Transform Your Mind & Change Your Life Retreat - 7-Point Mind Training from Atisha (part 12)

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0:32 On this one widely overlooked or not seen aphorism, just because it's so enormously important. And if one does overlook it, which happens a lot, and as far as I can tell it happens a lot in all schools of Buddhism, and of course in the teaching of this text when it's skipped entirely, then without shamatha, without going out of one's way, to very deeply stabilize the mind, once stability has been achieved, deeply stabilize the mind. Report an error in the passage at 0:32 Highlight the passage at 0:32

1:04 Well, one can do just a little bit, or kind of just bring a normal mind to it. And you can, of course, you can engage in the meditations to cultivate Udhava Bodhicitta. It's not like you can't do it. You can do it, you can get some benefit. Likewise for bodhicitta, likewise for transforming adversity into the path, and so on. You can. Report an error in the passage at 1:04 Highlight the passage at 1:04

1:23 But the problem or the limitation of engaging in Lojong practice, or Vipassanā, or Mahamudra, or Dzogchen, or Vajrayana practice, or Chan, or Zen for that matter, The problem of engaging in these practices without having stabilized the mind is that, in fact, none of them, without exception of these higher practices, bodhicitta, vipassanā and so forth, none of them can be brought to culmination. Report an error in the passage at 1:23 Highlight the passage at 1:23

1:48 It's kind of like you never really get lift off. It's meaningful, transformative, beneficial, good karma, so to speak, yes, but can you use vipassanā, can you enter into vipassanā practice? And derive the full benefit which was designed, Vipassanā, the union of Samatha Vipassanā designed to cut mental afflictions right from their very roots so they never come back again. Report an error in the passage at 1:48 Highlight the passage at 1:48

2:12 This is why Gautama left home. Because after all he could have been a really good king. And done a lot of good social work and he could have been just a splendid father I'm sure. And all of that. But he sacrificed all of that to great sacrifice for the people he left behind and not only for himself. I like to say, because I think it's true, he did not leave home to practice Dharma. He had a perfectly good situation to practice Dharma. Good father, good son, good husband, good king, good, good, good, have a really virtuous life. Report an error in the passage at 2:12 Highlight the passage at 2:12

2:41 But he left all of that behind, and what he was in search of was marga, path. A path, and a path means, unlike simply practicing Dharma. Practicing Dharma is good, it's virtuous. It will bring about a good crop, a good harvest in future lifetimes, and there will be benefit for oneself and others. But you're still in saṃsāra, right? Report an error in the passage at 2:41 Highlight the passage at 2:41

3:00 And the Buddhist Gautama just wasn't satisfied with that. And so he set out, and after many challenges, tremendous amount of travails and hardships, Then he found what he's looking for, and that is a path that brings about irreversible purification, transformation, liberation and awakening of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 3:00 Highlight the passage at 3:00

3:22 And that's what he found, and that's what he taught. And if he were the only one, then we would simply worship him, but he happily was not the only one. And hence, Buddhists, for the last 2,500 years, it's a small minority every generation. But there have always been, and there are to this day, people who do not simply revere the Buddha or pray to the Buddha, worship the Buddha, but are seeking to emulate, to run the experiments that he ran, to bring the 20th century terminology. Report an error in the passage at 3:22 Highlight the passage at 3:22

3:47 He ran experiments. He ran experiments. He first developed the technology, refined the technology of samādhi, which had already been very well developed. Applied it unprecedentedly to actually investigating the nature of the mind and not simply settling in a profound state of peace and equanimity. Investigating the nature of the mind and thereby showed the first, second, third, fourth noble truths. Report an error in the passage at 3:47 Highlight the passage at 3:47

4:11 But the fourth one being, of course, path. And it's very, very clear in the Pāli Canon, Theravāda tradition and all of Indo-Dibetan Buddhism that if this is your vision, if your vision is more than simply To gently and gradually cultivate well-being. More than to cultivate this virtue and that virtue and to practice Dharma. But if there's an aspiration, we call it renunciation. Report an error in the passage at 4:11 Highlight the passage at 4:11

4:36 If there's an aspiration to actually free yourself irreversibly from suffering and its causes. Or beyond that, you kind of go supernova. Beyond simply seeking your own liberation, you go large and you embrace all sentient beings. And it actually becomes an utterly sincere, heartfelt aspiration, an overwhelming aspiration, to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sensual beings. Report an error in the passage at 4:36 Highlight the passage at 4:36

5:00 Then there's simply a step that cannot be left out. And if you do, there's no path. And it's not an opinion. It's just clear. Anybody who can read and doesn't block, and it doesn't, you know, like, in this top secret, remember how they black out everything with a felt pin? Report an error in the passage at 5:00 Highlight the passage at 5:00

5:16 That effort's got blacked out. And it's gone from most redentions. I'm sure it's not a conspiracy, probably just a click. Somebody overlooked it and then it became a habit. But if you skip Samatha, there's no path. And I'll elaborate a bit more after we've had our session. But there is no path. And the reason for that is the mind you're bringing to the practice is so unstable that if you cultivate bodhicitta, fine, but then watch it erode. Report an error in the passage at 5:16 Highlight the passage at 5:16

5:41 You'll have insights into emptiness, fine, but watch them turn into memories. You'll have pointing out instruction and gain some glimpse, some taste, some insight into Rigpa and then it becomes an object of memory and so forth. You'll develop tummo. I've seen this happen. People develop tummo and they can dry off wet towels with the best of them and then they get older and they don't have that ability anymore. Report an error in the passage at 5:41 Highlight the passage at 5:41

6:03 It happens a lot. And so if you'd like to achieve realization that is sustainable realization. Deeply and irreversibly transformable realization, then you're talking about path. And for this, there's a little bit, just a bit more before we go to the practice. Shantideva is indispensable because you need to bring a very finely tuned, superbly stabilized and balanced mind to the practice. Report an error in the passage at 6:03 Highlight the passage at 6:03

6:30 One analogy I like is going to a really marvelous, very gourmet restaurant. In fact, the fanciest restaurant I was ever brought to was here in Sydney. A very, very wealthy friend of mine brought me to apparently the second best restaurant in all of Australia. And he rented a whole room for us, you know, his guests. Report an error in the passage at 6:30 Highlight the passage at 6:30

6:51 And it was Japanese-French fusion. And it took about five hours with about 12 waiters to come in and introduce each course as if it was a dear relative. Report an error in the passage at 6:51 Highlight the passage at 6:51

7:03 I mean, I'd never seen anything like it, you know. And it's just one by one. And when I first heard it was going to be 11 courses, I thought, oh, I can't eat that much. And then I saw the first course and I said, yes, I can. This is about as big as your thumb. Report an error in the passage at 7:03 Highlight the passage at 7:03

7:18 I've never seen anything like it in my life. But imagine coming to a restaurant like that. Now here's something ridiculous. But imagine in a thought experiment, you're coming to one of the finest restaurants in all of Australia, the pride and joy of Sydney. Report an error in the passage at 7:18 Highlight the passage at 7:18

7:35 You have to bring your own plate and cutlery. Whim of the chef. Whim of the chef. I'll make the food. I'll make mind-bogglingly fantastic food, but you have to bring your own bowl and your own cutlery. Okay, got it? So imagine you come to this restaurant, and you come and you bring dirty silverware and a dirty bowl, and you come and then the chef, the French chef, comes and sees the bowl you brought, and he says, Mon Dieu! Report an error in the passage at 7:35 Highlight the passage at 7:35

8:04 C 'est terrible, c 'est impossible. Begun! You know, he'll kick you out. Because he said, you want me to put my food in that bowl? You are crazy, you're out of your mind. Merde! Begun! Basta! He'd be outraged that he's going to put his gourmet food with your dirty cutlery you didn't even bother to wash in a grubby little bowl still full of crumbs from yesterday. Report an error in the passage at 8:04 Highlight the passage at 8:04

8:28 It was the dog dish. You know, he'll never serve you. Report an error in the passage at 8:28 Highlight the passage at 8:28

8:35 So you want to receive Dzogchen teachings? Report an error in the passage at 8:35 Highlight the passage at 8:35

8:41 This is gourmet Tibetan food. Dzogchen, Mahamudra, you like that? You like that? You have to bring your own bowl. Your own bowl is your mind. Because it's your mind that the Dzogchen teachings are pointing out in the teachings, the theory, the meditation, the way of life of Dzogchen. Vajrayana, Vajrayogini, Gwesamaja, Kala Chakra. Report an error in the passage at 8:41 Highlight the passage at 8:41

9:01 These are the specialties, the chef's specialties of this finest gourmet restaurant in the world. But you always have to bring your own bowl. And the bowl is your own mind. And so you're bringing your mind, and the bowl keeps on turning upside down, and it's grubby, and it's got holes in it. And the llamas very graciously keep on giving the teachings, and they see it immediately getting grubbified by your mind, leaking out the bottom, and then you just tip the bowl over periodically, you know, like feeding a bunch of chimps. Report an error in the passage at 9:01 Highlight the passage at 9:01

9:35 So that's what we're doing. We're bringing a mind that is kind of like not even clean, not balanced, not stable in any way. Instable in so many ways, attentionally, cognitively, emotionally. And then they say, please give me, you know, we Westerners, give me the highest teaching. What you got? We say to America, what you got? What's the best thing you got? I want the best thing. I want the highest thing. I'm an American. I'm Californian. I want the best you got. And I want to pay the bottom price for it. Report an error in the passage at 9:35 Highlight the passage at 9:35

10:02 Give me the best you got. And we bring this grubby little, you know, I want the best. And, you know, there's something off about this. That you first would wash your bowl. And clean your cutlery. And so when it's put in, actually receive what was given and not receive what was given plus all the garbage you already brought to the restaurant. Report an error in the passage at 10:02 Highlight the passage at 10:02

10:24 So this cannot be overemphasized, largely because it's being so wildly underemphasized. Widely. So I'm lingering on this. Report an error in the passage at 10:24 Highlight the passage at 10:24

10:35 And I'll make this final point before I go back. And that is the Buddha himself taught about 40 different methods in the Pāli Kanna, let alone Mahāyāna, Vajrayana, Dzogchen and all of that, let alone all of this unfolding of the Buddhist teachings in these yanas or vehicles. But in the basic teachings, the most foundational teachings, the Buddha taught 40 different methods and specified different ones for different temperaments. Like really like a doctor prescribing a medicine for this type, this type, this type. Report an error in the passage at 10:35 Highlight the passage at 10:35

11:03 Tsongkhapri recounts this in his lamrim. Remember? And then he says, among the different types of temperaments that could be easily identified in India 2,500 years ago, rural India, there was one temperament that the Buddha specified of people who were Indian, rural Indians, monks, nuns and so forth, who had a strong proclivity or tendency for rumination, the chattering mind, the blah blah blah, the mind that you just can't turn off. Report an error in the passage at 11:03 Highlight the passage at 11:03

11:29 I think you might know something about that. There were Indians that had that. And the Buddha said, for those of you who have this kind of diary of the mind, if you don't mind a really vulgar image, but it is kind of like that. It just runs and runs and runs and it stinks badly. The mind that just doesn't turn off, you can't get to shut up. It's called vikalpa, vikalpa in Sanskrit. I call it obsessive compulsive delusional disorder. Report an error in the passage at 11:29 Highlight the passage at 11:29

11:55 And other people call it rumination, mind wandering and so forth. But the Buddha said, if you're of that sort, then among this array of 40 methods that I teach, there's only one that will be really good for you. And that is mindfulness of breathing. That was the one. And in fact, he taught it a lot. He taught that practice more than any other. And so here we are in the 21st century living in a major city. Report an error in the passage at 11:55 Highlight the passage at 11:55

12:16 And I think what he would identify among a certain percentage of the population in world India, 2,500 years ago, is now endemic, right? I mean, I know what I'm talking about, and you probably all do. So the mindfulness breathing, one can say, is just what the doctor ordered. Not as the only way, but it is a very soothing, gentle way to calm the conceptually turbulent mind that is stressing itself out continually, and then doping itself up with drugs. Report an error in the passage at 12:16 Highlight the passage at 12:16

12:45 So the Buddhist teachings, and I'll just mention this really succinctly, and we'll go right back to the practice to taste it. But his teachings on this sound almost like Zen koans. They're not really. But they're bullet points. They're so succinct that you wonder, more to say, could you clarify that a bit? Report an error in the passage at 12:45 Highlight the passage at 12:45

13:01 He taught this in 16 phases, mindfulness of breathing. 16 phases. The final 12 are Vipassanā. And the culmination, if you come to the culmination of all 16 phases, you're an Arhat with mindfulness of breathing as your primary vehicle. Very clear. But the first 4 out of 16 are just Samatha. The final twelve are Vipassanā, unified with Samatha, and that's what liberates. Not Samatha by itself, not Vipassanā by itself, the union of two, that's the key. Report an error in the passage at 13:01 Highlight the passage at 13:01

13:30 That was the Buddha's, one of his major discoveries. When it comes to mindfulness of breathing as a Samatha method, which is what we're doing here, but with kind of a Dzogchen twist, his instructions were very simple. Breathing in long, one knows I breathe in long, breathing out long, one knows I breathe out long. And then is the whole, is a little bit of commentary. Report an error in the passage at 13:30 Highlight the passage at 13:30

13:49 Because when you first start, you'll probably be breathing relatively deeply. But then you calm down, you quiet down. Just everything settles into a deeper state of balance and equilibrium. And over time, gently, naturally, without trying to regulate your breathing, it just naturally becomes more shallow as your body needs less oxygen. Report an error in the passage at 13:49 Highlight the passage at 13:49

14:09 And so then breathing in short, one knows I breathe in short, breathing out short, one knows I breathe out short. That's what he said. And my interpretation of this is when you slip into that, that's where you're slipping into flow. Very common, very well-known term in psychology, flow. The marathon runner when getting into his stride, the second wind, musicians who just get into the flow of their music, and in many other fields as well. Report an error in the passage at 14:09 Highlight the passage at 14:09

14:36 Flow, well this is flow, where there's a continuity there, there's very little effort to maintain it, it's total focus. There's just a smoothness. So flow is a very nice term for it. And that's when breathing in short, breathing out short, one knows that ongoing flow of kind of a sinusoidal rhythm of the breath, shallow but constant. Report an error in the passage at 14:36 Highlight the passage at 14:36

14:58 And then he says, the next one, attending to the whole breath I shall breathe in, attending to the whole breath I shall breathe out. The interpretation that I will follow is the one that is from Asanga, one of the great Mahāyāna masters, Asanga. In an extensive explanation he gave of mindfulness of breathing, which I translated from Sanskrit and Tibetan, and his interpretation, I'm not going to give a big scholarly thing here, I'll just say his interpretation. Report an error in the passage at 14:58 Highlight the passage at 14:58

15:21 A Saṅgha is what Buddha is referring to as you're attending to the sensations, the fluctuations of prāṇa throughout the entire body. So when you're breathing, the air goes from the nostrils to the lungs and it comes out again. Pretty basic. But then when you're just resting, for example in the supine, but of course you can be sitting up. Report an error in the passage at 15:21 Highlight the passage at 15:21

15:40 But for example, in the supine position, you're in total meltdown in terms of relaxation. And you're directing awareness to the whole field of the body, that entire somatic field. You will feel fluctuations throughout the entire field, in your legs, of course your abdomen, your chest, but your arms and the face as well. You'll feel the fluctuations of energy, or prāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 15:40 Highlight the passage at 15:40

16:00 You'll experience your whole body breathing. And that's what you attend to. These subtle fluctuations of energy, prāṇa. That's what he says. That's a saṅgha. And so you literally are attending to the whole body as you breathe in, attending to the whole body as you breathe out. And another interpretation of that is you're attending to the whole cycle of the in and out breath, which is also good, which once again suggests flow. Report an error in the passage at 16:00 Highlight the passage at 16:00

16:23 See, you're not dropping in once in a while and then wandering off, but you're just there, a continuity, an unbroken continuity of the engagement, like something like this, like a rhythmic breathing in, breathing out, and you're just with it all the way. In the practice we're doing, the breath is coming and going and you're still. But the engagement with it, the awareness of the rhythm, is constant. Report an error in the passage at 16:23 Highlight the passage at 16:23

16:46 And then finally, and then I'm finished, we'll go to the practice, but you'll see what I'm interpreting. Because it's always good to know, what are you interpreting and what is your interpretation? And that's when I'm laying the cards on the table. So you'll see my interpretation, but then you'll know, well, are there other interpretations? Yes, because you know it's being interpreted. And these are the four bullet items. Report an error in the passage at 16:46 Highlight the passage at 16:46

17:05 That are being interpreted. And the fourth one is calming the system of the body I breathe in, calming the system of the body I breathe out. And so what it's suggesting here, it's pretty straightforward, is as you're going deeper and deeper and deeper, as you're approaching the first jhāna, access to the first jhāna, which is called achieving shamatha, the whole system is just getting calmer and calmer, finer and finer. Report an error in the passage at 17:05 Highlight the passage at 17:05

17:31 The equilibrium, the balance is getting very, very fine-tuned. And so what that would naturally imply, and this does happen, is that while you're breathing, the frequency may very well remain the same. And that is what I have found. I'll talk about that a little bit later. But the frequency of the breath, shallow, remains shallow. It doesn't get shallower and shallower. You might end up hyperventilating after a while. Report an error in the passage at 17:31 Highlight the passage at 17:31

17:53 So it remains shallow, but the amplitude of the breath. Think of it as a sine wave. So it's the same frequency, but then it's like a damped sine wave. And it's getting, so just less and less volume of air coming in. So the frequency is saying the same, but the amount of air coming in, less and less, which means the sensations throughout the whole body, correlated with in and out breath, are getting subtler and subtler and subtler. Report an error in the passage at 17:53 Highlight the passage at 17:53

18:18 And that's calming the system of the body. Of course, it's really the system of body-mind. But the whole system is entering into a more and more profound, more and more fine-tuned, subtle equilibrium. Report an error in the passage at 18:18 Highlight the passage at 18:18

18:31 And therefore calming the body I breathe in, calming the body I breathe out. So those are Buddha's instructions. It's a very gentle approach. Very, very gentle. One metaphor, and then I will stop, is there's a lovely movie. It's like a bodhisattva movie that I've seen. I just smile almost all the way through it. It's called Bak. Bak. Anybody seen it? Cool movie, huh? Report an error in the passage at 18:31 Highlight the passage at 18:31

18:55 Magnificent movie. It's a cowboy movie. But it's a documentary about the man, I think he was the first one to originate, or maybe the second generation, of the horse whispers. Report an error in the passage at 18:55 Highlight the passage at 18:55

19:06 The word is wrong, but what cowboys do with their spurs and bucking bronco and yee-haw and making a big deal out of their machismo, they're breaking the horse, taking a wild horse and subduing it with their will, breaking the horse, mastering the horse, dominating the horse, because the horse is terrified of your spurs and all the ruckus. Report an error in the passage at 19:06 Highlight the passage at 19:06

19:26 Whereas this man, what can we call it, a bodhicitta way? It's amazing. It's something to find, and I really recommend this movie. You're seeing a bodhicitta, I mean, I could spend the next half an hour talking about this movie, and the man, the cowboy, he's an old-fashioned American cowboy, and how he got to that place. Report an error in the passage at 19:26 Highlight the passage at 19:26

19:44 It was incredibly touching, wasn't it? So I'm not going to spoil it for you, but the simple point of this is, it's a great movie, but it's real. It's a documentary. And with utmost gentleness, With sensitivity, with kindness, but above all gentleness. You're taking a wild horse, which is subtle, subtle, subtle, gentle, gentle, empathetic. Report an error in the passage at 19:44 Highlight the passage at 19:44

20:06 Then the horse wants to do exactly what you want the horse to do. Because you've created more like a friendship than a master-slave relationship. And when we saw that man ride his own horse, it looked like mysticism. That the horse would be taking a little step forward, taking a step... Sideways to the side, backwards. And you see him and he's hardly even moving. He would just kind of almost telepathically just say, I want to go forward. Report an error in the passage at 20:06 Highlight the passage at 20:06

20:34 And the horde would want it because it's a friendship. It's a sight to behold. So why did I go off into a movie? Because this is how we're taming the mind. Not by strapping that wild elephant of the mind to a stake and then beating into submission with a hook, which is breaking the mind. And it can be good, it can be effective. This is gently in the mind, gently in the mind, releasing all that turbulence of the mind, breath by breath, until the mind is your best friend, which it can be, of course, one's worst enemy. Report an error in the passage at 20:34 Highlight the passage at 20:34

21:06 So find a comfortable position, taking a gentle approach. Report an error in the passage at 21:06 Highlight the passage at 21:06