mind, coming in with each in breath, with each out breath, imagining breathing out all disturbing thoughts and obstacles and so on in the form of black smoke. Then generating the mind of refuge, which is this strong determination to gain mastery over one’s mind, subduing the distracted mind at the very least, working to pacify the disturbing thoughts and to begin cultivating the positive potentials and recognizing that we need a perfect method, an unbetrayable method to do that, which can only come from a perfect source, the enlightened mind. So generating that strong faith in the triple gem as the means for being able to work with the mind and free it from the causes of suffering. So we visualise Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as the very embodiment of all the objects and qualities of the triple gem, seeing Śākyamūni Buddha appear from the formless dharmakaya state out of great compassion for us, seated on a magnificent lion throne with cushions of lotus sun and moon, appearing as a pure, renounced bhikṣu, the very embodiment of wisdom and compassion.
So then, again, thinking just as I want to be free of suffering and to experience perfect happiness, it’s true for all living beings. There’s just a natural wish within the mind of all beings. It’s a reflection of our Buddha nature that we wish to be free of suffering and to experience happiness. Think how all these beings surrounding you trying to feel their presence right now have so much suffering, much more than myself, and have no refuge, no way to understand their suffering, to make meaning of it, to reduce it or eliminate it in their confusion, mostly creating the cause for more suffering, more cyclic existence. And all these beings have been kind in countless ways since beginningless time.
Until the very point of achieving enlightenment, I will depend on these beings in so many ways. So I can’t just seek liberation for myself. I must achieve enlightenment to repay their kindness by perfectly guiding them away from suffering and all its causes, perfectly guiding them along the path that leads to the highest everlasting happiness of enlightenment. So to do this, I myself must achieve the path. I have to follow that path perfectly.
And this begins the beginning of the path begins with developing renunciation. And at the heart of that, at the very basic level of renunciation, turning the mind away from this life, is understanding the law of cause and effect, its infallibility, and practicing it, living one’s life based on the practice of the law of cause and effect. So for this reason, for the sake of all sentient beings, I will do this meditation. I go for refuge until I am 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. If nothing else, we can rejoice in the fact that all the people here are doing this retreat, trying to work to tame their minds and cultivate good qualities. Just think how wonderful that is. So few people try to do this, and all the people helping in so many ways over a long period of time to enable this retreat to happen.
And it happens because this retreat centre exists and so many people over a long period of time have contributed to this. So just think how wonderful all that that activity is, how wonderful that these people have done all these things, how fantastic that is. Similar things have been happening all over the world for hundreds and hundreds of years, and through that many beings have gained realization, have achieved enlightenment, therefore I have these wonderful gurus. 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 as we say the words of the mandala, really try to visualize as much as you can the whole universe, especially all the beautiful things in it, especially those that one’s most attached to or attached in any way to, really wanting to offer these up, to be completely free of attachment, offering, so that one’s mind can be open to receive the blessings of the gurus and buddhas, so that the Dharma can become one’s mind can become the Dharma, and the Dharma can become the path. I think the field of refuge is very pleased with us because of that. The lion throne of the Buddha dissolves into light and then the Buddha, seated on the lotus sun and moon, comes to our crown, turning to face the same direction as ourselves. And then we make a very strong heartfelt request to the Guru Buddha for our mind to be completely free of all the obstacles to meditating on the Lam Rim, on the subject of the law of cause and effect.
I think the Buddha happily responds, sending this powerful stream of blissful white light and nectar from his heart into us. All these negativities leave the mind manifesting in the form of very thick black liquid that leaves from the lower part of the body, dissipates, becomes nonexistent. And then very powerful golden light and nectar comes from the Buddha into us, blessing our mind so that we can meditate correctly, single pointedly on the Lam Rim, especially this topic now, the law of cause and effect, and gain the unmistaken realization. So then we go to the Glance Meditation, page twenty seven. Lam Rim section.
Nature that embodies all the bliss, source of all the pure transmission and realization Dharma, principal amongst all the Ārya Sangha, I take refuge in all magnificent pure gurus. Please bless my mind to become Dharma, that Dharma to become the path, and that path to be free of all hindrances. Until I achieve enlightenment, may I, just like the bodhisattva, Shri Sengge Nampar Taktumu, practice pure devotion to my guru in thought and action, see all the actions of my guru as excellent, and fulfil whatever he advises. Please bless me with the potential to accomplish this. Knowing that this highly meaningful, perfect human rebirth is difficult to obtain and easily lost, realising the profundity of cause and effect and the unbearable sufferings of the lower realms, From my heart, take refuge in the three precious sublime ones, abandon negativity and practice virtue in accordance with the Dharma.
Please bless me with the potential to accomplish this. in dependence on this, I am able to attain only the highest rebirths of humans and gods. Not having abandoned afflictions, I have to experience uninterrupted, limitless cyclic existence. By contemplating well how cyclic existence works, may I train day and night in the principal path of the three higher trainings, the means of attaining liberation? Please bless me with the potential to always train like this.
in dependence on this, I am able to attain only self liberation. As there is not one sentient being in all the six realms who has not been my mother or father, I will turn away from this lower happiness and generate the wish to fulfil their ultimate purposes. By contemplating the path of equalising and exchanging self for others, I will generate the precious bodhicitta and engage in the bodhisattva’s actions of the six perfections. Please bless me with the potential to train in this way. Having trained like this in the common path, I myself will not have aversion to experiencing the sufferings of cyclic existence for a long time, But by the force of extraordinary unbearable compassion for sentient beings, may I enter the quick path of the vajrayana and practise it even at the cost of my life.
May I quickly attain the unified state of vajradhara in one brief lifetime of this degenerate age. Please bless me with the potential to attain this. So make very strong determination to keep the mind very concentrated on this subject, being very mindful of the arising of hindrances, dullness, sleepiness and so on, or the agitated mind distracted by sounds and sensation in the body and their own thoughts. And strong determination to immediately let go of any hindrance or apply the antidote, such as recalling the Guru Buddha at the crown, sending powerful white light, eliminating any hindrance.