SBI Study Group February 6^th, 2010

7 Point Mind Training of Tibetan Buddhism

(notes based on teachings given by B. Alan Wallace)

Welcome

Meditation Ultimate Bodhichitta--Vipashyana on Emptiness

· What are three aspects of a genuine dharma path according to Lord Buddha to irreversibly sever the fundamental cause of suffering, which is ignorance/delusion?

1. Shila or ethics counters habit of self centeredness

2. Samadhi or shamatha counters habit of lack of attention and distraction

3. Vipashyana or insight counters habit of reification

Overview: Q & A on pp 110-154 Ultimate Bodhichitta to counteract delusion

• Define ultimate bodhichitta or wisdom. Define relative bodhichitta or skillful means.

• What does “reification” mean? (definition p 138) What does “naïve realism” mean? What does “metaphysical realism” mean? What does “metaphysical idealism” mean? What is the Buddhist hypothesis of the Middle Way view? What does emptiness mean in Buddhist context?

• Define “unborn nature of awareness.” What does “examine” mean in practice?

• From Dzogchen view, define dharmakaya. What are its three aspects? What is nondualism?

• What is the “remedy” to the principal delusion of reification? Why is this remedy “free right

where it is?”

• Describe vajrayana practice as a path of practice and its relationship to ultimate bodhichitta.

• Define “universal ground.” Define the breakthrough, or trekcho, in Dzogchen practice. What does “resting in the universal ground” mean?

• What type of practice is dream yoga? What is its purpose? What is the difference between daytime and nighttime practice? What does “lucidity” mean? Describe the daytime practice of being an illusory person between sessions? What practices effectively prepare us for lucidity in nighttime practice?

• What is the practice of the “impure illusory body?” What is the practice of the “pure illusory body?”

Review of recommended reading pp. 154-190 Relative Bodhichitta to counteract self-centeredness

1. “Alternately practice giving and taking”

· What does this phrase refer to?

It refers to the practice of tonglen to cultivate loving kindness and compassion as skillful means to balance wisdom insight practice. One without the other is bondage.

· What is the near enemy of loving kindness? It is attachment, which is for objects.

Loving kindness, first of four immeasurables, is for sentient beings only. “Sentient beings have a dimension of experiencing that (relatively) make them subjects.” The far enemy is hatred and loving-kindness succeeds when hatred subsides.

· What is the essential nature of loving-kindness?

It is a yearning that the being on whom you are focusing your mind may be well and happy. The traditional prayer is:

May you be free of enmity. May you be free of affliction.

May you be free of anxiety. May you be well and happy.

· What are the four phases of practice?

First phase of loving kindness practice is oneself; next, a living person whom you love and admire; then toward someone neutral, then to the distinctive difficult ones, widening the sphere of loving kindness from oneself to finally include all sentient beings immeasurably.

· What is the essential nature of compassion?

It is the yearning that the being on whom you are focusing be free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

· What is the near enemy of compassion? the far enemy?

Grief and the far enemy is cruelty. “Compassion succeeds when it causes cruelty to subside and fails when it produces merely sadness.”

· What is “great compassion”?

It is the deepest form of compassion, is nondual and “arises wedded to the realization of emptiness and has no reified object at all.”

· Describe the practice of tonglen:

“The enactment of loving kindness is the giving component, and the enactment of compassion is the taking component in this practice” that uses the power of imagination.

(p 180)

2. “Mount them both upon your breath”

What does this phrase refer to?

“Specifically, on the in-breath imagine taking in suffering, without grasping and identifying, and on the out-breath imagine offering all your joy,” immeasurably” from the ultimate source of your own buddha nature. (p. 185)

3. “Three objects, three poisons, and three roots of virtue”

What are the three objects in three objects in this phrase?

They are the three categories of people: those you love, those to whom you are neutral, and those who are difficult.

What are the three poisons?

They are attachment for those we love, indifference for those who are neutral, and aversion for those that are difficult.

How to practice the three roots of virtue?

With tonglen mounted on the breath, alchemically transmute attachment into loving-kindness, indifference into “warm-hearted equanimity, and aversion into compassion. (p.186)

4. “In everything you do, practice with words”

What is this practice in daily life?

In all kinds of activity, to express the wish, quietly under your breath, “May the suffering and sources of suffering of all sentient beings ripen upon me. (the referent of “me” here is buddha nature) May the cause of my well-being ripen upon all sentient beings.” (p.186)

5. How can spiritual practice be evaluated?

1. “Practice is effective if reification of self is decreasing,” sense of “I am” is getting lighter, and “you” are less of a target, based on ultimate bodhichitta

2. self-centeredness is diminished based on relative bodhichitta

“Attaining meditative quiescence, ascertaining primordial awareness, cultivating the heart so that bodhichitta, the spirit of awakening, arises effortlessly—these stages are the central themes of Tibetan Buddhist practice.” We are aiming to transform all of life into dharma.

Tea Break

Meditation Fusion of Ultimate and Relative Bodhichitta-Tonglen

Continue Discussion

Dedicate Merit with traditional Prayer of Dedication:

“Wherever the precious, supreme spirit of awakening, has not arisen, may it arise,

And where it has arisen, may it never decline, but grow stronger and stronger.”

May what we have studied and practiced here today be of benefit,

May we each realize the fulfillment of our most meaningful aspirations for our own sake and the sake of all sentient beings, and

May all beings be well and happy.

Suggested reading for next meeting of Saturday, March 6^th, is pp. 191-227

Optional Extension for March 6th Study Group: 10-1, regular study and practice, and from 2-4 p.m. for additional practice. If you plan on attending, please rsvp vidyagauci@cox.net, and bring your own lunch.

You are invited to join the SBI Study Group for Weekly Meditation practice at Unity Church Chapel, 227 Arrellaga St, SB., from 6:45-8:00 p.m.

First Meditation: Ultimate Bodhichitta-Vipashyana on Emptiness

1. Be physically comfortable and assume a formal posture of meditation and settle the body in its natural state and the breath in its natural rhythm. Set a welcome mat of ease, maintaining three qualities of relaxation, stillness and vigilance.

2. Let us begin our practice as Atisha suggests by bringing forth our most meaningful aspirations as we open our hearts to blessings and sincerely take refuge in Buddha mind, confidently in our true Buddha nature, and in Buddha speech, authentic dharma teachings, and in Buddha body, our genuine dharma teachers, friends, companions, dharma brothers and sisters.

3. Now stabilize the mind for a few minutes practicing mindfulness of breathing throughout the field of the body.

4. With body and mind utterly loose, relaxed, at ease, open all six doors of perception: tactile, visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory and mental perception.

5. Let your awareness rest in its own stillness, in the midst of comings and goings of appearances arising in space.

6. Simply be aware of the empty nature of all these appearances. Consider: they are nothing other than what they appear to be, phenomena arising in space, dissolving back into space, not existing out there or in here, not inherently or independently existing anywhere.

7. Rest your awareness free of concepts and simply be aware of the unborn nature of all objects that may arise to the mind—a ceaseless luminosity of awareness itself….

8. Consider: the array of appearances to all the senses are self-arising, self-manifesting. When the mind is free of conceptualization, we may see there is no object out there, no object in here, that the very division of outer and inner vanishes…

9 Further, that the mind that is right now practicing insight, the subject, is also empty. This mind that liberates from reification, the remedy, it too is ultimately free in its own place, and is also inherently empty.

10. Nonconceptually, rest in the awareness of the emptiness of all forms, of all appearances.

11. With such a practice, it can be easy to slip into a blank mindedness, a type of stupor. Sustain the clarity of your awareness, sustain an ongoing flow of knowing, of discerning awareness…..

12. Now for a few moments, release the practice, dedicate merit and bring the session to a close.

Second Meditation: Ultimate and Relative Bodhichitta-Tonglen

1. Settle body in its natural state and the respiration in its natural rhythm, and calm the mind with mindfulness of breathing for a few minutes.

2. Bring awareness to the field of tactile sensations, and in that which is sensed with your tactile awareness, let there be just the sensed, free of conception, free of conceptual designation, of any overlays.

3. We call this the field of the body, the tactile sensations of the body, but where is this body to be found that seems so substantial, so real, having various attributes, qualities, parts?

4 When you observe it visually, you see visual appearances, but are they a body? are any of these tactile events a body, or is the body invisible? Is it something we conceptually impute and designate upon an array of appearances, none of which have the substantial real existence that we attribute to the body?

5. Visualize your body as hollow, a translucent field, an empty form, in which tactile events emerge displaying visual appearances but are devoid of substantial reality.

6. In your heart, visualize an orb of radiant white light symbolizing the depths of your own awareness, pristine awareness…

7. And now from this radiant core of our being, arouse the imagination, and let awareness rove to reflect upon the kindness of sentient beings. Let us begin where it is most manifest, and recall the kindness of those that are easy to love, perhaps our own parents who are still living, or those individuals who over the course of our life have served us well, have genuinely loved us and shown us their compassion.

8 As we attend to one individual after another, arouse compassion for them insofar as they are still vulnerable to suffering and the causes of suffering

9. As we breathe in, imagine drawing in their suffering, its causes, like a cloud of smoke, and utterly dissolving this darkness, this veil into this infinite radiance at our heart. As we breathe out, breathe out the light of loving kindness with the wish, may you each find the happiness you seek, may you cultivate the causes of such well being…..

10. It is said that all virtue wherever it manifests is a display of the dharmakaya, an emanation of pristine awareness, primordial consciousness, and the minds of all sentient beings are nondual, and have never been other than Buddha nature

11. Bring to mind now the myriad of sentient beings, some known, others perhaps unknown to us, who through dependence upon their effort, their labor, we can lead our lives in comfort—providing our food, clothing, roads, safety of environment…countless sentient beings providing us with all the requisites to lead our life in comfort and devote ourselves to dharma. Without their kindness, impossible….Their hard work, their kindness is indispensable, and is an expression of the compassion of dharmakaya.

12. Look through the outer veneer of these beings who seem to simply be making a living, to this kindness that provide us with the opportunity to pursue genuine happiness. So many of them vulnerable to suffering, are suffering, without even recognizing the causes of their suffering, yet every bit as worthy of finding genuine happiness as we are. From this core of our being, open our hearts in the spirit of loving kindness and practice as before, practice tonglen….

13. Finally, bring to mind individuals who have created difficulties in your lifetime, who may not feel any particular kindness for us at all, perhaps quite the contrary and have treated us with unkindness—maybe through manipulation, harshness, contempt, abuse, dishonesty, a myriad of ways…People act out of their own mental afflictions. We may think, evidently, there is no kindness here. But it is exactly these individuals, these distinctive ones, in our lives who most provide us with the opportunity for compassion in the deepest sense. Such beings provide us with the opportunity to cultivate a deep sense of fortitude, resilience, strength, equanimity, patience—all of which are indispensable attributes along the path to enlightenment…Interaction with these beings like this help us to see our own mental afflictions so vividly…and apply the necessary antidotes to the true causes of our own misery….

14. Again, let us look beyond the veneer of mental afflictions, the obvious unkindness, to see the afflictive behavior apart from the sentient being, that such individuals may be conduits, as we arise to the occasion, of the buddha’s own compassion, the buddha’s own kindness. Dharmakaya is none other than, and not separate from the mind-streams of these difficult individuals.

15. So, with heartfelt compassion, with each in-breath, imagine drawing in all the suffering, all the mental afflictions, the negative karma of such individuals, draw them into our radiant heart, our buddha nature, and with each out-breath, arouse the yearning, may each one be well and happy, may each find genuine happiness and cultivate the causes of such happiness…..

16. Few a few moments, now release the practice, and simply rest in the luminous nature of pristine awareness.

17. Dedicate merit and bring the session to a close.