← B. Alan Wallace

Four Applications Of Mindfulness Retreat 2013 with B. Alan Wallace (part 12)

B. Alan Wallace · 2013 · 58 min · Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive

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  • 0:17

    But he taught it much more widely than that. This was the most commonly, the method of meditation that he taught most commonly. And in fact, when one looks at his core discourse called the Ānāpānasati Sutta, This course on mindfulness of in and out breathing, when you really unpack it, you see that it comes in 16 phases. The first four phases are all focused on shamatha, really designed to enhance one's attention skills. And the last 12 are all vipashana. And the culmination of the 12th stage is the realization of arhatship, achieve liberation. So it's actually quite a complete package.

  • 1:17

    And I'll read it, this is on page 6. Just as in the last month of the hot season, so any of you who have spent time in India, you know this is May, early June. The monsoon has not come in yet and it's really a stinker. Very hot, very dry, the air quality is terrible, a lot of dust, yucky stuff in the air. So that's been going on for a long time. So just as in the last month of the hot season when a mass of dust and dirt has swirled up.

  • 9:16

    You heard me say yesterday, I think it was, that we are born with conate mental afflictions. If we are angry as little kids, we didn't get that from our DNA or our parents or environment. We're born with anger. We're born with craving and we're born with a certain type of delusion or ignorance. So that's kind of the bad news. That means we have to do some pretty deep work to eradicate those innate or conate impulses, instinctual impulses. But the good news is...

  • 24:08

    And that even a shamatha is access to that, or just right on the threshold of the first jhāna. But he makes it very clear. There's a lot of people now, especially in Theravāda Buddhism, that are just skipping right over samādhi. I check with Bhikkhu Bodhi. I mean, this whole notion of momentary samādhi, that's all you really need, don't worry about shamatha, don't worry about jhāna, no, no, just momentary samādhi. The Buddha never made any such statement or implication. It's not there. It's not there in any of the great commentaries.

  • 36:10

    The first one is breathing in long, one is aware I breathe in long. Breathing out long, one is aware I breathe out long. That's it. That's the first out of sixteen. So we see that I know, one is aware or one knows, one is breathing in long, breathing out long. Something to highlight here, and honestly important, is that in any practice of shamatha it is absolutely imperative to maintain a flow of cognizance.

0:00 One last one. Report an error

0:03 So I've mentioned before that the Buddha strongly emphasized and very widely taught this method of mindfulness of breathing, specifically for those who are especially prone to rumination. Report an error

0:17 But he taught it much more widely than that. This was the most commonly, the method of meditation that he taught most commonly. And in fact, when one looks at his core discourse called the Ānāpānasati Sutta, This course on mindfulness of in and out breathing, when you really unpack it, you see that it comes in 16 phases. The first four phases are all focused on shamatha, really designed to enhance one's attention skills. Report an error

0:45 And the last 12 are all vipashana. And the culmination of the 12th stage is the realization of arhatship, achieve liberation. So it's actually quite a complete package. If what you would like to do is to purify all the mental afflictions. in your mind stream. Report an error

1:02 I'd like to highlight just a little bit more why he would so have emphasized this particular practice. And he does so in the Samyutta Nikaya, so one of the Pāli Suttas, in which he gives a marvelous analogy. And I'll read it, this is on page 6. Just as in the last month of the hot season, so any of you who have spent time in India, you know this is May, early June. Report an error

1:26 The monsoon has not come in yet and it's really a stinker. Very hot, very dry, the air quality is terrible, a lot of dust, yucky stuff in the air. So that's been going on for a long time. So just as in the last month of the hot season when a mass of dust and dirt has swirled up. It's very unpleasant. On such an occasion a great rain cloud out of season, that is the monsoon hasn't come yet, but lo and behold here's a little mini monsoon. Report an error

1:54 A great rain cloud out of season disperses it and quells it on the spot. And that is what disperses all the dust, the dirt, completely clears out the air and it does so quickly. There's this downpour and then suddenly the air is fresh, sparkling clear. So there's the analogy. And he says, so too, concentration by mindfulness of breathing, this Ānāpānasati samādhi, wind developed and cultivated. Report an error

2:21 So this is not an overnight or an instantaneous effect, but when you really persist and cultivate this practice, it is peaceful. Report an error

2:29 So that's predictable. I mean, after all, you're calming your mind, calming your whole body-mind system. So one could predict, even if you hadn't done the practice, this would probably be peaceful. Report an error

2:40 But he goes beyond that. He says it's sublime. And if you've never meditated, you might wonder, this sounds like a little bit of hyperbole here. Sublime? Come on, give me a break. You're tending to sensations of the breath. What's sublime about that? Peaceful, okay. But sublime? Aren't you getting ahead of yourself a bit? So that's a bit of a surprise. Report an error

2:59 It's where you can't know what's going to happen in meditation just by being a clever person and thinking about it. You actually have to do it and see what happens and there are surprises in store. It's peaceful and sublime but then he goes on even beyond that it says an ambrosial dwelling. So he's really highlighting this quite extraordinary and it disperses and then it's even more than that. Report an error

3:21 It's not only a really nice emotional state, a really warm and cozy sublime ambrosial place to hang out. But even more importantly, ethically speaking, this simple practice which by nature seems to be quite ethically neutral, you're just observing the sensations of the breath after all. He said, it disperses and quells on the spot evil, unwholesome states whenever they arrive. So it's quite a remarkable statement. Report an error

3:48 Of course, every word here is meant literally. And there's a lot of implications here. If one dwells on this and then you do a lot of practice, then this starts to unfold really how true this is. Peaceful? Yeah. It's not peaceful to have a mind that's just caught up in rumination, agitation and so forth. We all know that. And so if that whole system can be calmed down a bit, then peace is what's left over. Report an error

4:14 Very nice. But the sublime quality, and this is very common. I've practiced this a lot and I've taught it a lot. I've heard a lot of people report on their personal experiences. And so many, when they do cultivate and develop or develop and cultivate this practice, They find not only a sense of peace, of equanimity, but over the time a sense of well-being arising. A well-being in the body, a well-being in the mind. Report an error

4:41 It's kind of just that. It's a really good word. Just well-being. It's called sukkha in Tibetan or in Sanskrit. A sense of well-being. Like, oh, it's rather nice. And then out of that, one can really start enjoying the practice. And it's still the same old sensations. You're not getting strawberry flavored or something exotic, you know. Report an error

5:00 pleasant, the same sessions, the same sensations, you actually start enjoying, you don't want to stop. You start really enjoying the practice. We don't need big words like bliss and ecstasy and so forth. It's just that you're enjoying the practice. Report an error

5:15 you settle in and then bliss actually does arise, can arise, where just a very deep, strong, sharp sense of well-being or bliss takes on. This is genuine. This is not hedonic. That is, it's not coming from the sensations. The sensations are sensations. It's the breath. So where is this coming from? The sense of well-being and then sense of enjoyment and then actually a sense of bliss. Report an error

5:39 Well, since the only thing you're attending to is the sensations of the breath, and they're neutral. We all know what they're like. They're neutral. Then there's only one other possibility. It's coming from your mind. But then why? You're not thinking happy thoughts, you're not arousing, specifically developing loving kindness, bodhicitta, faith, and so forth and so on. Report an error

6:02 All of those can give rise to a sense of well-being, but you're not doing that. It's good to do that, but you're not doing that in this practice. So where is it coming from? It's just not stimulus-driven, because you're not stimulating your mind with pleasant or virtuous thoughts. There's no sensory stimulation, which is by nature pleasant. This is now simply a symptom. This is enormously good news. Report an error

6:23 And it's been replicated tens of thousands of times. This is old, old science. And that is that the sense of well-being, of enjoyment, of bliss that's coming out, these are all symptoms of a mind that is in a state of balance. It's just that simple. Whereas when we have that genuine unhappiness, sitting quietly in the room, you're not hungry, you're not cold, you're not thirsty, everything's fine, and you just feel unhappy, or you feel restless, or you're bored, or anxious, or what have you. Report an error

6:54 And you're looking around and saying, you know, what's making me feel bad? And there's no stimulation at all. Not even mental necessarily. You're just sitting there. And then you feel bad. Good. You should feel bad. It's a good thing you're feeling bad. That's a symptom of a mind that is afflicted. A mind that's in a state of imbalance. You feel bad, maybe you'll be, how do you say, aroused to do something about it. And get to the source of it and not just... Report an error

7:22 Drug it with alcohol or television or internet or anything else. Why don't you ferret this one out? You're feeling bad, maybe for a very good reason, and now that you can't blame it on anything else, the chickens will come home to roost. And you see what's actually making you feel bad, and that is your mind is not healthy. And this is a symptom of a mind that is in a state of imbalance. And so good, now you can get real and do something really to attend to the deeper issues in your own existence. Report an error

7:49 That are giving rise to this kind of ground state of malaise, unhappiness, discontent, anxiety and so on. But contrarily, when you really do cultivate this balance of mind, then the natural symptom that comes up, sense of well-being and even bliss. It's really important news. I doubt that it will become one of the headlines of the Australian, right? Isn't that what your newspapers are? I doubt it's going to be breaking news, you know? Report an error

8:18 I doubt it. This isn't marketable, that's the problem. If you could sell it, you could make a lot of money. But the problem is you already have it. So even if I had it, I can't sell it to you. And I can explain it to you in a very short period and then I've said what I have to say and then it's just yours to do. So, no, it's probably not going to make big headlines, but I know a few truths that are more important about our very existence and the nature of the mind than that when we simply remove the clutter, the garbage. Report an error

8:46 of the mind that's throwing it into a constant state of imbalance. And we allow the mind to settle is not boring, that is not merely peaceful, but a genuine sense of well-being and even bliss arises. In other words, you can't buy it. You're a billionaire, you can't buy it. No money can buy it. But you can cultivate your way of life, cultivate a quality of mind that is yours because it's inherited. Report an error

9:16 You heard me say yesterday, I think it was, that we are born with conate mental afflictions. If we are angry as little kids, we didn't get that from our DNA or our parents or environment. We're born with anger. We're born with craving and we're born with a certain type of delusion or ignorance. So that's kind of the bad news. That means we have to do some pretty deep work to eradicate those innate or conate impulses, instinctual impulses. Report an error

9:44 But the good news is... That we're born with something else as well. And that is the natural purity of our own minds. And when we unveil that, a sense of well-being and bliss comes out all of its own accord. So we're born with that as well. The anger, craving, hostility, all of that, that manifests with no training. That just comes up all by itself. Report an error

10:06 This one comes up only with cultivation. So there's really clearly two types of evolution that take place on this planet. And one is that it occurs by way of genetic mutation, adaptation, survival, not surviving, procreating, not procreating, biological evolution. But it's glacial, it's extremely slow, right? Report an error

10:26 Very, very slow. And now we have this incredibly rapidly changing environment, and changing because of us. I think most people are kind of getting in that actually global warming, we had something to do with that. You know, conservatives, economy first, economy first, they're trying to ward that off as much as they can, but it looks kind of obvious. Report an error

10:45 We've done it. And it's not only the global warming, it's, you know, the scoop. I mean, it's how we've violated our environment. And we've changed it drastically and it's changing quicker and quicker. And that's the natural environment, let alone cities and our education system and so forth, our society. Everything's changing so quickly. So the notion that we are going to biologically adapt to the changing natural environment and the changing social environment, which is changing so quickly, seems to be changing... Report an error

11:14 And at an accelerated pace, the notion that we're going to somehow adapt, survive and flourish by genetic mutation or even genetic tinkering. I think that's a very, very far-fetched, non-reality-based speculation. To my mind, and I'll finish here very quickly, the only way we're going to adapt to this changing environment, the natural environment and our social environment, so that we can not only survive but actually flourish, is going to be through deliberate, conscious, Psychological and spiritual evolution. That's the only option. And the other option is not to flourish and maybe not survive. So once again, you can tell, I think the stakes are very high here. Report an error

11:55 So we're not quite finished. Peaceful, sublime, ambrosial dwelling. He meant every single word. There was no hyperbole or exaggeration. But at least as importantly as all of that, because you can enter a peaceful, sublime, and ambrosial dwelling. I've never taken, and I have no interest in taking heroin. But I've heard, because I know people who have. Report an error

12:16 People say it has really kind of a nirvanic quality to it, the experience of being drugged on heroin. It'll kill you, of course, but before it kills you, you'll have this sense of really nirvanic sense of peace, of sublime tranquility and well-being, and then it kills you. Report an error

12:35 So there's upside and downside. But there are drugs, that's an illegal one and a terribly harmful one. They can bring about peaceful, sublime and ambrosial dwellings. Maybe somebody will concoct another drug. I don't know whether it's ecstasy or they'll come up with some other drug. They keep on coming up with drugs. Maybe they'll come up with one that comes up with all of that and it doesn't kill you. That'll be a real hot item. But I don't know of any drug, maybe they'll develop this too, but it's not on the horizon, any drug you can take that makes your mind more virtuous. Report an error

13:12 Haven't heard of that one. And that's what this practice does. And it's quite remarkable. That is, if you're actually cultivating, practicing mettā bhavana, the meditative cultivation of loving kindness, and you know what you're doing, right? Cultivating that. And over the course of time you find that you're more affectionate, more warm, open-hearted, attentive to the needs and yearnings of others and really genuinely wishing to be of greater service. Report an error

13:37 That's all transparent. You know what you're doing. You're cultivating loving kindness. You become more loving. It modifies your behavior and you're living a more satisfying and benevolent life. So that's very transparent. Makes sense, right? Here you're practicing mindfulness of breathing. Report an error

13:53 And yet he's saying here that by this simple practice, which on the surface is ethically neutral, it disperses and quells on the spot, I mean instantaneously, every evil unwholesome state that arises. So a bit of spurt of anger or malevolence arises, or craving or selfishness or egotism or envy arises. Report an error

14:12 It arises and then it goes, and it dissolves, kind of like it was just, like it's come into a hostile environment and it's looking for a takeover and then, gone, quells on the spot. Report an error

14:28 Turns out to be true. Now, not on the first day of practice, but as he says, when developed and cultivated, you're developing such a flow of really wholesome, healthy, balanced attention that when some toxin of the mind arises and tries to take over the citadel of your awareness, Can't do it. That's really good news. In other words, this simple practice. And again, anybody can do this. Be an atheist, an agnostic, Christian, Buddhist, whatever. Report an error

14:57 Anybody can practice mindfulness of breathing. And assuming you're living an ethical way of life, you don't have that, then forget it. But if you're leading an ethical way of life and you venture into this practice, you're going to have this wonderfully liberating, transformative effect on the mind and really help you quell naturally these unwholesome or afflicted tendencies in the mind. Report an error

15:17 So I've lingered on that paragraph because what it's suggesting, as I said, this is really ripe with so many implications, is that if we're very intent, see the enormous importance of remedying the afflictive tendencies of our own mind, which bring us so much grief and modify our behavior and bring grief to other people as well. Report an error

15:41 For example, craving, hostility and delusion. So on the one hand we would really say, this is really important, these need to be attenuated, I'll never be happy as long as they're dominating my mind. And on the positive side of the ledger, we see such virtues, universal virtues, anybody in his right mind values, loving kindness, compassion, empathy and so on. Report an error

16:02 And we see, well, those should be cultivated, those are good things, I'd like to have more of that, that would be good, that would be meaningful. With no argument, I mean clearly, it's obviously something beneficial. Then we can take those two tasks. I like to alleviate my mental afflictions and cultivate virtues of the mind. And so how do I do that? Report an error

16:22 And then we have various methods, some from psychology, from Buddhism, Christianity and so forth. But we have various things we can do to counteract the afflicted and to cultivate the virtues. All very good. Report an error

16:38 Here's a practice where we're not really cultivating much of anything at all, except for simply a continuity of clear mindfulness. Report an error

16:46 On the breath, which is ethically neutral. And lo and behold, he says, these afflictions naturally subside. And I've taught this for a long time now. And many people, just by practicing mindfulness of breathing, they find their hearts open. They're quite surprised because they weren't specific cultivating loving kindness and so forth. Report an error

17:04 But as the mind settles and it calms, it becomes clear and relaxed and at ease, focused, the heart opens. And as they're engaging with other people, they find there's much greater empathy. Sensitivity. And then quite naturally caring about others when we see they're in distress or they're really looking for happiness and we see we can assist them. And so what this is suggesting is that there are two very complementary approaches. Report an error

17:29 One is not better than the other and they're certainly not antagonistic to each other. For cultivating the mind and one is through doing, through actively developing the mind by cultivating wholesome qualities and applying remedies to attenuate. The unwholesome or afflictive tendencies. So that's the, we can call it developmental model or developmental approach. And it's very easy to think, okay, that's what Buddhadharma is all about and other traditions as well. Report an error

17:57 And it's true. It is about that, but it's not only about that. Because when we take a second look here, exactly what was I doing? I was watching my breath. Report an error

18:09 That's pretty neutral. I mean, watching my breath, watching a candle, watching a sunset. Was one of those better than the other? But this practice, attending to the breath in a continuous fashion, developing and cultivating it, you start discovering things. You start discovering, not cultivating, but discovering, oh, a sense of well-being is arising. Oh, I'm starting to really enjoy this. Oh, bliss is arising. Report an error

18:34 What is the price? There was one woman in the retreat. It was so charming. She was about 65, about my age or so. It was just charming. Report an error

18:48 And she came in for the weekly interview. And I think she practiced mindfulness of breathing, pretty sure. And she said, I was really surprised this last week. I started looking at these young men and they look very attractive to me. I felt like a teenager. What's going on here? Report an error

19:12 So whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it certainly caught her by surprise. And oh, there was another one. Again, a woman about my age. She came in very shy and said, well, I've had some experiences. And I said, yes, well, I've had some experiences. I said, yeah, what were they? Report an error

19:36 Bliss like an orgasm. She is not the only one. So post-menopausal women, you know, the best is yet to come. Report an error

19:52 So the point here is simply, it's not for everybody. So, you know, don't sue me if you don't have orgasmic bliss. But the point here is a very simple one. There are surprises in store here. Surprises in store. And a lot of the surprises are very good, especially the durable ones, through cultivation and development. Report an error

20:10 Sense of well-being, the body just starting to feel better, the mind feeling more balanced, cheerful, light. Sense of well-being, even bliss arising. And this is discovery. And then it's not only just the affective, I feel better, to finding the heart is opening and finding that the mind is less and less prone to mental afflictions. Report an error

20:30 And this is all discovery. That is, you weren't specifically applying antidotes to the mental afflictions. You weren't specifically engaging in practices to cultivate virtues. You see, whoa, I'm discovering something about the very nature of my mind when the obscurations are removed. The obscurations of rumination, all the clutter, all the junk on the surface of the mind. Report an error

20:53 And we know exactly what that's referring to. And when you just clear that away, it starts to flow out. And a discovery mode is your own internal resources. So we know in our modern world, it's global, everywhere, so much emphasis. Oh, we have 7 billion people, we need more energy. How can we have energy that doesn't contaminate? Please, more energy sources. Okay, how can we find more tin, more platinum, more coal, more, where's more oil? Report an error

21:21 We need more resources. So all good, all good. I mean, nothing wrong with looking for external resources, which we're depleting rapidly in so many ways. But when we have such massive emphasis, overwhelming emphasis, I think on every country on the planet, trying to exploit, seek out and tap into the natural resources of the planet, it might be a good idea if we started to balance that out a little bit with encouraging everyone on the planet to start exploring our internal resources. Report an error

21:53 Because the more you explore and discover your internal resources, the less you need from the world. Report an error

22:03 I mean, it's true. And the more impoverished you feel inside, the more you're desperately in need of something to bolster you up from outside. Whether it's sex or money or sensual pleasures and so forth and so on, acquisitions, more acquisitions, I'm bored, give me another acquisition. So the more depleted we feel internally, the more we try to compensate by displaying to the world, look, I'm successful. Look at all my stuff. Report an error

22:33 Aren't I successful? I keep on telling myself that. Whereas yogis that I've known, and it's quite a few, outwardly you say, man, you are a loser. Report an error

22:43 You are such a loser. You're living in that little shack like a homeless person and you're eating hardly any food. You're wearing the same clothes every day. And there they are just radiating a sense of well-being and kindness and compassion and so forth. They need so little, so, so little, because they have so much. Report an error

23:04 So there's inverse proportionality there. So if we have 7 billion people on the planet and we find we're depleting the planet and natural resources in some ways irreversibly and exhaustibly, just for our survival, let alone our human flourishing, it might be a good idea to tap into other resources that will then alleviate our obsessive need to suck the planet dry, especially since we don't have a spare. Report an error

23:32 It'd be nice if we could take this one like an orange and you go, give me the next one. Give us the next planet to ravage and exploit and dry. But we don't have a near one. They're finding them, but they're just too far away. So I think we're stuck with this one, for better or worse. So that was a long commentary to a very, very rich metaphor. Some of this I'll just invite you to read. I think I'm going to focus now here on the bottom of page six. Report an error

24:00 There's a very nice account from the Buddhist life highlighting the importance of shamatha. The first meditative stabilization is the first jhāna. And that even a shamatha is access to that, or just right on the threshold of the first jhāna. But he makes it very clear. There's a lot of people now, especially in Theravāda Buddhism, that are just skipping right over samādhi. Report an error

24:19 I check with Bhikkhu Bodhi. I mean, this whole notion of momentary samādhi, that's all you really need, don't worry about shamatha, don't worry about jhāna, no, no, just momentary samādhi. The Buddha never made any such statement or implication. It's not there. It's not there in any of the great commentaries. Report an error

24:36 I checked with Bigu Bodhi because I'm not a Pāli scholar, but I checked with him as an outstanding Pāli scholar. He told me that's based on a 13th century sub-commentary written in Burma by some unknown whoever. Report an error

24:49 But in the 20th century, some people in Burma have picked up on that. And of course, it's very popular. People don't want to put in the hard work of Diwali Mishamata. They don't want to develop pronunciation, especially Westerners who are busy. You know, we want the shortcuts. We want fast ways, easy ways. Report an error

25:08 So I just have to say, I just flat out don't believe it. I just don't believe it. And there's a very good book by Kiminda Tara, who's one more outstanding Pāli scholar, a monk, of course, and he wrote a book on serenity and insight, so on Shama Devipassana, in which I think he very compellingly, utterly refutes this notion of momentary samādhi being sufficient for achieving stream entry and once-return and non-return and so forth. Report an error

25:33 The whole Indo-Tibetan current says that's a bunch of nonsense. It's complete nonsense. You've completely missed the boat. You'll never develop stable Vipassanā unless you're a prodigy. There are always exceptions. Like Bahiya. He didn't go sequentially Shama to Vipassanā. He got it in one paragraph. But that's rare. Extremely rare. So when you're teaching to the general public, people coming, one might want to try something not so novel. Report an error

25:58 Like how about ethics, Samādhi and wisdom? That's not novel. That's what the Buddha taught. And he meant every single one of me. There's no such thing as momentary ethics. Report an error

26:10 And there's no such thing as momentary samādhi in the way that, oh, this will do it, you don't really need shamatha or the first jhāna and so forth. In fact, it's a complete misinterpretation. The term momentary samādhi does come up in a classical and very authoritative Theravāda commentary called the Visuddhimagga, the path of purification. But it's deep into the territory of Vipassanā and that's assumed you've already established a firm foundation in jhāna. Report an error

26:33 It's very clear. Report an error

26:37 He says that and if you would like to find the book, it's on the shamada.org website. It's one of the websites that I oversee. It's a very good scholarship. Then you can judge for yourself. But even though a number of Burmese and Thai meditation teachers have said, no, this is enough. I say, show me the evidence. Report an error

26:55 Show me the evidence of somebody who has skipped jhāna and is chief stream entry and is really demonstrating, displaying the qualities, the extraordinary qualities of having become an aria. And I don't see it. And I know that one renowned teacher who was exactly following that mode, who claimed to have achieved once-returner or non-returner, he was making self-claims about being very highly advanced, and then proclaiming for years and years, momentary samādhi is enough enough, and be like me, be like me. Report an error

27:26 He had sex with one of his students and lied about it. Well, to my mind, that just disqualifies. It doesn't make him a bad person. He screwed up. Okay, people do that. I understand, I'm not being judgmental, but you can't be a once-returner, screw one of your students and then lie about it. You can have one or the other, but you can't be both. Report an error

27:46 And so then I thought, okay, there's my evidence. This person was widely regarded as a once-returner, non-returner, and he did that, that shows you're wrong. It's empirical evidence. So this is not dogma versus dogma. I said, hey, let's just get real and see where the evidence lies. And the evidence for the first 2,500 years of the Buddhist tradition is, Shila, Samādhi, Prajna, and each are extremely important. And here's what the Buddha says, and that is spontaneously, I said I wouldn't comment, but I'll comment very briefly, as a youth, he was a prodigy, he was about to become a Buddha, as a youth he just spontaneously slipped into the first jhāna. Report an error

28:21 And then he experienced, you know, the jhāna factors and so forth, sense of well-being, bliss and so forth, and he recalled that experience, the experience that he had when he was a youth, after he'd been through his six years of asceticism, and found that all that... What he did, really, was debilitate his body, make his mind weak. And then, thanks to a young lady that brought him some yogurt and some rice, helped him restore his health, restored his balance, got back on track. Report an error

28:50 He's got a healthy body now. He's just spent six years seeing what doesn't work. Then, if we try to put ourselves in his shoes, he was a man with absolute focus on enlightenment. Report an error

29:05 Just spent six years trying samādhi by itself. By itself doesn't work. All these ascetic practices, fasting and so forth, check, check, check. He did it better than anybody else. He was absolutely macho. Didn't work. And so try to imagine there you are. He's 35 years old. He's left his family six years ago, given up everything for this. Report an error

29:26 And now he seems to be back to square one. What to do? And he posed the question. And then the thought arose in him, what about that time when I was a youngster? And I achieved the first jhāna. Might that be the way? Where the mind, you have the ability to engage in coarse and subtle investigation. In other words, your intelligence is fully on tap. You have a sense of well-being and bliss, but not so much bliss that you become inoperative, like I'm blissed out, you can't do anything. Report an error

29:57 Not that much. It's a real sense of well-being, happiness. The mind is focused, it's relaxed, it's supple, your body is supple. And you thought about that just the first jhāna. Not the higher ones and into the formless realms. We become, again, can't do anything. He thought, might that be the way? Might that be the way? Report an error

30:15 That first jhāna that I just naturally slipped into? Might that be the way? And he posed that question to himself and the answer came back. Following that memory, there came the recognition that this was the way to enlightenment. Report an error

30:31 So, non-momentary samādhi, first jhāna. Or, you want to get by the skin of your teeth? Okay. Threshold of the first jhāna. Access to the first jhāna. And that's shamatha. So I think that little reference there from the Buddhist own life, I think it's pretty clear. Because everybody wants a shortcut. Who wants to dawdle around, meander about, going down detours and dead ends? When you just find a direct path, it gets the job done. Report an error

31:00 I'm sure Gautama didn't want to just putz around doing different things. He wanted, okay, what's necessary? Not what's super abundant, what's fabulous and elaborate and ornate, but just what's necessary. As a samādhi foundation for achieving enlightenment. And he pointed, he in his own words pointed at the first jhāna. Or again right next door to that. He never made the distinction between access to the first jhāna and the actual first jhāna. Report an error

31:24 But that's been made universally in the Theravāda tradition and the whole inter-Tibetan tradition. It's a real distinction. And the whole inter-Tibetan tradition, there's a good deal of consensus there. Access, that's enough. If you're looking for what's sufficient, not what's bountiful. But what's sufficient in terms of samādhi foundation for engaging in vipassanā so that vipassanā is sufficiently empowered by samādhi to bring about irreversible and complete purification of the mind. Report an error

31:53 First jhāna. So all the talk about momentary samādhi, I'm sorry, I just feel it's misguided. It's looking for shortcuts where there aren't any. And this takes hard work. Kind of like learning a language. Or I studied physics. It's not a bad analogy here in physics. And that is, I'd read when I was a monk and living in Switzerland, I started reading some very cool books on quantum mechanics and so forth while I was really primarily studying Dharma. Report an error

32:21 And I thought, wow, this is really cool stuff. And I read the Tao of Physics and I thought, well, he doesn't know much about Eastern mysticism, but he knows physics and that's really interesting. And so I was reading and reading and thought, wow, this is really cool, this is really cool. And then several years later, then while still a monk, I matriculated at Amherst College. Report an error

32:39 And I said, I think I'd like to check this out seriously. You know, not just read a bunch of cool books about quantum mechanics and, you know, books for the general public. I'd like to really, I'd like to know this. I'd like to be really trained in this. Well, the first thing you do, and I had to do, was, okay, if you're serious, then get cracking and open up those mathematic books. Report an error

32:59 Because there's just no way you'll ever understand physics, be able to do physics, if you say, oh, but I don't know mathematics. Well... I wasn't particularly gifted at all, and I hadn't studied mathematics for 14 years. But I thought, okay, I'm serious. I want to really know this stuff. So I went right back. Report an error

33:15 Before I matriculated, I studied algebra and trigonometry, geometry, just brushed that all up. I'd studied it 20 years earlier. And so I was geared up so I could then restudy calculus and advanced calculus, multivariable calculus, and then I could do the mathematics, and then you can actually do physics. Report an error

33:32 But if you don't do the mathematics, you can read about it, you can have a lot of fun thinking about it, but you can't do it, and you'll never be taken seriously. Because they know, you don't really know physics, because you don't know the math. Report an error

33:43 Well, it's very nice to do Vipassanā without shamatha, but it's doing physics without the math. You can talk about it, you can get a lot of insights, it can be a lot of fun, very enjoyable, very meaningful. But really, do you have liberation? No way. It's not going to happen. There's the hard work of it, and that's just shamatha. So there we are. Report an error

34:04 We're going to ask that just this morning on shamatha, then we'll move on to the... But again, not prematurely. I never lead retreats in which I feel what I'm going to teach you, you can't really practice. I never do that, ever. Everybody's time is too valuable for this. So as I mentioned a day or two ago, then even though, presumably you haven't achieved shamatha, no problem. Achieve whatever you can, just like you don't have to have a PhD in mathematics before you can start studying physics. Report an error

34:31 Learn a bit of mathematics, then you can do Newtonian, or let's say Galileo's physics, his dynamics. You can do that. And then you do a bit more, and then you can study calculus, then you can do Newton. For special relativity, actually algebra is sufficient. It's quite amazing. Simple mathematics. But if you really want to master general relativity, okay, now you have to go for it. Now it's Riemannian geometry. That ain't easy. But we see there, you can go back and forth, improve your math, and then you improve your physics. Report an error

34:59 More math, more physics, more math, and go back. So likewise here. Go back and forth between your Shama and Vipassanā. And then sooner or later, if you're very serious, you can develop a great aspiration for liberation. Then create your observatory, achieve Shamatha. And then the world is your oyster. The sky's the limit. Oh, Lasso. So is there anything more there for Shamatha? Report an error

35:24 We'll take a break in a little while. Okay, yes. Now we go to the Buddha's quintessential instruction on Report an error

35:35 mindfulness of breathing. As a shamatha practice, I've mentioned that he taught it in 16 phases. We're going to focus only on the first four. And as I mentioned, the first four are really all about developing shamatha. He gave the same instruction, I mean, at least as they were recorded. I mean, it's really a formula, a series of formulas. But he didn't seem to elaborate a whole lot. Report an error

35:57 The elaboration, the commentaries came by his students, who then unpacked, elucidated what he was getting at. But here are his core instructions for the shamatha aspect. of mindfulness of breathing. Report an error

36:10 The first one is breathing in long, one is aware I breathe in long. Breathing out long, one is aware I breathe out long. That's it. That's the first out of sixteen. So we see that I know, one is aware or one knows, one is breathing in long, breathing out long. Report an error

36:33 Something to highlight here, and honestly important, is that in any practice of shamatha it is absolutely imperative to maintain a flow of cognizance. It is not primarily a flow of non-conceptuality or having a blank mind or being peaceful or spacing out, let alone entering into a trance. All of those, no thank you. It's really maintaining a flow of knowing. But it's a simple flow of knowing and it's one that we're all familiar with and yet we don't linger there very long in many cases. Report an error

37:03 And that is in our modern world and this traces right back to Aristotle especially in terms of kind of a philosophical justification. When in our normal way of just engaging with the world and business, with family and so on, when we know something, we know something, our knowing is very thoroughly embedded in a conceptual framework. Report an error

37:24 And it often comes with big commentary that is thinking, knowing, thinking, knowing, knowing by way of thinking. Nothing wrong with that, that's the coarse mind knowing. But there's another type of knowing that we've all experienced, we experience on a regular basis, but it's often, very, very often, Overridden or overwhelmed, cloaked with all the conceptualization. So this is why Jon Kabat-Zinn and others have so rightly emphasized, before you cloak it, why don't you just linger in that sheer straight immediacy of knowing, some call bare attention, of just getting it. Report an error

37:58 But you know it. As I gaze at the shawl on your lap, I look at it and immediately, before I think of color or shawl or anything else, I just look. Boom, boom. I see and I know. Report an error

38:12 I know the color, Report an error

38:16 and I know it before I label it, before I think shawl, it's there. You hear a sound, you know the sound before you think finger snap, before you bring in the conceptual dump truck and unload on the stimulation. There's something you already know. But we tend to dump on it very quickly. Oh, I like the color of that shawl, or I wish I had one, or I like mine a bit more maroon, or whatever, all the overlay, right? Report an error

38:45 And so this very, very helpful emphasis on bear attention, which in fact isn't so much vipassanā, it actually comes in shamatha, is sustaining knowing as the breath is going out long, knowing that. You don't need to cogitate about it. Again, it's like short finger and long finger. You know it before you say it, right? Which one's short, which one's long. You don't need to think about it. Report an error

39:09 There's no inference there. Boom, it's instantaneous, right? But can you sustain that flow of immediate knowing and kind of ward off all the conceptual overlay on top of that? And that's what we're training to do in Samatha. We're cultivating mindfulness in Samatha which we apply in Vipassanā. This is why it's such an enormous error to equate mindfulness with Vipassanā. Report an error

39:33 It's flat out silly, but it's become very common. These are degenerate times and a lot of degenerate teachings out there. Report an error

39:41 Breathing in long, one knows there is a noting, an ascertainment, a discernment, recognition, that was a long in breath, but without having to say it. And then the breath goes out long, and you know that, but you don't need to say it. But you're sustaining that ongoing flow of non-discursive discernment, of knowing, of cognizance, and that's the first phase. Report an error

40:01 Just knowing that. So you keep it real simple. What do you know? That was long? That was long. Good. And then you continue practicing. Report an error

40:10 And as you continue practicing, the whole system calms down. The body-mind system calms down. The volume of air that you need diminishes. And it can happen gradually, but sometimes it happens quite abruptly, that suddenly just the volume of air you need decreases. And you suddenly, again, incrementally or suddenly, you find your breath is becoming quite shallow. And you feel totally at rest. Report an error

40:36 You don't feel like you need to gasp at all. You're feeling getting all the breath you need, but you really just don't need much. And so in that case, you've flipped into phase two. Breathing in short, one is aware, I breathe in short. Breathing out short, one is aware, I breathe out short. So there it is. You're now dealing with subtler sensations. You're noting the greater brevity of the breath, maintaining that same flow of cognizance. Report an error

41:03 But now the whole system is settled down. Report an error

41:12 Not much happening. It's just a quiet undulation. And if you can stay there and not having to contract, not tightening up because it's so subtle, but if you can get there with that deepening sense of relaxation and greater continuity of the mindfulness and attend to the subtlety of those sensations, the practice is working. Report an error

41:36 That's the second phase. Simple. The third phase. Attending to the whole body I shall breathe in, thus one trains oneself. Attending to the whole body I shall breathe out, thus one trains. So that's phase three. We're almost finished, three out of four. And the whole body is interpreted in two different ways in the Theravāda tradition, quite universally. When the Buddha says the whole body, what he's referring to is the whole body of the breath, which is to say the whole course of inhalation, the whole course of exhalation. Report an error

42:08 So what he's getting at here, according to this very meaningful interpretation, is that you've now, in this third phase, slipped into flow, Shiksambhaya, into flow. And that is you're just cruising. That is, you're engaged with the whole course of inhalation, and there's that turnaround, you're right there, and the whole course of exhalation all the way to the last drop, and you're there. Report an error

42:32 The breath flows in and you're there all the way through, and so it has this very silky quality. If the mood would be something like this, just so smooth, undulating, no sharp edges of chop-chop, but just, or like the, you know, Hawaii, you know. That kind of undulating movement, all fluid, very silky, very smooth, very soothing. And the breath is soothing, your mindfulness of it is soothing. Report an error

42:59 Flow is there, it becomes more effortless, and yet you're maintaining your clarity, your discernment, and you're getting to the point like, this really isn't bad at all. I didn't see this coming, except for Wallace talked about it. I didn't know whether that was true or not, but it turns out, whoa, this actually is quite interesting. And it's free. There's something suspicious about it. Report an error

43:18 This shouldn't feel so good and be free. I should have to be paying for this. So there it is. That's the whole body. Now that's one interpretation. It is the interpretation for the Theravāda tradition. I'll allude to this only very briefly right now. But another major current or tradition or lineage of Buddhism, and then more specifically for this practice, is from the great Mahāyāna Indian Buddhist, a pandit, scholar, contemplative bodhisattva, Arya Asanga. Report an error

43:47 And he was pretty close to being a contemporary Buddhagosa. If they weren't quite contemporary, they're very close. Fourth of the century. And he wrote a classic text called the Shravaka Bhumi, the stages of the Shravaka. So just that it's not been completely translated into any Western language that I know of, but I did translate his quite lengthy presentation, his explanation of mindfulness of breathing. Report an error

44:12 And that also I'm quite sure it's available and I'm happy to share it. He also covers all 16 phases of the mindfulness of breathing. So he's dealing with the same material from the Buddha. But his interpretation of attending to the whole body, it's different. And I do not say that one is better than the other. I see them once again as, well, these are two very meaningful interpretations, both of them time-tested. But when a Saṅgha looks at whole body, he says, no, just take the Buddha literally. Report an error

44:42 He meant whole body. And that is that... Like sheet lightning that just covers the sky rather than a bolt going here. Like sheet lightning lets the luminosity of your awareness permeate the whole field of your body. Report an error

44:59 And not just in a flash but of course in a continuous flow. Illuminate the whole field of your body and within that field maintain an ongoing flow of cognizance that selectively attends to the movement of prāṇa. The movements of the subtle energies in the body, specifically those related to the breath. We've already done that a bit. This can be your major practice, not just phase one. Report an error

45:23 This can be phase one, two, three, four, all the way through shamatha. Attend to that. But again, it's not so much the passage of the air, because that just goes down to the lungs. He's speaking of the passage of prāṇa, that goes all the way down to the, at the very least, down to the navel. And attend to that. Report an error

45:40 And so I've taught both now. I've taught the Theravāda approach for more than 35 years. And the Asanga approach, I really, I translated it maybe 20 years ago, but I really started teaching it just a couple of years ago. Some people really connect with that one. Many connect with this one at the apertures of the nostrils. And then many others, really, if they are drawn to mindfulness of breathing, really like the Asanga approach. Report an error

46:02 So it's your choice. And you pretty much know everything you need to know about the Asanga approach. There it is. But that's phase three. But what it does imply either way, either interpretation, is now the breath having gone from a large volume to a small volume and then going to whole body. What is clearly indicated here is you're slipping into flow, a real continuity of the breathing. So for those of you who have studied the nine stages leading to shamatha, stage four would be a pretty good guess, where you're no longer just disengaging entirely from the meditative object because of distraction. Report an error

46:38 But you're kind of in the flow of it, attending to it continuously. So that's the third phase. Very straightforward. And then, the fourth and final in these four themes, or aspects of the training for shamatha, the Buddha then states, soothing the composite of the body I shall breathe in, thus one trains oneself. Report an error

47:02 Soothing the composite of the body I shall breathe out, thus one trains. That's it. So he was... A man of few words when it came to giving the actual instruction for the practice. But soothing, calming, settling in a state of equipoise, of balance. The body, and by the body, of course he's referring to more than flesh and bone. Most importantly, soothing, calming, establishing an equilibrium. Report an error

47:32 He's referring to your whole prāṇa system, the subtle body. He doesn't say so, but what else could it be? I mean, it has to be true. If the whole nervous system, the whole flow of prāṇa is coming into equilibrium, it's becoming tuned, it's starting to work well, and of course as your whole prāṇa system is balanced and refined, then the mind is going to follow suit. Report an error

47:55 And that is your mind is also becoming soothed, calmed, established in equilibrium, the breath becomes very, very subtle, and there's a stillness, a profound sense of ease, of stillness. And sheer luminosity, you're on your way. You're well on your way. And the culmination of that, because that's where he stops in terms of shamatha, is when you actually achieve shamatha. Report an error

48:25 And to give you a really sneak preview of that, because when you'll achieve shamatha, access to the first jhāna, not sometime like, let's say, in January, you'll achieve it on the afternoon of Tuesday. It's going to be one of those discontinuities, a very clear shift. That you'll remember for the rest of your life. The day you achieve shamatha. Because it's like a woman giving birth, you don't forget the day. Report an error

48:52 There was a lot of build-up to it. And then it happened on one day and not more or less sometime last week. The water breaks. And so it's really kind of not a bad analogy really. And that is after nine stages of gradually developing, evolving, maturing your attention, this wonderful attentional balance, you're there, you're right on the cusp. Report an error

49:12 You know, like any day now the water can break, you're right on the cusp. When you're on ninth stage, any day. And then when the water breaks, the first indication is feeling a kind of a pressure on top of the head. It's not unpleasant, but it's kind of as if somebody put the hand on top of your head. And then there's this sequence that takes place when it's a very finite period. Report an error

49:34 It's not a long period where you experience, first of all, this... This lightness, buoyancy, suppleness, malleability, all of those words are referring to prashrapta or Xinjiang, Xinjiang in Tibetan. There's no one, I can't choose any one of those, but the whole bouquet of them give the indication. Lightness, buoyancy, suppleness, malleability, flexibility, serviceability, all of those. You just feel the mind really works. Report an error

50:03 It's got all of those qualities. And that's what you feel mentally. I don't need to be pointing at my head, but mentally that's what you feel. And then there's this top-down effect. Psychologists, philosophers often call it a top-down effect that is from the mind to the body. And that's what happens here. This top-down effect from this extraordinary malleability, suppleness of the mind, this impacts, this has a top-down effect on your whole prāṇa system. Report an error

50:29 And your whole prāṇa system gets suddenly charged. It's like a dam breaking in the pranas. Just start to flow, free flow through an entire body. And you have this just magnificent charge of energy throughout your entire body. And again, the feeling, you really feel your body at this point. Report an error

50:47 And it's supple, it's light, it's buoyant, it's tremendously energized. And you kind of feel, whoa, it finally works. Like the dam is broken, all the blockages have now swept out. And the body feels just totally charged. And again, supple, light, buoyant, all of that. So you see something really happening in the body here, big time. And it would be fascinating to have a person achieve shamatha with an EG cap on inside an MRI. Report an error

51:13 That would be very interesting. So that's the first order on the agenda, the observatory. Get people to achieve shamatha and when the water is about to break, maybe achieve stage 9, bring in the midwives. of the neuroscientists say we'll have somebody, we'll bring them over immediately As soon as the water breaks and she feels the first indication, she's about to achieve shamatha, put her in the magnet, the MRI. Report an error

51:49 So we can get this. It would be the first time that's ever happened. It would be very cool. And so you have this total rush, this total, how do you say? Serviceability of the body, energetically speaking. And then there arises in the body a state of just bliss. And for a while you can't do anything. It's really quite overwhelming. Report an error

52:09 Bliss saturates the body, bubbles over. And then, like putting a pot of milk on the stove, and then it bubbles and then it just all over the place. It's kind of like that, and that is the bliss is almost like the body can't hold it. And the bliss surges up into the mind. And the locus of the bliss shifts from the body to the mind and your mind is just blissed out. And once again, while that's happening, you can't do anything. It's like riding the wave. Report an error

52:36 Some of you might know a plumber from Devon. Was there anybody from England? A plumber from Devon has just ridden the largest wave probably in history. It was like a hundred foot wave off the coast of Portugal. I saw him interviewed. And he's a plumber from Devon. And you see him on the wave. And he's like he's got a skyscraper behind him. And so if you ask him, they did ask him, what's it like? Are you scared? He said, before yes, after yes, while no, there's no time. Report an error

53:09 You are totally concentrated at sliding down the skyscraper that's made out of water, 100 feet high. So in a somewhat similar fashion. Report an error

53:23 When you're sliding down this very steep slope on a very heavy board, because it's quite choppy, and then really being very happy at the notion that maybe you won't die, I think that must be quite euphoric, and then you find you've made it and you're going to survive. At that time you really don't have time for anything else, right? And I think there must be some euphoria there. In a similar fashion, when this bliss saturates your mind, you don't have time for anything else. Report an error

53:51 Ride the wave. It will be finite. You're not going to be stuck there forever. But that's a full-time job. And then the bliss subsides. It tapers off. It goes like simmering. It just simmers. And the sense of bliss is there. The sense of well-being is clearly there. But all the fireworks have subsided. Report an error

54:16 And now your body is even, but saturated by a sense of well-being. The mind is even, saturated by a sense of well-being. You've just soothed the composite of your body. Report an error

54:27 Congratulations, Chief Samatha. And now you're ready to do heavy lifting. Do something that's really transformative and irreversibly so. A Samatha by itself won't do it. But Vipassanā by itself won't do it either. But the two together, that was the Buddha's discovery. That was the Buddha's discovery. Report an error

54:48 As far as we know, in this historical era, no one, and there were many, many great adepts, great Samādhi masters before the Buddha. But it does seem to be a historical fact. That the Buddha introduced to the contemplative culture of India and then eventually to the rest of the world the unique properties and efficacy of the union of shamatha and Vipassanā. Report an error

55:10 And that's quite extraordinary. Because that's what liberates the mind. So that's a possibility. That's a possibility we know. And if it weren't, if this were so degenerate times, everything's too bad, we're all too screwed up, no hope, no hope, then the Dalai Lama wouldn't keep on going around now all over the world and say, shamatha's really important, you should achieve it. Report an error

55:29 And he's saying that a lot in Sydney just recently, right? And in Queensland before that at the Chen Resi Institute. And? And in Melbourne he said it. And he said it in Estonia. And he said it in Washington, D.C. And he said it in some place in the Near East. He's saying it an awful lot. And he's not a cruel man, I think that's a very safe statement, to say you should really achieve it, but of course you won't. Report an error

55:57 Yuck, yuck, yuck. He's not going to do... He's not a cynic. I mean, if anybody knows whether it's possible or not, I think, why, wouldn't he be the man? And so he's encouraging people. And he's not just talking to his tukus. You know, you Rinpoche, of course, these Western schmucks, they won't be able to do it, but you guys, you know, get your act together. He's not saying that either. Report an error

56:18 He's really speaking to people exactly like us, because it is us, it is you Aussies, and it's people all over the world who are people like us, and saying, you should really achieve this, this is important. Report an error

56:29 And so when you have a person of that stature saying, now's the really time. And then Lama Zopa Rinpoche now starting to really pound this drum as well, quite clearly. We need to create the environment and choosing this sublime yogini, Kandula. You've seen the FPMD newsletter. She's unbelievable. She's one of my lamas. She's like 35 years old. She's amazing. She's so pure, unbelievably pure. Report an error

56:53 And so just an extraordinary being. But it seems like she might be, you know. Be willing to guide people in shamatha. And the place she's chosen is in the state of Washington in the United States. She found that to be somehow suitable. Report an error

57:09 So all of this is, yes, I think really we have very good reason from an outstanding Lama and this great Lama of His Holiness that this is something we shouldn't kind of flick off and say, of course, people like me couldn't do it or people in the 21st century couldn't do it and so forth. No, it's more like just think about causing additions. We need a conducive environment. Report an error

57:27 It's good to have fellow companions, fellow journeyers, and it's ever so helpful. It expedites things to have a qualified teacher. Put those together, then I think we can say according to His Holiness, why not? Why not? If you don't put them together, then I can tell you why not. Because you don't have a conducive environment, you don't have good companions, you don't have a good teacher. Report an error

57:49 That'll be a good enough reason you probably won't achieve it. But put the conditions together, then why not? And then in so doing, Make some waves. Make some waves. Big waves. Jollywood, let's come back at 10.50. Report an error

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Talk by B. Alan Wallace. Original at Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/FourApplicationsOfMindfulnessRetreat2013. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

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