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Shamatha: Meditation for Balanced Living

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Shamatha: Meditation for Balanced Living WISDOM ACADEMY Shamatha: Meditation for Balanced Living B. ALAN WALLACE Lesson 8: Shamatha Focused on the Mind Reading: Stilling the Mind “Experiencing the Substrate Consciousness” Pages 168–180 Stilling the Mind SHAMATHA TEACHINGS FROM DU¨ DJO M L I N G PA’S VA JRA ESSEN CE B. Alan Wallace Edited by Brian Hodel Boston • Wisdom Publications Wisdom Publications, Inc.—Not for Distribution Wisdom Publications 199 Elm Street Somerville MA 02144 USA www.wisdompubs.org © 2011 B. Alan Wallace All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechan- ical, including photography, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system or technologies now known or later developed, without permission in writing from the pub- lisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wallace, B. Alan. Stilling the mind : shamatha teachings from Dudjom Lingpa’s Vajra essense / B. Alan Wallace ; edited by Brian Hodel. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-86171-690-6 (alk. paper) 1. S´ amatha (Buddhism) 2. Attention—Religious aspects—Buddhism. I. Hodel, Brian. II. Title. BQ7805.W355 2011 294.3’4435—dc23 2011022674 ISBN 978-0-86171-690-6 eBook ISBN 978-0-86171-649-4 16 15 14 13 12 11 6 5 4 3 2 1 Cover design by Phil Pascuzzo. Drawing by Winfield Klein. Interior design by LC. Set in Weiss 11/15. Wisdom Publications’ books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for per- manence and durability set by the Council of Library Resources. Printed in the United States of America. This book was produced with environmental mindfulness. We have elected to print this title on 30% PCW recycled paper. As a result, we have saved the following resources: 14 trees, 6 million BTUs of energy, 1,431 lbs. of greenhouse gases, 6,409 gallons of water, and 406 lbs. of solid waste. For more information, please visit our website, www.wisdompubs.org. This paper is also FSC® certified. For more information, please visit www.fscus.org. For more information, please visit www.fscus.org. Environmental impact estimates were made using the Environmental Paper Network Paper Calculator. For more information visit www.papercalculator.org. Wisdom Publications, Inc.—Not for Distribution STILLINGTHEMIND 1 68 T H E R O L E A N D S I G N I F I C A N C E O F S H A M AT H A Then Great Boundless Emptiness asked, “O Bhagavan, if all experi- ences, whether pleasant or rough, are far from being the path to omniscience and bring no such benefit, why should we practice med- itation? Teacher, please explain!” If these meditative experiences resulting from shamatha practice are not rigpa—they do not have the benefit of enlightenment—why practice shamatha at all? Couldn’t we just skip shamatha and go straight for Dzogchen, go directly to the ultimate? The Bhagavan replied, “O Vajra of Mind, when individuals with coarse, dysfunctional minds agitated by discursive thoughts enter this path, by reducing the power of their compulsive thinking, their minds become increasingly steady, and they achieve unwavering sta- bility. On the other hand, even if people identify conscious aware- ness but do not continue practicing, they will succumb to the faults of spiritual sloth and distraction. Then, even if they do practice, due to absentmindedness they will become lost in endless delusion. We enter shamatha practice with a dysfunctional mind, and leave with a functional mind—enter with disequilibrium, exit with equilibrium. That’s the significance of this practice. Attaining a high degree of sanity might be a really good idea on the way to omniscience. “On the other hand, even if people identify conscious awareness”— rigpa—even if they go to some sublime lama and get pointing-out instruc- tions and get some authentic glimpse of rigpa, or if some insight, some Wisdom Publications, Inc.—Not for Distribution PITFALLS 1 69 taste of rigpa, comes to them out of the blue—“but do not continue prac- ticing, they will succumb to the faults of spiritual sloth and distraction.” So even if you get some taste of rigpa, unless you are able to take the ground as your path and sustain it, then it is very easy to lose it. You soon “succumb to the faults of spiritual sloth and distraction.” Incidentally, I think our civ- ilization gives us the greatest bounty of distractions of any civilization in human history. Spiritual sloth is an easily misunderstood term. The medieval contempla- tive tradition of Christianity has a corresponding concept, which in Latin is called acedia, also often translated as “spiritual sloth.” I believe this con- cept comes closest to the meaning of the Buddhist term. From the Tibetan, however, it is often translated as “laziness.” Indeed, spiritual sloth may man- ifest as being a “couch potato.” You could call that laziness, where you are really lethargic, sluggish—the heavy feeling of the earth element. But not all spiritual sloth expresses itself as laziness. Spiritual sloth manifests for fire and air people when they get caught up in one project after another— where they always have something going on, continually ensnared by one mundane activity after another. Each time they get caught up in such busy- ness, they always have the snappy reply, “Oh, but this is really important, because this is for the sake of sentient beings, and it’s virtuous.” So spiritual sloth may manifest in a lazy, sluggish mode, or as hyperac- tivity—popping around doing good—which dissipates your energy. You amass merit—good karma—but you wind up spinning around in samsara. In other words, you can have some very deep meditative experience in Zen, in Dzogchen, Mahamudra, or in Vedanta, but you are left with nothing more than a memory. Then you spend the rest of your life going from one project to the next, always caught up in the little affairs of daily life, con- scientiously meeting your deadlines, until finally the deadline you meet is your own death. “Then, even if they do practice, due to absentmindedness they will become lost in endless delusion.” By practicing Dzogchen without having a strong foundation in the practice of shamatha you can have a taste of rigpa. For continuity and real growth, however, you need a vessel that doesn’t turn upside down so easily from distractions and emotional imbalances. If the Wisdom Publications, Inc.—Not for Distribution STILLINGTHEMIND 1 70 mind is dysfunctional and you experience a little drop of rigpa, after years have passed it may remain as nothing more than a memory: “Gosh, that reminds me—you should have been there twenty-seven years ago. I had this really great experience!” You become lost in endless delusion. EXPERIENCING THE SUBSTRATE CONSCIOUSNESS “The mind, which is like a cripple, and vital energy, which is like a blind, wild stallion, are subdued by fastening them with the rope of meditative experience and firmly maintained attention. Once people of dull faculties have recognized the mind, they control it with the reins of mindfulness and introspection. Consequently, as a result of their experience and meditation, they have the sense that all subtle and coarse thoughts have vanished. Finally, they experience a state of unstructured consciousness devoid of anything on which to med- itate. Then, when their awareness reaches the state of great non- meditation, their guru points this out, so that they do not go astray. The dysfunctional mind, and vital energy—which is “like a blind, wild stallion”—are subdued, not hobbled, with the rope of the meditative expe- riences of bliss, luminosity, and nonconceptuality, and with continuous, focused attention. Continuity does not mean bursts of frenzy, of zeal, or applying ourselves to meditation intensely for short intervals and then slacking off. Continuity is “firmly maintained attention.” “Once people of dull faculties have recognized the mind, they control it with the reins of mindfulness and introspection.” This is taking the mind as the path. “Consequently, as a result of their experiences”—nyam—“and meditation, they have the sense that all subtle and coarse thoughts have vanished.” Over time, and at its own pace, the density of obsessive thoughts diminishes. They become progressively subtler as you simply let them be, let them dissolve, without compulsively being caught up and carried away by them. Eventually you attain equilibrium, an equipoise wherein coarse and even subtle thoughts have vanished. “Finally, they experience a state of unstructured consciousness,” where there’s nothing contrived. Wisdom Publications, Inc.—Not for Distribution PITFALLS 1 71 Again, we’re not talking about rigpa. We’re talking about the substrate consciousness—unfabricated, unstructured, pre-human, more basic than human, more basic than any other life form—out of which all kinds of mun- dane mental states and processes emerge. In this way the substrate con- sciousness can be regarded as a “stem consciousness,” analogous to a stem cell that can morph into a wide variety of highly specified cells depending on the biological environment in which it develops. Likewise, at human conception one’s substrate consciousness begins to emerge as a human mind and sense perceptions in dependence upon the gradual formation of a human brain and nervous system. The mind and various forms of sensory and mental consciousness do not emerge from the brain (as is widely assumed but never proven in modern science) but rather from the substrate consciousness. At death, these human mental functions do not simply dis- appear, as materialists believe (again without any compelling evidence), but rather dissolve back into the substrate consciousness, which carries on into the bardo and successive lives.
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