This is an extract from a brilliant teaching by the venerable Mingyur Rinpoche that is worth reading. Please read slowly and digest because the teachings are detailed. It will give you a very clear understanding of what meditation truly is.
The Very Venerable Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Meditation and Non-meditation Part 11
Meditation and Non-meditation Part 11
Halifax Shambhala Centre, Nova Scotia Canada, January 28, 2004
Translator: Tyler Dewar Transcriber: Barbara Blouin
Editor: Judith Smith
Shamatha
Good evening, everyone.Tonight we will continue discussing shamatha [Skt.], or calm-abiding meditation. Shamatha is the first type of meditation we engage in when we embark on the path of meditation. As we discussed yesterday, in Tibetan,shamatha is translated as shi-ne ( Zhi gnas). The first syllable, shi, means to pacify - meaning to pacify the mind over which we have no control or freedom - this wild mind that behaves like a crazy monkey, creating problems where there are no problems. This monkey-like mind that we have is ordinarily present with us throughout our day-to-day lives. It is good if we recognize this monkey-like, very wild mind. The worst situation to be in is not even knowing that the mind is behaving like a monkey. If we do not recognize this monkey-like mind, then the phenomenon of creating problems where there are no problems, and creating tasks where there are no tasks, becomes greater and greater. How is it that this wild mind causes problems for us? It causes problems through fixation and being too tight. We could use the example of looking at our face in a mirror. There is nothing wrong with our face to begin with but, because of our tight fixation, we end up making problems with our face, looking for and creating faults. That type of fixation causes greater and greater suffering.
There are three levels to this fixation: coarse, subtle and very subtle fixation. In meditation we begin to work with the coarse level of fixation first.
The syllable ne ( gnas) in shi-ne means "to abide" or "to rest" - to gain freedom or self-control over our mind.
The method we use to gain such freedom is to rest our mind in its own nature by way of mindfulness. If we are able to practice a mindfulness that is harmonious with the nature of our mind, then we will eventually gain control over our mind.
Shamatha Without Object
In terms of resting the mind naturally, I spoke last night about "shamatha without object" or "shamatha without attributes." During this type of shamatha, we relax our body and we relax our mind in its natural state, just as if we were relaxing after having done two hours of exercise, or having done a very hard job. We tire ourselves out, and then we relax completely. That is how we rest in this first type of shamatha. Shamatha without object is so easy that we don't trust it, and so for beginners we need something that is a little bit difficult - the practice of shamatha with object. Whether we're practicing shamatha with object or shamatha without object, we should simply have the attitude that we are going to try our best. We don't have to hold our mind tightly thinking, "It is absolutely not okay if I do not have a good meditation session." Relaxation We should think: "If my meditation is good, let it be good. If my meditation is bad, let it be bad. If it is mistaken, let it be mistaken. If it is correct, let it be correct. If I am to be reborn in hell, let me go to hell. If I'm to be reborn in a Pure Land, let me be go to a Pure Land." The time of meditation is precisely this state of being free from cares. We shouldn't be that carefree in our post-meditation stage, but when we meditate, we should definitely be as carefree as that.
Once when I was travelling from Delhi to the West, I met up with a Western person in the Delhi airport.
The Westerner asked "Do you meditate?"
And I said, "Yes, I do."
I returned the question, "Do you meditate too?" and he said, "Meditation is too hard for me. As soon as I meditate, about ten minutes pass, I start to feel dizzy, and like I'm about to vomit" [laughter].
Then I said, "If it is like that for you, then it must be a sign that you are not relaxing enough. So you need to relax more."
He said, "Forget about that! The more I relax, the worse I get. The more I relax, the more dizzy I get."
I asked him, "Do you have a meditation teacher?" He said, "No, I'm reading everything from books."
I said, "Well, sit down here and meditate, and I'll watch you." The Westerner said, "Very good, I will."
So he sat down on a chair and started meditating. [Rinpoche mimicked the person meditating - people laughed for a long time.]
He was just like that, with his body shaking and his eyes really tense and his lips pursed. I said, "Okay, that was okay. Now I'll meditate, and you watch me."
He said, "Good idea," and I sat down.
The Westerner looked me up and down, head to feet, and then back up to the top of my head again.
After a few minutes the Westerner said, "You're just sitting there!"
I replied to him, "Meditation is pretty much just sitting. It is just resting with your mind in whatever its nature is."
Then some announcements were made over the P.A. system in the airport, and that meant both us had to leave for our respective gates. The first leg of my flight from Delhi landed in Frankfurt. I got off the plane and went into the Frankfurt airport, and saw the same Westerner getting out of his plane.
He approached me and said, "I was just sitting on my plane ride just like you were doing in Delhi, and I didn't get dizzy. So I think you have the right method. I think I got something from it."
Meditation is just sitting, just relaxing with our mind, with whatever nature it has. Our mind has a nature that we cannot label saying it is this or it is that. But at the same time, its nature is relaxed.
Meditation With Taste and Smell
In terms of shamatha with object, we discussed last night about meditating using forms and sounds as objects of meditation. We will continue with that explanation, starting off with smells, using whatever smells that are occurring as a support for our meditation - pleasant smells and unpleasant smells. Perfume, incense - whatever it is. It is the same as forms and sounds. We can look at whatever forms are in front of us, and when we are using sounds, we listen to whatever sound is resounding at the time. Smells are something that are perceived by our nose, and when we do shamatha with smells, we simply guide our mind to perceive the smells as well - we look at the smells with our mind, but that is all. We do not need to visualize smells, or try to meditate on the smell in any special way. We simply bring our attention to the smell, with our mind being aware of the smell.
It is the same with taste. We can take any taste as our object of our meditation - sweet, sour, bitter, spicy - whatever it is. When we eat food, our tongue faculty perceives the taste. In order to practice meditation, we merely bring our attention to it and have our mind merely notice the taste. That is all.
If you go into a retreat sometime, you should prepare very nice food for your meals. If your dharma friends ask you why you are putting so much effort into your food on retreat, that you should be spending most of your time practicing, you can just tell them, "That is my meditation. I just eat tasty food."
If your friends then ask, "How is it going to help you to just eat food all day long in retreat," you can simply say, "That is my practice" [laughter]. Just joking!
Meditation With Sensations
The fifth meditation is tangible objects or tactile sensations. From among all the five senses, the tactile sensations are the best to use with meditation. Tactile sensations include headaches, backaches, leg pains, knee pains - everything like that. Being hot, cold, hungry, overstuffed, thirsty; having a toothache, being dizzy, feeling heavy - all of these are tactile sensations.
When we have a strong toothache, our mind helplessly becomes focused constantly on it. We do not have any control over it. If we try to eat a tasty meal, our mind doe not pay much attention to that; it is on our toothache. If we try to go out for a walk or try to play some sports, to refresh ourselves, or go out to watch a movie, that doesn't help too much because all we can think about is our toothache.
What is the main helper for this toothache all along? It is our own mind, thinking, "This toothache is terrible, this toothache is hurting me. When will I be free from this toothache?" Here we have hope and fear both: fear of the toothache harming us and hope for the toothache going away. These continuous thoughts in our mind make the toothache stronger and then the pain gets greater and greater. But if we bring this toothache to our shamatha meditation practice, we can place our attention on the pain. Where is this pain happening? The pain is a feeling experienced in our mind. We do not look at the tooth itself; we look at the pain that we are experiencing in our brain.
If we look directly at the pain in this way, we will genuinely experience nondistraction. Usually our mind is naturally distracted by the pain. So if we intentionally direct our attention toward the pain, there already will be a strong support for nondistraction. When we place our attention on the pain one-pointedly in this way, the pain does not go away but it will be a different pain than before. There will be a vivid sense of pain and, at the same time, a vivid sense of well-being and of joy. Thoughts like, "This pain is bad. I need to be free from this pain, I wish this pain would go away" will dissolve. So this is a very good opportunity to both improve our practice of mindfulness, and to help ourselves because we are not increasing our own pain.
We will do this practice together using tactile sensations - sore legs, sore backs or sore bums from sitting on the cushions. If you do not have any particular tactile sensation, you could create one.
Squeeze your hand in between your thumb and your index finger. Chinese doctors say that this helps headaches and stomach aches, so you should squeeze hard enough so that it hurts. The pain that you are creating is a feeling and so it exists in the mind. Look at that feeling one pointedly. Do not be distracted from that feeling, that sensation. We will meditate like this together now.
First, sit in meditation posture, with your mind relaxed, and do shamatha without object for a little while. Then create a tactile sensation and look at it. Sit with your mind relaxed. [All meditate together.]
Meditation With Thoughts
If you understand this meditation-without-object technique, you will attain Buddhahood very quickly. Maybe in two or three days [laughter]. It is a very profound meditation but there is nothing special about it.
Our biggest obstacle in meditation is the movement of thoughts - thoughts of desire, aggression, ignorance, jealousy and so on. There are all kinds of movement in our minds - we usually think of these thoughts as getting in the way of our meditation and harming or destroying our meditation.
But if we understand the key points of meditation, then those very thoughts actually will be support for our meditation and will not harm our meditation at all. It is the same as how forms become support for our meditation.
Thoughts are any type of thought: negative thoughts of mental afflictions - desire, jealousy, anger and things like that; positive thoughts about helping others or thoughts of love; neutral thoughts, like "I want to eat" or "I want to stay here" or "I want to go for a trip around Halifax" or something like that.
Any of these thoughts can become a support for our meditation simply by looking at our thoughts. It is just like looking at forms and listening to sounds. When we meditated on tactile sensations and brought sound into our meditation, they became supports for our nondistraction. They helped us to maintain undistracted mindfulness. In the very same way when we look at our thoughts, they help us to be undistracted in our meditation.
There are two different basic states that our minds could be in: stillness and movement. There is no third category for beginners on the path of meditation; there is no state of mind they could experience that is not stillness or movement. The technique of using thoughts as the support for our meditation relates with the state of mind when it is moving.
So it is important to know that we do not have to look at one thought alone, we simply look at whatever thoughts are arising. For example, thoughts are like this rosary or mala - one thought comes after the other after the other after the other after the other. Our mind usually operates like that, but when we do not look at thoughts, we are not aware of the process. We should look at them now.
Mindfulness is like my right hand, and the thoughts are like the mala. The mala is being pulled, bead-by-bead, by the right hand. In the same way, we look with our mindfulness at all of our thoughts. So our thoughts will not remain occupied with one thought because our minds are like wild monkeys. We will be filled with thoughts. We'll be thinking, "I need to eat something, I need to drink something, I need to go here and do this, and I need to stay here and do that," and that is absolutely fine. We can just observe all of it.
As we look at our thoughts in this way, even a hundred thousand thoughts, that means you have a hundred thousand supports for meditation. That is very good. The thoughts themselves become a support for holding our mind. [Brief meditation.]
Questions
Question: Rinpoche, is it necessary to label your thoughts, or is awareness simply looking at a movement or hearing a sound?
Rinpoche: The most important point about it is recognizing that we are having a thought. But it is fine to use a label as a technique for doing that, because our mind does not work without labels. The entire work of this mind, the sixth consciousness, the mental consciousness that we are working with, is to join words and meanings, join words and the things to which they refer and cling to them as being the same thing. So to use the label would be fine, because that is how this mind operates. When we work with shamatha with object, there is a subject and an object, a viewer and viewed, a sense of duality, so the labelling process is fine. The looker/viewer is mindfulness, and the object being looked at is our thoughts. There is a quote from a Buddhist text that says, "Through relying on focus, the state of nonfocus excellently arises," and that is what is being pointed to here.
Q: I noticed yesterday with the practice we did looking at a small object, that the mind would see the object, and then it would sort of fade out, like bad reception on a TV set, and come back in. Today, when doing the sort of physical negative-pain practice, the same quality would happen: even though you wouldn't like the pain, the mind would fade out and come back in the same way. Then when doing the thought-watching practice, the contrast wasn't as sharp. So that when there was sight, versus sort of foggy sight, going back and forth, and pain ...
Translator: Did the thoughts get replaced by sense perceptions?
Q: Yes.
Rinpoche: It is fine if the thoughts get replaced by a sense perception. When we are working with this mental consciousness, our main object is whatever appears to the mental consciousness. Usually in a special sense, what appears to mental consciousness are thoughts, but of course our mental consciousness can also focus on any of the five sense perceptions. If we are not having thoughts, but what is appearing more clearly is a form or a sound, then that is fine - we can focus on that.
Q: Does the practice mean that you just indulge in thoughts with the mindfulness? For me, it was more that you produce more and more thoughts and just stay with the train of the thoughts, and actually the more they come up, the better that is?
Rinpoche: The technique that we are practicing now is not about producing thoughts or creating thoughts, but rather looking at thoughts if they arise, recognizing that thoughts have arisen. This recognition is mindfulness. It is looking at what is happening in the mind, what the mind is thinking. "Oh, it's thinking about my house now. Oh, it's thinking about the city now," and so on.
Q: So, is it that when there are not so many thoughts you are more into the sense perceptions, or what you said before?
Rinpoche [laughs]: We'll discuss a little later what you do when there are no thoughts,
Q: Thank you.
Q: When I was trying to relax my mind during meditation, that's when I would be thinking a lot of thoughts. And when I was trying just to think thoughts, I didn't really have any thoughts [laughter].
Rinpoche [laughs]: Okay. We'll talk about that later too [laughter].
Q: Earlier when you were talking about meditation, the first translation came that it is a way to "control the mind," and then it changed to "hold the mind." The transmission that most of us received from Trungpa Rinpoche was that controlling the mind was the problem, and he very much encouraged us to allow space for things to arise and dissolve. So I just want to clarify what you mean - could you comment on controlling the mind or holding the mind?
Rinpoche: With respect to the choice of words there, "control" has more of a sense of fabrication than "hold" does, a sense of contrivance to it. So that is why "hold" is a little bit better. As to the general meditation technique that Trungpa Rinpoche presented, that was more connected to shamatha without object. The main instruction was to allow thoughts to arise and allow thoughts to depart. Whereas the particular technique that we have been discussing is slightly different: It is to look at the thoughts and use the thoughts that arise as the support for mindfulness. In this context, it is best if thoughts arise; it is slightly preferable if thoughts arise. If more thoughts arise, then that is number one for this particular technique.
We'll practice together again. This time, if you do not have any thoughts, make them. Make many thoughts quickly, clearly. There are three qualities to this technique: quickly, many and clearly. But there's one important point: You have to look at every single one. Don't let one thought go by without being looked at. The looking is important. [All practice.]
Q: Rinpoche, although that seemed a little fabricated, there was a sense of moving the mind quickly, like scanning a television screen. Actually, the eyes move too.
Rinpoche: The fabricated or the contrived part that you referred to is fine, because we are working with shamatha with object, and when you do this meditation technique, there is always going to be some fabrication. As was said before, through relying on a focus, the state of nonfocus excellently arises. We'll talk about your second point, scanning the TV screen, a little bit later.
Q: Rinpoche, as someone who has been trying to get rid of thoughts for thirty years, it was interesting to dredge them up from where they had been hiding. It was almost like shining a spotlight on them one at a time - spotlight, then rest in the next one, spotlight on that one. It was almost like a cartoon cat that sticks his finger in a plug and gets all fuzzy. These thoughts didn't really go anywhere, they sort of got nailed, or paralysed, somehow.
Rinpoche: That's very good.
Q: In the beginning and it the end when we were relaxed, there was this space that if a thought occurred, I would relax and let go, but I would notice it. And then when it was important to look at the thoughts and a thought would arise, when I looked, the thought would not be there. It's hard - the mind is either looking or thinking.
Rinpoche: Okay. That's good. Meditation Without Thoughts When you are looking at thoughts, like this, and in particular for beginners, there are two types of things that can happen.
Most people try to look at thoughts and don't see anything happening. There is a gap that happens, but it only lasts for about three or four seconds. Then another thought arises and we look at it. As soon as we start looking at it, we don't see it anymore. It goes back and forth in this way. A thought arises, we look at it, and we don't see it anymore; a thought arises, we look at it, and then we can't identify it. This is very good. It is just like sitting here. If you are someone who has already received pointing-out instructions on the essence of mind, this type of practice is particularly beneficial. The meditation during which we cannot see any thoughts becomes shamatha without object. The meditation during which we can look at thoughts becomes shamatha with object. Both of these are very good. This is what happens to most people. For other people it is like looking at a TV screen.
The example used to illustrate this is of an elderly person watching two children who are very involved in what they're playing. They might be crashing two trucks together, or they might be building a house, or they might be playing video games, and they're very involved and very excited. But the old person is able to sit back and just laugh, no matter what is happening. Therefore, we can look at the thoughts. When we look at thoughts this way they're rendered powerless. It is like taking a snapshot of our thoughts or zapping our thoughts in this way.
When we are doing this, it does not matter how many thoughts are arising. If we can look at them, all of our thoughts become a support for meditation. When the hand is telling beads of a mala, it is going through the beads one after the other in unbroken succession. We can do so in a way in which we are mindful of each bead as it passes. In the same way, when we are mindful of thoughts, it is impossible for us to be mindful of just one thought and keep our attention on that for any period of time, because the nature of thoughts is they come one after the other, and one thought does not stay around. It's an easy meditation, isn't it?
It is okay if we have thoughts; it is okay if we do not have thoughts; and there is no state of mind we can experience that is beyond these two - having thoughts or not having thoughts - so how much easier can you get?
With our last meditation session, the instruction was to create thoughts. But when we practice in the ordinary sense, there is no particular need to create thoughts. In meditation, one main point is to simply pay attention with mindfulness. We do not need to identify what we are paying attention to. It is the paying attention itself that is most important.
When we continue practicing in this way, we begin with a sense of duality, with a viewer and viewed, or a looker and object looked at. As we become more and more familiar with the practice, the viewer and the viewed will become the same thing. When that happens, we are very close to seeing the essence of our mind.
During the shamatha audience this morning, one student asked if it were possible for shamatha to turn into vipashyana, or insight, without applying any particular effort. In most cases, the answer is no. You would have to apply some other view, such as the view of emptiness. But there is one situation where shamatha could change into vipashana without bringing in any other technique. This is that very instance. Meditation With Negative Thoughts As we said earlier, there are three main types of thoughts we could have: negative, positive or neutral. For beginners on the path there is a special method for working with negative thoughts.
When we have negative emotions, such as strong anger or aggression in our mind, the first thing is to recognize that "anger has arisen in my mind."
At this stage we don't try to stop the anger, we simply recognize it. So don't hit the other person right away. Look at the anger not at your enemy. For beginners, we chiefly look at the perceiving subject, instead of the perceived object. That is the key point, that is the key difference. In this moment of anger, there is a mind thinking, "I want to hit that person." There is a mind that feels uncomfortable and painful and angry, all at the same time. So we look at that - we look at that mind of anger and we place our mindfulness on it as one-pointedly as we can. This helps us to relate with our anger in the same way that placing our attention on a toothache helps us to relate with the toothache. It helps us to stop creating more pain for ourselves, and the unbearable aspect of the anger becomes pacified. There is still going to be a sense of anger or a sense of wrath, but the unbearability and the uncomfortableness of it will be slowly pacified as we use this as our object of meditation. As well, the anger itself will become a support for our nondistraction. We can apply this technique for other negative mental states too, such as depression, fear or any other type of suffering. Meditation With Neutral and Positive Thoughts If we are working with neutral thoughts or positive thoughts, we can look at both subject and object. For example, if you are thinking, "I am going to go to downtown Halifax," you can look at the object aspect of those thoughts. You can look at what buildings appear in your mind, the streets, the lights, people coming and going - all of that. If you looked at all those images as they are arising in your mind, it is the same thing as visualizing a deity in the creation stage. It is the same thing as visualizing yourself as a deity inside a palace and another deity in the sky in front of you. It is also the same thing as taking refuge, and visualizing all the objects of refuge in the sky in front. What is the difference between thinking about going to downtown Halifax and visualizing deities? The main difference is that there is an aspect of pure appearance in the visualization of deities, and there is none of that in just thinking about going to downtown Halifax. But from the perspective of nondistraction and practicing mindfulness, accomplishing shamatha or calm abiding, there is no difference between the two. However, there is a separate benefit from working with pure appearance rather than with just thinking about Halifax.
If you ask yourself, "What is the difference between my usual thinking about going to downtown Halifax, and thinking about it with mindfulness," you're not aware of what you are thinking. You are not aware of how you arrived in your thoughts at downtown Halifax. There will not be any awareness of your thoughts of getting in the car and driving down the road, and then finally arriving in downtown Halifax. But if you have mindfulness, you will be aware and have a recognition of each stage. You will know when you entered the car and how it is that you are travelling. If we keep meditating in that way, finally we will arrive at a state where the object we are looking at and the looker become one, and all of our mental afflictions - desire, aggression, jealousy, and so on - will be self liberated. The power of our disturbing emotions or mental afflictions (kleshas) will be gradually diminished. This has been an explanation of the sixth method of shamatha. The main point of shamatha is to gain freedom over our mind, to tap into the natural energy of our mind and tame the mind's wild monkey. When we do that, we will become like a well-tamed elephant. They don't go about following their every whim or harming people randomly. They walk with a purpose. What do we do with this shamatha mind that is like a well-tamed elephant? We put it to work on the path of liberation. In order to join fully with the path of liberation, we need to join with the practice of vipashyana or special-seeing, insight. Vipashyana is of two types: the vipashyana of emptiness and the vipashyana of the essence of mind. If emptiness and the essence of mind are joined with shamatha we attain the state of Buddhahood. That's all. Are there any questions?
Questions
Question: First, I would like to thank the Shambhala Centre for affording me the opportunity to experience all four of your talks, and to be able to experience your profound wisdom. "Thought thought thought thought" - I have about a million of them, and I'm finding them in questions, so be patient with me. I'll try to be very brief. I've experienced so much wisdom and knowledge from you in these last few days that I'm wondering, as a beginner, what would you like me to leave with if you could tell me one thing? Secondly, [to the translator] and I think you're a wonderful interpreter, I know that with different languages sometimes it is difficult to translate thoughts and phrases, and I'm wondering if Rinpoche is feeling confident that you gave expressed [laughter] everything. I don't blame you if you don't ask him! Like, is he confident that you have expressed properly everything that people wanted to be expressed? And thirdly, he seems like such a calming person, I'm wondering if he ever experiences "monkey-mind."
Rinpoche: So, as to your first question, in relation to the talks on loving-kindness and compassion, the one point to keep in mind is to benefit others with a sense of balance. In relation to the meditation talks, mainly stay with shamatha without object.
Q: Okay.
Rinpoche [in English]: Good translator! I've been many places. Some translators make things worse. Tyler is very direct and very clear. Very good [applause]. Okay. Monkey-mind? Yes, I do have monkey mind.
Q: Thank God! Thank you. Q: I was curious if Rinpoche believes that certain negative emotions might hide themselves? And if so, how does one encourage negative emotions, specifically anger, to come to your conscious mind?
Rinpoche: The main thing is to try to get into the habit of recognizing anger. Once you are able to do this, then slowly you will be able to see it more and more clearly. For example, you might experience anger and then only later be able to recognize that you were feeling anger. You can take whatever moment it is that you remember that and say, "Oh I was feeling anger back then" and just appreciate that moment of recognition. Try to get into that habit slowly in that way. There is anger that arose before that you weren't aware of, and there is the moment of recognition later on. When you have that moment of recognition, you can ask yourself, "How did I feel back then when anger was arising, and how do I feel now that I have recognized it?" You can take that as an example - kind of inform yourself with that and then move forward into this habit of recognition.
Q: If there is no arising is there no anger?
Rinpoche: If anger does not arise that does not mean that there is no anger. Everyone has the root of anger present in them in a dormant form. So there is obvious anger then there is dormant anger. That seems to be what you're asking about. But the dormant anger does not disappear until you attain what is called the first bodhisattva bhumi. Until you first directly realize emptiness, everyone has dormant anger, and you don't need to worry about that.
Q: But it could take a while [laughter].
Rinpoche: A little while.
Q: Firstly, I would like to say thank you. Secondly, last night you answered a question about the amount of time a beginner should meditate or sit, and you said an hour. As the mother of a young family, I think that was rather discouraging for me, that amount of time. Thirdly, I have been practicing my spirituality as a Christian for the better part of my life, and I have come to a part of life where I feel that needs to change, but at the same time I do not feel that I am finished with Christianity. So I feel confused.
Rinpoche: With the example of one or two hours of meditation, that is not necessarily how long you should have to meditate. That recommendation was for those who are very serious about really training in this meditation technique and have time. You could try to do it for that long. But it is not saying that if you could do it for an hour you will get the benefit, and if you don't do it for an hour you do not get the benefit. You could start by doing fifteen minutes of meditation, even one minute of meditation or even five. If you do one minute of meditation then there is the benefit of one minute of meditation. If you do an hour, then there's the benefit of doing an hour. So you could begin by meditating for fifteen minutes - there is a very good benefit to doing that.
With regard to the second question about spiritual traditions, you absolutely do not have to give up your old tradition at all to practice these meditation techniques. It is completely fine to maintain your practice of Christianity and still meditate by using these Buddhist practices. Furthermore, you can bring some of your Christian images into the practice of shamatha with object, as we have been talking about. Instead of using a Buddhist figure as an object of your focus you could, for example, use a cross as the object of meditation and do shamatha with that. Sometimes in Buddhist meditation we visualize Buddhas in the sky in front and do shamatha with those objects. You could visualize Jesus and use that as a support for shamatha. It is a question of personal preference - I prefer Buddhist view and meditation techniques and Buddhist teachings as a spiritual path, but that does not necessarily mean that this is what everyone wants. It is up to each individual.
Q: I feel that it is time to move on spiritually and learn about other things. That is where the confusion lies. I've learned about Christianity, not that I'm any expert, but as well I feel it's time to learn about another spiritual ...
Rinpoche: What to do will depend on your own feelings. Examine them and examine what your desires are in that regard. People may have a lot of questions about their old religious tradition. They might start thinking that some things are untenable or do not make sense to them. Then they might encounter something new and have a sense of coming home. They might think, "This is really making sense to me. I feel like I am coming home with this." If that happens then it is fine to go with that new tradition. You can examine for yourself how you feel.
Q: Rinpoche, I was a bit distracted by a negative thought when you gave the instruction on the technique for working with negative thoughts. So I wonder if you could go over that again, and perhaps expand a little bit on the part about working with the subject rather than the object.
Rinpoche: What's your practice level in the Buddhist curriculum?
Q: Sadhaka.
Rinpoche: You can refer to the teachings on the Three Words that Strike the Vital Point. Listen to the tapes and read the text. The basic point here is that even negative thoughts can become the support for mindfulness. When you look at them they become the support for mindfulness and the support for nondistraction, just like concentrating on a form or listening to a sound. To further clarify this, you can listen to the tape of tonight's talk.
Q: Thank you.
Q: Hi. I am actually in a Buddhism class at Dalhousie University [in Halifax], and I have an exam tomorrow [laughter]. There has been considerable debate in my class over the nature of impermanence. There are certain students in my class who seem to feel that Buddhist doctrine in its own essence contradicts itself because they are saying that everything is impermanent. But then our professor also taught about the state of nirvana, and enlightenment being a permanent thing. That's where they are feeling the confusion and the contradiction: If everything is impermanent, how can the state of enlightenment be permanent? I'm just wondering what you think, and if you yourself believe that the state of nirvana to be permanent.
Rinpoche: This seeming contradiction of enlightenment or nirvana being permanent on the one hand, and all apparent reality being impermanent on the other, actually is not a contradiction. Seeing them as a contradiction is a case of mixing the way things appear with the way things are. In other words, the way things appear is the relative, the way things are is the ultimate truth. Truth, and the way things are.
When we refer to the true nature of reality, that is a synonym for Buddhahood. Buddhahood is the true nature of everything - the true nature of all sentient beings, the true nature of Buddhas - and the true nature of sentient beings is enlightenment. It is nirvana, ultimate reality. It is said to be permanent because it is free from arising - it never came into being and it never will go out of being. Something that is devoid of arising can never be said to be impermanent, because to be impermanent, something has to go through the stages of arising, abiding and ceasing - arising in the beginning, abiding in the middle, and ceasing in the end. The ultimate nature, the true nature of things, never arose so it can not be permanent. But as long as something arose, then it is necessarily impermanent. That refers to all phenomena of relative truth, or apparent reality, the way things appear.
From the perspective of the way things appear, everything arises, abides and ceases. As soon as something comes into being, it is marked by the quality of impermanence. It has to abide and then it has to cease.
But on the other side, ultimate reality, there is no such impermanence because there is no arising. You can't call it permanent either because if there is no impermanence, there cannot be permanence.
Nevertheless, it is sometimes called the permanence that is beyond impermanence and permanence.
Q: If Buddhahood can never arise, how does one become enlightened, or how does one transcend from the relative?
Rinpoche: We go back to the distinction between the way things appear are. Buddhahood, or the state of enlightenment, is actually the way things are, the way we are ultimately. But from the perspective of the way things appear, we appear as confused sentient beings. The way we appear is not really the way we are. So when we attain Buddhahood, when we recognize the way we really are, the way things appear and the way things are become the same thing. and the way things
Q: Thank you.
Conclusion
Rinpoche: We'll conclude at this point.
I have received some requests to say a few words about Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok. Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok was a great lama, a great teacher and a great practitioner. He was mainly a Nyingma practitioner, but he also practiced Kagyü lineage practices. He also was a tertön, a treasure discoverer. In particular, he was a great siddha, a mahasiddha. Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok would fill an entire valley in Tibet with people and give teachings to gatherings of upwards of fifteen thousand people - ten thousand monastic monks and nuns, and five or six thousand lay people. The people would create a little city by building earth houses to stay in along the sides of hills on both sides of the valley, and then gather together under a huge tent to hear Jigme Phuntsok's teachings. He would teach all day long.
From the perspective of the students it was never a very elaborate situation. Basically they studied the dharma and meditated together. They did not have much to eat or fancy clothes to wear or anything like that. Nevertheless, Jigme Khenpo Phuntsok produced a lot of master scholars (khenpos) from these gatherings. He also produced a lot of master practitioners from amongst the monks and nuns. On that very ground there were two monastic colleges (shedras) - one Kagyü and one Nyingma. Sometimes Jigme Phuntsok would give teachings to his students, and at the same time he would take them to a place where he would discover treasure teachings (terma), which he would reveal in front of everyone.
There are two khenpos at Sherab Ling monastery, my primary residence in India, both of whom came from this place in Tibet where they studied with Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok. Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok passed away two or three weeks ago. Everything is impermanent. Right?
I have been very delighted to be able to come to Halifax for a few days to talk about the dharma with you, and am very happy that you have listened with such enthusiasm and interest. In particular, I'm very pleased with the way the vajrayana students listened to the teachings, and have a good feeling that you have understood the material. The shamatha talks and audiences also were very good. So thank you to everyone, especially to all who were involved in the preparation and coordination of the program. Everything was done excellently. When I was going down the stairs, there always was someone there ready to support me. There was someone ready to open the door and help me with my seat. It was just like being a king. I've never been treated that way before. Also thank you to everyone who works at this centre.
I greatly appreciate the stages that have been laid forth by Trungpa Rinpoche - how to practice and study on the path. They are very good stages, and it makes me very happy that you are all practicing them.
Richard John [Director of Halifax Shambhala Centre]: Rinpoche, you know by now how we all feel about you. We have benefited tremendously from your wisdom and clarity. It is extraordinary how you have been able to inspire all of us from beginners to dinosaurs, so we are tremendously grateful and very moved to be able to study with you. I would like to offer a token of our appreciation to you. There is an extra little package for you - a copy of Shambhala: Sacred Path of the Warrior [by Chögyam Trungpa], which is one of our very favourite books. Tyler, Rinpoche wants you to read this book to him.
Rinpoche: Thank you.
RJ: Lama Chhewang, it has been delightful to have you with us here. Tyler, thank you again. Superb translator. You're getting more creative too. Are you really from Truro [a small town near Halifax]? [Laughter and applause].
Rinpoche [in English]: Thank you very much, Translator!
RJ: Many many people have made the obvious request for Rinpoche to come back to Halifax often. I presented this request to him formally before the talk tonight, and I am very pleased, with your permission Rinpoche, to tell everyone that you will be back next year and the year after that.
[Dedications of Merit and singing of the Shambhala Anthem.]
