Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 38-minute guided meditation, Venerable Wendy Finster teaches the Guru Śākyamūni Buddha yoga purification practice, a daily evening technique for analysing and cleansing positive and negative actions of body, speech, and mind. She begins by establishing motivation and refuge, then walks through a detailed visualization: building a celestial scene with golden throne, snow lions, lotus, moon and sun cushions, and Śākyamūni Buddha as a transparent, golden, light-made form. She explains the symbolism—the lotus as renounced mind, moon as bodhicitta, sun as wisdom—and the significance of his mudras and the bowl of purifying nectar. The practice unfolds in stages: first receiving white light for purification of negative karma and delusions, then golden light representing Buddha’s infinite knowledge of body, speech and mind, then dissolving Buddha into oneself, and finally radiating healing light to all sentient beings while reciting mantra. She concludes with absorption and dedication of merit. Suitable for practitioners already familiar with visualization and refuge practices.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 Guru Śākyamūni Buddha no date.mp3
UUID: 77ab0414-027e-4a9b-ab2b-8c402938a0cb
Teacher: Ven Wendy Finster
Collection: Purification (Ven Wendy Finster)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 37.9 minutes
Words: ~2,064
The following is a meditation of Guru Śākyamūni Buddha Yoga Purification. It’s an excellent meditation to do at the end of the day to analyse the positive and negative actions, to learn to discriminate between which actions of body, speech and mind are positive and which are negative, and also to purify those actions which have been mistaken or negative and so prevent from carrying them over to the following day. Firstly, sit in a comfortable meditation posture and check the posture to ensure that the back is straight. Then check the motivation. And make a positive or pure motivation, understanding that by engaging in these practices I’ll purify the mind, subdue the uncontrolled mind, and thereby be of greater benefit to all sentient beings.
I go for refuge until I’m a Buddha to the highest Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. From the virtuous merit that I collect, by practising giving and other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am a Buddha to the highest Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and other perfections may I attain the state of a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am a Buddha to the highest Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and other perfections, May I attain the state of the Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. And I’ll spend a short time checking and analyzing between the positive action mind, recognize them, feel happy about them, and make a decision to increase them, do them more again in the future. And then all the mistakes or the negative actions of body, speech, and mind. And make a determination to not repeat them, at least for a specified period of time you feel able to keep. Feeling much sincere regret, recognising that those negative actions of body, speech and mind not only have harmful consequences for oneself but also for others.
And now, once again, recollect in the mind the pure thought of bodhicitta and think, I must lead all sentient beings into Guru Śākyamūni Buddha’s enlightened state by myself achieving Buddhahood. So therefore I’m going to practice the Guru Śākyamūni yoga purification. Now spend a short time building up visualization of Śākyamūni Buddha at the level of the forehead, distance of about a body’s length away. Suddenly appears in space a large square golden throne adorned by many jewels and supported at the corners by eight white snow lions, two at each corner, holding it up in space. And visualize these snow lions as living, breathing animals but made of light.
And this whole visualization, nothing concrete or material about it, made of light vibrating. And then visualize upon the throne appears a large white lotus. And upon the lotus, the moon in the form of a cushion and the sun cushion. So they’re both round like a disc, like a cushion, and very bright. And so remembering that the lotus symbolizes a fully renounced mind.
The moon, the bodhicitta, realization, and the sun, the realization of absolute true nature, wisdom. To seated upon this appears Guru Śākyamūni Buddha, the manifestation of all enlightened beings omniscient mind. He appears dressed as a monk in very beautiful robes, a saffron color. He sits cross legged position, and his holy body is completely transparent, just like a water bubble, but without having any resistance to matter. It’s not solid at all, but made of light.
Golden in color, indestructible and glorious looking. the palm of his right hand is on his right knee, fingers touching onto the sun cushion, in the earth touching mudra, And in the palm of his left hand at the level of the navel, he’s holding a bowl. And this bowl is full of nectar, which is a kind of medicine to stop the hindrances. So the nectar in Guru Śākyamūni Buddha’s bowl is to stop the suffering of the skandhas or the aggregates. Guru Śākyamūni Buddha has no suffering of the aggregates, having been released from all that.
So this nectar is to stop the suffering of our aggregates, that is, our body and mental suffering. And there’s also the nectar to stop delusions and death, Not Guru Śākyamūni Buddha’s but ours. And the right hand touching the ground symbolises control over hindrances caused by certain sentient beings who harm meditators, those who practice the Dharma. The robes that adorn his holy body are separated from it by the distance of about an inch because of the power of his realizations. His face is very beautiful.
Its smiling appearance brings incredible bliss within the mind, for it means he’s accepting us. If you, my son or daughter, want to be released from Samsāra, I shall guide you. And his eyes are long and narrow, and his look extremely compassionate. His lips are cherry red. He has long ear lobes.
His hair is a dark blue color, and each one, each hair, is individually curled and not mixed with the others. Śākyamūni Buddha’s holy body is radiating light. Many light rays emanate from each pore and pass through infinite space to each and every sentient being, those in different universes, on different planets, and in different realms. And each of these rays bears countless miniature Guru Śākyamūni Buddhas, many going out to work for the sentient beings in the six samsaric realms and many others coming back, being absorbed through the pores into his holy body, having finished working for sentient beings. So again, thinking that Guru Śākyamūni Buddha is the embodiment of the infinite enlightened beings, make a request from the heart.
Please grant me your blessings that I may quickly receive the beginning of the graduated path, devotion to the Guru, and quickly realize the whole path up to enlightenment for the benefit of all other sentient beings. So think that Guru Śākyamūni Buddha accepts your request and sends you purifying white light with his infinite compassion that you might be released from all suffering and be led into enlightenment. And as this light enters your body, it’s as though a light was being switched on in a dark room, just like the darkness of the room would be instantly dispelled. So also the darkness of all your negative karmas, delusions, and subtle obscurations all disappear completely, existing nowhere, neither inside nor outside your body. So then concentrating on this purifying white light coming from the heart of Guru Śākyamūni Buddha’s holy body and being absorbed into you, spreading to all parts of your body, we say the Guru Śākyamūni Buddha prayer three times, and then the mantra for as long as you wish to purify.
So guru, founder, Lord Buddha, the fully realized destroyer of all defilements, fully completed Buddha, having fully realized the absolute truth of all objects. Magnificent king Buddha, to you I prostrate and go for refuge. To you I make offerings. Please bestow your blessings upon me. So now as you say the mantra, concentrate on receiving the white light and nectar from Śākyamūni Buddha, filling the body, absorbing into the body, and totally permeating the entire body and mind.
So now think that the white light, or rather the essence which is shakyamuni Buddha’s omniscient mind, has completely purified all negative karmas that I’ve been collecting since beginning these previous lives, all delusions, every single subtle obscuration. And feel the complete emptiness of all negative karmas, delusions, and subtle obscurations, your body becoming very light and blissful, and concentrate on this for a short time. Now visualize the golden yellow light rays coming from Guru Śākyamūni Buddha’s heart, and the essence of this light is the infinite knowledge of Guru Śākyamūni Buddha’s holy body, holy speech, and holy mind. His holy body has no ugly part and can transform into numberless different manifestations to work for sentient beings according to their different minds. His holy speech can give teachings on different subjects according to sentient beings’ different languages all at the same time.
His holy mind, the omniscient mind, fully sees all past, present, and future existence and has complete power to read the different thoughts of each of the numberless sentient beings all at the same time. There’s not one single atom of existence that his omniscient mind doesn’t fully see. So whatever exists is the object of his holy mind. So the essence of this golden yellow light ray that comes from Śākyamūni Buddha’s heart is this infinite knowledge. So while saying the mantra, Concentrate on receiving this golden yellow light rays, and think, Now I’m receiving the infinite knowledge of Guru Śākyamūni Buddha’s holy body, speech, and mind, As well as feeling infinite bliss in the mind, try to feel that this golden yellow light completely fills the body and that every part feels extremely blissful.
Say the mantra for as long as you wish. And now visualize the absorptions. The eight snow lions absorb upwards into the throne. The throne absorbs upwards into the lotus, and that absorbs, dissolves into the moon, and all of that into the sun. And all of this absorbs upwards into Śākyamūni Buddha, and he comes down onto the top of the head facing the same way as yourself, melts into light, and dissolves, absorbs into the body.
Immediately you become completely one with Guru Śākyamūni Buddha, and at the same time think that your ordinary view, the way you see yourself, and all wrong conceptions disappear, and you become completely empty of them. Your mind is absolutely oneness with Guru Śākyamūni Buddha’s blissful omniscient mind in the form of infinite space. So concentrate on this for as long as possible without allowing any other thoughts to arise in the mind. And now visualize appearing at the heart a miniature lotus made of light, vibrating light, and appearing upon that, a moon disc and a miniature Śākyamūni Buddha. And visualize surrounding you in every direction, infinite numbers of sentient beings in the form of human being, each having their own particular difficulty or problem, either physical or mental.
Resulting from the negative karma and delusion. So this time, while reciting the mantra, visualize the white light rays and nectar emanating from Śākyamūni Buddha’s heart at your heart, going through every pore in your body, passing out towards all sentient beings, surrounding you in every direction. This white light purifies all sentient beings of their negative karmas, their delusions, and all their subtle obscurations. So this also means you’re purifying all the enemies, all the sentient beings you don’t like, and all of those also that you don’t know. So it doesn’t exclude even one sentient being.
So now think all sentient beings are completely purified of all negative karmas, delusions, and even their subtle obscurations. I have enlightened all sentient beings, fulfilling my aim of leading all sentient beings into Guru Śākyamūni Buddha’s enlightened state as I’m motivated at the beginning with bodhicitta. So now visualize absorbing back, retracting back all the light rays back into the heart and into Śākyamūni Buddha at your heart, and visualize all sentient beings in the aspect of Śākyamūni Buddha. So with this particular meditation, we shouldn’t think that it’s nonsense because it’s untrue, that we haven’t enlightened even one sentient being. So Why should we think that we’ve enlightened all?
Actually this is a profound Mahāyāna method that helps to bring us quickly to the enlightenment of Guru Śākyamūni Buddha, enabling us to enlighten all sentient beings in the future. So although that is our future aim and that is the future result, by meditating in this way in the present, taking the result into the present path, it becomes extremely important for our achieving enlightenment as soon as possible. So then finally, dedicate the merits. Because of engaging in this practice and purifying the mind. May I quickly become guru lord Buddha and lead each and every sentient being into his enlightened realm because of these merits.
So may the bodhicitta, which has not been received, be received. And the loving compassion of thought, the bodhicitta which has already been received and developed within my mind stream, the mind stream of others. May that never decrease, but only increase.