Title: Odyssey to Freedom
Teaching Date: 2004-06-17
Teacher Name: Gelek Rimpoche
Teaching Type: Series of Talks
File Key: 20040226GRNYOTF/20040617GRNYOTF.mp3
Location: New York
Level 3: Advanced
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Transcript of Gehlek Rimpoche’s talk in New York on June
17, 2004
Meditation series
[We are talking about] Meditation, and particularly shi-ne. So, what I would like to say here is the meditative state, or the mental state, what we call ting zin
in Tibetan; we will try to establish that [here]. I have to make one thing clear. In normal Western language, when you say “meditation,” if you sit down, and start thinking of sitting down, it becomes meditation. Here we are talking about something else. We are talking about shamatha, or shi-ne. I introduced that right from the beginning, so if I keep on repeating it, that won’t do. So simply sitting and thinking alone is not what we are going to be talking about.
We’re talking about real meditation. Real, true meditation. That is a mind state, what we call in Tibetan ting zin. Or shi-ne. Shi-ne really means a very specific meditation. Ting zin means just a simple focusing in the meditative state. What kind of ting zin are we looking for? It has to have two qualities. Quality One, the mind itself has to be absolutely clear. Not only is it clear, but it also has to be clear and strong. Quality Two, [the mind] should be totally focusing. These two are necessary. It is a clear mind, totally focusing.
When you talk about clarity, you are talking about
two types. First is clarity of the mind, which is focusing.
The focusing mind has to be absolutely clear. I think I
talked earlier about this, giving the example of a
beautiful clean, clear crystal glass which has absolutely
clear water in it, and on top of that, there is the sun
shining, without any clouds. When you have the three of
them together; the glass is absolutely clear, the water is
pure, plus there is absolutely clear sunshine, without a
single cloud; that sort of clarity is required. Second, the
subject on which you are focusing will have [that clarity]
also, which I talked about earlier. When you look at the
pillar, and you are focusing on this pillar, your mind
almost thinks, “I can even get to the point of being able
to see and count single atoms.” These two kinds of clarity
are prerequisites for this particular meditation.
Where do you get these two? You get these two when you
cut, when you are free of mental laxity, or being too
relaxed. There are two types of laxity. Gross and subtle.
When you are clear and free of subtle laxity, then the mind
is capable of achieving the two qualities that I have
mentioned. It is clear to you, right? That is the point. To
reach such a level, not only is there clarity, but there is
a strong clarity. The strongness is blocked by laxity. The
obstacle to strongness is laxity. The obstacle to focus is
excitations. Here, you have two problems. The problem of
excitation. When you are excited, we sometimes call it
wandering mind. Laxity, being overly relaxed, is the other
problem.
These are the two major obstacles to gain meditation.
Now the question comes: When I say that state of mind is
totally focused, what do I mean by focus? I focused, then I
think something else, then I come back and I focus, are you
talking about that? Or are you talking about focusing
totally all the time, when you are meditating? I don’t mean
every day, 24 hours, I’m not talking about that. I’m
talking about when you are meditating, do you focus all the
time? The answer that Tsong Kha Pa has given is, (Rimpoche
recites Tibetan) you always have to be focused. Always.
When you are meditating, you have to be focused. We don’t
have that. We do have long meditation sessions, but we
don’t focus at all. We do focus sometimes, but most of the
time we are thinking all kinds of things. Particularly,
when you have those hour-long sittings and three-hour-long
sittings, and half-day sittings, and all-day sittings, it
is almost impossible for us to focus for that long. But,
this is what it is.
There has to be all-the-time focus. How can I do that?
Even the scientists tell us that you can’t focus all the
time. They say, a couple of seconds; you can’t focus more
than that. But Tsong Kha Pa says you can. So how do you do
it? You have to have a way to keep the mind together, A;
and B, you have to know when you’re not focusing. These are
the two things [you must have]. What makes you keep on
focusing all the time? I introduced you to two subjects,
two points on which you can meditate. One; just a normal
phenomenon, like a Buddha image. The second point I
introduced is to meditate on mind. Especially if you are
meditating on mind, you’re not going to find it. This is
something called mind, here. There is no subject or object
you can find. There is something blank you’re going to
focus on.
Then how do I maintain this focus? What you need is
the normal, very well known thing called mindfulness.
Mindfulness. What is mindfulness? There is a lot of
confusion coming from teachings from Southeast Asia. There
is actually no confusion. It is a word that the Buddha
taught and according to Sutra, there are a lot of different
ways of mindfulness. Here, [the meaning of] mindfulness
we’re really talking about is, you have to have a mind; I
should say, mental faculty, because that is the Tibetan
tradition, you go from the mind to mental faculty, which is
a subdivision of the same mind. It is the ability to
sustain attention voluntarily, all the time, that’s what is
called mindfulness. In other words, keeping whatever you
are focusing on and being able to sustain it all the time.
It’s not going to come [just like that]. You have to
be doing it repeatedly. When you’ve lost the focus, you
have to know. If you don’t even know you’ve lost the focus,
then your body is just sitting there. Our mind is gone
somewhere, to some kind of discotheque, where you had a
couple of drinks, and have a couple of dances around, then
you begin to say, “Oh my -- I am meditating.” That will not
do.
Therefore you need another mental faculty. In Tibetan, the earlier mental faculty is called temba. If you translate temba, you may come out with remembering. Some people may even translate it as memory, but this temba really means mindfulness. Mindfulness really has the ability to sustain attention. All the time. Here, particularly, it is so important, as Tsong Kha Pa said; if you forget, if you have lost the focus, if you’re going somewhere, (Rimpoche recites Tibetan), meaning, if you lost the focus, you are lost. You’re not focusing anymore, you’re not meditating anymore, you are not, according to the true teaching. You are not meditating. Though you may be sitting there, it doesn’t matter.
How will I be able to know this? Another mental faculty comes up. In Tibetan, it is called shi shing, though people translate that as meta. I don’t know what that means, m-e-t-a, meta, and dash, attention. Meta- attention. What does this mind do? It gives the ability to
monitor the quality of attention, and to swiftly, quickly
recognize [what has happened]. That is the capability of
this particular mental faculty.
These are the two main tools that we use in meditation. These are the two real things. That mindfulness and that attention. Pay attention. People use awareness, alertness, all kinds of things. That mental faculty – do we have it? No, we don’t. Do we get it? Yes, we do, we will get it. It is another mental faculty. If you keep on [exercising] this mindfulness, the result will be this meta-attention, or the ability to monitor the quality of the mindfulness. You will automatically develop it. These are the automatic things that come up. One brings the other. So, when you sit down and say, “Where is my meta?” you’re never going to find it. If you look into, “where is my mindfulness?” yes, you can get it. At least, for us, for a matter of seconds, or a second or two, we get it.
In case you lose the mindfulness, and you forget the
object or subject on which you are meditating, immediately,
that’s the time you must say, “I have lost the focus.”
Therefore, meditation really boils down to maintaining this
particular mindfulness.
How do I apply this mindfulness? During the last
course, I introduced as a subject of meditation, mind or
Buddha, or whatever. Now, whatever understanding you have
of that subject, at this moment, you have to focus and
bring mindfulness to that. Not only do you have to focus,
but you really have to be holding tightly, and you have to
have strongness. In the beginning, when I introduced you to
this, I said you have to be clear, but stronger. At the
beginning level, for us, to be clear on this subject or
object, is quite difficult for us, in one way. It gradually
builds up. Whatever you have, even if it is mind with sort
of a blankness, yet having a natural clarity, and an
ability to perceive any thoughts, and anything it is able
to reflect, that sort of idea-thing, you have found the
subject. So try to keep your meditation on that. Or if you
are meditating on the Buddha image, or just a thing that
looks like a Buddha; you will sometimes use a yellow lump,
that is good enough. At this level, you are able to focus.
Now, focusing is the important point. Try strongly to
keep it. And keep it, not in a depressed or tired manner,
or in a too excited manner, but keep our mind uplifted.
That’s the important point. Uplifted. If you are too
uplifted, then the excitations will come and take your
focus. At this moment, whatever focal point you found
earlier, keep that, and do not analyze at this moment.
Normally we tremendously encourage analyzing. At this
moment, however, to establish this particular concentrated
power, do not analyze. Whatever it is, keep it there [at
that point].
Some great scholar asked, “What is mindfulness?” The reply was, “Mindfulness, or temba, is knowing the object or subject, on which we are completely focused; we are not losing it.” It has to be known. Mindfulness does not learn new [things]. You have to focus on what you already knew, or on whatever you are doing. Nothing new is brought in. If you bring in something new, it is not mindfulness, it will be analyzing. That is why you have to have that.
The answer to “What is mindfulness,” is mindfulness
has three qualities. Quality One: Whatever subject or
object you are focusing on, you are not forgetting or
losing it. What you are focusing on has to be a known
thing. Nothing new. Known things. That’s the reason why you
learn your focal point first; what you are meditating on.
We just don’t leave you like that. Otherwise, you can
meditate –- whatever you are thinking, it doesn’t matter.
Go ahead and meditate. Bye bye! Here we don’t say, you
meditate on this or that. So that’s why the question was
introduced: is the point on which you are meditating known
to you? The mind has to be focused on a known thing,
whether it is subject or object.
Another aspect of mindfulness [Quality Two] is not
forgetting. We may talk about not forgetting something you
learned. When you don’t do it for a while, someone may ask,
“Oh, you do that?” and you remember it. And you say, “I
have not forgotten it. It’s just like riding a bicycle.”
That’s not what we are talking about. Here, saying “I have
not forgotten,” means you are totally focused. You did not
lose the focus. In other words, you are remembering it all
the time that you meditate. That is the second quality. In
other words, from the moment you’ve focused, you’ve left
your mind on whatever it is. So you will be able to
acknowledge, “My mind is now focused on this.” That is
strength. This influence should carry on, without bringing
anything new, keeping the strength of the mind as it is,
continuing. That is the quality of mindfulness.
What does mindfulness do? It will make sure that your
mind doesn’t go from your focus to anything else. It
remains on that. Whatever subject or object you are
focusing on, you are knowing it. Aspects of the mind are
not forgetting it, holding it. What that mindfulness does
is to keep it together, keep the focus. Those are the three
qualities.
That’s what Buddha said. Nagarjuna and others give the
example of the elephant tied to the pillar. When the
elephant was being trained, they tied the elephant with a thread, and trained the elephant not to do anything wrong, e.g., cut the thread. We may think that to train an elephant, you must have a huge rope to tie the elephant. No. Those in India who train an elephant, after they’ve gotten hold of one, they get a thin, thin little thread and put the thread around, I don’t know, the elephant’s tongue or somewhere, and they put a little stick there, and make sure the elephant sits there. So everyone is always worried about cutting that thread, and watching all the time. When the elephant does something wrong, the people jump on top of the elephant and start hitting a little hook in the ear. So the elephant focusing on the rope and the pillar is mindfulness, and that little hook that hits the elephant’s ear, is the meta-attention.
These are the two mental faculties that you use. There is a beautiful drawing done by Kyabje Trijang Rimpoche. The drawing shows the elephant going through a certain level.
A lot of books have pictures on this subject. Some of them are wrong. Not great. There’s one nice, nice, nice thangka that Domo Geshe had, that is in Gang Nam. I hope to borrow it for the next course, to try to show you people how it really works. The idea is the elephant is the wild, powerful mind, being kept in mindfulness by a tiny little thread. In case you lose attention, it is kept in control by this hook, the meta-attention.
These are the one mind and two mental faculties playing around, and that is the meta-attention. What I am talking about is ting zin, samadhi or, what do you call it, mental equipoise? Whatever you call that one. In other words this sort of very lucid, relaxed, high status is only developed by mindfulness. That mindfulness is also knowing.
Knowing, (Tibetan phrase) is really knowing a lot. Putting
nothing new in; knowing it. When you are knowing it,
sometimes [things] will add up, not by our force, but by
the power of the mind itself. Not by our suggestion, not by
our analyzing. By the power of the mind you add up things.
If you know somebody, when you know the person, you
don’t really have to analyze, or do so much. Sometimes you
know the character of the person. What the personality is.
What good or bad the person may have. That sort of thing
will add up. You don’t have to go and search and analyze,
and say “It fits you, it doesn’t fit you,” we don’t do
that. It comes up on its own. So the mindfulness itself may
bring some more clarity and more knowledge; that’s fine.
That’s nothing new. It’s a sort of knowledge that is
becoming more vivid. If it doesn’t do that, it’s not
meditation. It will add up by itself. We don’t add it up.
In short, in other words, meditation means the
focusing point was kept by mindfulness with the high (----)
mind. (------)mind. Without thinking anything, without
moving, without analyzing, and just focusing it.
When you are meditating, when you are being mindful,
when you are not tightly holding it, whatever perception
you have, if you are not holding it tight, it looks - when
you are relaxed – it looks a little clearer. When you are
really holding tightly, it doesn’t look so clear. When you
are relaxed, it looks much clearer. This is our normal
understanding. With everything we do, we say “Relax, relax,
relax.” Whatever it is, even if you are getting an
injection, if you are tight, you know you have a problem.
If you are relaxed, you just go through it smoothly. So
people say, “Relax, relax, relax.”
But over here, the message is not so much “relax.”
Certain traditions and teachings tell you, the more you can
relax, the better it is. But Tsong Kha Pa says, No. It is
not better. Tsong Kha Pa says you must have mental clarity,
as well as the element of strong recognition. When you
don’t have strong recognition, your mindfulness becomes
weak. Do you understand me? When your mindfulness becomes
weak, that mindfulness cannot overcome the problem of
subtle or gross laxity.
Now I have spoken about a certain portion of
meditation. Now, another point here is, keeping the mind
high, excited, up. Then you don’t have the laxity. Then you
can get excitations. These excitations will interrupt the
continuity of mindfulness. Now, what you have to do is to
balance. If you’re keeping so excited and up, and you think
you’re going to lose the focus, then you reduce that down.
If you are too relaxed, then laxity will take over. When
you begin to see you’re in doubt, and that laxity may take
over, then you pick up a little excitement. When you think
excitement will take over, bring it down so that you’re a
little more grounded. This is how you, the individual
meditator have to make adjustments according to your
individual needs.
You have to remember here that the meditation state
has two qualities: stability and vividness. If you’re too
high, or too low, then your stability will be disturbed.
You can’t keep on focusing. You lose the vividness. If you
have stability, yet without much vividness or focus, it
looks like you are going to fall asleep. You know, really
dozing. Then you are at the gross level of laxity. Even if
you don’t have the feeling, “I am going to fall asleep,”
and you are completely relaxed, going down; and even if you
still have clarity of mind and you think it is a good level
of meditation, it’s probably not. You still have those
subtle obstacles that we have to overcome.
This is quite an interesting thing, when you look at
it. I don’t want to quote a lot of traditional teachings,
but maybe it’s a good thing to say something here.
(Rimpoche recites Tibetan.) One of the great teachers said,
if I put too much effort, too strongly, too
enthusiastically, then my mind is taken over by
excitations. If I leave that, my mind is taken over by
laxity. I can’t balance, I cannot equalize; so why should I
bother? Why should I [trouble] my mind all the time? He was
so tired, and so fed up. If I put too much effort in one
direction, it’s going to one extreme, and if I put too much
effort in another direction, it’s going too much in another
direction. If I cannot balance, why should I meditate?
We should be neither too tight, nor too relaxed.
Again, it is up to the individual to look at your own mind.
If you think you are tending toward too much excitement,
then you relax; when you are too relaxed, then bring your
mind up. The individual has to find the balance.
Your physical and mental conditions change, so today’s
balance may not be the best for tomorrow. So, for a little
while, you have to make these adjustments. By making these
adjustments, you can find the level at which you can focus.
Then you raise the question, “While I’m maintaining
mindfulness very strongly, can I check whether I’m really
focusing or not?” The answer is, yes, you should check. But
if you’re checking all the time, then you will lose your
focus. But you should check. Checking doesn’t mean that you
forget mindfulness for a while and focus on something else.
While focusing, with mindfulness, you slightly begin to see
whether you are really focusing strongly or not, or whether
you’ve gone under the control of excitation or laxity.
The example is given of a pack of wild animals moving around, where there is always one animal - a lookout – watching whether there are any threats to the pack. That is the meta-attention. Meta-attention doesn’t grow with you until you have mindfulness. As a result of developing mindfulness, meta-attention grows. When it does, you have to pay attention to meta also.
Following this, the recommendation is to set the
length of the meditation period; not too short, nor too
long, and occasionally watching. What is meant by long or
short? When you are focused on the focusing point, you are
acknowledging, now my mind is good; I am focusing here. As
long as the power of that acknowledgement remains with your
meditation, you have a strong meditation. When you lose
this, you don’t have it. So, according to that, you make it
long or short. Gradually, you’ll be able to make the
meditation longer. Also, when you have obstacles, it will
be known quickly. These two benefits are there.
If you forget, and wander very often, if sinking and
wandering come very quickly, and your alertness and
mindfulness cannot continue, then the solution is to make a
very short period. When you say short, I’m not talking
about an hour, or minutes, I’m talking about seconds. That
is how you learn. When you sit there, and your mind goes
around, traveling everywhere, that’s not meditation. Long
or short is in terms of seconds. That’s why the teachers
always tell you, you start 300 times in one session. That’s
what it is.
When you see you are not losing your focus very often,
nor are laxity and excitations coming so quick, then you
extend your focusing period. Then you may be able to go an
hour or so, or maybe five, ten or twenty-five minutes.
Again, Tsong Kha Pa emphasizes here, you have to make the
adjustments according to your own mind. Also, sometimes
people have difficulties. Physical pain, and mental
difficulties. Suddenly, you can’t sit there. You’ve got
pain here; chest pain, or headache or backache, or leg
pain. Then it is recommended to stop meditation. Don’t
force it at all. Just stop, look around and give yourself a
little rest. If you have pain when you’re sitting, then get
up and walk around, or if you have pain in your leg, adjust
your leg, and all that. Don’t force it.
I think these are the major points I want to touch on
today. It’s very loaded today. I don’t want to go very
long. I hope you remember it. Next week, we’ll follow the
next step.
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