See: Teachings on Dharma Practice, Part 1
Whichever practice we are doing—the Foundational Practices (Tib. Ngondro), Guru Yoga, the Great Seal combined with calm abiding and insight meditation—we first have to understand body posture and how to rest our mind.
The main point of body posture is the so-called Seven Points of Vairocana, which means that the body posture is similar to how Buddha Vairocana is sitting.
The first of these seven points is that one’s feet are crossed in the Vajra-position.
The second is that one puts one’s hand four fingers below one’s navel in the meditative gesture.
The third is that one’s spine is straight like an arrow or like coins piled upon each other; they don’t move to the left or right but are just straight on top of each other.
The fourth point is that one’s shoulders should be spread like the wings of a vulture. When the vulture is starting to fly he is moving his wings just a little bit. In a similar way, our shoulders should be neither very low nor very high.
The fifth point is that one’s neck is bent, meaning one’s chin is slightly pulled to one’s chest so that the adam’s apple disappears. But one does not put one’s chin completely on the breast.
The sixth point has to do with one’s mouth and lips. They are neither very open nor totally closed, but a little bit open; one’s tongue is put on the upper palate.
The seventh point explains that the focus of one’s eyes is downward to a point sometimes explained as four fingers and sometimes as eight fingers from the tip of our nose.
If we sit in this Seven-Points-of-Vairocana-Posture, our body is very straight. In our body there are many energy channels which are then also straight. Because of that, the different energy winds circulating in these channels flow smoothly. By this, the mind—that is compared to a rider on the horse of these different energy winds—becomes more settled. Whatever practice we do—Foundational Practices, Guru Yoga, the Great Seal—it will then be easier to direct the mind to this practice. Our mind will easily become one-pointed in its focus. When we can properly sit in this posture, then problems connected with dullness or drowsiness cannot really occur. But this does not mean that if we cannot sit in this posture of Vairocana, we cannot practice at all. If we are not used to the posture, then we cannot sit in it for long. Then it is also okay to sit with a straight spine and let the body rest in itself.
That was how to set the body. The next point is how to set the mind.
The first point is when we practice not to ponder the past, not to follow any thoughts connected to things that are already gone. Anything good we have done in the past is over; anything bad also. That is why we call it past: it is already gone. There is no way we could let it come again. We cannot change it anymore, and it gives problems to the mind when we think about things that are already over. Because of that one should, in meditation, not follow any thoughts on the past.
The second point is not to contemplate thoughts about the future. When we practice we should not think about thoughts like, “What will I do tomorrow? What will I do next month or in one year? What will happen in five or ten years?” This is thinking about something that is quite far away. This point also covers thinking things during practice, such as, “After my meditation I have to go to another town” or “I have to eat” or “I have to meet a friend” or “I have to talk to someone.” We should not follow such thoughts in our mind while we actually do our main meditation practice. Of course when we do not practice then it is sometimes necessary to make plans about the future. I don’t say we should not think about the future at all.
The third point is one should not follow or come under the influence of different sense objects which appear in meditation. For example, if we meditate and then we see from afar a person and start to think, “Is that a Westerner or is it a Tibetan?” or “Is he white or is he black?” Or when we sit in meditation, and we hear a sound, and think, “Is that a human sound? Is it a voice? Who’s voice is it? Is it a nice one or is it a funny sound?” And once we are in this, then we are already following our thoughts and concepts.
That does not mean that we have to, upon hearing a sound, stuff our ears or pretend not to hear anymore. It means that once we hear something, then we hear it. But if we start to think “Is that an animal sound? Whose sound is it? Is it a human sound? Does it sound nice, does it sound bad?” then we are grasping. And that is what we should not do—be attached and follow this kind of thinking. But it doesn’t mean that we should close our ears and block hearing anything.
Tilopa said to Naropa that we are not fettered by appearances, but by our attachment to appearances. That means that just seeing a person, just hearing something or just smelling something does not actually bind us. It’s the attachment that actually binds us.
That was the third point—that we should not come under the influence of the different objects and thoughts in the present. Whatever practice we do, we should actually try to apply this method to settle the mind; namely, not to be overpowered by these three kinds of conceptualizations.
Whether we do the Foundational Practices or the meditation on the lama, when we are too fixated on the practice, that would be a mistake. Fixation means thinking, “I should not have any concepts right now,” and trying really hard to do this. When we try to fixate or desperately try to stop any concept or any thinking in our mind, then that becomes the cause for even more thinking and concepts.
But if we relax too much, this is also a mistake. Because that would mean that we do not really care about any concepts or thoughts appearing in our mind. Then we would lose our practice because our practice would become like our everyday life.
We should neither put too much effort, nor fixate the mind too much, nor relax the mind too much. Instead we should have the mind concentrated in a balanced manner.
When the Buddha was in Shravasti, there was a boy in a rich family, who because his parents were Buddhists, became Buddhist himself. When he took the novice ordination, his teacher was one of Buddha’s main students, Ananda. From Ananda, the young man learned the Buddha’s teaching, and meditation as well. But when he was medi-tating, he was either too strict or too loose in his meditation. He could not really settle the mind well and he could not get any experiences or realization. At one point he went to the Buddha and asked him: “I put a lot of effort in my practice. I meditate a lot but no experiences and no realizations are coming. Why is that so?”
Buddha asked him, “Before you became a monk, when you were still with your parents, did you learn to play the sitar?” And he answered, “Actually I was very good at playing the sitar.”
Buddha asked him, “If you trim the strings too strict or too loose—will you have a good sound then?” He answered: “No, both would be a mistake. If one puts too much force into trimming the string it will break at some point. And if it’s too loose, it will not sound nice. Therefore it should be neither too strict nor too loose, but just in the middle so that a nice sound will come.”
The Buddha said: “Just like in playing the sitar, sometimes your mind is too fixated, too strict, and sometimes your mind is too relaxed. That’s why you can’t have experiences or realizations. You should put your mind into a state which is like the sitar string—neither too strict nor too relaxed, just balanced. When you then rest your mind, you will be able to have experiences and realization.”
It is said that this young man became very good with this method of settling the mind. He was able to put the mind into a state which was neither too strict nor too loose, just balanced. Meditating in that way, he had the experiences and realizations. Finally, it is said, he obtained the state of an arhat; he became liberated from cyclic existence.
If we manage, starting from the Foundational Practices to our main practice, to keep our mind neither too focused, artificial and strict, nor too loose, then our mind will be able to rest on the focus we have in our individual practice.
So we try to be very relaxed and at the same time aware. But in our meditation practice, as in any dharma practices where we try to focus the mind, many kinds of difficulties can appear. But the two main obstacles are either dullness or agitation.
Dullness can be summarized in three levels: dullness, drowsiness and sinking or sleeping.
The first is that our awareness is slightly dull. When we practice the refuge, for example, and don’t feel so inspired to recite the formula, or don’t pronounce the words clearly, or have no clear visualization, then all of this is the mistake of dullness.
If this gets worse, then we call it “drowsiness.” That means that we come closer to sleep. If we recite the refuge formula, we sometimes make a mistake. Or if we recite the Mani mantra, we sometimes start to recite instead the Amitabha mantra, or the Guru Rinpoche mantra. Our mind cannot really rest clearly on the focus, and so these mistakes occur.
The last point is called “sinking” and that means that the five senses stop working properly, and one is about to fall asleep.
These kinds of problems in meditation can arise, for example, because of food, or if we stay at a very dirty, polluted place or they can come because of past actions. When they come because of karma, we recognize that we are very awake when we are singing and dancing around, as we like it very much. However, if we want to practice, then after a few minutes, we start to feel really tired, and we think it’s really difficult, and we are about to fall asleep.
It can also occur if we go to a place that is polluted or where we have bad conditions and where we could get sick—for example, if there is polluted food or it is a very dirty place. Because of these conditions, it can happen that we sometimes feel very tired. The last possibility is that it comes from food. If we eat a lot—for example heavy food, a lot of meat, or food with a lot of fat—then also these problems of dullness can occur. Dullness can also arise from the weather. If, for example, it’s very hot it can also affect our minds.
Methods to clear away this kind of dullness are to refresh and clean our body, wear lighter clothes and eat less food.
It can also help to practice on an elevated place—a higher place, or on the top of a hill or a mountain, or on a roof, or a very high level in a house. It also helps to look up or to a higher area with our eyes when meditating. It also helps to sprinkle our body with cold water, or to open the windows so that a little wind can come in. If former actions are the cause of the dullness, then doing prostrations, circumambulating a stupa and so on will help.
That was the first mistake in meditation—the problem of dullness. The second is the problem of agitation, to have many wild thoughts and concepts in one’s mind. After one thought come two thoughts, and on the two thoughts follow three thoughts, and then there are so many thoughts that we cannot keep our focus at all.
Methods to remove agitation are to put on warmer clothes, look with our eyes onto a lower spot and eat more heavy food.
If we are very dull, we should also try to put a little more effort into our concentration—to be a bit more strict. If we are very agitated then we should relax our concentration a little bit. If we are neither of them we should, as was explained before, rest our mind in a balance. Then we will be able to rest our mind easily on the focus of our practice.
When we meditate on any buddha aspect, we often think, “I should have a very clear visualization.” If this happens, we are really happy, because we had hoped for it. On the other hand we sometimes think, “Now my visualization is quite bad,” and then we think that this is not good; we are afraid that this will happen. This hope and fear we should try to avoid.
We should not hope that after starting to practice the Buddha’s teachings we will get all the specific signs, all the characteristics, all the experiences and realizations immediately.
Gelongma Palmo for example, the founder of the Nyungneh practice1, was doing her practice for twelve years, night and day. During the day she was reciting the Manis, doing the practice of the Six Syllable Mantra.2 In the night she was doing the mantra of the thousand-armed Loving Eyes (Tib. Chenrezig, Skt. Avalokiteshvara).
After twelve years doing the practice she did not even have a good sign in a dream. At one point she was really tired and unhappy, because she thought: “Now I have practiced for twelve years. For twelve years I have opened up and invoked Loving Eyes, and recited his mantra. Not to speak of having a vision of him, I did not even have a good dream.” She became very unhappy, started to lose courage and became very sad.
That night the Wisdom-Buddha Manjushri appeared to her in a dream and told her: “You should not be sad. In the south of India there is a monastery with a self-arisen stone statue of Loving Eyes. If you do the Nyungneh there, you will be able to meet Loving Eyes in this life. And also your sickness will be healed.” (She had some kind of leprosy.)
This monastery with the statue was called Lekar Shingpel, and that place was very far away. She could not walk because of her leprosy, and so she thought, “What should I do?” But then seven dakinis—female buddhas—appeared, put her on a silken cloth, and in one moment she appeared at that monastery.
She started there with the practice of Nyungneh, and made a promise to do this in order to meet Loving Eyes. After one year her sickness was completely healed. It is said that later, on the first day of the Tibetan fourth month—the so-called Saga Dawa, which is usually around May in our calendar—she met Liberatrice (Skt. Tara) and she reached the first Bodhisattva Level.
Tara prophesied to her, “Through the practice of Nyungneh, you will be able to benefit many beings.” It is said on the eighth day of this fourth month, she saw the main buddha aspects of the Kriya Tantras and she reached the eighth Bodhisattva Level.
On the fifteenth day of that month she finally had a vision of the thousand-armed, eleven-faced Loving Eyes. Seeing Loving Eyes she offered the praise which is also nowadays recited in the Nyungneh practice, praising his qualities. Then she held him and said: “For twelve years I’ve been meditating day and night. I recited the mantras, I have done the practice…why couldn’t I meet you?”
Loving Eyes said: “It was not that I was not present. Since the first mantra of mine that you recited I was constantly with you. But because of your former actions and obscurations you were not able to see me. Due to your twelve years of practice the obscurations and former bad actions had decreased so that now, after one year of Nyungneh practice, you could see me.”
That means, whichever yidam or buddha aspect we meditate on, whenever we meditate on him, the buddha or yidam is actually there, appearing to us; that is certain. But due to our negativities and obscurations we are blocked so that we cannot directly perceive and see him. For example, if the sky is clouded by thick clouds, then it is not the case that there is no sun at all, but because of the very thick clouds the sun cannot warm us. The sun is there and the sun’s heat is there, but it’s blocked by the clouds. Once the clouds are cleared then the sun can warm us.
In the same way, whether we meditate on a yidam or the lama, they are directly present. But due to our cloud-like veils we are unable to meet them.
Once these obscurations are cleared away step by step and are then completely removed, we can finally directly perceive the buddha or the yidam.
If we open up without doubt and with strong trust and openness to our buddha aspect or to the Guru Yoga practice we do, it is for sure the blessing will enter us. Whether we actually perceive the yidam or not, the blessing will always be there. We will receive the blessing, because in respect to the blessing there is no near or far.
Lama Ole tells you this all the time; there is no better explanation than what you already have. So I have only summarized some points of the practice.
Translated from Tibetan to English by Jim Rheingans, edited by Jonathan Bradley.
