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Overview of A Root Text on Gelug Kagyu Mahamudra

Session Two: Starting the Actual Meditation Practice
We have been looking at this text by the First Panchen Lama called A Root Text
for the Precious Gelug-Kagyu Tradition of Mahamudra, and we saw that after
his salutation verses, and his presentation of what the subject matter of this text
is going to be, and the lineage in which it comes from, the Panchen Lama starts
his discussion. And in the traditional manner he divides his presentation with
the preparatory practices, the actual methods, and the concluding procedures.
The preparatory practices are what we discussed yesterday, and we saw as
preparation we need to have a very strong taking of safe direction, of refuge,
and a very sincere bodhichitta aim. We want to be able to benefit everybody and
bring everybody to liberation and enlightenment. In order to do that we focus on
our not-yet-happening enlightenment, which nevertheless can happen on the
basis of our Buddha-natures and a great deal of hard work; and we aim to
achieve that to make that not-yet-happening enlightenment into a presently-
happening enlightenment with the intention to help others as much as possible
along the way, but to really fully help everybody as much as is actually possible
once we actually have achieved that goal.
In order to bring about the attainment of a presently-happening enlightenment
on our mental continuums we need to also as a preparation try to build up as
much as possible the two networks of positive force and deep awareness, and
purify ourselves as much as possible at this stage of our mental obstacles
and obscurations. And whats very important is to do these two processes of
building up the networks and purifying the obstacles with that safe direction
and bodhichitta motivation. That means having a very clear intention, setting
the motivation beforehand, before doing anything positive, and dedicating the
positive force of it afterwards.
This is because, if we think of our minds like a computer, then the default
setting for anything that we do is samsara. So if we do something positive, like
helping others, or even meditating, but we dont have a clear intention and
dedication toward either liberation or enlightenment, then all that it does is build
up good karma, positive karma for improving samsara. That means that we will
experience as a result happier, nicer situations in samsara, but with all the
problems and shortcomings that come from that the samsaric happiness never
lasts and it never is satisfying, we never can have enough.
Likewise, if we study and learn about voidness, and even meditate on it, without
the proper intention and dedication toward liberation or enlightenment, then
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likewise it will just contribute to improving samsara. We will be able to speak
cleverly about voidness, and it might help us in a psychotherapeutic sense to
minimize a little bit of some of the emotional problems that we face; but
nevertheless, its not going to get rid of them. We still are going to be stuck in
samsara.
Its very important to keep in mind that Buddhism is not about improving
samsara; Buddhism is not a form of psychotherapy. Buddhism is all about
gaining liberation or enlightenment. Thats very clear from Buddhas teachings
on the four noble truths it couldnt be more clear in terms of true stoppings
and true paths. Thats why Buddhism is actually quite difficult to follow
sincerely. Because in order to really follow it sincerely, we have to be very
convinced that liberation and enlightenment exist, theyre possible, and that we
can actually attain that.
Thats not so easy to understand. In fact, its not easy at all to even understand
what liberation or enlightenment mean. After all, only a Buddha can really
understand what it means to be a Buddha, so what hope do we have? But we
can get some sort of idea of what it might be like and on the basis of that
aim toward achieving it. But the more accurate an idea we have of liberation
and enlightenment, the more realistic our following of the path toward those
will be, and this depends very much on understanding and actually being able to
recognize in our own experience the nature of the mind.
If we speak about samsara, if we speak about liberation, if we speak about
enlightenment, all three situations are things that are experiences. We
experience them; theyre experiences in terms of mind. Theyre situations of the
mind and derivative from that will be situations of the body and speech.
Therefore, in order to really even from the early stages on aim for liberation
and enlightenment, we need to recognize at least and acknowledge the
importance of understanding the nature of the mind and being able to recognize
it and work with it.
And then, when we work on building up these networks of positive force and
deep awareness of voidness, we need to do that with the intention that the
positive force from that and the understanding from that act as a cause for our
achievement of liberation and if its only for that, if we only dedicate it for
that, thats all that it will contribute to. Or we have the intention and dedicate it
for enlightenment with bodhichitta, and then it will contribute to that.
Therefore if again we can use the analogy of a computer its as though there
are three folders on our hard drive in the mind. Theres the samsara folder;
theres the nirvana folder; and theres the enlightenment folder. And when
we are going to do some sort of positive thing or meditation, the intention is
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opening up one of those folders, and then the dedication is saving it in one of
those folders. And if we are not sure to open up the enlightenment folder and
save it in the enlightenment folder, the default setting is its going to go into the
samsara folder, and we dont want that to happen.
If it does happen, its not the most disastrous thing in the world, but all that its
going to do is improve our samsara. Most of us are not even aware that theres
anything other than the samsara folder. This is why we need to really start to
investigate and learn about the nature of the mind, because only when we do
that are we going to discover that actually there is a liberation and an
enlightenment folder. They might be pretty much empty now, but at least those
folders are there. But were only going to know that they are there if we start to
investigate and learn about the nature of the mind.
Also, if we can continue the analogy of a computer, although of course its not
an exact equivalent, but if we can continue that, then for most of us, our samsara
folder is so full that theres hardly any room for putting things into the liberation
or enlightenment folders. We have to do some purification, we have to clean out
a little bit from the samsara folder and actually, our samsara folder is mostly
filled with spam, complete garbage.
And even if we can manage to delete some of the spam, more and more
constantly is going to come in. With every spam-like thought that we have
and we seem to have that all day long, at least most of us it just keeps on
filling our samsara file with more and more junk, junk mail. But at least, if we
can clean out some of the spam with Vajrasattva meditation and so on
theres a little bit more space on the hard drive to throw some stuff into the
enlightenment folder.
This is the analogy that we can use here to understand this process of
purification. But its really only with the nonconceptual cognition of voidness
that were going to be able to actually delete the samsara folder. And actually,
its only when were able to stay with this nonconceptual cognition of voidness
all the time that we really delete the folder completely, not just throw it into the
trash can.
We also saw that in addition to all of these preparatory practices we need to
make very heartfelt requests to our root guru, the one that gives us the most
inspiration, so that we really open up fully; and then we imagine that the root
guru dissolves into us. And by doing this we in addition to the bodhichitta
motivation increase the intensity of the mind, so that it becomes a little bit
easier to be able to see the nature of the mind, because we have increased the
intensity of the mind, both as the object to observe and as the subject that is
observing it.
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Then, as for the actual basic methods, the First Panchen Lama points out that
There are many ways of asserting mahamudra, but we can speak of it
primarily in terms of two divisions of it, the sutra tradition and the tantra
tradition. When we speak about mahamudra in the tantra context, were
speaking about it in the context of the fourth or highest class of tantra practice,
anuttarayoga tantra and we need to bear in mind that its only the Kagyu and
Gelug traditions that assert that there are both sutra and tantra types of
mahamudra practice; according to the Sakya tradition theres only tantra
practice of mahamudra.
Now, as for the difference between these two divisions of mahamudra practice,
it has to do with which level of consciousness or mind were going to examine
and focus on in terms of its nature. In the anuttarayoga tantra teachings Ill
just call them tantra teachings for short there is a presentation of three levels
of mind: we can speak about the coarse level, the subtle level, and the subtlest
level.
The coarse level of mind, or awareness however we want to speak about it
is what is involved with sense cognition: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and
feeling physical sensations. The subtle level is dealing with our usual level of
mental consciousness, both conceptual and nonconceptual. When we speak
about the coarse level of sense cognition thats always nonconceptual.
By the way, just very briefly, when we speak about conceptual cognition, were
talking about cognition of something through a category; its usually a category.
A category could be looking at this object in terms of the category table, or
looking at this figure in front of me in terms of the category of human being
or a woman. These are categories concerning objects. We can also perceive
things or cognize things in terms of categories regarding qualities like good,
bad, red, black, etc.
Conceptual cognition can also be through the medium of what we would call a
concept, such as space or voidness but we wont go into that in detail, thats
rather complex but nonconceptual cognition is not through the medium of a
category, to say it just briefly. Also there are various levels of conceptual mind
we have personal concepts of things, and we have more general ones. More
general ones everybody would have, even animals, whereas more personal,
specific ones we might have only in terms of a particular human lifetime.
But in any case, the subtlest level of mind is what is known as the clear light
level, and this is the level which is more subtle than the course or subtle levels,
so it certainly is more subtle than our sense consciousness, our ordinary mental
consciousness, more subtle than any conceptual level. The various disturbing
emotions that we have can occur with either the coarse consciousness or the
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subtle consciousness; and the subtlest level is more subtle than that, so it is free,
naturally, of disturbing emotions.
And when we speak about appearances of true existence and grasping for
true existence, these are things which occur on these grosser levels. The gross
level and the subtle level make appearances of true existence, and the subtle
level, the conceptual level, grasps for that true existence, in other words,
believes it.
To put it in very simple terms, the grosser levels of mind make things appear in
an impossible way, like for instance the analogy that I often use is ping-
pong balls. It makes things appear as though theres a line around them, and
there they are, existing by themselves like a ping-pong ball, just there. Thats
the appearance-making of true existence. And then whats called grasping for
true existence is without getting too complicated with it actually is
believing that the way that things appear corresponds to the way that they
actually exist. So thats conceptual when you actually believe that.
Please bear in mind that Im explaining the Gelug position on this regarding the
Prasangika tenet system; there are different interpretations of this in the non-
Gelug schools. But in any case, everybody agrees that the clear light mind, the
subtlest level, is more subtle than these levels in which the appearance-making
and grasping for true existence occur it doesnt do that, everybody agrees
and this clear light level underlies every moment of our experience, of our
cognition of things, in all our lifetimes, during death time even, even during
enlightenment.
When we speak about this division between sutra and tantra mahamudra, sutra
mahamudra is a practice to identify and understand the nature of the two grosser
levels of mind, and the tantra practice of mahamudra is to try to recognize and
work with the nature of the subtlest, clear light level of mind. Obviously the
tantra one is much, much more difficult to do. The First Panchen Lama gives
the scriptural sources for these two traditions of mahamudra and then he says
that he will explain the sutra method.
The term which is used here for recognizing the mind, the word recognize is
an interesting word; its sometimes translated as introduce as well ngotro
(ngo-sprod) in Tibetan and actually it means to literally meet the face of the
mind. So, when we read in translation the guru or the lama introduces us to the
nature of our mind, we have to understand what that means. Its not saying,
Sasha, here is your mind, mind here is Sasha, and you exchange calling cards.
Rather, through the interaction with our root guru, and particularly because of
our openness and the inspiration that we receive from the root guru, then in an
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interaction with the teacher, that interaction can provide a circumstance if
weve built up a tremendous amount of positive force and deep awareness,
those networks and the purifying that will provide the circumstance for us to
then actually meet the face of the mind. In others words, we will be able to
see it and we would say in English at least recognize it.
Recognize is a funny word, because that tends to mean that youve seen it
before, and then you recognize it again, and fit it into the category of what we
had before. So thats not quite precise either. In dzogchen we have a
terminology speaking about how the mind doesnt recognize its own face, and
so we need to get to the subtlest level of mind its not quite exactly the same
as the subtlest level, but anyway rigpa, to be able to recognize its own face, to
see its own face. Now, in terms of meeting the face of our mind on these grosser
levels, again we have to identify what aspect of mind are we trying to see the
face of or well use the word recognize in a loose sense here.
We can speak about primary consciousness and subsidiary consciousness,
or mental factors is another way of translating that. The primary
consciousness if we can use an example of a chandelier here would be the
big light bulb in the middle of the chandelier, and the subsidiary awarenesses
are the little light bulbs around it. The little light bulbs only go on when the big
light bulb is on; they cant work by themselves, so thats why theyre
subsidiary to the primary one. When we call it mental factor, which is much
easier to say, we somehow can lose that sense of the fact that they really are
subsidiary to the primary thing they cant be there by themselves; thats clear
from the Tibetan and Sanskrit term.
What we want to be able to recognize is the nature of primary consciousness;
therefore we have to know what is the difference between primary
consciousness and subsidiary awareness. Primary consciousness is in the
Prasangika system of six types. There is eye consciousness, ear consciousness,
nose, taste/tongue, body consciousness which is consciousness of physical
sensations, not just feeling of a rough or smooth cloth, but also hot and cold,
and motion, any sort of physical sensation and then mental consciousness.
If we look at the Tibetan description of this, the primary consciousness and the
subsidiary awarenesses, first of all, all focus on the same object and they work
through the same cognitive sensors, like for instance the photosensitive cells of
the eyes, and theres a whole list of things that they share in common. When we
talk about sensors, were not talking about the gross organ of the eye, were
talking about the very tiny photosensitive cells within the eye thats actually
whats involved with cognition; or the sound-sensitive cells of the ears, were
talking about tiny little cells. Some people translate them as sense powers, but
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thats very inaccurate, because power is some sort of abstract thing; were
talking specifically about little cells.
But in any case, the primary consciousness is aware of just the I translate it as
essential nature (ngo-bo) of the object, which means what type of object is
it? Is it a sight? Is it a sound? Is it a smell? Is it a taste? Is it a tactile sensation?
Or is it a thought? And then the subsidiary awarenesses its a whole cluster of
them they focus on the same object and they assist the primary consciousness.
They do various technical functions like concentration, and interest, these type
of things also add emotional qualities to it compassion or anger and all the
subsidiary things that go together: distinguishing one object from another
object, distinguishing that an object is this and not that.
If again we go to the analogy of a computer, the primary consciousness is aware
of what kind of data is this? Is it audio data, is it music data, is it video data, is it
text data? And then the subsidiary awarenesses read that data. Obviously, the
primary consciousness is the main thing, because in a computer the data has to
be put into the right program, so that it can read the data correctly. You cant
just read data without putting it into the right program an audio program, a
video program, a text program. So the mind works in a similar fashion.
Because obviously, if we think in terms of the Western description of the mind
and brain, all the information is just electrical and chemical impulses, isnt it?
So we need to somehow be able to sort out, are these electrical impulses giving
us visual information or audio information, and so on. So this is what were
trying to recognize, is the primary consciousness, and we want to recognize
both its superficial or conventional nature, as well as its deepest, void nature.
This is not easy, not easy at all. We need to be able to recognize it in our own
experience, every moment, because actually this is going on all the time.
Therefore because it is so difficult to actually recognize, even though its just
right there its like our face is there all the time, but we cant see our face, can
we? Unless we have a mirror or something like that. Actually thats a very
interesting thing, what our face looks like although our face is there all the
time, we really dont stay aware at all of what our face is looking like, do we?
Unless were extremely vain and always looking in a mirror and make-up, and
so on. But its there all the time. Likewise, our mind is functioning all the time.
Now, the Panchen Lama mentions that there are various different traditions,
which are all intending for the same point to be able to recognize the
conventional and deepest nature of the mind and he lists a whole group of
different traditions that we find in the various Tibetan lineages. But the Panchen
Lama concludes with a very strong advocacy of nonsectarianism. He says,
Nevertheless, when scrutinized by a yogi, learned in scripture and logic and
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experienced (in meditation), their definitive meanings are all seen to come to
the same intended point.
Definitive meaning is literally the meaning that one is led to with the
teachings, the final point that youre led to. And what Buddha intended and all
the great masters intended with these various methods was that it comes to the
final point. The final point is everybody recognizes the same nature of the mind,
because we all have mind with the same nature and, on the basis of that, were
able to achieve enlightenment.
Then the Panchen Lama also mentions that within the sutra tradition there are
two methods of practice. The first is meditating on the mind, it says literally in
the text, in other words, trying to get single-minded concentration, or even
deeper than that, shamatha which is a stilled and settled state of mind
focused on the conventional nature of the mind, and then, after that, getting the
correct view of the voidness of a mind. And the other method is first getting at
least some level of a correct view of voidness, and then getting zhinay (zhi-
gnas, Skt. shamatha) on the basis of the conventional nature of the mind.
When we talk about either single-minded concentration or absorbed
concentration I like to translate it as that is a state of mind completely free of
mental dullness or flightiness of mind, mental agitation. When we speak about
shamatha, the stilled and settled state of mind Ill just use the Sanskrit word
shamatha, its easier then in addition to that absorbed concentration we have
a mental factor which is called a sense of fitness.
Its an exhilarating feeling of both physical and mental factor that makes you
feel fit, that you can concentrate for as long as you want, on anything you want,
your body can sit without moving for as long as you want, etc. If that is added
to this absorbed concentration, thats shamatha. Since you know Tibetan, were
talking about the term shinjang (shin-sbyangs), and its described as laysu-
rungwa (las-su rung-ba), suitable to doing work shinjang super-trained,
literally.
We should point out that since very often we have misconceptions about this
that we have many cognitions simultaneously. After all, when were with
somebody, we can both see them and hear them at the same time, cant we? So
when we have absorbed concentration in meditation on some object, and even
when we have shamatha on that object, that doesnt mean that we dont also see
the wall in front of us. We do see the wall in front of us. Other cognitions are
occurring at the same time. Its just that theres no mental wandering toward
that, you dont pay attention to it.
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Now, vipashyana is an extremely perceptive state of mind, literally, and this
is only possible on the basis of shamatha. You cant have vipashyana by itself;
if its vipashyana, its combined shamatha and vipashyana, if you want to speak
about it in a technical way. What vipashyana does is it adds on top of shamatha
a second sense of fitness, which is not just the sense of fitness that you can
concentrate on anything, but the sense of fitness that you can analyze and
understand anything.
Well, I should also add that we can gain shamatha and/or vipashyana on a wide,
wide variety of objects. Vipashyana is not just gained in terms of the
understanding of voidness, but here were talking about gaining vipashyana on
the basis of a correct view of voidness. So when it says, First we gain
shamatha on the conventional nature of mind and then you gain the correct view
of voidness, first of all, we could gain not only shamatha, but we could gain
even vipashyana on the conventional nature of the mind.
We can gain both shamatha and vipashyana on the conventional nature of the
mind, and we can gain both shamatha and vipashyana on the voidness of the
mind. So we have to not get confused here about what the Panchen Lama is
talking about. Were talking about just trying to understand voidness, and the
voidness specifically of the mind, and were talking about gaining shamatha on
the conventional nature of the mind. Even if we work on trying to gain the
understanding of voidness first, and then get shamatha on the nature of the
mind, still we wouldnt get vipashyana on the nature of the mind till after weve
gotten shamatha.
Even if we do the second method of gaining the understanding of voidness first,
and then second, gain shamatha on the nature of the mind here specifically the
conventional nature of the mind that doesnt mean that when we gain that
initial understanding of voidness, that weve gained vipashyana on the deepest
nature of the mind. So actually what were talking about is a logical debate in
terms of: what in the world is he differentiating here in the text? And I think that
the main point is: how deeply are we going to try to understand the voidness of
the mind, and at which stage are we going to do that in our practice?
Now, we can work beforehand on the understanding of voidness in general the
voidness of a person, the voidness of the table we could also work initially on
understanding the voidness of the conventional nature of the mind, just based on
knowing the definition of the conventional nature of the mind. However, thats
quite different from actually being able to focus on that conventional nature of
the mind perfectly, and then applying our understanding of voidness to that
object, that conventional nature of the mind.
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Theres a difference between let me just say that again between applying an
understanding of voidness to some concept that we have of the conventional
nature of the mind and applying it to the actual conventional nature of the mind
that were actually focused on perfectly. So, the method that the Panchen Lama
is going to explain here is: first recognizing the conventional nature of the mind,
gaining shamatha on that, and then on that basis trying to understand and focus
on the voidness of that conventional nature of the mind whether or not you
have vipashyana on the conventional nature of the mind or not is irrelevant.
It doesnt mean that we have absolutely no understanding or even familiarity
with voidness before we gain shamatha. I dont know of anybody who would do
that in actual practice, because most of us would have had a broad array of
teachings, as least basic lam-rim that covers all the topics in general. However,
in writing a text, you can only explain one at a time, and so here it gives the
impression that we dont work at all with voidness until we gain shamatha. But
in actual practice hardly anybody would do that, since its very difficult to
achieve shamatha.
However, to understand the voidness of an object we really need to be able to
focus on that object in a very stable way, otherwise its difficult to apply that
understanding of voidness to that object. Thats why the emphasis here is on
gaining at least some sort of mental stability on focusing on the conventional
nature of the mind before understanding the voidness of it.
The Panchen Lama continues now with his actual description, and he first
describes the proper seat to sit on for gaining mental stability (bsam-gtan), he
calls it here, and then sitting on that seat with the proper posture. The seat
without going into all the details what is usually important on a meditation
seat is that the back be slightly raised from the front, so that if we have
something underneath our behind, and our knees are a little bit lower, your legs
dont fall asleep so easily this is particularly helpful when we are sitting in the
full posture, which entails whats known in the Hindu yoga systems as the full
lotus position. So if we do have that problem of our legs falling asleep while
were meditating, then we can try putting a cushion underneath our behind.
And the posture I imagine that most of you are familiar with its called the
seven-fold posture of Vairochana. So (1) our legs are crossed. In the Buddhist
tradition its known as the vajra position; as I said, in hatha yoga its called the
full lotus position. And obviously, for many of us thats not so easy to do,
therefore we need to train ourselves very slowly over quite a period of time for
our legs to become flexible enough to be able to sit in that posture. If were
unable to sit that way, then the half lotus or just our legs crossed will do, and if
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we cant sit cross-legged at all, thats rather unfortunate, but in any case, we
could still try to do the meditation just sitting in a chair.
The main point of the posture is to get the energies flowing in the body in as
smooth and harmonious a way as possible. The amount of conceptual thought
and wild thoughts that we have is proportionate to the wildness, lets say, of
the way in which the energy is flowing in the body. When we talk about mind,
were speaking about an awareness of something, and theres a certain energy
associated with that. So depending on how the energy is flowing in the body,
likewise our awareness will be similar. If were very nervous, we tend to have
very worried thoughts for example, and if the energy of the body is calm, then
the mind tends to be calm. So this posture is to optimize at least from the
physical side the smoothness of the flow of energy in the body.
(2) The hands are on the upturned feet, with the left hand beneath the right, and
the thumbs touching, forming a triangle near the navel. Now, the hands should
rest on your feet, not hold them up in the air. If you hold them up in the air, the
muscles of your arms are tense and so thats not a very relaxed posture. (3) Our
spine and our back needs to be perfectly straight; thats the most important
aspect of the whole posture. So even if were sitting in a chair, sit up straight.
(4) The lips need to be relaxed and the teeth not clenched tight, and the tongue
needs to touch, just gently touch, the upper palate the part of the mouth thats
above where the upper teeth are. That helps to retain saliva, so that the mouth
doesnt become dry, and it also prevents us from drooling. If theres excessive
saliva forming in our mouth, we can swallow, but this position of the tongue
should minimize the salivation. Obviously, if we have to swallow all the time,
that affects our concentration.
(5) The head should be bent slightly forward and down not all the way
touching our chest, and not up a little bit down. If its too low, we tend to get
dizzy; if its too high, we tend to get distracted. (6) The eyes are half-open,
focused loosely in the direction of the tip of the nose. That doesnt mean cross-
eyed; it just means basically looking down toward the floor, and just loosely
focused.
In the Tibetan tradition, were not encouraged to meditate with our eyes closed,
although in some other Buddhist traditions people do meditate with the eyes
closed. If our eyes are closed when we meditate, theres the danger of easily
falling asleep. His Holiness points out that if your eyes are closed, you tend to
see sort of flashing little dots of light, and that can be very distracting. In other
words, its easier to not pay attention to the floor in front of you if your eyes are
half-open, than to these little flashing lights that one tends to see when the eyes
are closed.
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Also, my own idea I havent seen this in any text is that if were practicing
as Mahayana practitioners, then if we close our eyes in order to meditate, that
builds up a certain tendency of dissociating from everybody around us in order
to meditate. And that can make an obstacle in terms of applying our meditation
in a Mahayana way to situations in which were actually helping others.
In dzogchen meditation where similarly were trying to recognize the nature
of the mind one is recommended to have the eyes be very intensely focused,
although not necessarily observing the floor in front of you, as if youre looking
for your contact lens, if you dropped them, but the eyes should be strongly
intense. But here in the mahamudra practice that doesnt seem to be indicated.
(7) The shoulders need to be straight back, and even at the same level with
each other and the elbows slightly bent, leaving a small space between the
body and arms. And if we add the breathing here, then the breathing needs to be
quite natural through the nose, quietly, not forcefully, with the in-breath the
same length as the out-breath, neither of them too deep or too shallow, and
without holding the breath.
Then once were sitting in the proper position on the proper seat the
Panchen Lama says that we need to clear ourselves purely with a round of the
nine tastes of breath. This is a type of breathing practice which helps to, in a
sense, clear out a little bit of our disturbing states of mind. Now, there are
several ways of practicing these nine rounds. We can do this, by the way, before
any type of meditation and its helpful, and it can be done with or without
visualization of the energy channels in the body.
We can visualize the energy channels whether or not weve received an
initiation but only if weve received an initiation can we visualize ourselves as
a Buddha-figure while doing this, lets say as Yamantaka, or Chenrezig, one of
these, Kalachakra...
So, if we are visualizing the energy channels, then we are basically visualizing
three channels. We have the central channel... there are several ways of doing
this, but we can have it go from our nose, basically, over the top of our head,
and then down by the spine, and it ends a little bit below the navel, four finger-
widths below the navel it says. But actually, if we want to be more precise, it
ends at the middle of the brow and not actually at the nostrils, and its white on
the outside and red on the inside.
Now obviously, if we get too caught up in the visualizations here, that could be
an obstacle, so this is why they say it can be either with visualization or without
visualization. Then the right channel that [central] channel is the thickness of
a medium-sized bamboo, it says, so thats maybe a couple of centimeters wide,
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maybe the size of a small finger of a small person then; the right and the left
channels are thinner, and the right one is red, the left one is white, and its the
thickness, they say, of a stalk of wheat, so its pretty thin.
And its the right and left channels which go a little bit further down beneath the
navel, and they come up and these are the ones that go out the nostrils. I find the
red and the white a little bit easy to remember, at least in English or in German,
because right and red both start with r. I dont know about in Russian, but its
helpful to have some sort of mnemonic device, otherwise its very easy to get
this confused figure out little tricks for helping to remember these sort of
visualizations, thats helpful.
Now were doing nine rounds of breathing divided into three groups of three.
The first three are in the right nostril and out the left, and we imagine now that
the right energy channel is inserted into the bottom end of the left six finger-
widths beneath the navel. The central one ended four, these end six beneath the
navel. What we do is: you hold your left nostril closed with the fourth finger of
the left hand, and you breathe in slowly through the right nostril, and then with
the right hand you hold the right nostril closed with the fourth finger and
breathe out through the left nostril. So you do that three times.
Although actually I find it a little bit easier to just use the same hand for closing
each of the nostrils rather than switching hands; its a little bit distracting having
the hands move all the time, so this is a little bit easier. Anyway, the actual
instructions is you shut the left nostril with the left hand and you shut the right
nostril with the right hand. So, breathe in the right out the left three times; then
in the left and out the right three times; and then with your hands back down
in your lap in both nostrils and out both nostrils three times. We breathe
slowly, but without holding the breath.
When were doing the visualization, then when we breathe in the right and out
the left, we imagine the lower end of the right is stuck into the lower end of the
left and what were clearing out from the left channel is the energy wind of the
disturbing emotion of longing desire; and when we breathe in the left and out
the right, then the channels are reversed, the left one is into the right one, and
we breathe out the energy that was blocked in the right channel, which is of
anger.
So, three times for getting the blocked energy of desire out of the left, and three
times for getting the blocked energy of anger out of the right channel. And then
you imagine the lower ends of the two channels are both curved up and sticking
into the bottom end of the central channel now, and when we breathe in through
both nostrils, we imagine that the air comes into the central channel and it
expels as we breathe out the blocked energy of naivety.
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And that leaves us at the end of the central channel, which is of the middle of
our brow; and when we breathe in, we imagine that we breathe in white light,
and when we breathe out the blocked energy, literally it says that we visualize it
as black light, which of course... light cant be black, but at least dark. Now, this
is a rather complicated visualization, and it can be quite distracting if were not
familiar with visualization, and it could make us even more nervous and upset
trying to get the visualization correct than it is worthwhile.
The important thing here is not the visualization. So, unless we are already
fairly well-trained with visualization and it comes very easy to us, I would
recommend forget about the visualization at the beginning and just do the nine
rounds without worrying about the color and the size of the channels and this
sort of stuff. But obviously, if we are able to do the visualization, then it is a
stronger practice.
OK? So, why dont we try this? And I will lead it, since we might not remember
how to do it yet. Usually when we sit down to do meditation, I must say that the
first instant that you sit down to start doing this might be a bit too much, so it is
often helpful to just sit for a few moments until we settle down just focusing on
the breath coming in and out, but for not too long, just for a few moments, just
so that we settle.
We start with closing the left nostril with our left hand, the fourth finger, and we
breathe slowly through the right nostril; and then switching hands we
breathe out the left nostril; and were going to do that three times without
holding the breath.
Actually, although its not really described very thoroughly, or at least I havent
seen it described, again, I find it very distracting if you have to lift your hands
up and down, up and down six times, and so if were going to do it with both
hands, then it seems to be easier to leave both hands up; if not, just do it with
one hand. After all, this is intended to help us to quiet down and relax, so you
dont want to be too busy doing this, it defeats the purpose.
OK, so having done in the right and out of the left, then use the right hand to
block the right nostril in the left and out the right three times. And breathe
slowly, not quickly, not to fill yourself fully with the breath; and then we put
our hands back down in the meditation posture and breathe slowly through both
nostrils and then out both nostrils.
Those are the nine rounds of breath in the right, out of the left and in the
left, out the right and then in both and out both nostrils; first get rid of the
blocked energy of desire, then of anger, then of naivety. Then, once weve
completed that, those nine rounds or nine tastes of breath, literally then
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the instructions say: dont repeat it, only do it once. If we still have gross mental
wandering, then we would follow another method.
We breathe in and out both nostrils silently, not forcefully, with the in-breath
the same length as the out-breath, and we count each round of breath up to
twenty-one. And there are many variations on this, it could go up to eleven, it
could be up to seven, it could be up to twenty-one here Geshe Dhargyey
explained it as twenty-one. Because if we have to focus on both the breath and
keeping count of the breath, then that leaves not very much room for other
thoughts. The point is to quiet down before we start our meditation.
Also, when we are trying to gain shamatha, its very important to try to get the
conducive place for doing this, and theres all sorts of instructions about what
would be a proper place for doing retreat. It would be very difficult to gain
shamatha if we were not in a retreat situation, because we want to be able to
focus totally on just the meditation. But that doesnt mean that we cant
meditate outside of a retreat situation, but to minimize distraction its best to
meditate either very early in the morning when we first get up, before weve
actually gotten involved in the activities of the day, or at night, after weve
finished the activities of the day. But not right in the middle of the day when
youre just taking a break from your activities: theres too much distraction
thinking about what your daily activities are. Some people are more alert in the
mornings, some people are more alert at night we have to judge for ourselves
when is the best time for us to meditate. Ideally, we should be able to meditate
both times. Also its best to meditate not immediately after eating, because right
after we eat we tend to be get dull.
Then, after we have quieted down with these breathing meditations, we do the
preparatory practices as has been discussed already, of course starting with safe
direction or refuge, and bodhichitta. There are verses that we can recite for this,
but its very easy to get into the habit of reciting a verse and its just blah, blah,
blah, especially if its in a language that we dont understand. But even if its
in a language we do understand, it still is very easy for it to just be blah, blah,
blah, and have no feeling at all. Therefore it is important to really try to
generate some sincere feeling of actually putting this direction in our life, of
actually aiming with bodhichitta to reach enlightenment for the benefit of
everyone.
Now, how to do this? This is not so easy for many of us, particularly when we
have a limited time for meditation, because we are busy; we have a busy
schedule; we dont want to be late for work. But it is more worthwhile to
actually get that strong sense of refuge or safe direction and bodhichitta than it
is to meditate without that at all. In other words, having that strong intention,
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having that strong direction in mind, having that strong motivation, even a little
bit of meditation is very helpful; it works. Its effective toward enlightenment.
Without having any of that and just meditating for a long time, that will just go
into the samsara folder.
One of my students uses a method, which I dont know if he was actually taught
by some lama this method or whether he made it up himself, but it seems to be
quite helpful. He had gone on pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya and found it very, very
inspiring. In Bodh Gaya, you have this huge stupa and the bodhi tree at least
something that grew from the previous bodhi tree under which Buddha became
enlightened. So its a very inspiring, very moving place, a tremendous energy
there. And he imagines being there in Bodh Gaya when he sits down and
meditates, and he imagines circumambulating the stupa and sitting before the
tree and, in this way, then taking very sincere refuge and developing
bodhichitta, because visualizing this type of situation helps to bring on this
strong feeling more sincerely.
Now, we do have similar practices that are taught traditionally, in which we
imagine that we are in a pure land and we are sitting in front of the tree of
assembled gurus and the Buddha and all this sort of thing very, very
complicated visualization and in that context we take refuge and develop
bodhichitta. So there is this practice. But, again, if we have a very complicated
visualization, then we can get very uptight trying to visualize it, and spend all
our effort in trying to get the visualization accurate and clear, and very little
time on actually developing the motivation.
So, what my student does is instead of trying to visualize a Buddha-field and a
pure land and these complicated trees and stuff like that, he uses something that
hes actually experienced, which is Bodh Gaya and the tree there. Mind you, he
doesnt visualize all the beggars and lepers and the pigs and shit and stuff in the
fields, but just in an ideal way. I dont think there are mosquitoes in a Buddha
pure land. But, in any case, he uses something which is much more real to him
and much more inspiring than some sort of ideal visualization thats just too
difficult to do; and this can be very effective.
And we visualize our spiritual teacher, our root guru. Usually were always
supposed to be visualizing him or her in the form of either Buddha Shakyamuni
or some sort of Buddha-figure, but Serkong Rinpoche advised that in doing, for
instance, the Kalachakra guru-yoga practice, if its difficult for us to visualize
His Holiness the Dalai Lama as Kalachakra if weve received the initiation
from His Holiness then we can just visualize His Holiness in his usual form,
but in an ideal form, not having a cold or anything like that.
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And we actually find this type of practice in the Shangpa Kagyu tradition, in
which unlike in the Gelug tradition, or in Karma Kagyu, or Nyingma, or
Sakya when it instructs us to visualize the guru for guru-yoga, you visualize in
the actual form of the guru, not as a Buddha-figure. So there is this tradition.
And it can be much more effective in moving our hearts; the whole point is to
move your feeling, get some inspiration.
Imagining that were in a pure land, by the way, is helpful, whether we have
some who knows what type of vision we have of what a pure land looks like,
but whether its like something painted on a thangka, or whether its an ideal
vision of Bodh Gaya, the point is that its in a situation in which everything is
conducive for intense meditation, which means that when were meditating, we
forget about the traffic noise outside or the dirty wall, or whatever it might be
and just imagine that everything is conducive. One of the biggest distractions
in meditation can be complaining, I wish I could be in another place, and it
wasnt so noisy, and there wasnt this smell, and so on. Thats a big distraction,
so we just sort of dismiss that and imagine, Everything is cool; everything is
fine.
Also what is very helpful and important and emphasized as a preparation not
here, but in other contexts is that before we meditate, we actually clean our
meditation room and make some offerings, at least water bowls. If we sweep the
floor and have everything in order around us not our dirty underwear on the
floor, but everything neat and orderly then that affects the mind as well. The
mind will be more neat and orderly. If theres chaos around us, that affects the
mind.
Also by cleaning the room at least just sweeping the floor and picking up
everything and having some water bowls arranged in front of some either
picture or painting or statue of a Buddha, were showing respect to what were
doing, and that also is very important.
And with a visualization of our guru in front of us, we take refuge, have a safe
direction, bodhichitta. For building up the two networks and the purification we
usually do, the simplest thing would be the seven-part practice; and then
requests to the guru, the guru comes to the top of your head and dissolves into
you.
We have a few more minutes left according to my watch, which is probably
slow, but in any case, if you have some questions.
Question: Should we view shamatha as just like a tool, like binoculars, with
which we can view any kind of object? Because you were saying shamatha with
respect to the absolute nature like emptiness of the mind, and shamatha with
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respect to the conventional nature. So in this context should we view shamatha
just as binoculars, which is taken to view something?
Answer: To just repeat, in case that didnt get on the recording, Do we view
shamatha just as binoculars, as a tool to enable us to then stay with perfect
concentration on the nature of the mind? Yes. That is so. Both shamatha and
vipashyana are not necessarily Buddhist practices; both of them are found in
non-Buddhist practices, and particularly in India. What makes them a Buddhist
practice is if theyre done in the context of safe direction or refuge. And it
makes them Mahayana practice if its done as a method for helping us reach
enlightenment with a motivation of bodhichitta.
So, shamatha is merely a tool not an end in itself that we can use then for
staying totally focused with this sense of fitness on any object that would
help us on the way to liberation or enlightenment, here particularly the
conventional and deepest nature of the mind. And vipashyana is also just a tool
that we have in addition to the shamatha that the mind is totally fit to be able
to discern and understand everything in all its details, here particularly the
nature of the mind, the conventional and deepest nature.
There are many, many things in Buddhism, which are not specifically Buddhist,
but which we find in common with so many other Indian traditions, and even
with non-Indian traditions, like aiming for a better rebirth, thats certainly not
Buddhist. What makes things distinctively Buddhist and very important
always to emphasize, and the Panchen Lama does it here in the text is refuge
and bodhichitta bodhichitta making it Mahayana.
So, lets end here.