Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 36-minute talk recorded during a 1998 retreat, Ven Thubten Dondrub addresses the core obstacle to spiritual progress: attachment. He begins by reframing renunciation not as deprivation but as the path to genuine happiness and love for oneself beyond self-centeredness. He explores how mutual dependence in relationships creates suffering, and how real non-attachment allows people to appreciate each other more fully. Dondrub then shifts to practical barriers: the paradox that our very attachments prevent us from dedicating time to practice, even when we intellectually recognize it as the path to lasting happiness. He emphasizes the importance of community and Sangha to sustain motivation, then offers concrete guidance for daily practice—fifteen minutes each morning is sufficient—stressing that meditation’s real fruit is not blissful experiences but increased awareness that carries into daily life. He concludes with guided meditation on impermanence, the preciousness of human life, and the possibility of freedom from attachment through developing one’s inner qualities. Pitched at practitioners already engaged in Buddhist study and retreat practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 Letting go of Attachment 1998 02 22.mp3
UUID: aad45fbc-d1ec-4a92-aabf-250af322d3e8
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Retreat (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 1998-02-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 36.5 minutes
Words: ~2,728
And so which is also means how I how can I give them a sense of their own worth so that they don’t have to be attached to me and think I’m the source of all their happiness? Because we just if in in such a relationship, one is creating this mutual dependence, which is suffering, which has so much potential for suffering, that we people can be independent but appreciate each other, more independent, more self reliant. So when we when we’re trying to overcome our attachment, this is the path of developing renunciation. Yeah. So renunciation, what it really means, renunciation is giving up suffering.
You what you’re renouncing, what you’re giving up when one’s developing renunciation and non attachment. One is giving one is not giving up happiness. One is giving up suffering and the causes of suffering. And one by developing renunciation, non attachment, one is creating the cause, the situation for happiness to arise, more happiness to arise. Another way of looking at what renunciation and non attachment is, it is the path of love.
When we’re developing non attachment renunciation, we’re developing real love towards ourselves, not just self-cherishing. So we have to do it. We have to do it because and we’ve got the opportunity now. We’ve been always trying for this all the time. Now we have the optimum conditions.
We have the optimum human rebirth. We are free of all the worst obstacles to developing happiness, and we have many, many encouraging factors. Doesn’t we yeah. So we just have to take advantage of it now. And maybe in conclusion, I’ll just quote what his holiness says that at least if we’re trying to follow the spiritual path, we should say, spend fifty percent of our time on that and fifty percent on our worldly things.
Yeah. At least that. I don’t know what else I can say. Do you have any other questions? I you want me to be more practical?
What can I say to help some very specific things? You try here. Sure. We do need that support, but we have to check if we we’ve got the right support. This is what is so much emphasized in the teachings about the subject of refuge, taking refuge, that one has to really check carefully the teaching that one is following and be and so that you can really trust it.
You can really take refuge in it. Right? Really rely on it. Right. Mhmm.
Yeah. Yeah. I know what to say. So the question is whether to follow that system or this system. Yes.
Yes. Well, this, I I’m biased, of course. You know, this I mean, it’s difficult. You have to make your own decision about what suits you, whether following that system or the system here, like Tibetan Buddhism or some other system like that. I mean, that has to be your own choice.
Yeah. Well, there is that aspect to it, but this this is this is encouraged because, Lama’s the teachers say that in order to really follow the path effectively, we really have to understand it clearly. Otherwise, we just meditate on wrong ideas. We develop single pointed concentration on more wrong views. We think we’re meditating on this and doing the right thing, but we’re not.
We’re just creating we’re just meditating on our own wrong views about something and creating a stronger impression of that. So Lama Tsongkhapa emphasized that it’s really important to have a clear intellectual understanding of the path and the teachings and the and the whole path, to have an understanding of the path because then one knows how to put each thing in in a context that gives confidence and direction in one’s life. And I I feel there’s there’s I mean, I I really feel there’s a lot to that. I I was living and teaching in Taiwan for three years, and many people there, you know, the Chinese Buddhists there have their own systems of practice. But one of the things that attracted them to Tibetan Buddhism, and particularly the Gelugpa, was this presentation of the path and very specific methods to achieve those stages of the path.
Because in Chinese Buddhism, there doesn’t seem to be an overall picture of what the path is. This is kind of these isolated things you do, but you don’t really know why you’re doing them and where they’re leading. They’re good, but exactly why and what they’re doing, one’s not sure. So one of the beauties, I think, of this system is it shows you the whole path and what you need to do step by step in a graduated system and why you need to do it. So that gives some courage and confidence, I I I feel.
But that’s my view. Some people do say it is too intellectual, and but and and it can be, but you don’t have to follow all that intellectual stuff. But a certain amount of that is very useful. But it’s all designed to lead one inside and to really practice. And the main thing is to make I mean, it’s kind of a catch twenty two situation, which which and which attachment is always the tricky point is that somehow we have to make the decision.
I’ve I’ve got to practice. But what what doesn’t allow us to make to break through one’s attachment, but what doesn’t allow us to make that decision is our attachment. I’m I am attached to this, that, and the other, so I can’t find the time. I want to be happy. I want real happiness.
I I have some idea, some glimmer that maybe this is the method that will bring it because nothing else is worth, and yet I don’t do it because I’m attached to all these old things, the same old things. So we have to somehow break out of that that that that process. Yeah. Right. Right.
Keep going. But that discipline is also something one only oneself can generate, coming from realizing I I if I want the result, I have to follow the method. I have to create the cause. Blessed are provided here at the moment? Yes.
Yes. Continuously. All sorts of teachings. There is one very great lama teaching here regularly. I don’t exactly know what there’s a bit of a break at the moment.
That’s why I’m here filling the void or probably not filling the void, but getting dropped into the void. But this lama, this picture here, he will start teaching sometime soon. And there are other people giving meditation classes and other teachings here regularly. But I I one thing, if you want to follow, to some extent, it is really important, I I think, to be with a group of people, to make that contact, because it it reinforces one’s wish. Otherwise, if you if you stay alone separate from people who are trying to do this thing, then you fall down.
Because if you’re if you’re with people if you’re continuously with people who have no interest in these things, then your own your own interest evaporates or gets completely forgotten. Yeah. Yeah. And we need that. We need that all the time because our you know, this little wisdom flame is so small at the moment and that the old attachments, the old habits are so strong.
So that’s why it’s important to find some some place that and and people that have a similar interest to reinforce one’s self. Right? That that’s really vital somehow. That’s why we talk about the Buddhadharma and the Sangha. The Sangha is the spiritual community.
So there ‘s the the aryasangha, the very special advanced people, but also we need Sangha in the sense of just people like ourselves trying to follow the path and encouraging us. But we, you know, we do have to do it ourselves. Also, it’s not just a matter of coming here or some other place. I mean, it’s really important to somehow do something oneself at home in one’s daily life. Just to have the discipline to sit down, you know, for few at least a few minutes a day.
Yeah. To make yourself that offering. Yeah. Many people think of it some huge burden. Yeah.
The stronger the attachment, the sense of kind of doing something else is like a huge burden, so much pain and effort. But in fact, this this is the cause of happiness, practicing the Dharma, working with one’s mind in a skillful way, trying to do some meditation. So if we start out doing a little bit just regularly, trying to have that discipline fifteen minutes a day, first thing in the morning is the best time if you can manage it. Every day, just stick at it. And if it collapses, then you have to start again, but you gotta keep doing it.
And just to to generate this awareness in one’s daily life. I mean, this is so important. Why we meditate is not so much to have some experience in our meditation, some amazing experience, some bliss, and some something mystical thing. The idea is to generate some awareness, some understanding in the meditation that can carry over in our daily life moment by moment. That’s the most important thing, to try to have this mindfulness, our this awareness that that everything is impermanent.
That’s the that’s the most important thing. That one. I am impermanent. Everybody’s impermanent. Everything’s impermanent.
So why be attached? Why get so caught up in all these things? But what is lasting is one’s own mind. I mean, this is just that, to think about that every day, to reinforce that awareness every day. I I don’t know what else I can say.
What else can we do? That’s it, isn’t it? Because if one really meditates on impermanence really strongly, again, continuously, then then you don’t it’s not just a thought that arises, all things are just these empty words, Things are impermanent. You have some kind of experience of it. You relate to things in that way.
You have some kind of awareness that that’s how things are, and that protects you from all our disturbing thoughts the more we have that inner experience. Which is a byproduct? Consciousness, the increased consciousness in our daily experience with everything we encounter. Right. That’s what I was saying.
This this is an overflow from trying to practice some type of meditation, like either concentration meditation or these analytical meditations. Both will have should have the effect, the byproduct. But it’s it’s not just a byproduct. It’s what one was actually trying to generate, an increased awareness of how things are in one’s daily life. You you meditate on impermanence, and then that carries into your daily awareness.
Like, the more you do it, the more you meditate on that, the more it carries into one’s daily awareness and affects your life. So meditation is the key to right the consciousness of one’s Yes. Yes. Yes. And and there is, like, formal meditation, which has the most impact because it’s the most conducive situation for for transforming the mind, where you sit quietly for a period extended period of time, and your mind is focused on a particular thing, either the breath or thinking about some particular subject.
And you try and do it in the context of motivating having a good motivation for this, not just some temporary pleasure, but I want to do this in order to transform my mind, and not just for my own sake, but for the benefit of others. That’s very important because that gives a completely different flavor and effect to what you’re thinking about, what you’re contemplating. Yeah? Then you dedicate the energy at the end to your own happiness, the happiness of all beings. These that and and then then you try to be mindful of that the rest of the day.
But also, you can meditate anywhere. I mean, the best time, strictly speaking, is this formal sitting meditation. But you can also meditate in a sense of being what is aware of what is true or more true, more positive anywhere all the time. And sometimes you can have, depending on situations, more insight in an informal situation than informal meditation. And in fact, in many stories like in Zen, but not just in Zen tradition, people gained the actual insight in in an ordinary not when they was meditating formally, but in their daily life, but they gained that insight because they meditated.
This is the trick. Just by doing ordinary things without really developing some insight won’t get us very far. But if we if we do some meditation, formal meditation, and try to carry that awareness into our daily life, then at some point, we can gain some real insights into things, profound insights, which is happening with many which many people experience. Yes. Alright.
Alright. So maybe we can just conclude. It’s it’s almost half past four. Maybe we can just conclude with just a couple of minutes of of meditation, just quietly sitting. So just spend some time considering what’s what’s been discussed today and asking oneself the question, what do I really want in my life?
I have this very precious life, which is is coming to an end moment by moment. So what do I really want out of this life? Do I want just some temporary pleasures, momentary experiences, or do I really want to have some deep lasting happiness, contentment, a sense of deep meaning in my life, and a sense that what I do really counts, that what I that I can be of benefit to others in a lasting way. And how much am I doing to achieve that? Am I really doing anything to bring that about?
If I’m not, then I I’ve got to change. Just think now of the things that take up all one’s time and energy. Are they really going to bring what I really want? Try to make the determination in in one’s mind right now to really allow oneself to see, to recognize one’s own attachments and desires, to really become more and more aware of their actual nature, how unsatisfying and limiting they are. But at the same time, to understand that this is not a source of despair because one has this basic goodness, this potential for happiness existing in one’s mind.
And therefore, one can let go of one’s attachment. One can reduce it step by step. One can rely more and more on one’s own mind, one’s own inner qualities. Try to make the determination that I I can create the space in my own mind to be free of attachment, a space that enables me to really appreciate things as they are, a space to allow things to change as they have to change, for separation to occur when separation has to occur, for death to come when death has to come. Again, just be aware of the breath coming in and going out.
Just focus on that for a short time. Just every let everything else fade away. So just try to develop some confidence that the mind is existing right now, that is able to follow the breath clearly as it comes in and goes out, that mind that is relatively more calm and clear light now, that possesses the key to one’s own inner satisfaction. That mind can be developed more and more. The sensitivity that comes with it can be developed more and more.
Insight that goes with it can be developed more and more. So then we can dedicate this merit and the understanding we’ve gained, the insight we may have achieved. May this really become a cause for us to be able to become freer and freer of attachment, to develop a strong, courageous, loving mind of non attachment and inner contentment that can develop more and more and lead us, enable us to follow the path to complete perfection, complete enlightenment, complete awakening that brings about our own perfect happiness and enables us to be of lasting benefit to all living beings. Okay. Thank you very much.