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20121021GRAATB42

Good morning to you and welcome to today’s talk on “Tibetan Buddhism with Gelek Rimpoche”. I will be continuing from what I talked to you last Sunday in Ann Arbor. I talked about the essence of Tibetan Buddhism, learning, meditating and analyzing meditation. Learning also, without knowing what you are doing, is not right. So learning is important. I gave you a number of examples and metaphors that earlier Tibetan teachers used to emphasize learning. It is like a light on the path. It is the light that clears the darkness of not knowing or ignorance. It is the wealth that thieves cannot steal. It is the best friend that will never let you down, if when you are weak and low. It is the best weapon to destroy your opposition, ignorance. This is great. There are many things we talked about with regard to learning.

That also has to be right learning. There are so many ways in the spiritual path, really so many. Everything is fine, but what we need is something comprehensive, not very brief, but brief and not so complicated. Buddha himself taught. His teachings are on the basis of the Four Noble Truths, which is the basis of our life and lives, how it functions. On that basis we are talking.

Out of these Four Noble Truths we are really talking about the fourth, the Truth of the Path. That will lead to the cessation. We talked a lot about the Theravadan path, sometimes also known as Hinayana, the smaller vehicle. Whether it is small or big I don’t know. My apologies to some friends from the Theravadan tradition. They don’t like it being called “Smaller Vehicle”. However, that is the terminology used earlier in India, about 2000 some odd years ago. I am just referring to that. So we talked very detailedly about that.

Now we are talking about the Mahayana path. The moment we talk about Mahayana we are looking at two important points. It is a profound path as well as the path of compassion. It is the profound wisdom path and the vast compassion path. It is such a huge, vast compassion path. The combination of compassion and wisdom is the essence of the Mahayana path. Out of the Mahayana path, both the vast, open, huge compassion path and the deep, profound wisdom path, the combination of that qualifies to be a good Mahayana path. That is what Buddha taught us. That’s what true Buddhism is about. If you look into that the Buddha and the disciples who have become buddhas before us, what path did they take? What practice did they do? It is the teachings that Buddha gave, the essence and meaning of the teachings that Buddha gave. That is really the path or practice that leads the individual to total enlightenment. Commonly we talk about three scopes or levels of people or disciples. It is very common usual disciples and extremely intelligent disciples. Then in the middle are the ones that are a little bit better than the very common ones, but not as profound and intelligent.

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We call these three levels: common with the lower scope, common with the medium scope and Mahayana scope. There are so many ways in Tibetan Buddhism, whether they are reading sutras or meditating on the meaning of the sutras or saying mantras, recitation of sadhanas,etc.

So some people “sadhanas” is not common language. It is short of a guided meditation on how an individual generates profound perfection. Most of people know what mantra is. Mainly it is the essence of the name of fully enlightened powerful yidam. “Yidam” means “basis of mental commitment”. You say their names in repetition form, preferably in Sanskrit, not any other language. That is basically known as mantra. However, the meaning of mantra is mental protection, protecting the individual’s mind through these particular words and names that we recite.

There are so many ways in Tibetan Buddhism. But if you don’t concentrate, if you just repeat the words and do not focus on anything, then it is almost useless. Repeatedly Buddha said that yes, there is some benefit but it it almost useless.

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Our life is such an important life and we have such a profound capability. If we just settle for a very small, easy solution with the hope to function and work out something better, trying our best, but just relying on hope is not necessarily the best and wisest. That’s why focusing meditation is so important. The very brief essence of meditation or concentration I talked to you last Sunday. The very detailed explanation on how one meditates, what are the problems that your meditation will face, how do you handle them, I have in a transcript called GOM. It is based on a year-long series of teachings I gave on that. This was made into this readable English transcript. That has a lot of detail, as much as I could talk to you. As part of this teaching, in the Mahayana path, the vast compassion path, we have talked about six different ways of improving oneself, starting with developing compassion. Then after developing compassion, how does one maintain this precious, wonderful, ultimate beautiful love and compassion? Through the activities of generosity, morality, patience, enthusiasm, concentration and wisdom. The six different ways to maintain this thing and grow it within us.

I am at the 5th, the concentration point. That happens to be meditation. That’s why last time I gave you a very brief statement. Today I am going to say a little more. I can’t say as much as I did in GOM, but I am going to tell you briefly what meditation means. I actually did that last Sunday, and we have very limited time. So I am not going to repeat that. But it is about focusing. The base on which you focus could be an animate or an inanimate object. It could be mind, it could be anything. The earlier great teachers recommended that we should focus at the beginning level on an object, like he image of Buddha.

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There are two purposes:

1. You learn how to focus

2. Focusing on Buddha brings a lot of great karma

That’s why focusing on Buddha image is recommended. The goal over here is to have not only pacifying, but a peaceful, stable mind. I don’t mean we are all instable or crazy. Maybe in one way we are. But we all try tour best. So we have to stabilize our mind, otherwise the mind will jump like crazy. The example is a monkey.

Many teachers use the monkey as example of our mind. The monkey doesn’t focus, but jumps around everywhere. It is like a monkey in the museum or temple. Can you imagine? Our mind is functioning just like that. So we don’t want that. That’s why we have to stabilize, pacify and focus it. That’s our goal.

The recommended place to meditate should be a very quiet place. If it is very noisy, as an advanced meditator that doesn’t bother you. Sometimes that will help to develop our meditation even better. But recommended is not so much noisy place. It should be beautiful, fit for your physical body, with good water, suitable, not too cold, not too hot, no threat to your body.

If you sit in the middle of forest you never know, some animal may attack you. So there is some danger for your life to be avoided.

I have a friend who went somewhere in Colorado ad meditated up on a snow mountain up there. The poor guy was sitting on a World War II military ammunition dump and he could have blown up any minute if something had not worked out well. He meditated there for quite a long time. Then the day after he left they blew up the area officially. He told me that himself. So this type of area is not really suitable and should be avoided.

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So, when you begin to meditate, what is the first problem you encounter? You are going to encounter unwillingness to meditate. You don’t want to meditate. That is laziness. So you have to tackle that problem. When you are very excited to go to some place and meditate for a day or two you will be able to sit down, some people may be able to sit 3, 4, days or maybe a week. Then laziness will take over. To some people, right from the beginning you don’t want to do it, with some excuse or another. Laziness comes in all different ways. I mentioned it in so many places. I am not going to go in detail. So that is the first problem.

The second problem is that you are going to forge whatever you are meditating on in the sense you are unable to focus. Let’s say you are focusing on a Buddha image. It disappears and you don’t remember whether it was yellow or orange or red looking. It is sort of forgetting on what you are focusing. That is the second problem.

The third problem is that even if you remember but your mind cannot focus on the point of your focusing and then you get the sinking mind. You lose the sharpness of focusing. Or your mind is gone somewhere. Normally losing the sharpness is ignorance oriented. Losing focus and going somewhere is an attachment oriented problem. These are known as sinking and wandering. So that will be the third problem.

The fourth problem is what while your problems are there and you recognize them, but you don’t utilize the antidote. That is the fourth problem.

The fifth problem is that when you know you are no longer controlled by sinking or wandering, yet still you are applying the antidote for sinking and wandering. What happens is that you are actually delaying your focusing, you are tackling a problem you have already taken care of.

These are the five faults you encounter. How do we avoid them? We do that by bringing ourselves in the mediation constantly. We always bring to the point of meditation. That is point one.

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Point two is to bring the desire to be able to meditate. You push yourself, not by force, but you bring yourself to the meditation. You have to have the desire to meditate. How can you bring the desire to meditate? You have to know the qualities and not only know but feel the qualities of mediation. What does meditation do? Also when you know a little bit, mediation gives you peace, harmony and joy, etc. Then you get a little faith in it, the faith that meditation really gives you a peaceful mind. You need some faith. That is the third point. The fourth is that if you can focus a little bit then you try to bring some result - physical and mental joy or physical and mental quiescence, a little quietness and happiness. That is the fourth point.

You have faith for the subject you are meditating. Then with your willingness you keep on focusing. You get used to it, accustomed to it. It is becoming a chore that you enjoy doing, like a normal household chore, a normal spiritual practice chore. That brings mental happiness and you get accustomed to it. That is the fifth point.

The sixth point is the wandering mind with follows attachment. It is part of attachment. There is some attraction. Your mind is not on the image of the Buddha, your mind has gone somewhere else. That is wandering. Even if you are focusing there is no sharpness. Your focusing is very weak. There is no tight hold in there. When that is happening, then that is sinking.

Whenever you get the sinking problem you have to recognize it. That is the point. How do you recognize? This a little tricky. The major mind, as the teachings say, focuses on the subject. Then a side mind will think occasionally whether the major mind is really focusing or not. The example is a group of animals travelling through the plateau or mountain parts, maybe deer. One will be looking around whether there is any enemy or threat. The majority of the wild animals will be travelling and one will be in a higher place looking round. Just like that, a little part of our mind we have to put pup there.

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Can we do that? Can we keep our major mind on a focus and a side mind watching? It is difficult, but possible. It is quite difficult. What do you do? Very often we start checking. We are not yet capable of dividing our mind into major different segments simultaneously. So we divide the time, maybe not exactly like in the west, every 10 minutes you check, every 20 min you check. It may not be exactly like that, but check very appropriately and often. That is possible.

We can watch some kind of very interesting TV show. We are focusing on that and then you also do some work, whether your spiritual meditation practice work or writing or something. People are capable of functioning with one, two, three or more things together. But what you are supposed to be doing is keep your major focus on your meditation and occasionally you check what is going on on your TV screen.

But what happens to us is the opposite. The major focus is on the TV show and occasionally we focus on the practice, saying the prayers and mantras, whether the mantras reach or not, etc. So it is the opposite. But still, this is the example. Our mind is capable of doing two things together.

So it is only a matter of changing the focus. The major focus put on your meditative subject and on the side occasionally figure out what’s going on in the world. Similarly the major focus should be on the subject you are focusing on. And simultaneously and occasionally, check whether you are focusing or not. If you are not, you have to handle it. Earlier I introduced the five problems and one of them was if you see the faults you don’t utilize the antidotes. That comes in here. When you see the fault is gone and you over-utilize the antidote then it becomes another problem, remember? So that’s what you are supposed to do. When that non-focusing problem is settled then you don’t emphasize on the antidote and pacifying. You have to keep your mind at the neutral level. These are the 8 important awareness you apply during the meditation level.

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Also, if you can, maintain the physical position of the 7 or 8 Buddha Vairochana sitting style. That includes the way you keep your legs, your hands, how you keep your head, the way you keep your mouth, the way you keep your mouth, your tongue, where and how far you look and where you look. All of these are the normal instructions. Every meditation teacher gives you these instructions in this country. I don’t have to emphasize that. With this physical and mental awareness, then the subject on what you are meditating comes. Try to bring clarity on the subject. The head of the image you are meditating on should be clear. Get the mouth, the nose, the eyes as clear as possible – at the beginning level. If you are a little better, see within the eyes the white part of the eyeballs and the dark parts. Bring that in clearly. Even the nostrils, make them more clear than usual. I am just giving you an example. So clarity. Maintaining clarity. The more clear it becomes there is a greater danger of losing focus. You are going to think something else. So maintain and stabilize that. Not only clarity, but stability, that is what one is supposed to be applying.

When you do this there will be a time where you can focus on whatever you are meditating. The subject is crisp and clear and you are very alert and totally focused. You may find that your mediation is staying longer and longer. In the beginning, “long” is not hours and minutes, but a couple of seconds. Then it becomes clearer, better and longer, maybe half a minute. Then maybe a minute. Now the focus is shifting from overcoming the wandering and sinking to emphasizing clarity and stability of the meditation. The moment you can put your mind a little bit on a little bit what you are meditating, you are getting the first level of meditation.

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Such a stage will be gradually developed within you. There are nine different layers, each deeper and deeper than the other. You become more clear, more stable on the second level till you can remain for half a minute or so. Then that becomes bigger and better, nine time more over the nine stages, one deeper than the other. It becomes longer and clearer, each better than the previous. By the 9th level of staying focused, that is the beginning where you get joy. It is not only feeling good, but it is mental quiescence and physical joy. It is almost like the release of serotonin in your head. I am talking about the normal physical body. A release of serotonin will give you that physical joy. Mentally you get very stable. When you reach to that level you begin to experience the simple mental and physical joy and it is almost time that the laziness, the wandering and sinking cannot overtake your meditative power. Then it is the beginning of a stabilized meditation. We are getting that. That makes your mind perfectly useful. Whatever you, the individual person, decide to use your mind for – whatever the purpose, but hopefully virtuous purposes like compassion, love and wisdom, the mind becomes qualified to be that wonderful tool that human beings can achieve. Human mind is one of the best tools we can ever have. It is the best toy you can even play with. It is the best source where you can get benefit of disadvantages from.

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It is simply a tool, almost like a gadget. It is not a gadget, but almost like a gadget. It is for you to use, either for positive purposes or negative purposes. It is almost like – I am hope I am right, what I heard – when Einstein discovered atomic power he said that this is a power tool that mankind can use to improve or to destroy. Exactly like this, when you have stable meditation that is what you can do.

Well, since this is recorded I cannot ask any question to anybody. Even if I do I can only see a bunch of cushions and empty chairs and I don’t think they are going to talk to me. So that’s what I wanted to say.

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Those who are in the Ann Arbor area, next Sunday I will be in the Michigan Union, trying to present Tibetan Buddhism. That will be the next Sunday talk. It may not go into the points we are giving here, but will basically present the essence of Tibetan Buddhism in a very brief way. So please join us next Sunday

Thank you 0:47