Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 11)

0:01 Right on time, yeah. Five after is when I say it, yeah? good. So, as I mentioned for this session, we will go to mindfulness of breathing, but now add what is simply skillful means. But skillful means means it's not necessarily skillful for everyone. So some people find the counting very, very helpful. And others find it simply clutters the attention. Report an error in the passage at 0:01 Highlight the passage at 0:01

0:25 It's kind of an annoyance, kind of irritating or just cumbersome. So when it comes to this little adjunct, which is not indispensable at all, when it comes to this, then what I would suggest is that each of us just experiment for ourselves to see the extent to which it's helpful. Some may find for the whole session it's really helpful to count the breaths all the way through. Some may find maybe it's helpful to count ten breaths and just not do it anymore. Report an error in the passage at 0:25 Highlight the passage at 0:25

0:51 Or others may find that you count ten breaths and then kind of happy to release the counting. And then three or four, five, ten minutes later you find the mind's wandering an awful lot. Okay, bring in the counting. Let's do ten counts again just to kind of bring it back, bring it back. So whether you don't do it at all, whether you do it all the time or intermittently, it's entirely up to you. Report an error in the passage at 0:51 Highlight the passage at 0:51

1:12 But I'll give a method that I found helpful. And so let's just jump right in. Mindfulness of breathing. Emphasis on this balance of stability without losing relaxation and the counting is just to help subdue to calm the compulsive flow of thinking. So please find a comfortable position. Report an error in the passage at 1:12 Highlight the passage at 1:12

· · · silence, 2 minutes

3:22 So let's spend just a bit of time beginning to look at these nine stages. The source for this goes back to a Mahāyāna Sūtra, teachings attributed to the Buddha in the Mahāyāna Canon. You find a briefer account in the Pāli Canon. But then it's fairly... Quite highlighted in the Tibetan tradition and among all the traditions the one that I find that gives the most detailed and really I would say kind of scientific account of it, very detailed, very sophisticated is the Galupa tradition which again focuses on a developmental approach and that's very much what is highlighted in these nine stages. Report an error in the passage at 3:22 Highlight the passage at 3:22

4:02 So we can go to page two of the notes. We'll just spend a short time doing this. Just looking into just the beginning of it. Nine stages. Through attentional balance and it is stated, and I think quite rightly, that whether you know about these stages or not or whatever method you may be following, this is actually an organic development of attention. Report an error in the passage at 4:02 Highlight the passage at 4:02

4:20 It's not a dogma or some kind of doctrine or something that should happen. But if your mind really does develop to the point that you achieve shamatha, and we'll discuss what that means later on, Report an error in the passage at 4:20 Highlight the passage at 4:20

4:32 That this is how it organically just develops. This is what does take place. And even though chopping it up to nine phases is clearly putting a cookie cutter into the process, nevertheless this is the course of the development, the maturation of attention skills. So it's a strong statement. It's an empirical statement. One could definitely put it to the test. So nine stages that precede the actual achievement of shamatha. Report an error in the passage at 4:32 Highlight the passage at 4:32

4:58 So let's just go ahead and look at the first one. We'll call it directed attention and the format here is my own with all of these bullet items and so forth but the content is all traditional and it's based not just on one text or one person but it's more of a synthesis of generations and generations of yogis. Report an error in the passage at 4:58 Highlight the passage at 4:58

5:20 Sharing their experiences of what it's like to have achieved shamatha. Because thousands of people have done so, people continue to do so to this present day. So it's simply incorrect to say, oh, this is only good in the old times, but now nobody can do it anymore. Not true. But as we'll see, you do need to set up certain causing conditions to be able to really progress well in the practice. So, when you achieve the first out of nine stages, what is achieved is that you are able to direct your attention to the chosen object. Report an error in the passage at 5:20 Highlight the passage at 5:20

5:48 In other words, you're able to find your target. So the object that I've suggested, of course the sensations of the breath, whether as they manifest throughout the body or now we see for this afternoon a bit more targeted, the sensations of the rise and fall of the abdomen. Report an error in the passage at 5:48 Highlight the passage at 5:48

6:06 If you were able to detect the sensations of the rise and fall of the abdomen as you breathed in and out, you've got a lock, even if it's only for a second or two, welcome to having achieved stage one. You're already there. So this is one reason why I like to start with mindfulness of breathing, because it's pretty easy to find the object. Now, more difficult, of course, to sustain that focus, but at least be able to find it. Report an error in the passage at 6:06 Highlight the passage at 6:06

6:29 And so, okay, I'm not bewildered here. I know when I'm off, and then I know, I recognize, usually retrospectively, when I'm off, that it's kind of encouraging, that it's not daunting from the very beginning. I do know people who, when it comes to visualization, I've heard people say, I can't visualize at all. Report an error in the passage at 6:29 Highlight the passage at 6:29

6:50 I mean, tell me I'm supposed to focus on a Buddha image or anything, and just nothing happens. It's, I think, a little bit rare, but I have found people that just say, I just, I can't do it at all. In which case, if you say, okay, well, too bad for you, try harder, it might take them quite a long time, even to get to stage one. Or if you say, focus on a Buddha image, you say, well, I got kind of a blurry, a blurry yellowish fuzz. Report an error in the passage at 6:50 Highlight the passage at 6:50

7:15 Does that count? You know, something there. Kind of yellowish color of a Buddha. And so that could be more difficult, obviously. Focusing on a bindu at your heart or a little orb of light at your heart. Some people can do that quite quickly, otherwise have a hard time. Or if you decide you'd like to come in and you'd like to develop shamatha on the body-speech-mind of Kala Chakra. Report an error in the passage at 7:15 Highlight the passage at 7:15

7:44 That's 720 deities. So that might take a bit longer. So, but we're starting just with the tactile sensations of the breath. So there it is. That's what you achieve. And the power by which you achieve it is learning the instructions. It's called the power of hearing. And that is whether you learn it from a book or you learn it from some teacher, from this person's mouth to your ear. But that's how you learn it. You hear the instructions, say, okay, I've understood it. Report an error in the passage at 7:44 Highlight the passage at 7:44

8:08 And then you target it and you find it. So that's the method. You get the instructions. Now we'll see these bullet items. How many are there? There are seven bullet items. That's going to go all the way through the nine stages, which gives, I think, lends a certain coherence. Or then you can see the organic development as these gradually shift from one stage to the next. What problems persist once you've achieved the first stage, which means you're simply able to find your target. Report an error in the passage at 8:08 Highlight the passage at 8:08

8:33 It didn't say at all how long you can sustain that focus. It just says that you are able to hit the target, right? So what problems persist? Report an error in the passage at 8:33 Highlight the passage at 8:33

8:43 All from classic sources, backed by an enormous amount of experience from generations of yogis. He says, when you're first starting out on this practice, you essentially have no attentional continuity on the object at all. You just peck at it. You get to it, you get to the object and then within a matter of, you know, one, two, three seconds, you're already off again. So, it's not to say there's absolutely no continuity, but there's so little that we'd have to say, well, there really, there wasn't any, right? Report an error in the passage at 8:43 Highlight the passage at 8:43

9:09 Now, it's very easy. This is the value of learning about these nine stages. It would be very easy at the beginning to say, oh, but I couldn't establish any continuity at all. I'm hopeless. I tried it. I couldn't do it. And I think I must be the worst person. I've had a number of my students say, I think I'm your worst student. Well, that's just because they don't know how bad all the other ones are. Report an error in the passage at 9:09 Highlight the passage at 9:09

9:31 But it's not to say they're all bad either. I mean, so? It's just all relative. Why not say they're all equally good? And good is not very good. Relative to what? And so this is also a well-known truth in modern psychology, dating back more than a hundred years. William James looked at this, that is drawing from various research done in the latter part of the 19th century. And they did studies back then, more than a hundred years ago, of people being given a task where they're just asked to focus on some static image, like just an image of your home. Report an error in the passage at 9:31 Highlight the passage at 9:31

10:05 Do you know what the front of your home looks like, or your car, or a spouse, or your child, any familiar object? But just bring it to mind. You choose it, let's just do it now. It's going to be a five-second little test. Familiar image of anything, bring it to mind. Try to hold it for five seconds. Report an error in the passage at 10:05 Highlight the passage at 10:05

10:28 Okay, finished. A hundred years ago, when they were checking this out, they found people pretty well maxed out at three seconds. And that's as long as they could focus their attention on that. Now, in contrast, If you have a developing line of thought, maybe you've memorized a poem, can you sustain your attention on the poem from start to finish? If you've well memorized it, oh yeah, you can maintain your attention much longer than three seconds. Report an error in the passage at 10:28 Highlight the passage at 10:28

10:54 Or so many other things where it's discursive thinking and you have some kind of a line of thought, then definitely yes. Or remembering a melody. A melody, one of the Beatles tunes, oh definitely, you don't lose your mind after three seconds. But when it comes to just attending, to just plunking down on something that just sits there, three seconds and you're out, which suggests kind of basically no attentional continuity at all. Report an error in the passage at 10:54 Highlight the passage at 10:54

11:18 And what William James and his colleagues found, what yogis have found in India and Tibet for hundreds of years, This is normal, so don't get discouraged. And that's, again, why you learn about the first stage, that you may think, oh, I'm terrible, I suck, I'm awful. No, you're not. You're completely normal. Report an error in the passage at 11:18 Highlight the passage at 11:18

11:33 So you say you're normal, great, normal, poor? Why don't you just say it's normal without giving it a positive or negative valence to it? Now, there's a psychologist, a very distinguished psychologist at Harvard right now named Steve Koslin. I've met him a number of times, and he's one of the world experts on mental imagery. That's what he studies. Report an error in the passage at 11:33 Highlight the passage at 11:33

11:51 And so he has commonly Harvard undergraduates coming in as subjects in the study. He'll give them something to visualize and ask them to manipulate the visualization, to navigate within the visualization and so forth. So it gets pretty sophisticated. And Harvard, I guess, keeps on coming up. Number one is American University, maybe even internationally, I don't know, but very fine university. Report an error in the passage at 11:51 Highlight the passage at 11:51

12:12 So you can assume the students there are very bright. So how well can these very, very bright... And perhaps highly motivated students, how long can they maintain a mental image? And Stephen Coslin has found seven seconds is the best they do. So once again, that's not part of Harvard training to learn how to sustain your attention on anything, nor was it in high school or middle school or elementary school or preschool. Report an error in the passage at 12:12 Highlight the passage at 12:12

12:38 So just to know, oh, okay, I really have a hard time maintaining any continuity. Good. Par for the course. This is totally normal. Report an error in the passage at 12:38 Highlight the passage at 12:38

12:47 But now what type of attentional imbalances are really to characterize or are really dominant on this phase of attentional development? And here we go into a bit of technical terminology. It's easy to understand and it's very useful. So we call this course excitation. And I'm drawing on Gan Lam Rimpa's oral teachings because I was his intern, so to speak, for a one-year shamatha retreat. Report an error in the passage at 12:47 Highlight the passage at 12:47

13:10 I organized, I showed her at the Thada, but it was 24 years ago. We had a one-year retreat and he was the principal teacher. I was his assistant, his intern. He gave marvelous teachings which are recorded in that book out there. I think it's called Call Me in the Mind? I think so. So he broke this down from a lot of oral teachings he'd received and then based upon excellent scholarship. Report an error in the passage at 13:10 Highlight the passage at 13:10

13:34 But let's just go look at what course excitation is. You see this on the bottom of page three. We're going to break excitation and laxity into coarse, medium and subtle. Report an error in the passage at 13:34 Highlight the passage at 13:34

13:44 So when you're experiencing what we will call Coarse excitation, when that occurs, your attention completely disengages from your meditative object. You've forgotten about it entirely. Your attention is wholly elsewhere. Well, this is very common, and that is you completely lose your mind, completely lose the thread. Report an error in the passage at 13:44 Highlight the passage at 13:44

14:04 You may outside look like you're meditating, and inside you're just going off on one excursion, your mind totally absorbed in something entirely different. So that's very, very prevalent, very dominant on stage one. Report an error in the passage at 14:04 Highlight the passage at 14:04

14:19 And that more so than laxity or dullness or other kind of attentional imbalances, course excitation for most people tends to be the most dominant one when you first set out. Nishengaman Taigye, the Lama from whom I first learned shamatha back in 1972, and as soon as I heard about it I was quite enamored by it, oh that's really important. Report an error in the passage at 14:19 Highlight the passage at 14:19

14:37 And he made the comment that one of the first signs of progress when you're practicing shamatha, and he was a very accomplished meditator, actually spent the closing years and years of his life in New Zealand. Went to Dunedin and taught there. Marvelous, marvelous Lama. Report an error in the passage at 14:37 Highlight the passage at 14:37

14:54 He mentioned that when you're practicing shamatha, one of the first indications that you're really getting somewhere, that you're doing it correctly, is noting, probably to your surprise or perhaps chagrin, how incredibly turbulent and agitated your mind is. That that's the first thing. It's like, whoa, is it noisy in here. Report an error in the passage at 14:54 Highlight the passage at 14:54

15:18 And as I recall, it's a long time ago, but as I recall now, it's what, 40 years ago, he gave an analogy and it would be like if you're walking along a busy street, like downtown Manhattan, let's say, any major street, and either you have headphones on and you're caught up in music or you're just totally lost in your thought, ruminating. Report an error in the passage at 15:18 Highlight the passage at 15:18

15:40 But then you kind of wake up and you look around and then suddenly as you kind of direct your attention to the environment, you say, whoa, it's noisy here. It's really, wow, there's so much traffic and people coming and going, wow, this is really chaotic. And, you know, welcome to downtown any major city. Report an error in the passage at 15:40 Highlight the passage at 15:40

15:57 And so it's a good analogy because in our ordinary course of life, our attention tends to be really riveted outwards, outwards. Other people, the environment, sensory input here and this, that and the other thing. We're thinking about this and hoping that and anticipating that and remembering that. But we tend to be very outwardly focused. And so we may then complain about, oh, my environment is so chaotic. My environment is noisy. It's loud. Report an error in the passage at 15:57 Highlight the passage at 15:57

16:26 It's brass. It's very, very abrasive, very upsetting. And my mind's fine, but boy, my environment's really chaotic. But then if you take that, you just slip right. Go directly from that environment and go off to a quiet room, that's a solitary cell, close the door and it's soundproof. Then you'll see, oh, compared to the environment, my mind is much, much noisier. Report an error in the passage at 16:26 Highlight the passage at 16:26

16:48 Because now that you're not being caught up in and attentive to all the chaos of the environment, then you see, oh, it was chaos meeting chaos, but the outer chaos drowned out the inner chaos because that's where my attention was directed. Right? Well, go off to your room for 20 minutes each morning or 24 minutes or what have you, where it's quiet, nobody's knocking on the door, no radio, no telephone, none of that. Report an error in the passage at 16:48 Highlight the passage at 16:48

17:10 And then you say, whoa, this is downhill Manhattan, but Manhattan is my mind. So actually discover how turbulent your mind is, is the first sign of real progress. If you're not aware of that, you're probably still fixating elsewhere. So the type of mental engagement, how are you engaging with your meditative object? Report an error in the passage at 17:10 Highlight the passage at 17:10

17:29 You have to get really focused. You have to pay attention. It doesn't just land in your lap. It's not effortless. So you really need to direct your attention, to focus your attention, and that's how you get the engagement. That does take some effort, and in that winding road depiction, that illustration, this is where the big flame comes in. You really say, okay, now I'm going to focus, and that requires some effort. Report an error in the passage at 17:29 Highlight the passage at 17:29

17:51 But now, we go to these last two bullet items, the sixth and seventh. These two are taken from Mahamudra literature, which I'll mention right now is focusing more on another method, the method of settling the mind in this natural state or focusing on the mind and its contents, and that will start day after tomorrow. Report an error in the passage at 17:51 Highlight the passage at 17:51

18:12 I just want you to mention that, that these are metaphors that are given or descriptions that are given that pertain directly to that method and not so much to mindfulness of breathing. It's a bit different. But they're here, just so you know that when we do get to the practice day after tomorrow, then you'll see how sensible this is. It turns out to be very correct. Either way, right now it doesn't matter. Report an error in the passage at 18:12 Highlight the passage at 18:12

18:36 We haven't hit that fork in the road of the real difference between the effects of mindfulness of breathing versus settling the mind in its natural state. Report an error in the passage at 18:36 Highlight the passage at 18:36

18:47 As you're attending to the breath, and of course you're not only practicing mindfulness, but from the very beginning you should be practicing introspection as well, so you're noting how turbulent, how lax, how dull, how sleepy your mind is, that as you start focusing there on this very simple task like mindfulness of breathing, what's the feel of it, what's your sense if you gave it just one noun to describe, just one word to describe, okay, what was it like? Report an error in the passage at 18:47 Highlight the passage at 18:47

19:14 And for generations of Tibetan yogis, they say, well, when I did that, what I had the sense of was movement. A lot was happening. Report an error in the passage at 19:14 Highlight the passage at 19:14

19:24 Thoughts peppering in, I'm hitting sounds, I'm getting emotions and images and memories and imaginations and hopes and fears and just so much stuff happening in the midst of trying to do something very simple and that is just get a lock on your meditative object and then hold on. So, sensation of movement, of activity. Report an error in the passage at 19:24 Highlight the passage at 19:24

19:44 Agitation, one could say. And then here he'll give a whole series. This is from Lama Mipama Rinpoche, one of the great Nyingma Lamas of the 19th century. He gave this series of metaphors, the seventh bullet item. And that is, how would you characterize the flow of rumination or involuntary thought? If you gave it an analogy, what's it like? Report an error in the passage at 19:44 Highlight the passage at 19:44

20:04 And he said, okay, in this first stage, and this is all utterly experiential, this not trying to abide according to some doctrine. The analogy Gabe was the flow of involuntary thought is like a cascading waterfall. This is one where you have a strong current of a river and it just then just shoots over the lip of some cliff and it just spring all over the place. Report an error in the passage at 20:04 Highlight the passage at 20:04

20:25 Lots of volume but very chaotic, just tumbling water. So we've all seen it. You don't need much of a description. But that's the impression that the thoughts are like a geyser, like nowadays maybe like a fire hydrant of just thoughts tumbling over each other, one after another after another. So a lot of people find That is just the sheer quantity of thoughts can be quite overwhelming. And so welcome to shamatha land. This is what it's like to get into it. Report an error in the passage at 20:25 Highlight the passage at 20:25

20:51 And what I find very helpful here is that if one didn't know that this is other people's experience, you might think that you're a real aberration or you're backward or incapable or just not the kind of person who could ever achieve shamatha because you have all these characteristics. And what he's saying here, hey, This is completely normal. This isn't good, bad. This is just how most people are. And having said that, of course there's still variations. Some people come early on and they find dullness is a big factor. Report an error in the passage at 20:51 Highlight the passage at 20:51

21:20 Not everybody, but some people do. And some people are very gifted. Some people are gifted for mathematics, music and so forth. Some people are very gifted for shamatha. They slip into it and really the quality is considerably better than that, even in the beginning, because they're coming in with kind of a gift, a talent. Report an error in the passage at 21:20 Highlight the passage at 21:20

21:38 And so it's not the same for everybody, but overall these are very good generalizations. And if you find that these descriptions tally pretty closely to your experiences last night or today, then consider, good, you're on the right track. And if you're able to follow the object, then you've achieved stage one. Congratulations. Then let's just do one more and then we'll call it an afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 21:38 Highlight the passage at 21:38

22:02 If you persist in the practice, Maintaining some regular practice, it's not coming in big spurts of trying to do three or four hours and not doing it for a couple of weeks and then getting aroused and doing it a few hours. That's not going to give rise to much of transformation at all. But if you're maintaining a regular practice, persistent, persevering, then over the course of time, I have to leave that very vague, then you'll achieve the second stage if you're practicing effectively, intelligently, good motivation. Report an error in the passage at 22:02 Highlight the passage at 22:02

22:32 And so what are the characteristics of this second one? Continuous attention. What is achieved now is attentional continuity on the chosen object for up to a minute. Which is to say that for up to a minute, not a whole bunch of minutes all in a row, but for a minute occasionally here and there, for as long as a minute, you'll have that sense of a brief duration of flow during which... Report an error in the passage at 22:32 Highlight the passage at 22:32

22:57 It's not to say that you're maintaining impeccable samādhi. It is to say that for up to a minute at a time, you're not completely forgetting the object. In other words, you're free for up to a minute, free of coarse excitation. So thoughts may be buzzing around, and you'll be hearing things and experiencing your body and so forth and so on, but that sense that you're never completely disengaged. Report an error in the passage at 22:57 Highlight the passage at 22:57

23:21 So if you're a rider, a horse rider in a rodeo, Report an error in the passage at 23:21 Highlight the passage at 23:21

23:29 And you may, a lot of your body may be up in the air when the horse is really bucking, or maybe it's a bull, or bull riding. So you may be mostly up in the air, but if you're still holding on, if you still have, you know, you have one hand on the handle, on the saddle, I should say, one hand on the saddle, then you say, okay, you're still on the critter. Report an error in the passage at 23:29 Highlight the passage at 23:29

23:47 It hasn't bucked you off, because you still, you've not entered into core psych excitation, you haven't completely forgotten. The bull or the horse, the bucking bronc or whatever it may be, you're still connected to it. Even though you're gyrating all over the place and there's a lot of agitation and so forth, you've not been bucked off. Report an error in the passage at 23:47 Highlight the passage at 23:47

24:03 If you're in the dirt, then that's coarse excitation. Or if you're in mid-air and no part of you is touching any part of the bull, the chances of coming back on the bull are pretty small because it doesn't want you on its back. Report an error in the passage at 24:03 Highlight the passage at 24:03

24:14 So, for up to a minute, now where does the minute come from when you would consider that for almost all of Buddhist history, until the very recent past, Buddhist meditators did not have clocks, let alone ones with a second hand. So where does one minute come from? Well, they had rosaries and they had Omanipemehung. Report an error in the passage at 24:14 Highlight the passage at 24:14

24:34 And so what I'm calling a minute is, if you've got a pretty quick tongue, Omanipemehung once around the rosary, 108 times, more or less a minute. Omanipemehung, Omanipemehung. So once around the rosary, about that long. If on occasion, in let's say a 24-minute session, and this is a classic duration, this goes back about a thousand years, To, as I recall, Kamalashila, when he was asked, great Indian meditator who taught in Tibet, how long should the sessions be at the beginning? Well, not too long, not too short, not so long that they drag on, you're getting bored and sloppy, not so short that you can't ever get into the continuity, the flow of the practice. Report an error in the passage at 24:34 Highlight the passage at 24:34

25:13 So they found once, and then where does 24 minutes come from, with no wristwatches, 1 60th of a 24 hour period. And that you can do with a water clock and so forth. And so, and I found, so that's why I teach it, 24 minutes, not as long as a half an hour, but not so short, you really can't get into it. 24 minutes, you really shouldn't be experiencing physical distress. Report an error in the passage at 25:13 Highlight the passage at 25:13

25:33 If you are, then switch postures, you know, so you don't have that nagging on you. So, in a 24 minute period, here and there, here and there, finding, you're maintaining continuity for 20 seconds. Oh, therefore only 5 seconds. There for 40 seconds. Oh, there we got it. 60 seconds. There for 70 seconds. Oh, there for 3 seconds. But you'll get these moments of kind of continuous sanity where you don't completely lose your mind for up to a minute. Report an error in the passage at 25:33 Highlight the passage at 25:33

26:00 So that's what's called continuity. A relatively crude level and just for those minutes, for those periods, up to a minute, you're free of course excitation. And how do you achieve that? The power by which you achieve the second stage is called the power of thinking. The power of thinking. Report an error in the passage at 26:00 Highlight the passage at 26:00

26:17 This can be understood in two different ways. You receive the instruction, maybe you read the instruction or a combination of the two. And then when you're not doing the practice, you reflect upon it. You think about it. Now, okay, what was introspection? How is that different from mindfulness? What were the definitions? What was the object? And then when was I supposed to arouse? When to relax? Report an error in the passage at 26:17 Highlight the passage at 26:17

26:37 And what were the three qualities? Relaxation? What was that second? Stability? And then there was something. Oh yeah, vividness. And what was the sequence? And, you know, it's just basically going through it until you're getting familiar with it. You're making it more common. You actually know it, but it's right there on your fingertips, so to speak. Report an error in the passage at 26:37 Highlight the passage at 26:37

26:56 And in terms of technique, the theory, the definitions, the mental faculties involved, the significance of it. So by reflecting on it, this gives greater understanding of the practice, but perhaps also some inspiration, some interest, some motivation. Oh, that must be really good, you know? That must be worth doing, regardless of whether you want to achieve liberation. If you want to even get an education or hold a coherent conversation, these attention skills can be very useful. Report an error in the passage at 26:56 Highlight the passage at 26:56

27:22 So on the one hand, thinking about the theory, the practice, the techniques in between sessions, that's one way to develop enough inspiration, motivation, determination, will to get on with it and actually get somewhere in the practice. But there's another way of interpreting this as well. It comes up a lot in question and answer periods. Report an error in the passage at 27:22 Highlight the passage at 27:22

27:41 And that is during the session, there you are focusing on the breath. And I've been asked many, many times now, is it okay to have a bit of a commentary going on? Report an error in the passage at 27:41 Highlight the passage at 27:41

27:53 Like, whoops, hey, you just got distracted. Getting a bit dull. Oh, good, now you're doing it right. Good, carry on. Now you got distracted again. Report an error in the passage at 27:53 Highlight the passage at 27:53

28:06 A bit of commentary like a sportscaster, you know. Is it okay that or is that just no, no, mustn't do it at all? And to an extent in the early phases of the practice when you're not all that familiar with it yet, Have these internal reminders. Oh, now this is introspection. Oh, my mind just got distracted. Oh, I remember. Okay, relax. What was that? Relax, release, return. Report an error in the passage at 28:06 Highlight the passage at 28:06

28:25 Got it. Okay, I'm going to do that right now. Keep on reminding yourself within the practice, that commentary, being your own mentor, mentoring yourself through to keep on refreshing your memory, learning how to focus, what to focus on, how to recognize the imbalances, how to remedy the imbalances, so you have your internal coach, so to speak. Report an error in the passage at 28:25 Highlight the passage at 28:25

28:45 Which will be giving you guidance, of course it's you giving guidance to yourself, using some internal commentary that could be useful. And for that matter, even counting the breaths is thinking. So that too is a type of internal coaching. Right? Like in those, I always forget the name, but those boats that the Oxford and Cambridge, what are they called? Report an error in the passage at 28:45 Highlight the passage at 28:45

29:07 The very thin ones on the river. You all know. The rowing boats. And they have one person, while most of the guys are really pulling and pulling and trying to cut through the water, there's one person there who's hopefully pretty lightweight because his only job is just to keep the beat. Right? You've all seen it. And so, but apparently they feel it's, even though he's taking up, you know, putting some great, great more weight in the boat, nevertheless having that guy there to keep the beat, he has nothing else to do than just keep the beat, keep the beat, that they figure it's worthwhile. Report an error in the passage at 29:07 Highlight the passage at 29:07

29:40 And that's why he's there. Well, he's doing counting. I mean, he is doing for the oarsmen what the counting is doing to do meditative practice, just keeping the beat, keeping the beat, keeping the rhythm. And so that also is the power of counting, counting the breaths. So there's a second way. So moving right on, what problems persist? Out of your 24-minute session, most of the time you're off the object. Report an error in the passage at 29:40 Highlight the passage at 29:40

30:04 And you do have continuity up to a minute, but you're still, if you just look, am I on or off, most of the time you're still off. And it's so helpful to know that. Don't get discouraged. It's really easy to get discouraged in this practice. Early on thinking, I can't do it. I know what I should be doing. Report an error in the passage at 30:04 Highlight the passage at 30:04

30:20 I can't do it. Therefore, I better stop because I'm not getting anywhere. So know you are doing it. And yeah, quite right. You're most of the time off the object. Don't get discouraged. This is normal. And this is written in, you know, 500 years ago in Tibet. As in the earlier stage, the primary problem for most people in this stage is coarse excitation. Report an error in the passage at 30:20 Highlight the passage at 30:20

30:40 So no further... Explanation needed. The type of mental engagement, how you're really engaging with a meditative object still, you really need to focus. You really need to do something. Focus. And still, now no change here, if you're practicing this, practice will start day after tomorrow, still a lot of thoughts coming up, a lot of activity of the mind, movement of the mind, images, thoughts and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 30:40 Highlight the passage at 30:40

31:04 And in this practice, settling the mind, the same metaphor is given. Still. The flow of thoughts is pretty much unabated, just like a cascading waterfall. So lots of activity, but in the midst of all of that, you are developing some real continuity, much more so, significantly more so, than you had when you are still on stage one. Report an error in the passage at 31:04 Highlight the passage at 31:04

31:27 So you can see that the primary difference is there. Some things are the same, but then, here you can understand it intellectually, conceptually, but then when you get on the cushion, then you can see, ah, Oh, there was a minute. I think that must have been at least a minute or so. I was on. I was on. And by the way, we'll end on this note because it's now after five. Report an error in the passage at 31:27 Highlight the passage at 31:27

31:50 How you progress through these stages is, as I said yesterday, I think, it's not linear. It's not just like, okay, I'm better today and I'm better and I'm still better and oh good, this is going so smoothly. It's really choppy. So from your left to your right, it's like this. But you are going. But statistically, I mean, if you... Report an error in the passage at 31:50 Highlight the passage at 31:50

32:11 Average that out, it would be nice and linear. But you'll have really bad days, you'll have really good days. And when you're fairly early on in the practice, you may have a session or two where you feel, boy, that was a two. Report an error in the passage at 32:11 Highlight the passage at 32:11

32:23 Time and time again, boy, I was in that flow, I could maintain it for a minute, minute and a half. And the next day you feel like, I've never meditated in my life. Like, whatever happened to yesterday? And then you start singing a Beatles song. And so, what you'll have is kind of a flirtation with. Or an introduction to, almost like seeing a trailer of a movie. You'll get these sneak previews on stages two, but then you'll be back on one for a while. Report an error in the passage at 32:23 Highlight the passage at 32:23

32:51 And then you'll get two, two, two, and then one, one. And then two, two, two, two, two, one, one. And then so gradually you'll be shifting back, kind of two and froing, and then one, one and three, and then back to two and then one. And then more threes coming in. So that's how it tends to be. And then once in a while you really spike up, you have a fantastic session. Say, oh good, I've achieved stage five. And the next day you're back on two again. Report an error in the passage at 32:51 Highlight the passage at 32:51

33:12 But it's not just bumbling all over the place like a drunk stumbling around, you know, bumping into things. It's not just chaotic and it's not linear like troops marching down a road. It's neither one, right? So if you know that from the beginning, this again can save time. And we really have to cherish confidence. Because confidence is so easily lost in this practice. Report an error in the passage at 33:12 Highlight the passage at 33:12

33:33 People swiftly come to the conclusion, oh, I've been meditating for two months and that session, well, I'm not getting anywhere. Well, you had a bad day. Get over it. That's part of the practice. So if you know that from the beginning, and there's a lot more to be said about this, but not right now, that the evolution, the development of maturation is not smooth, it's choppy, it's forward and backward, but as you mature in the practice from a deeper level, and it always keeps on coming back to relaxation, you can get these spurts ahead by getting impatient. Report an error in the passage at 33:33 Highlight the passage at 33:33

34:08 And say, oh, that last session really sucked. I'm going to just try harder. And then you do. And it's better. But it's fake. It's like fool's gold. It's better, yeah, just because you're clamping down so hard. But you won't be able to maintain it. And it's not to say no effort. It's saying that's too much. Report an error in the passage at 34:08 Highlight the passage at 34:08

34:25 But it will seduce you if you try really hard. You get so impatient, so frustrated. Oh, I'm going to just go for it this time. Chances are you may. You may have much better attention durability or continuity in that session. It's going to tap you out. Try that for 5 or 6, 10, 20 sessions. You'll be burnt. So then just keep on. And this is what I have students I've been training now for years and some of my kids still keep on coming back. Report an error in the passage at 34:25 Highlight the passage at 34:25

34:51 Say, go deeper into relaxation. Go deeper. They've heard me say it and it's so easy to forget. Because we get impatient. We start getting filled with desire and maybe frustration and impatience. I should be. I'm not. How many times have I heard this? I'm not progressing as fast as I expected. Report an error in the passage at 34:51 Highlight the passage at 34:51

35:11 When I went in front of my first retreat with His Holiness and the first time we sat down and he was giving personal guidance. We spoke back and forth Tibetan English, kind of chop-chop. Sometimes English, sometimes Tibetan. But he just came out of the blue and said in English to me in the first session that he was guiding me in my Shama to practice. He said, and I quote him, expectation is the foundation of failure. Report an error in the passage at 35:11 Highlight the passage at 35:11

35:36 He wanted to make sure I got it. I'm saying your language, Buster. Don't forget this one, and I have not, and I've passed that on many, many times. Expectation is just a trap. Release it all. Have the aspiration. Learn how to do the practice. When you're doing the practice, just do it. But all expectations, expecting to do poorly and expecting to do well. Either way, you're slapped from the left, you're slapped from the right, but you're just still slapped. Report an error in the passage at 35:36 Highlight the passage at 35:36

36:03 And it's just not useful. It's just not useful. So, just do the practice. And crucially, I'll end on this point. Here's the really crucial element. And that is, when you're doing the practice correctly, and I mean for two seconds at a time, you're there, you know how to do it, and now very crucially, these words are very important, you're doing it correctly, in this moment, right now, and you know you're doing it correctly. Report an error in the passage at 36:03 Highlight the passage at 36:03

36:27 Those are two different things. You can do it correctly and not know it, or not be aware of it, just doing it. But doing it correctly, and knowing you're doing it correctly, for two seconds at a time, and five seconds at a time. That's where you really get some place. And take satisfaction in that moment of doing it correctly and knowing you're doing it correctly. And in Tibetan they say, Now you're accomplishing shamatha. Report an error in the passage at 36:27 Highlight the passage at 36:27

36:54 That's accomplishing shamatha. Doing it correctly for one second and three seconds, right there in the moment, no anticipation, no expectation. When are we there yet? Have I achieved this yet? All that stuff, all that congestion, all that junk that we throw into the process. Keep the junk out. And when you're doing it correctly, know you're doing it correctly and take satisfaction in that. That's the way you achieve shamatha. Do it correctly, know you're doing it correctly and take satisfaction in doing it. Report an error in the passage at 36:54 Highlight the passage at 36:54

37:23 It's really that simple. And start messing it up with other stuff and that's where you get all kinds of unnecessary problems. Okay? So, let's take a break. It's now, it's ten after five and I'd like to give us two full hours. So let's do come back. Now this is called prospective memory, remembering something in the future. Report an error in the passage at 37:23 Highlight the passage at 37:23

37:41 Let's come back at ten minutes past seven, give ourselves a full two-hour break, and as, and, I hope, and expectation, I'm going to fall into that pitfall, is that you will continue breathing for the next two hours. Report an error in the passage at 37:41 Highlight the passage at 37:41

37:54 Which means, unlike a practice where I say generate a Buddha image or do something that, you know, generate something that wasn't there, that breathing is carrying on whether you're attending to it or not. But that means moment by moment, breath by breath, it's your whole body-mind system is dishing up the meditative object. Like, would you like to practice shamatha? Report an error in the passage at 37:54 Highlight the passage at 37:54

38:12 Would you like to practice Samatha? Would you like to practice Samatha? And if you're just caught up in rumination, the answer is no thank you, no thank you, no thank you. And that's how you backslide. So you can go forward in meditation and then if you just go back into the old ruts of rumination, wandering mind, just letting the mind of your attention like a dog off the leash and just running all over the place, then when you get back to the cushion, then you have to repair all the damage. Report an error in the passage at 38:12 Highlight the passage at 38:12

38:37 You have to kind of sober up. Whereas... In between sessions, now I see the sun is shining and I'm sure it's very beautiful outside. Go outside, refresh, take a walk, enjoy the sunlight, the birds, extraordinary birds you have here, the gentleness of this immediate environment. So enjoy it, but with your peripheral awareness, if you really are resting in that present moment, not caught up in rumination and maintaining just a peripheral awareness of the in and out breath, that sustains the continuity in between sessions. Report an error in the passage at 38:37 Highlight the passage at 38:37

39:06 You get the refreshment you need because we can't always be You know, meditating 24 hours a day. You get that kind of spaciousness, the relaxation, the refreshment. You have your meal, all of that. But as much as you can, just in a very light way, like with your pinky, just keep the finger on the pulse of the in-breath, the out-breath. Report an error in the passage at 39:06 Highlight the passage at 39:06

39:25 Keep grounded in the present moment. And then when you come back to your next session, it'll be a much smoother transition in. And the overall development of attention skills will be much more effective. Okay? So now it is ten past five, so let's come back in two hours exactly. See you then and enjoy your dinner. Report an error in the passage at 39:25 Highlight the passage at 39:25