Stages Of Meditation: Book Club III, Episode 7

Welcome,

Welcome.

This is the seventh session of the third series of Book Club,

And as I have said before,

We are working with the book The Stages of Meditation by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

I appreciate those of you who are able to be here today live,

And as usual,

I will be reporting so that we can all continue this journey together and dive even deeper into these transformative teachings.

The recordings are especially important because they give us an opportunity,

Even if we join live,

To go back over the content,

And this content can never be listened to or dived into enough.

Each time we have smaller,

Maybe more brief,

But more clear awakenings about how these teachings can relate to our personal life experience.

So for that reason,

Repetition is really a beautiful thing.

Today,

We're going to be reading from Chapter 8,

And this chapter deals more with the topic of calm abiding,

Or shamatha,

Which many of you are likely familiar with this term.

Today,

We're going to be talking about what is shamatha,

Why is it important,

How to cultivate it,

And we'll also talk about what are called the five distractions that block us in our practice,

And then we'll talk about the eight antidotes.

The Dalai Lama presents these really beautifully,

How we can overcome these distractions in our lives so that we retain the teachings to a higher level.

That's really the point.

These teachings aren't meant as entertainment.

These are meant as valuable opportunities for us to stabilize our minds,

And that is essential for progressing on the spiritual path,

And specifically the Buddhist path,

If that's what you are playing with or perhaps committed to at this point.

And this text in particular provides us with some practical tools for that,

And so it's quite important.

It's really a learning experience.

So let's begin with just a brief grounding exercise and set a clear intention for our session today.

If it feels good,

You can close your eyes,

Perhaps taking a few deep breaths and simply allowing your body and your mind to settle.

And now perhaps you'd like to reflect for a moment on what brings you to this practice.

What do you hope to cultivate or transform through this study?

Just let this motivation arise however it wants to arise,

Whether that's clear or foggy,

Whether it's a sensation,

Emotion,

Or thought.

However this motivation arises for you,

Practice holding it with care and attention.

And now let's set a collective intention together.

We'll just say these words and you can listen,

Perhaps holding them alongside your own motivation in a gentle way.

May our study and practice today benefit not only ourselves but all beings.

May we cultivate calm abiding to bring greater clarity,

Compassion,

And wisdom into our lives and the world.

Take maybe a few breaths here,

Just committing this intention to mind.

And then if your eyes have been closed,

Gently opening them and returning to our space together.

So briefly to recap our last session,

It's been quite a while since I reported the last live session.

We explored in the last session,

Chapters six and seven,

If you remember this text is really about the gradual path of awakening.

And so this was very fresh in Tibetan Buddhism.

It really shaped all of Tibetan Buddhism.

And when Kamalashila brought this perspective to the Buddhist community saying,

You know,

It's not about an instant moment of enlightenment.

It's actually about the proper preparation and patience that leads us to enlightenment.

And that's really relevant in modern times.

And I've talked about this quite a bit throughout this book club.

But each chapter brings us a little bit closer to understanding just how important taking a slow,

Gradual,

And titrated approach to our practice can give us more depth,

More understanding and eventually lead to a greater sense of an enlightened mind or the mind that awakens to bodhicitta,

As we've talked about.

So in chapters six and seven,

Kamalashila and the Dalai Lama really are dealing here with more calm abiding and special insights.

So likely,

You know,

These words in their Buddhist form,

Maybe,

Maybe not,

I don't want to assume,

But they're most commonly discussed as shamatha or vipassana.

So shamatha or vipassana,

Shamatha is calm abiding and vipassana is considered special insight.

And in this text,

We're learning about why they are so important,

Why there is a specific order to bringing them into our practice and working with them deeply,

And eventually how they come together in an integrated way to support our awakening.

So in this last chapter,

We really reflected on how analytical meditation,

Which is special insight or vipassana,

How this helps us question assumptions about reality.

And in that questioning,

It leads us to a deeper understanding of interdependence and impermanence,

Two really important concepts in the Buddha's teachings.

And we also discuss the importance of ethical living and simplifying distractions and what we can do to create the right conditions for meditation.

So really specifically talking about that there are conditions for meditation that will help us achieve a greater sense of understanding in our practice and what that exactly looks like.

So if you haven't listened to that episode,

It's available in a recording and you can go back and listen,

But it's not necessarily necessary for today.

This foundation,

However,

It really prepares us for our continuing topics and specifically talking about calm abiding,

Why it matters,

And how to work with it really skillfully,

Especially with the challenges we encounter during practice.

Because of course,

If you're a meditator,

Then you already know,

Or I don't want to spoil it,

But I'm going to like spoil alert just in case you don't already know,

Meditation is not about peace.

It's not about relaxation necessarily.

I often redefine the idea of rest in such a way that rest is a dropping of our defensive nature.

It's not necessarily a deep relaxation on a feather top mattress.

It can be quite intense and it can feel quite uncomfortable.

It can feel like a lot of discomfort sometimes.

And if you've spent any time in meditation,

Then you are likely familiar with this,

Right?

Even from the very simple mundane side of things where like my back hurts or I have an itch and I want to scratch it and I don't know,

Should I or shouldn't I scratch it?

I'm not sure,

You know,

Am I meditating if I scratch my itch or not?

These are the kinds of things that come up and they cause,

As the Dalai Lama describes,

Really this all pervasive suffering,

One of the few kinds of sufferings that the Buddha has defined for us.

The all pervasive suffering,

Again,

Is just this undercurrent of things being slightly off,

Just something not being quite right.

And that shows up in very small and subtle ways.

So when we talk about suffering in the context of the Buddha's teachings,

We aren't necessarily talking about these grand suffering,

Major dramatic events that happen in our lives.

In fact,

Primarily what we're talking about is this all pervasive suffering that every single being experiences,

This feeling that just a little off or could be a little better.

And in that way,

We have been delivered this very systematic path and process to move ourselves from that discomfort into a greater level of awakening and awareness.

But to do that,

We have to start with perhaps finding some rest,

But it's not necessarily about relaxation.

And that's a really important distinction we want to make in our meditation practice because I think for many people,

The minute it becomes uncomfortable,

It can feel perhaps like we are doing it wrong.

And here we're learning,

And across the Buddha's teachings,

We're learning that in fact that discomfort and that awareness of that discomfort is something we can rest with.

And that is where we find ourselves when we are talking about shamatha.

We are learning to rest with,

And as we rest with,

We maintain this single pointed focus throughout that resting.

And again,

If you think of resting as really dropping all of this defensive nature that we normally have,

Normally we're like,

I can rest,

But only if X,

Y,

Z doesn't happen.

And so then if those things happen,

I can't rest.

Everything needs to be perfect in order for me to find rest.

But we're learning that actually we have the capacity to rest and focus amidst anything that is happening.

And that is what leads us eventually to this special insight.

So let's get to the reading today for chapter eight,

But we'll go back to this proper motivation for listening that the Dalai Lama has introduced to us.

Just simply aligning ourselves with this inner motivation for listening to this book in particular in a special way.

So just take a few deep,

Slow breaths.

We shall listen to the intermediate stages of meditation by the great Kamalashila in order to attain supreme Buddhahood for the sake of sentient beings vast as the expanse of space.

So with this mindset,

Avoiding as much as possible the three wrong ways of listening,

Like a cup turned upside down,

Like a dirty cup or like a cup with holes in it,

Rather bringing our full presence to listen,

Not in any particular way,

But just in an open way without expectation.

Let's begin with the reading.

The practice of calm abiding.

Calm abiding meditation should be achieved first.

Calm abiding is that mind which has overcome distraction to external objects and which spontaneously and continuously turns toward the object of meditation with bliss and pliancy.

After properly fulfilling the preparatory practices,

You should engage in the actual meditation which consists of calm abiding and special insight.

What is this calm abiding meditation?

It is that state of mind that naturally attends to the object of meditation as a result of pacifying distraction to external objects.

Besides that,

It gradually eliminates the defects of the body and mind due to its being free from mental dullness and excitement.

With bliss and pliancy refers to these physical and mental qualities that a meditator develops.

In the process of meditation,

Mental pliancy is developed first and is followed by physical pliancy.

Interestingly,

Physical bliss is generated after that,

Followed by mental bliss.

When the mind is conjoined with bliss,

It is known as calm abiding meditation.

What is special insight?

That which properly examines suchness from within a state of calm abiding is special insight.

The Cloud of Jewels Sutra reads,

Calm abiding meditation is a single-pointed mind.

Special insight makes specific analysis of the ultimate.

After developing the ability to engage in calm abiding meditation,

The meditator does not single-pointedly place the mind on the object but starts examining it.

The object of meditation here is primarily ultimate truth,

But conventional phenomena are not excluded.

The concentration that generates physical and mental bliss by the force of analyzing the object is special insight.

Thereafter,

A union of calm abiding and special insight is attained.

Calm abiding and special insight are not differentiated according to their objects of concentration.

They can both take conventional and ultimate truth as objects.

There is calm abiding meditation that focuses on the ultimate truth,

And there is special insight that meditates on conventional truth.

For instance,

There is calm abiding meditation in which the mind is single-pointedly placed on emptiness.

Special insight also meditates on conventional phenomena,

Such as the subtle and grosser aspects of the meditated past.

In general,

The difference between these two types of meditation is that calm abiding is a concentrative meditation and special insight an analytical one.

The perfection vehicle and the first three classes of Tantra share this notion.

According to the highest Tantra,

Special insight is a concentrative meditation.

This is a unique mode of understanding within the context of which special insight operates fully as a concentrative meditation.

On the other hand,

The great seal of Mahamudra of the Kaigu tradition and the great accomplishment or Dzogchen of the Nyingma tradition deal only with analytical meditation.

Also,

From the Unraveling of the Thought Sutra,

Maitreya asked,

Oh Buddha,

How should people thoroughly search for calm abiding meditation and gain experience in special insight?

The Buddha answered Maitreya,

I have given the following teachings to bodhisattvas,

Sutras,

Melodious praises,

Prophetic teachings,

Verses,

Specific instructions,

Advice from specific experiences,

Expressions of realization,

Legends,

Birth tales,

Extensive teachings,

Established doctrine and instructions.

Bodhisattvas should properly listen to these teachings,

Remember their contents,

Train in verbal recitation,

And thoroughly examine them mentally.

With perfect comprehension,

They should go alone to remote areas and reflect on these teachings and continue to focus their minds upon them.

They should focus mentally only on those topics that they have reflected about and maintain this continuously.

This is called mental engagement.

In calm abiding meditation,

You single pointedly focus the mind on the essential and summary points of the teaching.

The Buddha's teachings as described in these 12 categories are extensive and cover vast topics such as those concerning the mental and physical aggregates,

Elements,

Sources of perception and so forth.

In the context of calm abiding meditation,

You are not to elaborate,

But are to attend to the essential nature or the point of the teaching,

Whether it be emptiness or impermanence and contemplate its nature.

On the other hand,

Meditation on special insight is analytical.

The meditator elaborates on the identity,

Origin and other characteristics of the objects of meditation,

Such as the aggregates,

Elements,

Sources of perception and so forth.

When the mind has been repeatedly engaged in this way and physical and mental pliancy have been achieved,

That mind is called calm abiding.

This is how Bodhisattvas properly seek the calmly abiding mind.

Through the process of meditation,

The practitioner initially actualizes mental pliancy.

This is preceded by a kind of heaviness of the brain that is in fact a sign of relinquishing the defects of the mind.

After generating mental pliancy,

Physical pliancy is actualized.

This is the direct opponent of the physical defects.

Physical bliss is generated as a result and from this mental bliss is generated.

When the Bodhisattva has achieved physical and mental pliancy and abides only in them,

He eliminates mental distraction.

The phenomena that has been contemplated as the object of inner single-pointed concentration should be analyzed and regarded as like a reflection.

This reflection or image,

Which is the object of single-pointed concentration,

Should be thoroughly discerned as an object of knowledge.

It should be completely investigated and thoroughly examined.

Practice patience and take delight in it.

With proper analysis,

Observe and understand it.

This is what is known as special insight,

Thus Bodhisattvas are skilled in the ways of special insight.

Generation of a positive motivation is critical.

The practitioner should recreate this positive attitude throughout the process of practice.

Think I shall listen to this holy text by the great Kamalashila in order to attain unsurpassed Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings as vast as space.

It is highly important that we realize the rarity and preciousness of the human life.

It is on this basis that we can attain both temporary and ultimate goals.

This life as a free and fortunate human being is a great occasion and we should take full advantage of it.

The root and foundation for realizing the ultimate goal of enlightenment is generation of the altruistic thought,

And this in turn derives from compassion.

Other complementary practices essential in this context are the practice of generosity and other meritorious deeds and training in concentration,

Which is the union of calm abiding and special insight.

Before generating compassion for other sentient beings,

The practitioner must think about the sufferings of cyclical existence in general,

And in particular the sufferings of the different realms within the cycle of existence.

Through this process of contemplation,

The practitioner comes to appreciate the unbearable nature of the miseries of the cycle of existence.

This naturally leads you to find out how to abandon them.

Is there an occasion when we can be completely free of suffering?

What methods need to be applied in order to relinquish suffering?

When you earnestly engage in such an inquiry and examine the question well,

You will realize what causes suffering.

The source of suffering is the mental defilement that arises from action and disturbing emotions.

This is temporary,

And the mind can be completely separated from it.

The practitioner comes to realize that the noble truth of cessation can be attained with the pacification or elimination of suffering and its causes.

The corollary is that the individual develops renunciation,

Wishing for freedom from suffering and its causes.

And when you wish for other sentient beings also to gain freedom from suffering and its causes,

You are taking a major step toward generating compassion.

First,

A practitioner should train in the stages of the common path,

And then gradually incorporate the stages of the greater path.

This is a sound and correct mode of actualizing a spiritual career.

After having performed the preparatory practices,

You undertake the training in the two types of awakening mind.

These two are the conventional and ultimate awakening minds,

With generation of the conventional awakening mind,

A practitioner engages in the deeds of a bodhisattva,

Which include the six perfections.

Meditation on the ultimate awakening mind is done by generating a transcendental wisdom directly realizing emptiness.

Such a wisdom is a meditative stabilization that is a union of calm abiding and special insight.

This means that while focusing single-pointedly,

You can simultaneously analyze the nature of emptiness.

First,

The practitioner must gather the prerequisites and other conditions conducive to meditation on calm abiding.

The yogis who are interested in actualizing a calmly abiding mind should initially concentrate closely on the fact that the twelve sets of scriptures,

The sutras,

Melodious praises and so forth,

Can be summarized as all leading to suchness,

That they will lead to suchness and that they will have led to suchness.

In the final analysis,

The Buddha's teachings are directly or indirectly related to suchness.

The texts that obviously deal with impermanence,

Suffering and so forth,

Also ultimately deal with suchness,

For although they expound gross selflessness,

Such as the non-duality of subject and object,

They lead directly to that subtle emptiness that the Buddha taught directly during the second turning of the wheel of Dharma.

One way of doing this meditation is to set the mind closely on the mental and physical aggregates.

As an object that includes all phenomena,

Another way is to place the mind on an image of the Buddha.

The king of meditative stabilization sutra says,

With his body gold in color,

The lord of the universe is extremely beautiful.

The bodhisattva who places his mind on this object is referred to as one in meditative absorption.

There are various objects of calmly abiding meditation.

The tantric systems are unique in employing a meditational deity or seed syllable as the object.

Here,

As taught in the sutra system,

The Buddha's image is used as the object.

Meditative stabilization is a practice common to Buddhists and non-Buddhists.

Therefore,

It is advisable for a Buddhist to take the image of a Buddha as the object of meditation.

In this way,

He or she will reap a number of incidental benefits,

Such as accumulating merit and remembering the Buddha.

Visualize the image of the Buddha seated on a throne of precious jewels.

It should be approximately the full length of your body away from you,

Abiding in the space in front of you at the level of your forehead.

You should imagine that the image is both dense and radiant.

The intelligent practitioner seeks concentration by first gaining a proper understanding of the view.

Such a person focuses on emptiness as the object of meditation and aims to actualize calm-abiding in this way.

This is indeed difficult.

Others use the mind itself as the object in their quest for calm-abiding.

The meditator,

In fact,

Focuses on clarity and awareness,

Which is a way for the mind to focus on itself.

This is not an easy task either.

Initially,

A practitioner needs to identify clear awareness as an actual experience.

The mind then focuses on that feeling with the help of mindfulness.

Mind is mysterious and has myriad appearances.

It cannot be identified in the way external objects can.

It has no shape,

Form,

Or color.

This mere clear awareness is of the nature of experience and feeling.

It is something like colored water.

Although the water is not of the same nature as the color,

So long as they are mixed,

The true color of the water is not obvious.

Similarly,

The mind does not have the nature of external objects such as physical form and so forth.

However,

The mind is so habituated to following the five sensory consciousnesses that it becomes almost indistinguishable from the physical form,

Shape,

Color,

And so forth that it experiences.

In this context,

The mode of meditation is to deliberately stop all kinds of thoughts and perceptions.

You start by restraining the mind from following the sensory consciousnesses.

This should be followed by stopping the mind that reflects on sensory experiences and feelings of joy and misery.

Focus the mind on its present and natural state without allowing it to become preoccupied with memories of the past or plans for the future.

Through such a process,

The mind's true color,

So to speak,

Will gradually dawn on the practitioner.

When the mind is free from all kinds of thoughts and concepts,

Suddenly a form of acuity will appear.

If the meditator tries to gain familiarity with that acuity,

The clarity of the consciousness will naturally become more obvious.

Throughout the process of practicing calm-abiding meditation,

We should be fully aware of the five defects and the eight antidotes.

The five defects are laziness,

Forgetting the object of meditation,

Mental dullness and excitement,

Not applying the antidote when afflicted by mental dullness or excitement,

And unnecessary application of the antidotes.

Let me identify the eight antidotes.

They are faith,

Interest,

Perseverance,

Liency,

Mindfulness,

Conscientiousness,

Application of the antidotes when afflicted by dullness or excitement,

And discarding unnecessary application of the antidotes.

Faith here refers to the delight or joy in the practice of concentration that arises from appreciating its benefits.

This naturally leads to interest in the practice and helps enhance perseverance.

The first four antidotes,

Faith,

Interest,

Perseverance,

And liency,

Counteract laziness,

And the fifth antidote,

Mindfulness,

Counteracts forgetting the object of meditation.

Conscientiousness,

The sixth antidote,

Is the opponent of dullness and excitement.

When the mind suffers from dullness,

Efforts should be made to awaken and uplift the mind.

Excitement should be countered by calming down the agitated mind.

Through prolonged practice,

The meditator gains mental stability and ascends through the stages of concentration.

On the eighth and ninth stages,

The mind is in profound concentration.

At that time,

Application of the antidotes is only a distraction and so should be avoided.

In this way,

Place the mind on the object of your choice,

And having done so,

Repeatedly and continuously place the mind.

Having placed the mind in this way,

Examine it and check whether it is properly focused on the object.

Also check for dullness and see whether the mind is being distracted by external objects.

With respect to developing calm abiding meditation,

The practitioner is at liberty to choose the object of meditation that he or she feels to be appropriate and comfortable.

He or she should then concentrate the mind on the object,

Not allowing it to become distracted by external objects nor letting it fall into the pits of dullness.

He or she should aim to attain single-pointed concentration conjoined with sharp clarity.

Dullness occurs when the mind is dominated by laziness and lacks alertness and sharpness.

Even in everyday life,

We may describe our minds as unclear or sluggish.

When dullness is present,

The meditator is not holding firmly onto the object and so the meditation is not effective.

If the mind is found to be dull due to sleepiness and mental torpor,

Or if you fear that dullness is approaching,

Then the mind should attend to a supremely delightful object,

Such as an image of the Buddha or a notion of light.

In this process,

Having dispelled dullness,

The mind should try to see the object very clearly.

Mental torpor and dullness occur in a mutual cause-and-effect relationship.

When a meditator is beset by fogginess,

The mind and body feel heavy.

The practitioner loses clarity and the mind becomes functionally ineffective and unproductive.

Dullness is a form of mental depression,

So to counteract it,

Employ techniques that can help uplift the mind.

Some of the more effective ways are to think about joyful objects,

Such as the wonderful qualities of a Buddha,

Or to think about the rarity of the precious human life and the opportunities it provides.

You should draw inspiration from those thoughts to engage in a fruitful meditation.

In developing calm-abiding,

The other main obstacle to be overcome is mental excitement.

This occurs when the mind is in a state of excitement,

Chasing the objects of desire and recalling past experiences of joy and happiness.

Grosser forms of mental excitement will cause the mind to lose the object of concentration completely.

In subtler forms,

Only a portion of the mind attends to the object.

The solution to this problem is to meditate on impermanence,

Suffering,

And so forth,

Which can help the mind to settle down.

You should recognize the presence of dullness when the mind cannot see the object very clearly.

When you feel as if you are blind,

Or in a dark place,

Or that you have closed your eyes.

If while you are in meditation your mind chases after qualities of external objects,

Such as form,

Or turns its attention to other phenomena,

Or is distracted by desire for an object,

You have previously experienced,

Or if you suspect distraction is approaching,

Reflect that all composite phenomena are impermanent.

Think about suffering and so forth,

Topics that will temper the mind.

If you contemplate the faults of constant mental distraction or any other object that would discourage your mind,

You will be able to reduce mental excitement.

When the mind loses the object of meditation and becomes distracted by thoughts of your past experiences,

Particularly in relation to objects of attachment,

It is called excitement.

When the mind completely loses the object of meditation and becomes distracted by actual external objects,

It is gross excitement.

If the mind has not lost the object of meditation,

But a part of the mind dwells on an object of attachment,

It is called subtle excitement.

Excitement arises when the mind is too buoyant.

When the mind is too buoyant and overly active,

It is easily distracted.

The antidote to this is to dampen down the mind's high spirits,

Which can be done by withdrawing the mind.

To do that,

Meditation on objects that reduce obsession and attachment toward external internal objects is very helpful.

And in this context,

Meditation on impermanence,

Suffering,

And so forth is once again very useful.

The antidote to mental dullness and excitement is introspection.

The function of introspection is to observe whether or not the mind is abiding stably on the object of meditation.

The function of mindfulness is to keep the mind on the object.

Once this is achieved,

Mental introspection has to watch whether the mind remains on the object or not.

The stronger your mindfulness,

The stronger your mental introspection will be.

For example,

If you constantly remember,

It's not good to do this,

This is not helpful,

And so forth,

You are maintaining introspection.

It's important to be mindful of the negative aspects of your daily life,

And if you should be alert to their occurrence.

Therefore,

One of the unique features and functions of mental introspection is to assess the condition of your mind and body,

To judge whether the mind remains stably on the object or not.

At the same time,

It is important to remember that if your spirits sink too low,

Your mind will become dull.

At the onset of mental dullness,

You should make efforts to lift your spirits.

Whether you are low-spirited or high-spirited,

Or at any given time,

Depends very much on your health,

Diet,

Time of day,

And so forth.

So you are the best judge of when to reduce your mental spirits and when to heighten them.

In this process,

Distraction should be eliminated,

And with the rope of mindfulness and alertness,

The elephant-like mind should be fastened to the tree of the object of meditation.

When you find that the mind is free of dullness and excitement,

And that it naturally abides on the object,

You should relax your effort and remain neutral as long as it continues thus.

Initially,

The mind barely attends to the object of meditation,

But with prolonged practice,

By developing the antidotes to mental dullness and excitement,

The grosser types of these impediments decrease in strength,

And the subtle types become more obvious.

If you persist in the practice and improve the force of your mindfulness and alertness,

There will come a time when even the subtle types of these impediments do not obscure your meditation.

Generating a strong will to engage in a proper meditation,

Free of all the obstacles,

Can have a very positive impact.

Eventually,

You should be able to sit effortlessly for a session of an hour or so.

Realization of single-pointed concentration is not an easy task.

You must have the endurance to practice for a long time.

By continuous practice,

You can gradually eliminate the defects of the body and mind.

Defects in this context refer to the states of dullness and heaviness of the body and mind that make them unresponsive or unserviceable for meditation.

These defects are thoroughly eliminated as the meditator develops the nine stages of calm-abiding.

The practitioner eventually generates mental pliancy,

Which is followed by physical pliancy.

You should understand that calm-abiding is actualized when you enjoy physical and mental pliancy through prolonged familiarity with the meditation,

And the mind gains the power to engage the object as it chooses.

Calm-abiding meditation is a practice common to Buddhists and non-Buddhists.

So in terms of its mere identity,

There is nothing profound or special about it.

However,

When we investigate the nature of some object,

Whether it is conventional or ultimate,

Calm-abiding meditation is very important.

Its main objective is to develop single-pointed concentration.

Although we say prayers or engage in tantric practices,

We are faced with the question of whether they are effective.

The main reason is our lack of concentration,

So we should develop a mind that is able to abide single-pointedly on the object of focus.

In the initial stages,

Even if we are unable to generate a final calmly-abiding mind,

It is crucial to cultivate a good deal of mental stability while practicing the six perfections,

Altruistic ideals,

And so forth.

The final goal of practicing calm-abiding meditation is to actualize special insight.

So that was chapter eight.

And I think as usual,

The Dalai Lama has such an interesting way of writing.

I feel like it's much more,

I don't want to say technical,

I don't think that that's the right word,

But the Dalai Lama's style of writing is perhaps less relatable in some ways than some other authors that write on Buddhist texts.

And of course,

The Dalai Lama's knowledge is so extensive and his body of understanding is so great that I can imagine it can be sometimes challenging to put into more layman's terms,

Especially across cultures and languages.

The ideas that are coming forward,

Because although the ideas are in some ways quite simple,

They're also quite nuanced.

So let's just unpack this chapter a little bit together.

I think that's going to be helpful for our understanding as usual.

The first question I want to ask you is what is calm-abiding?

And that is something that the Dalai Lama covers and Kamo and Sheila both cover in this.

And hopefully you got that from this chapter and from previous chapters as well.

But that calm-abiding is really the ability to rest the mind single pointedly on an object without distraction.

And that's really what he was talking about at the end of the book,

Was that there are all these ways that the mind is trying to block us from that.

And that's why the training of the mind,

And especially for extended periods of time,

Is so important.

The Dalai Lama talked about like this,

This excitement of the mind and then this dullness of the mind and then what we can do about that.

And we'll talk about that a little bit more.

But just to keep with calm-abiding,

It's the foundation for developing special insight,

Which calm-abiding is sort of like it comes first and then special insight comes next.

But then eventually these two things become very integrated.

Because calm-abiding provides this mental stability,

It is really necessary to have that in order for us to then approach analyzing the nature of reality with any kind of clarity.

If the mind is in any way distracted,

Then there just won't be clarity in analyzing subjects.

And that's what we're looking to do in our practice.

In our practice,

We're looking to understand the nature of reality.

And the idea really is that when we grasp the nature of reality,

Suffering as we know it is gone.

We are free from that.

But without this calm-abiding,

The mind really lacks that clarity that we need and that focus to penetrate deeply into wisdom practices.

I can't remember the name of this author,

Carl,

Or I'm blanking on it right now,

But this author wrote this book,

Deep Work.

It's on the tip of my tongue.

Anyways,

It was a really fascinating book.

And he talks about the idea of doing like big projects that require a lot of focus.

And you can imagine calm-abiding is training our capacity to do deep work,

Not external work,

Not work for money,

But work for liberation.

And that deep work is essential for us to be able to achieve our final ambition.

But without this calm-abiding,

This single-pointed,

Focused mind,

We just aren't able to get there if we have too many distractions.

You know,

And Carl,

I keep wanting to say this guy's name,

But I can't remember it.

Anyways,

In this book,

Deep Work,

You know,

It's things like having your cell phone turned off or making sure you're like in places that there isn't any distraction.

But these are superficial,

But they're also really relevant because the way we live our lives has to do with how much distraction we do or we don't have in our lives.

You know,

If you're a very,

Very busy person,

Then likely sitting is a lot harder for you than perhaps,

This isn't always the case,

But then perhaps for somebody who is much less busy,

Because you just have a lot of things going on in your mind,

Perhaps a lot of logistics that you need to be managing.

And many of these things perhaps overflow into all aspects and parts of life rather than being compartmentalized,

Because of course that's the nature of experience.

It's not,

It's not really compartmentalized.

It's really all happening together.

So the Dalai Lama really emphasizing,

Is emphasizing here that calm abiding isn't just about relaxation,

But it's about creating a steady and focused mind that's free from agitation and free from dullness.

And that this mental stability is what allows us to engage in deeper practices with precision and depth and ultimately supports our,

Our path to liberation.

And that's,

That's the same that's true for any kind of deep work that we want to do.

We need to eliminate agitation and dullness,

Which are essentially like the main hindrances on our practice,

To our practice or to any work that we want to get done.

And when we eliminate those,

When we work with them in intelligent wise,

Effective ways,

Then we start to develop this capacity to penetrate deeply into what is the nature of reality?

What is emptiness?

What is impermanence?

What is interdependence?

We can start to ask these questions and look deeply at them.

And because there's a clear field,

You know,

It's like if you want to solve a math problem,

But all you have is a single piece of paper and it's already covered in numbers,

It's going to be really hard to write the math problem on that piece of paper and solve it because there's going to be so much competing,

There will be so much competing information.

And that's the same thing with the mind.

We want there to be a clear mind so that we can really focus on the problem at hand.

So the five distractions,

Again,

Just to go back over them,

Because they're sort of subtly woven into this text.

These are laziness,

And this is,

You know,

If we don't want to engage in practice,

We want to procrastinate our practice,

These kinds of things.

This is what's considered to be lazy.

And please let go of,

You know,

Good,

Bad thinking,

Black and white thinking.

That's one of the first things we really want to let go of,

I think,

In our practice.

That's just my opinion,

Because it's such a hindrance itself.

It's not like laziness is good or bad,

But it's like laziness can be a hindrance to our practice.

So we need to work with it intelligently.

The second one is forgetting the object.

So if you've ever been sitting in a breath meditation,

And we'll do a little meditation here together in a moment,

You're sitting in that,

And you're breathing,

And then all of a sudden you're thinking about,

Like,

What's for dinner,

Or what you're going to do later,

Or something that happened earlier,

Just losing the focus on the object of meditation,

That's the second hindrance.

The third one,

Which the Dalai Lama talked quite a bit about at the end of this chapter,

Is excitement and laxity.

So when the mind becomes overly agitated,

And we're defining agitation here like excitement,

So it doesn't have to be a negative agitation,

The Dalai Lama uses the word buoyancy,

Which I really love that word.

When the mind is too buoyant,

Sort of too airy,

Or,

You know,

Floating too much,

Then it can't focus clearly.

It can't look at things with much attention.

And so we have to deal with that.

And then on the opposite side of that,

If the mind is too dull,

Then it likewise isn't able to focus clearly.

And then the fourth and the fifth,

Non-application and over-application.

So non-application is we recognize that we have these distractions.

I mean,

I feel like I can just laugh hysterically because this makes me,

This resonates so much with my own practice.

You know,

I'm in my practice,

I'm sitting for my meditation,

And my mind is all over the place,

And I'm just,

I'm not doing anything about it.

Maybe I'm noticing it,

I'm recognizing that it's happening,

But I'm not doing anything,

I'm not applying any antidote to stop that so that my practice can maintain some clarity,

And so that is one of the hindrances,

Non-application.

And then the fifth hindrance,

Over-application,

Is when we're using the antidotes too much,

You know,

Just like everything else,

There comes a point in time where,

Okay,

You've used an antidote,

It's been effective,

And now you can drop that and rest in a more neutral state of mind,

And that is what we want to do.

We don't want to let the antidotes become more of the things we cling to or we have an aversion to,

But rather we want to become familiar with the antidotes,

Know when to use them,

And also know,

As that one song goes,

When to lose them and when to just walk away.

I don't know why that song popped in my head,

But anyways,

It's about like cards,

I think,

Playing poker.

Silly.

So,

Okay,

What are the eight antidotes?

Let's talk about those.

Faith is the first antidote.

This is really like,

Can you develop a deep sense of trust in the value and importance of the practice?

And if you can bring that into your mind,

You know,

If you don't already have it,

Then faith isn't going to be a very good antidote,

But faith is a really important part of our practice.

So if you find that you're struggling,

Especially with dullness,

Developing or coming back to the faith that you have in the practice and reminding yourself of all of the reasons that this practice is so valuable and important can help eliminate that dullness.

The second one is aspiration.

And we should all be doing this at the beginning of our practice anyways,

Which,

Or at the end of our practice,

Whichever,

But just cultivating this wish to achieve success in our meditation practice,

Like,

You know,

Please let me be of benefit to other humans and please let me eliminate my kleshas,

Like,

Please let me succeed in this session where I sit here today.

And just wishing deeply for success in our practice,

And that can help eliminate some of the hindrances as well.

The third is effort.

You know,

We're not going to get anywhere unless we put some effort into it.

There's just no way.

And so,

Yeah,

Applying effort.

It's like the non-application.

If I'm in my practice and I don't realize and I don't use an antidote when I do need one,

Then I'm not putting the right effort in.

So just exercising our effort.

The fourth is what's considered pliancy.

And this is really like a very popular term in sort of pop culture psychology right now,

Like mental flexibility,

Having this cognitive flexibility or mental flexibility,

Just training the mind to be very flexible and responsive can also be a support on our path and help us with these hindrances.

And then the last four,

Mindfulness is the fifth.

Of course,

Most of you are familiar already with this.

This concept of mindfulness,

And this should be a part of our practice for a long time.

You know,

Maybe eventually we're able to sort of free ourselves from it,

But the mindfulness side of our practice is like a small monitoring of what is happening.

So the Dalai Lama talked about this quite a lot in this chapter,

Just aware of what is going wrong in your mind and aware of what isn't working and what isn't happening right for you.

Just always with a mind on what are the distractions you're experiencing?

What are the hindrances you're experiencing?

Not being afraid to really look at those things.

And the sixth one is introspection,

Which is very similar,

Monitoring the mind,

Monitoring for distraction or dullness.

And then the seventh and the eighth are application and equanimity.

So application is self-explanatory,

Just using and using an application and correcting a distraction as it arises,

Not waiting,

And then equanimity is finding this balanced effort where we can avoid overexertion and we can avoid underexertion.

And all of these tools together are really practical and adaptable.

And when we work with them,

And again,

This isn't something that you just hear once and then you,

You know,

And it's no problem.

You have to come back to these teachings and really study them and say,

You know,

Maybe you say I have this challenge the most.

For instance,

I tend to have a quite a buoyant mind and I need then in that buoyancy to have a practice that helps,

Helps ground me because if I'm not grounded,

If my mind is overexcited or agitated,

Then of course I'm not actually even meditating.

And so knowing what your personal challenges are,

What your personal distractions are,

And then using the correct antidote,

But that means studying what the antidotes are and coming back to these teachings and,

And remembering,

Reminding yourself,

Perhaps even writing them down.

And,

You know,

That's really what the Dalai Lama does in this chapter is he gives us a lot of opportunity for introspection to ask ourselves,

I feel like I was laughing through that chapter.

Every time I read it,

It's just like,

Yeah,

My mind,

I see my mind in the reading and that's what I wish for you also,

That you are hearing these readings and you're seeing your own mind tendencies because although they're,

The teachings are standard,

There's,

You know,

Some things that are going to really resonate with you more than other things and for that resonance to occur.

And then for change to,

To come as a result of that,

You need to be looking internally,

You need to be checking,

Checking and checking again and again,

Just checking with that.

You know,

When you're meditating,

Checking,

Am I paying attention right now?

Checking.

What am I even paying attention to?

Checking.

What is distracting me?

Just,

Just continuing to check,

Check ourselves.

And then we,

We stop really needing other people to check us.

And that's beautiful.

We mature,

We become self-reliant.

So let's do a little practice together.

And we're just going to do a practice on recognizing and addressing some distractions as we work to cultivate this calm abiding.

So find your meditation seat.

If you want to sit up,

If you're lying down,

You know,

Lift the chest or something so that you don't fall asleep.

That's its own hindrance.

And once you find your meditation seat,

You can keep your eyes open or closed.

Depends on what you feel like today.

Don't worry.

It's not like one way is right and one is wrong.

Maybe you want to get outside.

Do some last minute fidgets or something so that you can really rust into stillness and then bring your attention to your breath and simply allow your mind to rest on the natural rhythm of the inhale and exhale cycle.

There's no need to change anything.

So the object of meditation for us right now is the breath.

And as you settle,

Just notice if any of the five distractions arise.

Laziness,

Forgetting the breath,

Excitement,

Dullness,

Non-application or over-application,

Observe any distractions without judgment and just simply acknowledge their presence.

And if you notice any of these distractions,

Make an attempt to gently apply an antidote,

For example,

If you feel lazy,

Try to remember the reason you're here practicing,

Remembering and reminding yourself of the value and importance of the practice.

And if your mind feels agitated,

Use introspection and adjust your focus or relax any tension.

And as you address these distractions,

Each time you simply return to the breath and rest in the awareness of breathing,

Allowing the mind to find balance and stability.

And if you forget what the antidotes are,

It's no problem.

It's enough today to just simply notice the distractions and get a feeling for your own mind's tendency.

I'm going to leave us in silence for just two minutes or so,

Following the breath with the attention of our mind and in a very curious way,

Checking to see where distraction occurs,

What it is and how we may be able to handle it.

No matter where you are in your practice,

Start to deepen your breath.

You can drop the focus for a moment and just simply rest in a very open way,

Nothing to attend to.

If your eyes were closed,

Perhaps blinking them open and coming back into our shared space.

Okay.

So as usual,

I have some homework for you,

Which you can,

Of course,

Choose to do or not.

It's up to you.

It's not mandatory or something.

I don't even know the exact term.

And I'm going to offer that homework and you can use it.

The homework requires this week,

We're getting a little deeper,

The homework's sort of been building on itself and this session,

I want to offer some homework that allows you to do a little bit of exploration on your own,

And I hope you feel excited to do that.

But the first piece of the homework is to sit for 20 minutes,

15,

20 minutes a day working on calm abiding.

And my advice is to use the breath as the object of meditation,

Unless there is some reason that the breath does not feel safe for you,

In which case it's perfectly okay to use sound as the object of meditation or looking at an image,

This kind of thing.

But just a very simple sensory object is wonderful.

And so 15 to 20 minutes a day,

Practicing with calm abiding,

Just trying to keep that object as your main point of focus for the whole time.

And this is where the research comes in.

I want you to use the five distractions and the eight antidotes as a framework to observe and address any challenges that may come up during your practice.

So I'm really thinking about,

I would say generally,

The most things,

The things that you're going to see arise the most are laziness,

Dullness,

Or mental agitation or excitement.

And so you can pay particular attention to those three,

Dullness,

Laziness,

And mental agitation or excitement,

And notice when they come up,

And then you can do a little research on the eight antidotes.

And I encourage you to do that,

Or if you have the book yourself,

To be looking at the book and then to be exploring what are the right antidotes to be using for yourself and then practicing in your meditation,

Applying those antidotes.

And then off the cushion,

I want you to start to notice when your mind becomes distracted or agitated.

Maybe you already work with this,

But if not,

I want this to really become an off-the-cushion practice that has integrated into your life.

So begin now,

Noticing any time your mind is distracted or agitated,

And then using mindfulness and introspection to bring your mind back to a calm and focused state.

So we're really starting to take this mindfulness out of our meditation practice and into our daily life.

And this is why it becomes non-meditation,

Because meditation and non-meditation essentially are no different.

Meditation is just a formal training ground.

And in that formal training ground,

We're able to practice with greater freedom and flexibility and with less distractions than you have in day-to-day waking life.

But now we can start to use our day-to-day waking life as an opportunity to practice as well.

In fact,

That's the most important,

Is that these practices help us in our day-to-day life,

Or why are we doing them,

Right?

So that's really important.

So off the cushion,

Just noticing when you become distracted,

Noticing when you become agitated,

And then using introspection and mindfulness to bring yourself back down and create more focus.

And what I would love to see is at the end of a week or so,

You know,

At the end of a certain period of time that you define for yourself,

I want you to reflect on how using antidotes has potentially influenced your meditation and your daily life.

And you can include asking questions to yourself like,

What were the patterns in the distractions that you encountered and how did the antidotes perhaps change your experience or not,

You know,

It's not always that they will,

They may not.

And those are the three pieces.

So a daily meditation practice,

Focusing on calm abiding,

Resting with one single object,

Calm abiding is about focus,

It's about attention.

So focusing,

It's a concentrative meditation,

The breath or some other sensory object,

Using antidotes as necessary,

Noticing in waking life when you also have these hindrances arise,

Applying antidotes there as well,

And then just reflecting on that experience after a certain amount of time.

I suggest a week,

But perhaps you want to look at it each day,

You know,

Which would also be quite interesting.

And then compare at the end of a week every day and how there was or wasn't progress or how life events influenced or did not influence your outcomes.

And otherwise I want to close with just a brief dedication.

Today's recording has been a practice for me and all of life is a practice for me.

And I just so deeply appreciate that.

I just can't say that enough.

Like,

Yeah,

I feel so grateful and so absolutely blessed to have found the Buddha's teachings in my lifetime and to be on this path and to be practicing in this way and life is so precious.

And this time that I spend with you,

Even though I don't know who you are,

It is so precious to me and I just hope that you are able to gain something meaningful for your own life from it.

So whoever you are is perfect.

Whoever you are,

You are totally perfect.

You can turn inward for just a moment,

Maybe bringing back to mind that initial motivation that you had at the beginning of our time together.

And I'll speak a brief dedication and you can just hold it in your heart if it feels good.

And if not,

You can just let it,

Let it go.

Don't worry.

May the merit of our study and practice today benefit all beings.

May the calm abiding we cultivate bring clarity,

Compassion and peace into our lives and the lives of others.

May all beings find freedom from suffering and may all beings experience lasting happiness.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

I'm Sarah Sati and I will see you next time.

We have two more chapters to get through and then we have completed a third book in this series and I'm so excited and it's already in my mind what book I'd like to do next.

So hopefully you'll stick with me.

Thanks for weathering some of the challenges that I personally experienced today and hopefully you didn't experience them as greatly and I hope to see you next time.