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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.