Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Venerable Thubten Gyatso concludes a multi-part teaching on the Wheel of Life by bringing together the threads of sentient beings, the individual mind, and the cosmos, grounding them all in karma. Rather than launch into the vast cosmology today, he offers a guided meditation on the breath to settle the mind, then leads students through a practice of generating love and compassion that radiates outward to all beings. He then explores how to apply these insights to daily life: viewing responsibilities as opportunities to train the mind, transforming difficulties into practice, and committing gradually to lasting change without harsh self-judgment. He closes with a dedication of merit toward swift enlightenment so as to benefit others. Aimed at practitioners with some familiarity with Buddhist teachings and meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 W o L 2010.mp3
UUID: c84951e1-5f61-45fc-9d8c-a30b33839ff4
Teacher: Ven Thubten Gyatso aka Adrian Feldman
Collection: Wheel of LIfe (Ven Thubten Gyatso aka Adrian Feldman)
Date: 2010 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 29.8 minutes
Words: ~1,521
I’m not sure whether after all we’ve been through today whether you can handle the coming and going of the universe. It’s just putting the things into proportion that have gone down to the explanation of the individual, the most subtle wind, most subtle mind, and then the next section is to tie it all up with the coming and going of the entire universe. As I began with the quotation from Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa that this entire universe as the supporting environment and the supported beings who inhabit the environment are derived from karma. So having talked about the sentient beings, we talk about the universe and then finally we get onto the twelve links of dependent origination tomorrow. Maybe think you might be getting exhausted or something.
It might be nice to do some meditation perhaps, and then we can get into this subject. I mean, just to draw the general picture of it to give you an idea and then get into the twelve links tomorrow. There can be information overload. So, the important aspect anyway is meditation because to put this information into practice we have to do it through meditation, getting to know our mind and control our mind towards attaining our full potential of Buddhahood, to be able to help others. So, at the start of the meditation, no need to do the nine-round breathing purification, but simply focus your whole attention on the sensation of the air coming and going through both nostrils.
To meditate we need the object to hold or something upon which we can hold our concentration, focus our mind and not give in distracting thoughts. Thoughts about what I’m going do next or attachment, anger, you know, the many different types of thoughts which come up. Now is not the time to follow them even if they’re very interesting. We have to hold our mind on the sensation of the air entering the nostrils, going down to the lungs and coming out again. Just breathing at your normal rhythm without forcing the breath in any way.
Don’t hold the breath or inhale deeply, you know, hyperventilate, none of that. Just breathe completely normally and hold your attention on the coming and going of the breath and see if you can maybe count up to ten breaths without distraction. If you get distracted, go back to one. If you get to ten, go back to one. If you need to continue counting, just stop the counting and just stay with the breath.
A peaceful, still mind, undistracted watching the breath. Simple to say but difficult to do. But we have this is just the initial part of meditation. So try that for a few minutes and then during the meditation I’ll tell you what to focus upon as we go through. So start by sitting comfortably with your back straight.
Eyes don’t completely close your eyes. Have your eyes almost closed. Mouth closed, breathing through your nose. Think now I start and don’t lose the awareness of the coming and going of your breath. Stay very clear, focused upon that sensation.
Keep your mind on the breath. Don’t follow distracting thoughts. Bring your attention back again and again to the breath. Now, generally aware of the breath, pay more attention to the subjective mind itself, the clarity and awareness that are observing the breath. And try to experience the natural state of peace and stillness of your mind when it’s undistracted by disturbing thoughts.
Very clear and still. Be aware of this nature of your mind. Become familiar with it. And try to hold it without distraction. Then, within the state of stillness, allow one thought to arise, the thought of love, which is rejoicing in the happiness and the welfare of others.
Not only in seeing them happy, but in making them happy. You can think of those close to you and generate a thought of love for them. Imagine them getting all that they need to be happy and being very content with what they have and joyful and at peace. Warm feeling in your heart that empathizes, rejoices in their happiness, that’s the meaning of love. So generate love towards somebody familiar to you and then focus upon that sensation of warmth in your heart, and imagine it radiating out towards the hearts of all other living beings without exception.
Imagine you spread happiness and joy throughout the universe. Then to feel that all happiness has been established in the minds of all beings. And then having completed its work, the energy of love flows back into you, filling you with great joy and happiness. Once again, focus upon the clear and still nature of your mind, which apart from being clear and still is now in the state of great bliss and joy. Then you can gradually relax and stop the meditation.
So it’s from, you know, simple meditation like that that we establish the base upon which we can transform our lives according to our understanding of karma. You know, we’ve seen how karma really means the motivation behind our behavior. So, without trying to think about what’s right, what’s wrong, etcetera, etcetera, in our daily life, If we can be familiar with just watching the breath and establishing the peace and still state of the mind and making it virtuous by generating love for all beings, and then within that state, plan your day. What you’re going to do today and how you’re going to do it. And you’ll probably realize that there are so many things that you thought you needed to do so much that you no longer need to do, that you can just let them go and you’ll suddenly have more time to be very constructive and creative in your life, looking after yourself, looking after your family, and all of your obligations.
Never see your responsibilities and obligations as a burden, but as opportunities. Opportunities to train your mind in observing pure morality, in practicing love and compassion, and even problems. Don’t see them as problems, but see them as opportunities to train your mind in dealing with whatever’s gone wrong in a skillful way and continuing your inner practice. In this way, life becomes so meaningful, even the unwanted things which happen anyway, whether we want them or not, things are constantly getting messed up and going wrong in our lives. Then, instead of allowing them to become sources of irritation, anger, attachment, jealousy, pride and so on, turn them into stimuli to practice love and compassion and kindness and so on.
And this is how to work with karma because from that we’ll know what we can do in a more skillful way. Don’t be too ambitious, you know, if start off with huge plans and your life is going to be totally turned around, everything is going be different from now on, it won’t last long. Old habits die hard and we have to understand that we are in it for the long haul, we have been under the control of karma and disturbing emotions since beginning of this time. It’s so deeply ingrained into our habitual patterns of behavior, and this is what we’re working with, we are consciously going to change our patterns of behavior into constructive patterns based upon wisdom and compassion. It’s going to take lifetimes.
And don’t be disappointed when the disturbing emotions win out, you know, is what I’m up against, you know, thinking, alright, I won’t do it again, I’ll try better tomorrow, Congratulate yourself when things go well. Be patient and life can be so much so fruitful, so rewarding. All right. So, I won’t start the coming and going of the universe today. I’ll do it tomorrow and that’ll lead on to the twelve links.
There’s you must be pretty tired, but if there is time left, if anybody has any outstanding questions or discussion, we could do that now. I mean, get home in time to watch the cricket or whatever. Okay, so we’ve created a lot of karma today. We began with positive thought collectively by discussing the Buddha’s teachings, meditating, we have accumulated positive karma, positive energy in our minds. And if we dedicate this to all sentient beings, that will make it impervious to being destroyed by anger or any strong emotion.
So, strongly think that whatever positive karma that I’ve created during today’s talks and meditations and teachings, then through this may I quickly follow the path, abandon saṃsāra and achieve my full potential of enlightenment so that I become a Buddha in my own right so I will be fully capable and qualified to guide others out of their samsaras towards the bliss of enlightenment. So try to generate the bodhicitta, the thought of universal responsibility in your mind. In this way you offer, you dedicate the merit to others. Not that they get the merit, but by you becoming a Buddha as quickly as possible, that’s how you can benefit them. Okay.
So thanks. Can I just Yeah? A couple of