Reflect on the four thoughts that turn the mind (the outer preliminaries)
Precious human birth, impermanence, karma and the suffering of saṃsāra, recited and reflected on together so the mind turns toward practice.
Why it works
In the Nyingma and Kagyu preliminaries, the lamrim’s opening topics are gathered into four thoughts that turn the mind from saṃsāra; the Ninth Karmapa’s Mahāmudrā manual lists them as common preliminaries. Dudjom Rinpoche’s concise ngöndro gives them in four lines — this free and endowed birth is hard to find, everything born is impermanent and bound to die, actions bring their results, and the three realms are an ocean of suffering — and notes that reciting them many times trains the mind. Jigme Lingpa’s Longchen Nyingtik version expands each at length, and Patrul Rinpoche’s Words of My Perfect Teacher is the classic commentary on those preliminaries. Berzin maps the four thoughts onto the lamrim as steps toward renunciation, the intermediate-scope motivation, always followed by bodhicitta and emptiness. They are the outer preliminaries; the inner ones — refuge with prostrations, bodhicitta, Vajrasattva, maṇḍala offering and guru yoga — are practised with a teacher’s instruction.
How to do it
- Learn the four thoughts in a short form, such as the four lines in Dudjom Rinpoche’s concise ngöndro or Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s four lines.
- Recite them slowly, pausing after each line to bring it to life with one concrete example from your own life.
- Then take one thought for longer reflection that day, using the analytical-then-placement rhythm.
- End with the aspiration the liturgies end with: may my mind turn toward the Dharma — toward what actually matters.
- If you want to go on to the inner ngöndro of prostrations, Vajrasattva, maṇḍala and guru yoga, seek a qualified teacher in a lineage that practises it; it is received with instruction and, in many lineages, transmission, not assembled from a book.
Evidence
The four thoughts appear as the opening of Dudjom Rinpoche’s concise ngöndro, of Jigme Lingpa’s Common and Uncommon Preliminaries, and in the four lines Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche added to Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo’s brief ngöndro; Yale University Press describes the Words of My Perfect Teacher as the classic commentary on the Longchen Nyingtik preliminaries. Berzin’s teaching compares the four thoughts with the three scopes. Support is the tradition’s own. (anecdotal)
The full liturgies describe the lower realms in vivid, frightening detail as part of a rebirth cosmology; they are taught in context by teachers, and someone reading them alone may find them distressing. The practice has not been studied.
Sources
- Dudjom Rinpoche, Jikdral Yeshe Dorje. A Concise Recitation of the Preliminary Practice According to the New Treasure of Dudjom, section 1, “Reciting the Four Contemplations which Turn the Mind,” trans. Rigpa Translations. Lotsawa House.
- Jigme Lingpa. The Common and Uncommon Preliminary Practices (Longchen Nyingtik), including “The Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind from Saṃsāra”; compiled from translations by Rigpa Translations and Adam Pearcey, by Han Kop for the Longchen Nyingtik Project (2026). Lotsawa House.
- Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo. The Excellent Path to Enlightenment: A Brief Practice of the Preliminaries (with the four lines on the four thoughts added by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche), trans. Adam Pearcey (2026). Lotsawa House.
- Patrul Rinpoche. The Words of My Perfect Teacher (Kun bzang bla ma’i zhal lung), trans. Padmakara Translation Group, foreword by the Dalai Lama. New Haven: Yale University Press, Sacred Literature Trust Series (2010).
- Wangchug Dorje, Ninth Karmapa. Mahamudra: Eliminating the Darkness of Ignorance, Part 1: Before Beginning Mahamudra Practice (the preliminaries, including death and impermanence, karma, the shortcomings of samsara and the precious human body). Trans. Alexander Berzin (1977, rev. 2008). Study Buddhism.
- Berzin, A. Lam-rim: Dharma-Lite and Real Thing Versions. Study Buddhism (Berzin Archives).
- Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey (compiled by A. Berzin). History and Features of the Lam-rim Textual Tradition. Study Buddhism (Berzin Archives).
Common mistake
Reciting the four thoughts as a quick formula before getting to the “real” practice. The liturgies repeat them because the turning of the mind is the practice; without it, the later stages have nothing to stand on.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Lamrim: The Stages of the Path and the Three Scopes
- Alternate analytical (checking) meditation with placement meditation
Reason your way into a lamrim topic until it is felt, then rest on that understanding without more thinking — and alternate the two.
- Begin where the lamrim begins: relying on a spiritual teacher, with care
Treat finding and learning from a qualified teacher as the root of the path — and take the time the texts themselves ask for to choose well.
- Contemplate the precious human life: the freedoms and advantages
Go through the conditions that make this life an opportunity — what you are free from and what you have — until you feel how rare and useful it is.
- Contemplate death and impermanence with the nine-point reflection
Reflect that death is certain, that its time is uncertain, and that at death only what you have cultivated helps — so that you stop postponing what matters.
- Reflect on karma: cause and effect in your own actions
Trace one recent action from its intention to its effects on others and on your own habits, and decide what you want to repeat and what to stop.
- Cultivate renunciation in the tradition’s sense: the determination to be free
See clearly that the pleasures of cyclic existence never finally satisfy, and let that turn into a wish for freedom — not into contempt for life.
- Set your motivation with the three scopes
Before a session, check honestly which scope you are practising from — this life, a good future, liberation, or awakening for all — and let it widen one step.
- Keep a daily lamrim rhythm: one topic in depth, the whole path at a glance
Work through the outline one topic at a time over weeks, while briefly reviewing the whole path each day so no stage is lost.
Related concepts
- Bodhicitta: The Awakening Mind and How It Is Cultivated
The intention at the heart of Mahāyāna Buddhism, and the classical ways Tibetan teachers train it
- The Six Pāramitās: How the Bodhisattva Trains
Six trainings, each aimed at one obstacle, and each made whole by wisdom
- Shamatha: The Buddhist Practice of Calm Abiding
Training the mind to rest: the nine stages and their modern neurological parallels
- Lojong: Tibetan Mind Training
The 59 slogans and their practical application to everyday adversity and compassion
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