Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Thubten Dondrub guides practitioners through a 19-minute meditation on the ten non-virtuous actions, grounding the practice in bodhisattva motivation. After settling the posture and calming the mind with breathing exercises, he establishes refuge in the Triple Gem visualizing Śākyamūni Buddha, then expands compassion to all sentient beings, recognizing their kindness across lifetimes and their present suffering. This recognition fuels the commitment to achieve enlightenment for their sake, making ethical conduct essential. The session then unfolds the actual meditation method: guru yoga visualization drawing the Buddha to the crown of the head, requesting purification of obstacles through white light, and receiving blessing through golden light. He walks through Lama Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path as a glance meditation, pairing each verse with purifying and blessing visualizations. The teaching concludes with practical reminders on maintaining focus and applying antidotes to hindrances like dullness or distraction. Suitable for practitioners with Buddhist foundation and familiarity with visualization.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 7a. Day 2 Prayers for Meditation Ten non-virtues.mp3
UUID: 8fb9317b-d20e-4942-91ba-db4daf1ec7c8
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Meditations DTL (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2006 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 19.5 minutes
Words: ~1,572
Posture as much as possible. And then pacifying the mind with the nine round breathing exercise, combining it with the visualization as I’ve described before. And then from that neutral mind, we cultivate the virtuous thought of refuge in the triple gem, determined to gain mastery of our own mind so that we can at least minimize the causes of suffering for ourselves, begin to really enhance the causes for happiness and the strong wish not to fall into the lower realms, but completely relying on the triple gem. Visualizing Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as the very embodiment of the triple gem and all its qualities. Seeing Śākyamūni Buddha seated on magnificent lion throne, lotus sun and moon, appearing as a pure bhikṣu, complete embodiment of great compassion and wisdom.
And as we generate that mind of refuge, we also become aware that we do this because we don’t want to suffer, that all sentient beings, like oneself, don’t want to suffer. We think of all these beings surrounding us right now, try to feel their presence, visualising our mother on our left, our father on our right, family, friends, helpers behind, those who have harmed in some way in front of us, and then all the beings of the six realms as much as we can imagine. And think how kind these beings have been in so many ways, directly and indirectly, life after life. There isn’t one kind of help, kindness, support that I have not received from each sentient being many, many times. And right now, these wonderful beings are suffering, tormented by, in most cases, the worst sufferings of cyclic existence without any way to make sense of it, to overcome it, transform it.
And so in their confusion, constantly creating the cause for more suffering. So I can’t just take refuge and practice for my own sake. I must achieve the full potential of my mind, awakening into the state of complete Buddhahood for the sake of others. So in order to achieve enlightenment, have to follow the path and in doing that, an essential component is avoiding all negative actions of body, speech, and mind, cultivating every positive action possible. So for this reason, for the sake of all sentient beings, I’ll do this meditation on the law of cause and effect, in particular, the ten non virtuous actions.
I go for refuge until I’m 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 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. 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 we imagine the mandala of the whole universe dissolving into the heart of the Guru Śākyamūni, generating, generating great bliss in his holy mind. So then we think the Guru Buddha is very pleased with us. Because of that, the lion’s throne dissolves into light, and then the Buddha, seated on the cushions of lotus sun and moon, 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, all the negative imprints generated by them, all obscurations, all obstacles that we have, any difficulties in any way to meditating in general, and specifically on the law of cause and effect.
And then we imagine Śākyamūni Buddha happily responds, sending this powerful stream of blissful white light and nectar into us from his heart. This causes all those obstacles to leave our mind in the form of very thick black liquid that pours out from the lower part of our body, dissipates and becomes non existent. And then a spontaneous flow of blissful golden light and nectar comes from the Buddha’s heart into us, blessing our mind to be able to meditate effectively, single pointedly on the law of cause and effect, blessing our mind to gain the complete, stable realization of it. Then we do the glance meditation by going through Lama Tsongkhapa’s three principal aspects of the path. And as we go through this, try to maintain as much mindfulness of what Geshe-la has explained in the words.
Also with each of these glance meditations going through the whole graduated path, as we say the words we also do the visualisation, imagining white light coming from the Buddha, purifying all the obstacles that we have to understanding and practising that particular point mentioned in each verse, and then golden light coming again blessing us to gain the realisation. Homage to all the foremost holy lamas, I will explain as best as I can the essential meaning of all conquerors’ teachings, path praised by his noble children, a crossing for the fortunate seeking liberation. Listen with clear minds those fortunate of you, who unattached to the pleasures of conditioned existence and striving that your lives of freedom and richness will find meaning. Entrust yourselves to the path that pleases the conquerors. Without real renunciation, there is no way to end your struggle for pleasures sought in the seas of conditioned existence, and to clinging to such existence will utterly enslave you.
Thus, at the outside, seek the will to awaken. Freedoms and riches are hard to find, and life does not last long. Keeping this always in mind will alter the priority you give to this life. Thinking again and again about the unvarying relation between actions and their effects, and the sufferings of cyclic existence will alter the priority you give to future lives. Meditating in this way, when your thoughts have turned night and day towards liberation, and not even for a moment do you entertain a wish for the splendours of cyclic existence, then you have given birth to the will to awaken.
But even such a will, if not conjoined with the complete opening of your heart, does not serve as cause for the perfect bliss of all Conquerors’ awakening. Thus, those of you who truly understand go on to develop the supreme awakening heart. Think about what is happening to your mothers, how they are swept along in the currents of four raging rivers, bound by the nearly unbreakable chains of compulsive attractions and held in the iron grip of self grasping. Think how they are enveloped in the thick darkness of ignorance, are reborn into limitless lives, and in those lives are relentlessly made to bear the three sufferings, thus give birth to the highest of hearts. But even if you were to instill within you the will to awaken and the awakened heart without the wisdom realizing reality, the awakened mind, still you have no way to cut the root of conditioned existence.
Thus work with the means of realising dependent arising. Whoever sees the unvarying relation between a cause and its effects in all things of cyclic existence and beyond and brings to an end holding them as real has entered onto the path that pleases the Buddhas. As long as the two, appearance as infallible dependent arising and emptiness as freedom from assertion as true, appear distinct one from another, you have yet to realize the subduer’s thought. But when they no longer alternate but coincide such that in the mere seeing of the infallibility of dependent arising, definite knowledge totally destroys the way you conceive of things as real, then your analysis of the view is complete. Moreover, the extreme of true existence is dispelled by appearance and that of nonexistence by emptiness.
If you understand the way emptiness finds expression within the context of cause and effect, you no longer will be captivated by extreme views. Then when you’ve realised just as they are these essentials of the three principal aspects of the path, resort to solitude, intensify your joyous effort, and quickly, my child, fulfil your ultimate dream. So it’s now important, having put this effort in so far, to make strong determination not to let the mind come under the influence of any kind of hindrance to meditation. It is so rare in any life to have the chance to meditate, even with our precious human rebirth. Due to attachment we find so little time to do it.
So it’s so important to make sure that we really keep our mind within the boundaries of the meditation, not giving into the mind becoming dull and sleepy, or the mind becoming distracted by external sounds or sensations in the body and thoughts. Make determination to be very mindful, to let go of any hindrance, apply the antidote, at least recalling Guru Śākyamūni on your crown, sending blissful light to eliminate that hindrance.