Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Thubten Dondrub teaches the practical framework of the four opponent powers, the central Buddhist method for purifying negative actions and karma. He opens with a careful distinction between regret and guilt, explaining that regret is a virtuous mental factor that recognizes harm without spiralling into self-condemnation, whereas guilt darkens the mind and undermines motivation. He then details each of the four powers: regret itself; a realistic determination to avoid negative actions (commitments of hours or days rather than sweeping lifetime promises); reliance on refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha alongside the cultivation of bodhicitta; and the power of remedy through six types of virtuous actions, including prostrations to the thirty-five Buddhas, Vajrasattva practice, meditation on emptiness, and sponsoring sacred images and texts. Throughout, he emphasizes that these powers must be combined, sincere, and repeated to genuinely purify the mind and its imprints.
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File: 2013 09 19 Mind Training .mp3 FIRST HALF MISSING.mp3
UUID: c951334a-09e8-4342-b117-b0338632b3d6
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Mind Training (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-09-19
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 36.2 minutes
Words: ~4,011
Through relying on what I call the four powers, the four opponent powers. So the four opponent powers are the power of regret, which is said of the one needs all the four powers applied in order to purify properly. So one needs all of them together. One needs to try and make them as strong as possible and as sincere as possible. But of all the four powers, one could say that the most important one is the power of regret or remorse.
Not guilt, but the power of regret. Because regret or remorse is a is a virtuous mental factor, positive mental factor. It is a type of wisdom that and the nature of regret is that it just simply understands that this you know, such and such an action is negative, you know, harmful to self and others, and will definitely bring a suffering result. So that’s what regret involves. So it’s it’s kind of quite precise and scientific, whereas guilt, the sense of guilt, most of us experience when we do negative actions, is is itself is is not a virtuous mental factor.
It itself is a a little bit negative mental factor because guilt doesn’t the nature of guilt doesn’t encourage us to avoid negative actions. You know, our mind it’s a kind of a dark mind, a heavy mind, a a depressed mind that spirals down, that doesn’t give energy to do virtuous things. You know, in my ridiculous, exaggerated way of explaining things, it’s you know, guilt works a little bit like it it thinks along the lines that, I’ve done this negative action. So why have I done this negative action? Well, it’s because I’m a negative person.
I’m a naturally terrible person. Why am I a terrible what what what is the proof that I am a terrible person? Oh, I did a negative action. And why did I do a negative action? Oh, it’s because I’m a naturally negative person.
What makes me think I’m a naturally negative person? Oh because I did a negative action So it just spirals and conclusion because I’m a naturally negative person proof I just did a negative action I can’t change. I’m I’m a permanent, naturally negative person, so there’s no point trying. Because naturally negative people just naturally do negative things. They won’t do good things.
So there’s no need for me to really put effort into trying to be good because I’m I’m not. I’m a naturally bad person. So that just encourages more more rubbish, more negativity. Whereas regret just simply sees that this was a an act of it’s a negative act. I did it.
It’s gonna have a harmful effect. That’s it. There’s there’s not this kind of heavy burden, terrible, you know, saying I’m bad. It’s just that was a negative action, an unskillful action. Just like, you know, if if we accidentally, take, some poison you know, we we we we want to take some medicine from our medicine cabinet if we’ve got one, but we accidentally take poison.
We don’t feel guilty about taking poison. We just wow. That we regret that. Why? Because that was a dumb I was really stupid, you know, taking poison instead of medicine, and this is gonna make me really sick.
Yeah. So that’s just a clear recognition of the situation. And, you know, in built in regret, if you think about it in that example, is that there will be no oh, well, I think I’ll I’ll I’ll take poison instead of medicine next time. But there won’t be that thought. There will be the thought, I’m going to be more careful what I do next time.’ That’s kind of almost implicit in that kind of situation.
Same with regret for negative actions. Implicit in there, to some extent, is the wish to avoid it. So it’s important to cultivate that mind. Another of the opponent powers is the determination to avoid the action for as much as one can, for as long as as much as one can as for as long as one can. So in in there are traditional prayers about this where it says, I will never do this action ever again.
But my teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche says although it’s important to say such things because it’s putting the imprint in the mind, at one level it’s not very skillful because if we do, you know, certain negative act you know, there are some things we negative actions we do, which just because of circumstances, and we’re are not likely to do it again or very, you know, very, very intermittently. Whereas there are some negative actions that, unfortunately, we do quite regularly. We’re habituated to it. So particularly in those cases, it’s not skillful to say, I will never do this action again because we will do it again. So what we have to do, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains, is to assess our own situation and decide, work out, if I put real effort into this, how long will I be able to avoid this action?
And then you promise the Buddhas that I will avoid this action for this period of time, like a week, six days, three days, one day, half a day, six hours, one hour, two minutes, whatever is realistic, Rinpoche no. Rinpoche says even even tiny period of time, you make the determination, I will avoid it for this period of time to break the habit, to start to break the habit. And of course the point is that if one succeeds in doing that, you don’t just then leave it. The idea is then to make another promise for a similar period of time or a little bit longer period of time. Okay?
Then another of the Four Opponent Powers is, the power of actually, well, they’ve all got names. There’s the power of regret, the power of rem no. What was that one? That was rely no. No.
Yeah. There is that one, resolve. Yeah. Because there’s the four r’s. Yeah.
The the regret, resolve. They’re not necessarily in this order, and then there’s the power of reliance. So that has two things to rely on, which is refuge by so one tries to reaffirm one’s refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha because all our negative actions that we do are done either because we have no refuge or if we’ve got we do have refuge, we have ignored it or forgotten it. So we need to re strengthen that refuge. And remember, what is at the heart of refuge?
Refuge means my understanding of refu there are the objects of refuge which are the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, but refuge is a state of mind and what it involves is a state of mind that is determined, has a genuine determination to take care of one’s mind, understanding that one’s mind is the very source of all one’s own happiness and suffering. Understanding that it’s the mind that is determined to take care of the mind, meaning avoiding as much as possible negative actions of body, speech, mind, and engaging in virtuous ones. Yeah. Those two. Cultivating the positive ones and relying on the Buddha’s methods to do so.
Completely wholeheartedly entrusting the Buddha’s methods to take care of the mind. Why? Because one’s come to the conclusion that the Buddha is the the ultimate perfect refuge. The Buddha mind is omniscient, totally compassionate, etcetera, etcetera, totally unmistaken. Therefore, the methods that the Buddha taught are perfect, complete, totally reliable, unbetrayable.
Right? And at the heart of so that’s what refuge is in general. And so at the heart of refuge is it comes down to practicing the Dharma because that’s what Dharma is, you know, taking care of the mind. And at the heart of that is the law of cause and effect. Observing being determined more and more to observe the law of cause and effect.
And when we engage in negative actions we are ignoring well, either we either don’t know about, don’t care about, or are ignoring the law of cause and effect. So by reaffirming our refuge, we are reaffirming our commitment to live our life according to the law of cause and effect. It’s a determination the opposite to the mind that engages in negative actions. So that’s the power of, you know, roughly oh, and the and the other so that’s one so the power of reliance has two aspects, relying on triple gem, and the other part of the reliance is relying on the power of bodhicitta. Because, again, when we when we engage in negative actions what the force?
Is self-cherishing All negative actions are done motivated by self-cherishing What is the absolute extreme opposite to self-cherishing? bodhicitta. So of course we don’t. Well I don’t. Maybe you are bodhisattvas.
But unless you’re a bodhisattva, one doesn’t have actual bodhicitta. We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking, you know, you can just whip up bodhicitta of, like, meringues or something. But we can try and generate what my teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche calls effortful bodhicitta, which is a kind of bodhicitta that arises momentarily, temporarily, in a small way by strongly thinking about the causes, which is, you know, the kindness of sentient beings, the suffering of sentient beings, how I am dependent on sentient beings, and so on. Yeah. So reaffirming that that mindset that that wants to cherish sentient beings more and more to you know, mother’s mother sentient beings.
So that’s the power of reliance, reliance on refuge and bodhicitta. The power of refuge, the power of bodhicitta. So then the fourth of the opponent powers is the power of remedy, which is to do a virtuous action as a as a direct conscious remedy to the negative action that was done. Right? And so one can do any virtuous action as a counteraction, but there are six particularly six types of virtuous actions which are particularly powerful, which in the context of purifying the mind we are encouraged to do some of these.
Now I should know them all but I’ll try. So they are well, there is the one is relying on reciting the names of the Buddhas. So under that category is particularly doing the practice of making prostrations to the thirty five Buddhas because one recites the names of these thirty five Buddhas. And this is considered to be a particularly powerful practice because these Buddhas made the vow that anyone who said their names, they would protect them. So there is a whole practice of visualizing where do we have?
Oh, in this painting, this picture of a Thanga, this depicts the thirty five Buddhas over there. So there is a practice of visualizing them and as and making prostrations to them. And as you prostrate to each Buddha, you recite their name many times. So this practice is taught in comes from one of the sutras. I think it’s actually from the Avatamsaka Sūtra and the Avatamsaka Sūtra has a section called the I’m not sure Pratidesha, Pratidesha, something like the Pratidesha section.
And in that section is explained this practice that by reciting the names of these Buddhas this purifies enormous amounts of negative karma created over enormous amounts of time. But also reciting Om Mani Padme Hum comes into this category. Om Mani Padme Hum is the mantra of Avalokiteśvara, the Buddha of compassion. And it’s like calling on Avalokiteśvara to protect you. One very mind boggling thing well, for my little mind, I found a very mind boggling and very interesting perspective is that I don’t know how to explain it, this this lama said, actually, the mantra Om Mani Padme hum is the deity Avalokiteśvara.
Because if you think about it, a person’s speech is a reflection of their mind. Right? This is why it is important not to listen to Mickey Mouse people like myself, dodo monks like myself, but to to hear beings like his holiness because his holiness mind is utterly pure and pervaded by great compassion and bodhicitta and wisdom. And so what his holiness is holy speech is a reflection of that mind. It’s not separate.
Right? So when you hear his holiness, you are hearing bodhicitta in a sense. You are hearing wisdom. You are hearing virtue. And and this goes into your mind, our mind.
So Om Mani Padme hum is, in a sense, Avalokiteśvara’s mind. And it is said that when you recite that name you are calling on Avalokiteśvara. So it’s like reciting his name. My teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche says reciting that mantra of course, have to do it with refuge, with faith, with devotion, concentration, as much as you can gather those things together and with the other opponent powers, remember, then it becomes the more you get all that together, the more purification. Also reciting Amitābha’s name is very powerful purification like that.
So that’s one of them. Right? Mhmm. No. No.
No. One is calling the names of the Buddha. So in that category of the six virtuous super virtuous types of behavior, actions, one is reciting the names of the Buddhas, and examples of that are doing the practice of prostrating and reciting and visualizing the thirty five Buddhas. This is a practice that Tibetan Buddhists of all four traditions engage in. We’re encouraged to do this every day of our life if we can.
There is a practice of doing a hundred thousand prostrations to the thirty five Buddhas, a minimum of a hundred thousand. Lama Tsongkhapa, the glorious Lama Tsongkhapa, the founder of our Gelugpa tradition, did a retreat with eight of his disciples in a wonderful place, which I’ve been to, called Wolka in Tibet, where living on a few, juniper berries every day, that’s all he ate for several years, he did a hundred thousand prostrations to each of the thirty five Buddhas on a rock outside in the open. He wore a groove in this rock. I have seen this stone in Tibet. I went there on pilgrimage and saw this stone.
He also did at the same time or in that same retreat one million eight hundred thousand mandala offerings. This is a mandala offering practice, but he didn’t have a fancy thing like this. He just used Je Tsongkhapa used a stone, a flat stone, and used sand. And so he would pour the sand because he was so poor at the time. That’s why he only ate a few juniper berries because he couldn’t afford McDonald’s or anything like that.
So, and, you know, the tradition is you wipe the the the the base with your this part of your arm three times clockwise, three times anticlockwise. So he did that one million eight hundred thousand times, did the mandala offering one million eight hundred thousand times, and wore all this part of his flesh away. But he became enlightened. And he actually saw the story is that he actually saw directly the thirty five Buddhas appeared in front of him. He didn’t just visualize them.
They came. He said, hi. How are you? That’s the story. Anyway, now we got carried away here.
So that’s one of six. Then the second one is what? The Vajrasattva practice. This is from the Tantric tradition, but this is an incredibly was it’s actually a purification practice, but it’s also yeah. Yeah.
It’s meritorious. All all purification practices are meritorious. So this is also another super powerful way to purify the mind. I can’t explain that. Not enough time.
But, again, this is something that we are encouraged in the tradition in all the four schools to learn the Vajrasattva practice and do this every day. Ideally, good to do at the end of the day to purify whatever we’ve done. What is encouraged is at the end of the day to look over before one goes to bed, look over the day, rejoice in all the good things oneself and others have done because it increases the merit, dedicate it to enlightenment, think of all and reflect on the negative things one’s done, and purify them by doing the four opponent powers. So then if we die in our sleep, it’s okay, because we’ve helped purify our mind a bit. With the power of remedy in the evening it’s good to do the Vajrasattva practice then.
And there is also what is called a preliminary practice of doing a hundred thousand Vajrasattva mantras in retreat, which is also highly encouraged in the tradition to do. So anyway, that’s two. Now what else have we got? Then there’s the reciting of sutras or reciting texts, especially for example sutras and sorry that’s enough. What is considered to be the most super powerful of these six virtuous practices as a means to purify the mind is meditating on emptiness.
But of course it’s the most difficult because if we don’t understand emptiness meditating on it doesn’t go very far. But if we have some understanding of emptiness and we meditate on emptiness, the nature of reality, then this is the most powerful way to purify the mind. Because it’s it is the understand or the realization of emptiness that is actually going to destroy ignorance. And when ignorance is destroyed, all negative imprints are gone. Finished.
Where are I? Names, Vajrasattva, texts, meditation on emptiness. Another one of the six super virtuous actions to do to purify the mind is is either making oneself, sponsoring, or restoring making, sponsoring making oneself, sponsoring others to make or restoring statues of Buddhas statues, stupas, thangkas, and Dharma texts. Same same. Yes.
tsa-tsas because they’re these small was an example of a tsa-tsa. Where have we got one? Oh yes, these little images above the door these are called tsa-tsas. So they’re images of Buddhas. So either if we can make Buddha’s Buddha images ourselves, if we can’t, sponsoring people to make them, or restoring and decorating images of Buddhas and, you know, holy beings, etcetera, stupas.
That’s that’s why you see in in, like, this is very common in the the Thai tradition where you you will see Thai people putting gold leaf on Buddha statues. It’s a way of or even just the robes on them. If you go to Bodh Gaya in the in the Mahabodhi stupa where the which is marks where the Buddha sat well, it’s right next to where the Buddha sat and achieved enlightenment. There’s a a a beautiful statue of the Buddha there, and there there are robes on the the Buddha. And these are these robes are changed, every day and sometimes many times every day because Buddhist groups sponsor these robes.
And so that group puts on the robe or the monk there puts on the robe for him. And a few minutes later, they whip it off and another group put theirs on. There’s a huge business done in putting robes on the Buddha. I don’t know what they do with sometimes they chop them up into pieces and give them to people as a object of, you know, devotion. Where am I?
Yeah. Yeah. So that. Yeah. So sponsoring Dharma texts is wonderful.
So, again, this is why Lama Zopa Rinpoche is building this huge statue of Maitreya because it’s a way by by sponsoring it, you’re helping to build it. This and, yeah, you can that can purify help purify the mind. Of course, not just dumb you know, it’s not just you write a check and send off the money and I’ve purified my it’s not like that. It has to be done with the, you know, all the opponent powers and, you know, strong regret, you know, deter you know, refuge, bodhicitta, wish to avoid the actions and, yeah, really wanting to do this with a, you know, complete commitment. You know, if if that if one gets all that together, depending on how much that comes together, how strongly that much purification occurs.
And of course, if one is trying to purify really negative actions, then these things need to be done not just one time, but that’s why one is encouraged to do a hundred thousand prostrations, a hundred thousand at the minimum. You know, some people have done you know, and not just Tibetans, you know, peep Western people, people following Tibetan Buddhism, the right these days have done many times or several times a hundred thousand of these practices. And the final one, which again looks a bit dicey but again it has to be sincerely with all the four factors, is, making offerings to the triple gem, to the Guru, to the Sangha, or it could be to, some charity or whatever. But, again, it has to be done with regret, refuge, bodhicitta, you know, the resolution to avoid, and so on. So in the teachings it says if we apply those four opponent powers sincerely, strongly, regularly, then they they can, without doubt, purify any negative action.
But it is important to understand that it is very easy to engage in negative actions. The moment a negative action is engaged in with the body, speech or mind, the imprint is there. And although it can they can be purified, it is not easy. Yeah. It is not easy to purify the mind.
You know, those four factors have to be genuine and strong and repeated. That’s why the Gelugpa tradition is called the Gelugpa tradition because Lama Tsongkhapa emphasized rather than purifying the mind of negative imprints, don’t create negative imprints in the first place. Any questions? Suggestions? Complaints?
Sorry? Oh yes, sure, sure Yes. Right. Oh, definitely. Well, this is one the ways conditions for creating negative actions is not knowing what is negative and or or forgetting.
Like, if we have vows, if we’d taken some kind like, we have many people here hopefully have have taken refuge. There are so there are basic refuge commitments, so we need to remember those. If we and some people may have taken some of or all of the five lay precepts, so one needs to remember those. And then some people may have taken the bodhisattva vows, so one needs to remember them in order to keep them. Yeah.
So mindfulness is, you know, like an essential tool for avoiding negative actions and just being mindful of what, you know, the ten non virtues do because they’re they’re the, you know, the the main things to avoid, those ten non virtues. Those ten non virtuous actions. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much.
Tonight, being here, we weren’t creating negative actions. We were engaging in virtuous action. And hopefully hopefully, we, we had the right motivation, the best motivation, bodhicitta. We had the right object which is the Dharma, especially the Mahāyāna Dharma. And hopefully we listened in the best way possible with concentration and enthusiasm and completely alert mind.
And then we are we we are glad that we completed the action of listening. We rejoice. So that has created a very powerful karmic imprint, some merit, definite merit. So we want this merit to ripen in the best way. So the best way to ensure that is to dedicate it to becoming a cause or condition for enlightenment.
Because that covers everything else as well. If you’d like to join in the dedications page eight and onwards. Through the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious bodhicitta mind, not yet born, arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore.
The object of refuge of myself and all transmigratory beings in all our lifetimes is the embodiment of the Three Jewels, the all encompassing three refuges in one, the guru,