Meditation is the most important part of our path. We have a complete practice in our Kagyu school, where we first learn, then think about what we have learned and finally meditate. These three—learning, thinking, meditating—are necessary for any kind of Buddhist practice. In our school the meditation is emaphasized a lot, but it has to be balanced with study, so that one knows what one is doing and has an idea of where one is going. There has to be this frame around the practice in order to get the right results. For a beginner it is very important to develop through learning and to come to the correct view, because once we get to the real practice, we really need to understand what the meditation does to us.
Why is it not enough to simply have the right view and to act in the right way? Why do we need meditation as well? The reason is that the habits in our mind, as ordinary beings, are so strong that there is no way to change them if we don’t meditate. Neither the highest view nor the best conduct alone can change the mind’s structure. For this we need the meditation.
Attraction and Aversion
We also have to be clear about what we need to pay attention to in meditation, so that we don’t just carry our habits into our meditation. When we look at how our mind works, we notice that we always tend to either want or avoid something. This is a very simple way of putting it, but actually it works like that. If we like something, we feel attracted to it and want it. If it is really nice, we want to keep it, we want to stay with it or we want it to happen again. If there is something we don’t like we will do anything to get away from it and to avoid it.
Actually, the same will happen in meditation. In different kinds of practices we still have these patterns of the mind, we just project them on the meditation. Here we have to watch out and we have to change something.
For example, when we do a meditation on Diamond Mind, sometimes we have good concentration, we may feel lighter, or we may have a nice sensation that is inspiring. When that happens, it is normal that we like it and want to keep it. We want to have it again the next time we sit down. The next time, however, we might have a totally different experience, and we may not enjoy it. This is how our mind works.
In Diamond Mind meditation it can also happen that we don’t feel well at all, because the meditation can bring up a lot of things in our mind. We may feel depressed or we might start crying. It can actually be an unpleasant state of mind, and it’s not something we really want. If it becomes too much we might even think, “Maybe I should not meditate so much,” and we make up all kinds of excuses to avoid meditating.
To react like that is normal, but it is something that we have to change. We have to understand that no matter which meditation we do, it will bring up all kinds of different experiences, pleasant and unpleasant. They can even be very pleasant, and we can get all kinds of fabulous experiences. If we’ve ever taken drugs before, we might feel like coming home: “Finally something is happening.” But getting these experiences is not at all the point. We do not meditate to get any kind of experience. So when these experiences come, we must learn to remain totally neutral and not get attached to them or want them to happen again. And if they are unpleasant, we must learn to just ignore them.
No matter what happens during the practice, just let it happen, and do the practice. Get back to whichever practice you do, again and again, and focus on that. Continue with the practice and just let the experiences go.
I’m saying this right at the beginning because it is something really important and something one can easily forget, because habits are so strong. If we are not aware of it, we can go through a long practice and still not change this habit. The purpose of the meditation is to change this habit that everybody has. One has to remind oneself all the time about this.
Shinay
All meditations that Buddha gave fall into two categories. The first is calm abiding meditation, called shinay in Tibetan, or shamatha in Sanskrit. The second is insight meditation, called lhaktong in Tibetan, or vipashyana in Sanskrit.
The methods of calm abiding are—as the word indicates—to learn to focus our mind, remain in that focus and not be distracted. This basic type of meditation, shinay, is found elsewhere as well as in Buddhism, since many other spiritual schools and religions have it. Hinduism for instance is very strong in shinay; they have many very efficient shinay methods. Everybody who wants to progress in meditation needs to start with shinay—unless somebody is on the verge of getting enlightened! Buddha taught shinay at different levels in the different schools. We find shinay in the theravada, in the mahayana and in the tantra. Every one of the schools that Buddha taught contains shinay practices.
Everybody knows the very basic shinay where you focus on the breath. It’s a kind of shinay that many people use, and it is helpful for everyone as well. There is no other kind of focus involved, just the breath. This means simply having the breath to focus on and learning through that not to be distracted by other things, by bringing back the focus all the time.
Our practices, that most people do when they start the Ngöndro, are Diamond Way methods. Here we have shinay in connection with the generation phase (Tib. kyerim) were we build up the different visualizations, imagine the different forms, concentrate on the different ornaments and say the mantra. All of this is actually also shinay.
The best way to train in shinay is to do it gradually. Try to concentrate for short periods of time, because one cannot do it too long; it’s not natural for the mind to stay completely absorbed in one thing for a very long time. It’s something one needs to train. It is like when you train your body. If you overdo it in the first class at the fitness club, the next days you can’t work out; it’s just too painful. The mind works exactly like this. If we aren’t skillful and we force it too much, then we can even develop a kind of rejection to going into that meditative state and just don’t like it. It’s quite important to be very skillful here.
You can’t stay completely focused for too long; the mind just flies off in all directions. It’s difficult to get the concentration back, and also in the effort to get it back one should not strain too much. The best way to train shinay is to do it very intensively for a short moment, then relax the mind again. Then again very intensive concentration and then again relax. If one does it like that, then one can train easily and also for quite a long time. Eventually it will feel more natural, and then naturally the joy of doing it will come.
Meditation is something joyful to do. We are really lucky that we can do it and it’s a happy thing to do. It’s not as if somebody is telling us that we have to do it and forcing us, and we’re feeling guilty when we’re not doing it. These ideas won’t work at all. The joy of meditating is something that grows naturally.
Once you get more accustomed to concentration, you can start to do it for longer time. Different experiences may start to come then. The ones you have to watch out for are the pleasant ones, so that you don’t cling to them.
Shinay Experiences
There are some very typical experiences, like being in a kind of bliss state, that can be physical or mental. Also you can have experiences where the mind is completely without disturbance, just very peaceful. There are not all the usual things going on or ideas coming up, but just a very peaceful, very pleasant and relaxing state. And there can be some non-conceptual states of mind, though it’s not the experience of emptiness as such, because there is no understanding with it.
These three experiences do come eventually through the shinay practice. It’s totally normal, it’s not something special. When they occur one should leave them just like that and stay neutral. One doesn’t get overly excited about them and just continues the meditation. During the next session one tries not to have too many ideas about whether these states will come again.
These three experiences—bliss, clarity and non-conceptuality—are a normal result of shinay. But before they come there can be a lot of not-so-nice states of mind, because one starts to notice what’s going on in the mind. One might even think that things are getting worse, that there are more thoughts and more confusion. But it’s just that suddenly you see what was there all the time, and you notice all the things going on. We are not used to looking inward, so suddenly we notice all these things. One shouldn’t get all upset and think one is doing something wrong. Mind is just like that, and that’s another reason to continue the practice.
Lhaktong
The other kind of meditation—the insight meditation, vipashyana in Sanskrit and lhaktong in Tibetan—is where Buddhist practice is special and unusual. This is something that you don’t find everywhere. With this kind of meditation the practise becomes liberating. The understanding we get at that level brings us further than just to a pleasant state. It brings us totally beyond any kind of concepts, beyond samsara, beyond the normal conditioned existence. That is what will eventually first liberate and then enlighten us.
The results of lhaktong are not so easy to talk about and to describe, because they are actually beyond what one can intellectually understand. They have to be grasped by experience. The meditations that allow us to get to that level are part of the practices that we do, and we are incredibly fortunate to have them.
There are two kinds of insight meditation, and not everyone is aware of this. First, there are the analytical kinds of insight methods and secondly the—let’s call it—non-analytical insight. Many people are not aware of that the analytical insight meditation is indeed insight meditation. They might think that this is not meditation but just something intellectual, but actually it’s not like that.
The analytical insight meditation is, for instance, that you analyze your mind or you try to find your self. (You can find a lot of methods for this in the Mahayana teachings.) It is not just thinking in this way. You try really to look for where you are, to ask what is that identity that you think you are. You search not just in an intellectual way, but you really look for it. After some training, at a certain point in that process, one gets some kind of experience, some kind of idea. It may still be a concept, but this concept has some experience and understanding with it. There is some understanding about the fact that there is nothing to be seen which is really independently existing. You get to that point through the analytical approach, and once the understanding is there, then you meditate by staying in that understanding for a while. That is then your meditation. This is one approach that Buddha taught in order to get to the ultimate understanding.
In the methods that we are using—the Ngöndro, or later in the yidam meditation, or in the Mahamudra—we get the insight meditation mainly in the completion phase (Tib. Dzogrim). When meditating on the buddha aspects, there is always the phase of dissolving what we have imagined before, and after the dissolving there are some moments without any reference in our mind. There is nothing to grasp at. You are just there. This state in itself—in the context that you have first calmed your mind by focusing on a certain buddha form—can give you some understanding, some experience of the nature of the mind and of everything. In this state you then rest for a while.
In order to get to this insight, to the understanding of realization, one must first calm the mind. Otherwise, the insight just wouldn’t happen in the mind. If you didn’t need this calming of mind, then you could just sit down anywhere and be in Mahamudra. Actually nothing would speak against this, but the mind just doesn’t work like that. One needs to train, step by step, and then it works eventually.
Our Methods
The methods that we are using combine the two—shinay and lhaktong—to make it is easier for us. Depending on our level in working with our mind, the flashes of insight will come early or later. It’s totally individual as to when they come. But the structure of the meditation itself is built in such a way that it is always possible to combine the two. In this way one will not get stuck at any level, but there is always the possibility to continue the practice on the next level.
This is very good, because otherwise there is a risk of being satisfied with just being in a pleasant state of shinay, because this feels very nice. One might forget that one still needs to learn something, that one needs more insight, the ultimate understanding of the nature of the mind, the nature of everything.
This is the theoretical way our meditations are built, and how to deal with it. As practitioners, we have a common plan: we all start with the Refuge meditation, go on with the Prostrations, then Diamond Mind, then we continue with the Mandala Offerings and Guru Yoga. After the Ngöndro we usually continue with the 8th Karmapa meditation.
But how it works for each person is very individual. It is individual whether one goes through the practices very quickly and very concentrated, or if one takes many years. There are no fixed rules, because that would not be the point. The method is given, and then each practitioner has to find out what fits best for him or her, how to use it in the best way in one’s life, so that one can feel that the method does the job.
We should always remember why we are doing the practice. It is not something outside us, that has nothing to do with us and that we have to do. No—it’s here, it’s our own mind that we are working with, and we want this mind to be clearer and we want to understand this mind. That’s the whole point, and everything else is just in order for that to happen. This we should never forget.
The reason for doing this work of getting to know our mind is that our mind, and everybody else’s mind, has all kinds of possible qualities. It has every kind of richness, but we just don’t see that right now. The more we come to see and experience it, the more we can do for everybody else so that they can also get to see their minds. That’s why we are doing the practice.
Whoever does the practice will get that result. And whatever obstacles might come on the way, we shouldn’t just let them be obstacles. They are only obstacles if we take them for real, if we make them into obstacles. Otherwise they come and they go again, just as everything else, and we just go on. We decide whether they are obstacles or not.
This article is a transcription of a talk Hannah gave in San Francisco in 2002.
