The Shamatha Trilogy - Part 3 - Shamatha Without a Sign

B. Alan Wallace, 03 May 2022

The Shamatha Trilogy - Part 3 - Shamatha Without a Sign

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The Shamatha Trilogy - Part 3 - Shamatha Without a Sign Lama Alan Wallace

[00:02] Olaso.

[00:05] So today is the day for putting the third wheel on the tricycle. Once again, shifting the focus of mindfulness, which I’m sure you’ll recall, is to be maintained as continuously as we possibly can, whether it’s a twenty-four-minute session or a four-minute session. The task of mindfulness is to bear in mind the familiar object. And when we turn to this third phase, the object, as I’m sure you’re anticipating, is awareness itself. But it’s very important that the awareness of which you are aware, the awareness that you’re holding in mind with mindfulness is not something other than the awareness that is aware of that awareness. In other words, we’re not creating a construct, a concept, and then trying to figure it out, Oh, I think I’ve got it now, and then focusing the attention on that. Because that, when I point my finger like that, that would be a sign, a referent.

[01:06] And so once again, we’re slipping back into dualistic grasping, as we often do when we scold ourselves. Dualistic grasping: the one who is scolded and the one who is a little bit superior, and scolding; or we’re feeling low self-esteem too; or we’re feeling very proud of ourselves, I am being so proud of myself now. And so now I have two, one, who was actually quite good, but even the one he’s condescendingly being proud of, is also quite good, but the one who’s proud is actually superior to the one of whom he’s proud. And that’s just two. It can get more complicated than that, you know. You turn into a real food fight in the mind. I think we all know [what] that’s like. That’s not a borderline personality disorder, that’s a way-over-the-border personality disorder. [Lama Alan laughing] Gone rogue, off the reservation. Yihaa… [Laughing in the audience] Okay. Yes, I was raised on cartoons. Never outgrew it.

[02:12] But that’s it. It’s shamatha without a sign. So what you’re mindful of is the awareness that is being mindful. And again, to repeat again and again, if the Lake-Born Vajra said, I said it over and over and over again, so you’ll really get it then, I think I can do the same. That mindfulness, that awareness is effortless, because you don’t have to do anything. When you start thinking, oh now I’m doing it, you’re just aware of what was already going on. Because right now you’re already aware of being aware. But the difference is, as I take a sip of water, I’m aware of the bubbly, the cool, the liquid nature of the water I’m drinking. But I’m also aware of drinking it. I’m aware of experiencing the coolness, and so forth. But by and large, when we’re really, if we’re very thirsty, and we’re focusing on drinking some water, the attention is really focusing on the water, oh, I really want some water. And so there is an awareness of being thirsty, an awareness of drinking. But that’s often implicit, it’s often implicit. Right?

[03:26] Whereas in this practice, shamatha without a sign, we’re making that which was frequently implicit, there but not really noticed, and making it explicit. Now, again, when I’ve taught shamata without a sign in much more elaborate detail, I’ve often made this comment, and I really stand by it, I think it’s quite a deep experiential truth. And that is, all the dozens of methods of shamatha taught by the Buddha in the Pali canon, more appearing in Mahayana, more appearing in Vajrayana, and then finally in Dzogchen, the one more than any other technique, that even though it’s a Sutrayana practice, you don’t need empowerment or anything like that, there are no samayas to practice shamatha without a sign. Nevertheless, it really is a prime instance of taking to fruition as the path which is characteristic, of course, of all of Vajrayana. Because this is the path of shamatha. And what is the fruition: it’s where your coarse mind dissolved into the subject consciousness, and it’s self-illuminating, right?

[04:32] Self-illuminating is self-knowing, bearing these core, nakedly bearing, nakedly exhibiting or manifesting the raw defining characteristics of consciousness, luminosity, and cognizance. And so that’s the end game, where all of your senses are shut down, all of your mental activities are dormant. There’s no conceptualization taking place. It’s raw, unmediated, bare, naked, luminous, distilled consciousness. And that’s the end game, whether it takes weeks, months, years, or decades to achieve shamatha; or lifetimes, or a 1000 years, if you don’t have the preparation. As Atisha said, Nevertheless, in your first session of practicing shamatha without a sign, you’re emulating the end game. You’re doing your very best to manifest, to bring forth the awareness that is going to be the awareness that you will manifestly experience once you have achieved shamatha; you’re bringing forth that naked unelaborated awareness, relaxed, still, and by nature luminous. And then instead of directing it to something else, which is what we normally do throughout the waking and even the dreaming state, you don’t direct it at all. There’s no vector. And so you’re simply resting there in that closest approximation of the fourth type of mindfulness, self-illuminating mindfulness.

[05:51] So it’s a very, it’s a very profound method that takes the fruition as the path, and then simply approximates it better and better and better and better until it’s the real thing. So when can say this is on a very mundane level, [Tibetan Phrase] How do you translate [Tibetan Phrase]? Is like ‘a facsimile of’ Or how do you translate it? Facsimile. So way up on stage of completion, you have the [Tibetan Phrase], the facsimile of the clear light, we have an experience of the indwelling mind of clear light, but it’s still filtered. It’s still filtered by conceptualization. But on the stage of completion, you’re really coming towards the end of the path, when you experience the [Tibetan Phrase], the actual clear light, and then you’re very close to enlightenment, because you’re highly advanced in stage of completion. Well, that’s [Tibetan Phrase], that’s pristine awareness. But the facsimile of that, way down there in the foundation of samsara is what the Buddha called the clear light: this mind, this mind, I see nothing more swift, nothing more quick to change than this pabhassa citta [Pali], this mind of clear light, that’s what he called it, mind of clear light, right?

[07:02] Which is adventitiously obscured, and then it’s not adventitiously obscured, always of the nature of luminosity. And that’s it, as I’ve said before, pardon me for repeating myself, but I’m not going to ask for my pardon, or your pardon. Because it’s important. That’s clear light, it’s 24 hours a day, every day, whether you’re in a coma, or whether you’re, you know, driving a car in the Indy 500. It’s always luminous, right? But on that relative level, that relative level. And here, way up there in the stage of completion, that’s the ultimate level. So here, coming back to shamatha, your first session of shamatha without a sign, you’re experiencing a facsimile of the clear light of the substrate consciousness. And then it becomes more and more unveiled until it’s the [variousTibetan terms], the relative, or the deceptive actual clear light nature of substrate consciousness. So the parallels are really quite wonderful, right?

[08:07] So that’s where we’re going here. But I want to step back to a point that’s easily overlooked or forgotten. And often never even mentioned. I never heard of it in the first 20 years of my training. And that is settling body, speech, and mind in the natural state, and now I’m just highlighting the first two: settling the body in its natural state. You know the liturgy, it’s relaxed, still, and vigilant, you know the liturgy, the phrases, for settling the respiration in its natural rhythm. But people tend to be impatient to the point of not even mentioning this, and going straight for shamatha, and say, strive diligently, and let your effort be like a bonfire at the beginning of that winding road of nine stages of shamatha! And, boy, is that an invitation to burnout. You head out on the road, and then about one-half of the way before the first curve, you see this little burnt-out car with fumes rising above the hood, and you say, oahh, too much flame. He didn’t oil his machine, he didn’t tune his engine. He just said, Yippee-yi-ki-yay, pedal to the metal, bud” and [Lama Alan making the sound of a exploding engine], and then you have, you know, a car that’s on fire. [Lama laughing] And that’s not shamatha, that’s just burnt out. Burnt out! Anybody ever done that? I have. I’ve done that. I know [what] that’s like.

[09:35] And so this point, I recall, I’m going to repeat myself, I’m very well. You know, I’m getting old, but when I repeat myself at least I know I’m doing it. [Laughing] 1981, spring, Poona, India, training very intensively, like five hours a day, in BKS Iyengar’s yoga center, receiving a lot of personal instruction from him. And when we finish the whole session, the formal session, and we are all in Shavasana, he comes over to me, he’s very stern, rather like a Hindu version of Geshe Rabten, I mean really [a] very strong character, very strong. And he was also, big bushy eyebrows, make mine look wimpy, I should maybe get some filler. But he comes over to me, with this biggie bushy eyebrows, and his strong cheekbones, and his strong jaws, and he says: You’re not ready to meditate until you’ve mastered Shavasana. I did remember that, that’s now 41 years ago. And I think he’s right, I think he’s right. When it comes to the body and muscles and sinews and ligaments, and so forth. There’s nothing said in the Theravada tradition, and not much in the Mahayana tradition, but by gum, in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras, in the yoga system, boy, did they have finesse there. And that was, you know, a long time before the Buddha came along.

[11:00] And so this point, Shavasana, it’s hard, it doesn’t even come up. I never heard any Lama say: Now hit the deck, Shavasana. You know, give me, give me 20. [Laughing] I’ve never heard any. Except, Gyatrul Rinpoche, he didn’t quite say Shavasana, but when he was teaching Natural Liberation, and it comes to the point about the seven points, the seven points of the posture of Vairocana, and almost everybody in his room is kind of inwardly rolling their eyes, I can’t do that, I can’t do that, if I do that, I would rupture my knees, and I’d be crippled and then have to have chiropractic sessions for next year. And it’d be agony when I did it, and then Gyatrul Rinpoche comes in, he said, and I’m paraphrasing, but closely. He said, If you can’t do it, don’t worry about it. It did say, let your body be comfortable. And so if you can’t be comfortable in the seven point, you know, the Vajra asana and all of the seven points, if you can’t be comfortable, really, really comfortable seated cross-legged, then lie down and be comfortable there. So that’s as close as I’ve heard a lama speak of Shavasana.

[12:04] And it was just this wonderfully gentle encouragement, that, if you’re going to set out on this path of the six bardos, each of the bardos being an opportunity to achieve perfect enlightenment, you want your body, as much as possible, to be comfortable. Now, a lot of people, even some relatively young people, have either problems in the body that are congenital, or they had an accident, or something happened. And, you know, they’ve just got to deal with that for their lives, whether it’s back or knees or whatever it may be. And so this is, but this is not new, people have had not optimal bodies for a very long time. And as you get older and older, you’re more likely to have more and more areas of discomfort, injury, or things just getting worn out and so forth. So when Iyengar said, You really need to master Shavasana before you’re ready for meditation, I think there’s a lot of truth in that. Not to say that you’ll never do it, you’ll never amount to anything in meditation. But if it’s wisdom, it’s wisdom, whether it’s coming from a great Hindu yogin, or whether it’s coming from some great Tibetan lama. With a simple point that in the Shavasana you are, after all, emulating a corpse. Now we’ve heard that before in the Enlightened View of Samantabhadra, we’ve heard it before, at least once if not twice, in the Vajra Essence.

[13:31] Once you have ascertained rigpa, now you’re ready to go right into that mode of nine kinds of inactivity, right? Because you’re resting in rigpa, not just resting in ordinary awareness. But the first thing he says about settling, now the ultimate level of settling your body in its natural state is, Rest your body like a corpse in a charnel ground. Now, a corpse in a charnel ground, he could have been just been thrown into the charnel ground, it could be in all kinds of postures. But after all, wouldn’t it make sense to have your spine straight, just for starters, and so why not just go ahead and emulate a corpse? If somebody gingerly lays a corpse in the charnel ground you’ll probably lay it face up, and the arms to the side, and then nice straight, I mean, a little bit, you know, show a bit of courtesy here, a bit of respect, not dump it like trash.

[14:16] And so we see this in the Lake-Born Vajra’s teaching, we see this, we hear this in Gyatrul Rinpoche’s oral instructions, his pith instructions, really speaking to Westerners, here’s how this is accessible to you. And I know some people, I’ve been teaching Shavasana ever since I began teaching at all, just find that they can’t be comfortable in the Shavasana. They can’t be comfortable, then what are you going to do? I mean, what I would say is then, Find a way to make it comfortable. There are things called pillows. They are very high-tech things but you can use them, putting them under your knees, putting a rolled blanket or something soft under your neck, so you will support the natural curvature of the neck, which is good. But what I would suggest is, Learn how to be able to meditate in the Shavasana. Or learn how to not meditate in the Shavasana, learn how to relax more and more and more and more and more deeply in the Shavasana. But he knew what he was talking about, and I’ve said this before also, lying in the Shavasana is not just a physical posture in which you just kind of space out or doze off and after a while, you’re snoring. Then you’re not resting in the Shavasana. You’re emulating a corpse, but only with a body, but with your awareness you should be crystal clear, wide awake, as much as in any other asana, that’s really crucial.

[15:38] And so, as we all know, by and large, if we’ve had no meditative training at all when we lie down, people commonly say, I’ve been hearing this for decades, oh, but when I lie down, I just, I immediately feel drowsy, or spacey, or I fall asleep, I can’t maintain clarity. And all they’re telling me is what their habit is. Because there’s nothing intrinsically in that posture that says: Thou shall become dull. It’s just when we lie down, that’s because we have nothing else to do. The day is over, whew, I want to lie down a little while, and then we lie down and space out, get sleepy, and then very easily take a nap. But then that’s not Shavasana, that’s a cheap imitation of Shavasana. So I would really now like to encourage, if you’ve not mastered the Shavasana yet, where your body is deeply relaxed and still, and then even though your posture looks like you’re totally flaked out with not even one muscle tensed, mentally you’re vigilant, bright eyed and bushy tailed, as we say, very clear.

[16:41] And you’re able to sustain that, and not just relax. Like a person can say: Okay, I’m relaxed. No, you’ve just started the process. When you say: Okay, now I´m relaxed you’ve just started the process. It’s like saying: Now I’m alert. As if you’ve come to the pinnacle of luminosity; or, Now I’m stable, and you’ve just taken the first step in stability. but to say, oh, that’s, you know, to think that relaxation is somehow more trivial, or easier than stability, or vividness is a mistake, it’s a mistake. So going back to the first phase, I’m going to emphasize it because it’s so often not emphasized, overlooked entirely. Many of us are very keen on mindfulness of breathing, magnificent technique, taught by the Buddha himself. Many are very drawn to ‘taking the mind as the path’, magnificent practice, quintessential Dzogchen. Many drawn immediately to ‘shamatha without a sign’, the most profound, that said the Buddha himself, the most profound or what, you know. If you can have a Mercedes Benz, then why go for a, what was that?, Yugo, why go for a Yugo when you can have a Mercedes Benz?, you know. You might remember my story of a Yugo, it was a very short story.

[17:54] And so if we say, well, this is most profound, then why not just go there? Well, there’s a reason. And so I’d like to offer this here. If you’ve not already mastered the Shavasana, as you can remain at least 24 minutes, if not, maybe longer, an hour or two, three, four hours. If you’ve not mastered the Shavasana such that in a sustainable way you’re able to be very deeply relaxed. But then relax is what you have after five seconds of lying down in that posture. And then there’s, oh now, that’s relaxed, and now that’s really, oh, now that’s relaxed. And that is, it is a progression. You’ve achieved the perfection of relaxation only when you’re a buddha. Because only a buddha manifests all kinds of activity with utter relaxation, without the least exertion of effort. And not even an arya bodhisattva, not even a vidyadhara, who is still on the path, is as relaxed as a buddha. No effort and gets everything done - Amogasiddhi, no effort and gets everything done. Unpremeditated, non-conceptual, and absolutely spontaneous and effortless, only a buddha achieves perfection of relaxation. So let’s not get too premature here, thinking, oh, I’m really good at relaxation.

[19:10] And so coming back to the first method: This is the foundation for this three-story building, right? And that is, learn, find some way to at least approximate Shavasana, and find some way to make it comfortable, pillows, whatever you need. But such, here’s the point, such that you can relax every muscle in your body. And you can’t do that if you’re sitting cross-legged, you can’t do that, you fall over, right? So we want to be able to have that total zero effort of muscular tension that needs to be there to sustain your posture. Again, the corpse gives no effort. And let that be the focus, this is phase one, this is the first phase, and that is, let that body, the whole field, and then within the whole field a highlighting, just like using a highlighter pen on a document, so you can see the whole document, you can read the whole document, there’s something really spring out because you’ve highlighted them. And so highlight those sensations throughout the entire body, correlated with the respiration, the inbreath, outbreath, highlight that.

[20:21] And so there’s a focus of your mindfulness, that space, the space of the body, and whatever movement occurs within it, you’ve heard that phrase before. With regards to the mind, this is the space of the body without thinking body or imagining body, and attending to whatever sensations arise, and then with a highlighting of those sensations correlated with the in- and out- breath. And then you’re gonna find this synergy, you know about it already, I’d like to, I would encourage you to explore it more deeply, all for the sake of sustainability. A lot of people practice mindfulness of breathing for years and find they hit a plateau, it’s not getting any better. A lot of people practice ‘taking the mind as the path’, hit a plateau, oh, it’s more or less the same, let alone ‘shamatha without a sign’, I really like it, I really like it, but I’m still getting all this noise, and it really doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Well, that’s because you haven’t the foundation. The walls are crumbling because you don’t have the foundation.

[21:15] And so, settling the body in its natural state, the first point being relaxed. Well, as you’re resting there, and then just introspectively, with your faculty of introspection, noting thoughts, noting excitation, noting laxity. So you need that for any kind of shamatha practice, noting that, and then, of course, there’s that which is given, and that is awareness of awareness, so you have three wheels. But here’s where mindfulness is, here’s what introspection is, and here’s what’s always there anyway, effortlessly. That’s the freebie, awareness of awareness, then stay focused there. And you’ll find synergistically, as you’re really releasing the breath with every exhalation, releasing it and making a real point of being silent towards the end of it, so you’re very aware of the breath just flowing in with no sense of having to pull it in, or exert any effort. As you’re settling the respiration deeper deeper into its natural rhythm, you’ll find by the force of that, because this is directly dealing with prana, breath prana, hand in hand, that by that gradual settling in the respiration in his natural rhythm, then there will arise a subtler and subtler experience of the tactile sensations throughout the body. And then a subtler awareness - Ah, I wasn’t aware of that, I was holding that with tightness. And, ah, I wasn’t even aware of that. Oh, that’s nice. And then oh, oh, I didn’t know about the tension around my eyes. But now Oh, and oh, I wasn’t aware of the contraction between my eyebrows.

[23:02] You’re not talking about this, you’re just noting all these little pockets showing up and there’s subtler and subtler pockets. And as you release those, and continue releasing them, now you’re saying, ah, relaxation is a path, it’s not a decision. And the more relaxed, the more unkinked the sensations of the body are, dealing with muscles, ligaments, tendons, and all of that, the more the body is settling, and it’s becoming loose and loose and loose and yet brilliantly illuminated by your awareness. This inevitably will have an impact on the channels, the avaduti, lalana, rasana; it will inevitably have a loosening effect on them, including the chakras, like in the navel chakra, for example. When the coarse level is loosening up, then the subtle level is bound to be loosened up exactly as in the progression from asana to pranayama, and then to pratyahara, and so forth and so on. And so, you’ll find that this synergy is kicking in here with an ever ongoing, deeper, deeper, deeper relaxation, subtler and subtler releasing.

[24:13] This then allows the respiration to more and more, to proceed along the path of settling in its natural rhythm without ever overriding it, manually manipulating it, trying to do something with it. Just the opposite. This is natural pranayama as this is a natural asana, taking no effort at all, whereas all the other asanas that I learned from Iyengar, they all take effort. This one is the only one that doesn’t. And so, then the nadis are loosening up and blockages there in the nadis will start to pop, to release. And by so doing the respiration then can settle more and more deeply into its natural rhythm, until, listening to Tertön Lerab Lingpa, a great Dzogchen master, you know what I’m going to say, I’ll say it again: Your breathing has settled in its natural state when the flow of the respiration is imperceptible. So not absolutely, but you can’t hear it, and you can barely detect it, and from outside, a person watching, you know, from five feet away looking at your body, might not see any sign of movement of the breath. Because it’s so subtle, may look like, oh, are you still breathing? Maybe I have to come up to, you know, your nostrils, or whatever.

[25:34] Only then has your breath settled in its natural rhythm. But then if you think, Oh, now I’ve arrived, now that’s the endpoint. No, it’s not. That’s the beginning point of your breath having settled in its natural rhythm, but then that’s going to continue as you proceed along the nine stages of shamatha. And if you are really into it, are fully achieving the first, the second, and the third, and the fourth jhana, which I’m not intent on, maybe I’ve done it in a past life, lot of good that did me, but getting to the fourth jhana, and then lo and behold, the coarse breath has dissolved into the subtle breath, as the course mind, you see the parallel in ‘taking the mind to the path’, the coarse mind has dissolved into the substrate consciousness. And the coarse mind is nowhere to be seen. Achieve the fourth jhana, and by the Buddha himself and generations of Hindu and Buddhist yogis, they have achieved this for centuries, then, your coarse breath, the respiration, the movement of lungs and so forth, air going in and out, stops, stops right in the middle, not holding your breath, not stopping when you’ve exhaled. It’s that pendulum that you just, you push it at the beginning, and then, and then there’s just no more swing, and it stopped right in the middle. And that’s what happened to your breath.

[27:01] Your body is so fine tuned, that body, the car, that vehicle that we saw burnt out on the first stage of the road, without ever having tuned the engine at all. Here you’ve tuned your prana system, tuned you’re breathing, that the coarse breath has stopped. Now the subtle, very subtle, oh, they have not stopped. Otherwise, you would have achieved Buddhahood. But there, that’s where you’re going. Now, you don’t have to go that far. But you see when you’ve settled in that rhythm, and I will say again as an ongoing working hypothesis, waiting to be disproven, although I can just keep on getting more evidence that it seems to be some truth to it, that 15 cycles per minute, two seconds and two seconds out; and then what happens after that is the amplitude, the volume of the breath decreases and decreases, even along the path of shamatha, let alone it going flatlined when you achieve the fourth jhana.

[27:54] So what I would suggest is that as we turn to the practice, until your breathing is settled in its natural rhythm, not stopped. We’re not going to talk about the fourth jhana. But it’s settled. Prior to any working hypothesis for me, I’m saying 15 cycles per minute. It’s true or false. Maybe it’s true for some people, not for others. But what is clear from a great Dzogchen master, is, your breathing has become very shallow, and virtually imperceptible. And until that happens, I’m suggesting, slow down, with all of our eagerness to achieve shamatha, proceed along the path. Are we there yet? Have I achieved the second mindfulness yet? and so forth and so on. Slow down and linger there. In that tricycle, with the front wheel, the focus of mindfulness is on the body. Settling in a deeper and deeper, deeper sense of relaxation and stillness, and without losing the vividness or luminosity. And then as it’s doing so, then watching your breath, which may be quite a lot of volume at the beginning, or sometimes long, sometimes short, but still not yet settled. And just continue focusing on that; let your mindfulness be there.

[29:15] Like a contractor that’s building a three-story house and wants to make sure that even in an 8.0 earthquake Richter scale it won’t collapse, you know. In times of adversity, when your life is going to hell in a handbasket and everything’s in turmoil, everything’s going chaos, and oh, I can’t meditate anymore, I can’t meditate anymore. If you’ve not settled your respiration in its natural rhythm, and you’re not able to get cruising altitude there, not able to sustain that, and you very easily flip out of it, then you can be sure of this: That whether it’s something, some nyam or some upheaval comes in your meditation, or something happens off the cushion. You receive an email from somebody, or you have a telephone call, or you’re going to work, whatever, that if your whole prana system has not settled in the natural state, your breathing has not settled in its natural rhythm, then subtle or gross catalysts will throw your whole prana system into disarray. It will be agitated, it will be turbulent. And I can say this with confidence: If your prana system, call it nervous system if you like, if that is not settled, if it’s not refined, if it’s not tuned, but it’s turbulent and uneven and ragged and out of balance, then no matter how hard you try to quiet your mind, [you] won’t be able to.

[30:42] Try, you know, like Hercules, I will do, it I will do it, bringing in a massive force - mind, I’m going to control you - you won’t be able to do it. Because your mind is riding on the steed of the prana. And if the prana is a bucking bronco, then the rider on the bucking bronco says, I will be calm, I will be calm. Good luck with that. You’re just bouncing up and down like a pogo stick. So if your pranas are turbulent, your mind will be turbulent. And you’ll not able to stop that just by force of will, or some really cunning technique, a Vajrayana technique, a stage of completion technique…you won’t be able to do it. Because the prana is coarser, and if the horse is bucking, wild, gyrated, agitated, going a bit nuts, the rider is going to be riding on that, he won’t be able to jump off. The mind can’t jump off the steed of the prana. So you want your prana to be tamed.

[31:39] We speak of taming the mind, taming the mind. Well, the mind can’t be tamed if the prana is still untamed, turbulent, agitated, out of balance, and so forth. So I would suggest, be really patient. With that synergistic settling of the body with deeper, deeper, deeper relaxation, which allows for the respiration to settle more and more deeply into a shallow imperceptible breath, maybe it will turn into 15 cycles per minute, maybe not, that’s up for you to see. But then when you are at cruising altitude, sustainable, in a 24-minute session, one-hour session, you can look in. It’s so obvious, is your breathing flowing in that way for the whole session? If it’s not, then you’ve not settled your respiration is natural [state]. You’ve pecked at it, you’ve had a little taste of it, and then it’s gone, and you’re back to, you know, strong breathing, uneven breathing short, long, and so forth and so on. Your breathing has not settled in its natural rhythm yet.

[32:35] It has to be something you not only get a taste of, it has to be the main course, it has to be sustainable. And when it is sustainable, then you know your body is in good shape, it will continue, now that your breathing has settled in its natural rhythm, then you’ll know that will facilitate the ongoing deepening of relaxation in the body. And that will synergistically facilitate the breath settling more and more deeply into its natural rhythm, imperceptible but then less perceptible, less perceptible, less perceptible. Same frequency is my strong hypothesis; it’s not going to get shorter and shorter, that we know, you don’t wind up hyperventilating. So here’s your foundation. And if that’s not stable, then the second one of turning the spotlight of your mindfulness on the mind, and just out of the corner of your eye, peripherally, noting with introspection, now the introspection is here, noting the body: is it contracting? Is it, you know, sometimes people start contracting in meditation because they’re focusing their attention? Is the breathing still? Just noting from the corner of the eye, introspection. Breathing also, you can introspectively monitor, is the breathing continuing in its natural rhythm, shallow, imperceptible, rhythmic?

[33:50] …that’s on the side, right? And of course in the background is ‘awareness of awareness’. But when you’re making as your main practice ‘taking the mind as a path’, you do need to keep on checking up to see that your foundations are not eroding. That the body is not getting tight, is not keeling over, not losing the posture. And the breathing is not losing its natural rhythm because of your effort, or maybe they nyam coming up and so forth and so on. And so that second phase, with a mind, space of mind and its movements, as if the front wheel, the object of mindfulness, won’t be sustainable. You have good sessions and bad sessions: good session, bad session, good session, bad session - that can get going indefinitely, unless you have a foundation that is constant. If you have that as constant, and then you’re moving to the front wheel, now being the space of the mind and the movements within it. And then, now you’re allowing very explicitly, single-pointedly and primarily, you’re allowing the mind to settle in its natural state. You know it’s not fully settled in its natural state until you’re a Buddha. But you’re definitely on the right track here. The facsimile, the similarity between the simple shamatha practice and way up there, you know, as a vidyadhara, but you’re settling the mind in its natural state.

[35:07] Well, the short version of that is, it settled into the substrate consciousness. And the long version of that is, it settled into realization of emptiness, and beyond that settled into rigpa itself. But you’ll be able to go that route in a sustainable way, if and only if that which underlies it, the body and the respiration, the coarse body and subtle body, have settled. So, so many people go into vipassana, they go into tsalung, stage of generation, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen. Many, many people, I would be so bold as to say most people nowadays, who are engaging in these literally more advanced practices, and hitting a ceiling of unsustainability. They have these really good days, I had this fantastic experience of, you know, tummo, or, I’m sure that was rigpa, I am sure it was rigpa; or I had some insight into emptiness, I’m sure I’ve realized emptiness. As if it’s, you know, buying a rare coin that you put in your safe, that you can just get, keep, because you saw it once. And then you put it in your safe, and then you forget where the safe is. What does it mean, you have it? You don’t know where it is. It’s back right there where it was already, it came out a little peek, like a little chipmunk, hey, and then goes right down the hole again. And so, sustainability, you know, that’s what this is all about.

[36:27] If we’re serious here, and all 400 of us participating in this retreat, we’re doing this for the sake of sustainability. If that’s not it, there’s no reason to be here, participating in this, because this is all about sustainability, about reaching the path. More explicitly than any other text I’ve seen. And so then finally we turn to the front wheel now being the awareness itself. So now very little needs to be said. Still, I will say this, that once you note, once , let’s say the second phase, ‘taking the mind as the path’, once you’re highlighting that, making that your primary focus, knowing full well that your body has, in a very subtle and sustainable way, settled in its natural state, your respiration has settled in a sustainable way in its natural rhythm. And it’s ongoing, you know, you can do that with the body and the respiration flowing in that imperceptible way for half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half, two hours. When you know that, then you don’t have to keep on checking up. If you know it, it’s cruising altitude, or driving on a wide open road and just putting on cruise control in your car. No cars in front of you, no cars behind you, like going driving down to Alamosa, you just put on the cruise control. Then you don’t have to think about your accelerator, your brake, you don’t need to worry about your speed, oh, am I speeding? and so forth, it’s cruise control, and then you’re fine. You don’t need to check it, you need to check for all the other things, but you don’t need to check your speed.

[38:07] And so likewise, when you know that your body has settled, your respiration has settled, then they’re on cruise control. And then, that’s really marginal, just check in once in a while like a parent just checking on very well-behaved children. And they’re playing in another room, and they’re really good kids, Bernie is not beating up on Sally, and so forth and so on. You need to check once in a while, just to make sure, you need anything kids?, all good?, like that, it’s very much like that. So then you can really focus, Centerpoint, object of mindfulness, space of the mind, and movement therein. There is now explicitly, now more explicitly, the awareness of awareness, which is ongoingly still, the awareness of awareness now becomes more explicit. But still, you are focusing, like the cow herder observing the herd of cows, you are taking an interest. But you’re taking an interest from a perspective that you know is still and naturally luminous. And it’s explicit. So there’s that simultaneous awareness. You remember, the second mindful, no, the first mindfulness is that simultaneous awareness, where you are explicitly aware of the awareness of awareness and its stillness, its natural luminosity, and you are aware, as the object of mindfulness, the space of the mind and the movements, and just, but now you really don’t need to be concerned. Because it’s cruising altitude, it’s cruise control, it’s taken care of, the body and the breathing, right?

[39:34] And then when you get cruise control there, especially, let alone mindfulness devoid of mindfulness, the third type of mindfulness, but even getting very familiar with the second mindfulness. The second mindfulness, you remember, manifests mindfulness. The first one, single-pointed mindfulness, you’ve succeeded, you can, on occasion, if not really sustainable yet, simultaneously be aware of the stillness of your awareness and movements of the mind, you know that, first mindfulness. But then you have to familiarize, familiarize, familiarize until, with less and less effort, you have better and better and better continuity of the same practice, simultaneous awareness of the stillness, and the movement. And when really at cruise control there, cruising altitude, getting better and better quality, better stability, better vividness, but emphasis on maintaining this stillness of your awareness even when emotions come bursting up, and desires, and traumatic memories, and fears about the future, and so forth. Even then, and especially then, when you’ve just checked the internet, or you had some interaction with another person, or you been on a phone, or something, a memory comes up, or a future-oriented fear comes up - even when these big secret upheavals arise, even then, they’re arising as aids on your path.

[41:00] Because the stronger they are, it’s like a better enemy but you’re more powerful; a better, more equipped enemy, a better-armed enemy, but you are, you can rise to the occasion. And that’s going to make you stronger each time. Unless you fall apart, in which case you’re back to trying to cultivate sustainability. When you have that, and you’re very confident, [Tibetan Phrase] if you’ve acquired confidence, and being able to maintain the stillness of awareness, even when turbulent big stuff comes up in your environment, your body, or your mind - outer, inner, and secret. When you have that confidence, that wow, this light, this lighthouse stood in 200-mile-an-hour gales, like down in the Caribbean. It gets up that, it’s fierce. My brother went through a hurricane like that, in St.Croix. And it was like, it was one of the famous, famous hurricanes, like 200 miles an hour, and he and his family were huddled in the bathroom in the center of the house. And just hearing hell has no fury like a hurricane, outside. But they survived. The bathroom, a lot of damage to the house, but the bathroom stood intact. The bathroom, the washroom, that’s awareness[Laughing], you know.

[42:20] Just huddled there but we made it through. We didn’t go freaking out, screaming at the top of our lungs, help help, and pffft there you are, you know, chaff blown by the wind. No, you stay right there. And you observe the feelings. If you’re a yogi, then you observe the feelings coming up. So it’s a powerful analogy there. When you have that kind of confidence that even with the onslaught of powerful outer, inner, or secret, or private upheavals coming up, you’re still there like the lighthouse, you’re still there like the washroom in the center of the house, you’re still there. Now you are really ready to go to the third wheel in a sustainable way, and get the job done. Achieve shamatha! Let’s stop dilly-dallying, piddling with it, messing about with it, mucking about with it, trying our best, and feeling and feeling and feeling. Now you’re really ready. Because you’ve weathered the storm, this is tested metal. And then when you turn your awareness right inwards, the mindfulness of awareness itself, there is still, just to the extent necessary, as Yangthang Rinpoche says, when he characterizes the shamatha practice that he taught as ‘shamatha without a sign’, you do need to be aware just enough of thoughts pertaining to the past, the future, and the present so that you’re not carried away by them.

[43:44] I’ve given the example often, you are inside a house with glass windows all the way around, and a sneak thief, a cowardly sneak thief comes along and is peering through the windows. And there you are, as soon as he shows up, you see him. It’s a cowardly sneak thief, he’s not ready to take you on. But boy, if you dozed off, he’d be in in a flash, right? And so you have that kind of vigilance, deeply relaxed. But if a thought of the past, present, or future arises, you’re noting it just enough that the cowardly thought slips away and releases itself. So that’s that third phase.

[44:26] And when you are, if we want to map this onto the nine stages leading to shamatha: by the time you get to phase eight out of nine, and then there’s shamatha, by the time you get to phase eight, at that point you’re no longer vulnerable to coarse, medium, or subtle excitation or laxity. And at that point, I mean you’re, you’re a real Yogi by then, at that point, then you can put down your guard. You can give your faculty of introspection a gold watch and send it into retirement. It’s no longer needed. It’s like an old, old guard, you know, that’s watching a building until you put in some new high tech that is all automated. And you give the old guy a watch, you did a great job, but now we’re just taking on with a robot. But enjoy, you know, you’re 70, 72 years old, you’re ready to retire, enjoy it. And now it’s just all taken care of effortlessly. You’re at a point in your practice where laxity, even subtle laxity, and excitation cannot arise. Your guard system, your security system is so strong, they won’t even show up, they give up. They’ve given up. They know that your mind is an unassailable fortress. In which case then you don’t need any sentries anymore.

[45:50] And then you can be absolutely single-pointed on one thing only. Forget about the body, it’s cruise control. Forget about the breathing, it’s cruise control, forget about the mind. Forget about your mind. Cruise control, because you have such stability, the natural effortless stillness of awareness, and the natural luminosity of awareness, those are the two things you’re trying to achieve in other types of shamatha. And now you’re there and you’re resting in that unmovable stillness and that unveiled luminosity. In which case now your practice is simple. As Tsongkhapa just goes right to the end of the road and said, your practice is, just be aware of the sheer luminosity and cognizance of awareness, and that’s it. And he has nothing more to say. That’s great if you’re on stage eight, you know, then you just finish the job. And so that’s the third phase, that’s the third wheel on the tricycle. But to make it sustainable, go right back to the foundation. What so many people overlook, don’t even know about. When has your respiration settled in its natural rhythm? Because if it’s just once in a while, ab und zu [German] once in a while, happens and doesn’t happen, then that will be true for everything else after that. For ‘taking the mind as the path’, ‘awareness of awareness’, it’s going to be all, well, I had a good session, but then not a good session, and then something came up and got me really disturbed, but then I got over it. And you’re gonna write that diary for the next 1000 years. And it’s gonna be the same diary. 1000 years, and that’s just for starters. So that’s that.

[47:30] That’s that. So that was a rather long preamble. But as His Holiness said, here I am sitting on the Dharma throne, performing the actions of a lama, if I can save you some time? That can save you a lot of time right there. And hardly anybody is talking about it. How many texts have I read where it actually says, and this is when your respiration is settled in its natural rhythm? One. Terton Lerab Lingpa from, of course, his lama, Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo. Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, it was really his teaching, incredible Dzogchen master, Rime master. But if you heard it once, then that’s enough. He said it once, he wrote it down. And then Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok gave us in the room in New York City, he gave us the transmission on that. So incredibly valuable, save a lot of time. Because we’re here for sustainability, right? Time is running out. Humanity seems hell-bent, as if incredibly enthusiastic: Let’s just see who’s going to win in America, the Republicans or the Democrats? Who’s going to win? Who can crash the environment fastest? Because we’re not slowing down.

[48:50] We accelerated under Trump, he was unabashed about that. And Biden, I think is a good man. All the attention is on Ukraine. And then, well yeah, but when we get to it, when we get to it, we’ll try to also preserve the balance of the environment. But after Ukraine it’s going to be something else, and then it’s going to be a bacterial infection, and then it’s going to be this skirmish. And then China is going to invade Taiwan, it’s probably a matter of time. And it’s gonna be one doggone thing after another. And what’s always going to be pushed to the back shelf is, oh, by the way, let’s do preserve the environment so that human civilization can continue, if we actually think that’s worthwhile. Keeps on getting pushed back. So if there’s anything [that] can avert that, to my mind, it’s pretty obvious, it’s not going to be the business world. And not going to be the politicians, not going to be democratically elected ones, or tyrants. None of them are doing it. And especially the little countries. A little tiny country like a postage stamp, like Liechtenstein or you know, with respect, Denmark, or Finland. The little countries are doing a lot. But what they’re doing is then completely overwhelmed by Russia, China, America, Brazil, like, you know, one little, little voice of sanity drowned out by a chorus of shouting of the major polluters and desecrators of the environment. And they’re not slowing down, we are not slowing down. And so if there’s any hope here, those of us dedicated to Dharma, be it Christian, or Buddhist, Dzogchen, or Theravada, I think we better get our act together soon. Because I don’t think there’s any other hope. That’s just an opinion, but I’m holding to it quite tenaciously.

[50:35] Let’s practice. Please find a comfortable position.

[50:43] Meditation Bell

51:08 Settle your body, speech, and mind in the natural states, as you’ve done before.

[51:59] Throughout this practice, in all three phases, we do our best to maintain, to sustain, this stillness of self-knowing awareness, without it moving off to, becoming absorbed in, the various objects of meditation, or the movements of the mind.

[54:08] And when you see that there is at least an approximation of your body being very relaxed, at ease, comfortable, still, and vigilant; an approximation of your respiration having calmed down and settled into rhythmic shallow flow of breath. Then shift the focus of mindfulness away from the body and its movements, with your eyes at least partially open, your gaze vacant, shift the focus of your mental awareness to the space of the mind and whatever movements arise within it.

[56:00] Realize the possibility of your awareness remaining unwavering, unfluctuating, unmoving, even as all manner of mental events come and go. Experience that, and then cultivate confidence in knowing that you can sustain that stillness, not just when the mind is quiet and clear, but even when the mind is turbulent or dull.

[58:15] And when you find you can manage some degree of sustainability of the stillness of your awareness as thoughts, images come and go. Then, as we turn to this third phase, direct the flow of mindfulness, the faculty of bearing in mind without forgetfulness or distraction. Invert the flow of mindfulness right in upon that which is mindful. Into self-knowing, self-illuminating awareness, already present, already effortless, and release all efforts to attending to anything else, except just enough of introspection so that whether it’s excitation or laxity, whatever might arise, by simply noting the occurrence of either of these extremes, they release themselves. So exercise your faculty of introspection intermittently for as long as it’s useful.

[1:02:33] You may think, when you’re simply resting there, in awareness, doing nothing, but simply being aware of being aware, you may have the qualm that nothing is happening, you’re dead in the water. That’s not true. By the sheer fact of maintaining this flow of luminous cognizance of awareness itself, you’re cutting off the fuel system that keeps the mind in motion, and the mind will settle in its natural state without you doing anything to it. It’s what you’re not doing. You’re not fueling the activities, the dualistic grasping of the mind, and it will subside. You’re not fueling the activation of the five kinds of obscurations, activities of the mind. And they will subside.

[1:03:58] And you’re not cultivating the five dhyana factors. But you’re allowing them to emerge effortlessly, spontaneously, from this flow of mental awareness that is unperturbed, unconstricted, unveiled by laxity and excitation. A great deal is happening, but you’re not doing it. It’s going to be spontaneously, effortlessly. So continue with confidence! This is how shamatha is actualized. And let’s continue practicing in silence.

[1:14:41] Meditation bell

Discussion

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