SBI Study Group January 9^th

7 Point Mind Training of Tibetan Buddhism

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

10:00 Welcome

10:05 Meditation – Shamatha Medley—(taking shamatha incrementally into

vipashyana of the observer)

10:30 Overview: Q& A on what we have studied so far within the context of Atisha’s 7 Point Mind Training of Tibetan Buddhism

• What is the first point, and what are the preliminaries? What is their purpose?
• What is meant by a path of dharma? What is the fruition of a dharma path?
• Define genuine happiness versus mundane happiness.
• What is the format of Atisha’s 7-Point Mind Training? (enter dharma path, establish view, transform adversity into path, and maintain with ethical precepts)
• What are the three major mental afflictions?
• What is the second point?
• What does bodhichitta mean?
• What is the distinction between ultimate bodhichitta and relative bodhichitta?
• In terms of ultimate bodhichitta, what is the relative ground of the individual mind? And what are the three qualities of the nature of this ground?
• What is the key meditation skill to train to experience this individual ground? What is the control method, and what is the release method?
• In practice, what is stability?
• In terms of ultimate bodhichitta, what is the ultimate ground of universal reality?
• What is the key meditation practice to realize this ultimate universal ground? What are the two primary characteristics of awareness? What are the three aspects of ultimate universal ground?
• What does “buddha” mean? What type of practice is dream yoga? What is its purpose? What is the difference between daytime and nighttime practice?
• What does reification mean? (definition p 138) What does naïve realism mean? What is the Buddhist hypothesis of the Middle Way view?

10:45 Second Point: Cultivating Ultimate and Relative Bodhichitta

Discussion of the suggested reading, pp 110-154, which focus on Ultimate Bodhichitta

1. “Examine the unborn nature of awareness.”

• Unborn awareness is awareness in its primordial nondual state, unstructured by concepts of subject/object, inside/outside, unconditioned by experience or a human brain or nervous system. It is also referred to as the “clear light of death” or “clear light nature of the mind”, in Dzogchen as rigpa, that can be ascertained while alive and consciously maintained in the dying process.
• This refers to the meditative practice of turning the attention in upon itself to observe the observer with insight, deeply examining its nature, and not simply speculating, studying or debating, but keeping experience as the leading edge.
• To ascertain and dwell in this nature is to achieve the deathless state—unborn. (p 118-119)

2. “Even the remedy itself is free right where it is.”

• This refers to “non-inherent nature of all phenomena.” All phenomena, including awareness, exist in a state of interdependence—nothing exists independently.
• The problem is the principal delusion of reification, subjectively and objectively, and the remedy to this problem is wisdom. This wisdom is not acquired but unveiled, and turns out to be primordial wisdom itself, “free right where it is.”
• Metaphorically, the mother, primordial innate wisdom, meets and is recognized by the child, the intelligence of a path of cultivated wisdom, and both are devoid of inherent identity.
• You don’t realize freedom or pure buddha nature by applying a remedy, a “fix-it,” but by releasing self-grasping. “Even the remedy, just like everything else, is free right where it is as soon as you release grasping.” (p124)
• Vajrayana practice begins with mediating on emptiness of personal identity first, and is based on intuitively affirming the awakened state of buddha nature and taking the awakened state itself through imagination as the path to awakening. (p130)

3. “The essential nature of the path is resting in the universal ground.”

• This stage of insight practice is similar to shamatha practice of settling the mind in its natural state, but penetrates deeper through contemplative investigation into the nature of primordial awareness itself.
• When all grasping, conceptual frameworks and reification cease, insight into primordial awareness is known as the “breakthrough” or trekcho in Dzogchen. It is breaking through the relative individual ground or substrate into rigpa, the ultimate universal ground of awareness, and resting therein. Resting is a sustained mode of pure knowing that is nondual.
• The ultimate universal ground is referred to as the Great Emptiness, which is the foundation of samsara and nirvana, the natural perfection, the “one taste” that pervades the entire phenomenal world and absolute reality, “simply called tathata, or suchness,” for it is finally transcendent and beyond all articulation. (pp135-137)

4. “Between sessions, be an illusory person.”

• Between sessions refers to post meditative state when not in formal practice, and this aphorism is to protect, nurture and integrate the fruit of insight gained in formal practice into active daily life.
• Engage in active life as if you were an illusory being in an illusory environment, penetrating through view of naïve realism and deluded habit of reification to view of ultimate bodhichitta-- no substance to any event and no target.
• Maintain Middle Way view--that which is perceived arises in dependence upon the perception of it. Buddhist hypothesis to realize that “by probing the nature of existence of anything experienced perceptually or conceptually, we find that nothing exists by its own independent nature, neither objectively or subjectively. (pp144-45)
• “Drench yourself in awareness of emptiness,” and make the insight stable through practice (fusion of vipashyana with shamatha) to irreversibly eradicate mental afflictions at their root and be free. “Sign of mature dharma practitioner is the equalization of the eight mundane concerns into one taste. (p148)
• Practice of impure illusory body refers to challenging the reality in which we participate to reveal itself as dependently related events, versus practice of pure illusory body which “entails the cultivation of a vision of all appearances as embodiments of enlightened consciousness,” or the practice of pure perception based on intuitively affirming omnipresent buddha nature. (pp148-53)

11:45 Tea break

12:05 Meditation – Shamatha fused with vipashyana, insight into emptiness

12:30 Continue Discussion

12:55 Dedicate Merit - Prayer of Dedication

Suggested reading for next meeting of Saturday, February 6^th is pp. 154-190

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.

First Meditation: Shamatha Medley (taking shamatha incrementally into vipashyana of the observer)

1. Be physically comfortable and assume a formal posture of either seated or supine position and settle the body in its natural state. Set a welcome mat of ease and letting go, maintaining three qualities of relaxation, stillness and vigilance.

2. Mindfully relax the body, especially the shoulders, the neck and face, and particularly soften the eyes, the jaw, and allow the tongue to gently rest up against the upper palette behind the teeth, while keeping the spine straight.

3. Open your heart, your mind to blessings from those genuine Teachers who have awakened, and take sanctuary and refugein their realized wisdom and compassion

4. Arouse the genuine aspiration to commit to an authentic spiritual path for the sake of your own enlightenment, as well as for the sake of the enlightenment of all beings. Rejoice in virtue, and openly declare and release any non-virtue and pray: May all beings like myself be well and happy, may all beings like myself be free of suffering and the causes of suffering, may all beings like myself dwell in empathetic joy, and may all beings like myself abide in blessed equanimity.

5. Dissolve all aspirations and appearances into emptiness.

6. Proceeding with confidence and faith in your own buddha nature, begin shamatha practice with mindfulness of breathing in the field of the body.

7. Taking the breath as our object, begin by taking three slow deep breaths, inhaling through the nostrils, breathing deeply into the abdomen, then the diaphragm, and finally expanding the chest, and then releasing the breath completely. Enjoy this easy practice and gently soothe the field of the body with the breath like giving an internal massage.

8. Settle the respiration in its natural rhythm. Releasing all control of the breath, continue to breathe effortlessly, egolessly. With every outbreath, simply release the mind and let go of involuntary thoughts and quietly attend to the object of the breath, observing the natural ebb & flow of the breath.

9. Establishing a deep soothing relaxation, mindfully observe the tactile sensations of the breath throughout the field of the body. Let awareness be diffuse and permeate the body, let attention be passive, and quietly observe the ripple effect of the breath throughout this field.

10. Then open your eyes partially and rest your gaze vacantly before you, shift the field of mindfulness and redirect your attention to the space of the mind and whatever arises within that space.

11. Take a special interest in this space of the mind, in which thoughts, memories, desires, all mental images spontaneously emerge, are present in and into which they dissolve. Simply observe in stillness, without distraction and without grasping, the motion in the background space of the mind.

12. Arouse the power of introspection and observe the quality of mindfulness—if there is laxity or dullness, arouse the attention, and if there is excitation, then release and relax more deeply from the core.

13. Note how it takes effort to direct the attention even to the space of the mind—you are doing something. Now release that effort completely , and release all doing….

14. Let awareness remain in its own space, being aware of its own presence, knowingly. Continue breathing naturally, with soft body and soft mind…(maintain a bit)

15. Now with this knowing presence of mind, retract your attention and focus it right in on that which is observing, and note whether you see anything more or less if you do

16. Now let go, release and relax the mind, and remain in awareness without an object.

17. Now refocus the attention, focus it sharply, vividly, and invert it right in on that which is observing, and see what you see…

18. Again, relax totally, and release the awareness without an object.

19. Now for a third and final time, concentrate the attention and direct it like a lazor into that which is observing, note what you observe, and be prepared to report.

20. Relax totally and just be present. Let awareness rest in its own state of equipoise, without going in or out, and just rest in that balance.

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

Second Meditation: Shamatha fused with Vipashyana on Emptiness

1. Sit comfortably in a formal meditative position, either seated or supine, and settle the body in its natural state, assuming a posture of relaxation, stillness and vigilance, with spine straight, sternum slightly lifted, abdominal muscles relaxed and loose.

2. Open the heart to blessings, and take refuge and sanctuary in awakening, in dharma, in your path. Call forth blessings from the enlightened ones, the buddhas, your teachers, upon your practice….

3. Now settle the respiration in its natural rhythm, breathing as effortlessly as if you were deep asleep, not modifying the breath in any way, just allowing it to flow in & out of its own accord, breathing egolessly.

4. Settle the mind by taking 21 breaths, arousing the attention during inhalation and completely relaxing more and more deeply through the exhalation, paying close attention to the tactile sensations of the breath throughout the field of the body. You can count the breaths as a punctuation at the end of each outbreath just before breathing in.

5. Then let your eyes be at least partially open, and your gaze vacant. Open all of your sense doors including the door of the mentally cognized. Let your body be still like a mountain and awareness still like space.

6. Simply be aware of whatever appearances arise in the space of awareness, moment by moment, attending to them without distraction and without grasping.

7. Simply attend to what they are, see them purely, nakedly, for what they are without any embellishment of additions from the conceptual mind.

8. Due to deeply ingrained habit of reification, it’s hard to believe that there are no real objects out there, existing independently of the mind—after all, we bump into things.

9. If you sense an ongoing grasping onto an object out there, bring one vividly to mind and seek it out, the very nature of that object itself. It is one thing, but it has various parts and it attributes are many.

10. Is that object which comes to mind identical to any of its parts or attributes, or to all of them put together?

11. Now set aside all parts and attributes of this object. Does this object exist separate from that object which has all those attributes and parts?

12. Is the object anything other than something we can conceptually impute or designate upon an assembly of parts and attributes that are not it?

13. Therefore, consider, this object is nowhere to be found, it has no objective existence… it is concocted and imputed by the mind…it’s empty.

14. Examine what is the mind that imputes objects? Where is it located—the mind that observes and does things…let it show its face, its real nature. What is its shape, size, what are its qualities…this real subject?

15. In the very not finding of the mind, there is the recognition of the emptiness of the mind.

16. Who or what is it that realizes the empty nature of the mind. Is it me? Do you think it’s you? Examine yourself. Do you have attributes? Size, location, shape? Are you anywhere to be found?

17. With the awareness of the emptiness of all things, objective and subjective, stabilize that insight and simply rest awareness in its own nature, releasing all concepts...

18. Few a few moments, release the practice, and simply rest.

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