Welcome to the SC Dharma Group Teachings PageColumbia TeachingsGeshe Dakpa Topgyal: Introduction to MeditationDateline: Columbia: April 28, 2001 Introduction to Meditation: Turning the Mind Inward As meditation beginners we must learn to stop the mind from thinking. We must empty the mind of thoughts and images the mind wants to hold. If possible, we want no thoughts at all. If that is not possible, we strive for pure thoughts. When we stop the mind’s thinking, the mind turns inward, rather than outward. The object of meditation plays an important role in this. Meditators do not remain in an empty state of mind, but keep in mind a chosen object, a photocopy image, if you will, in the mind. This is called the object of meditation. There is a purpose to holding a mental image in the mind. This keeps the mind fresh and alert. You don’t want to fall into a sinking state, where your mind is numb or dull, where there is no sense of awareness or freshness. You do want to rest in a state of awareness. This is a calm, peaceful, relaxed state of mind. There is no movement of conceptual thought. There is an active process of knowing without thinking, of knowing without creating concepts. You do not hold ideas, notions, or concepts. The active process of knowing without thinking is the meaning of awareness. Once we accomplish this, we achieve not only knowing without thinking, but really knowing, direct knowing without conceptual elaborations. Take the example of a flower. We want to know the object as a flower, but recognizing a flower is different from really knowing a flower without applying the concept of "flower." We always see objects through our concepts of them. We see a cup through our concept of "cup;" we see individual flowers through our concept of all flowers or all flowers of a particular type. In every moment, we are engaged in the process of distorting an object, constantly giving false meaning to an object. We expect something from an object, and objects cannot provide us what we expect because we are always applying false meanings and unrealistic expectations. The moment we see a rose, here come all our conceptual elaborations. They come because we see the rose through our concept of "flower." We fail to see the rose as it is. The purpose of Shamata meditation is to train one’s mind to gain unusual mental stability and mental clarity. When we achieve that, we can temporarily stop conceptual thought. We can focus our consciousness and rest there. When mental stability and mental clarity come together in one cognitive mind, when we stay with that consciousness with the full force of mental stability and mental clarity, at that moment we can experience the full force of really knowing without conceptual thought. Once that state arises, we can really know a flower as it is, free of conceptual thought. This is different from our ordinary experience in which we see objects as we project them, as we want to see them, not as they are. Question: Do babies see this way? Answer: Until three or four years old, when they learn to categorize, to group. Our five sense operate independently of one another. They don’t share. We perceive a chair or a flower through our five senses: taste, touch, hearing, seeing, smelling. The senses perceive and send a message to the mind or mental consciousness. In this first instant of mental perception generated by a sense, we don’t elaborate. We see an object as it is. We see it as it is, free of conceptual elaborations. This is almost like having the mind of an enlightened being. There is no judgment, no sense of liking, no sense of disliking. There is no emotional response at all. There is nothing to be attached to, nothing to be repulsed by, nothing to accept, nothing to reject. We simply see an object as it is. While this happens to us all the time, the instant after we perceive with our senses, we send a message to our mental perception, we begin to judge. We begin to think: "Wow, it’s fresh!" There come conceptual elaborations and distortions of that object. Meditation is mainly to improve the quality of mind, to refine until the mind can reach a subtler state and see objects as they are, without thinking, without elaborating. Comment: There’s a saying, "Open mouth, instantly wrong." Question: This is sensing without conceptual thought? Answer: The five senses are completely free of conceptual thought. Question: Why do we have conceptual thoughts? Answer: They are stains, so many layers of dirt in our mind in the knowing process. Question: We see something clearly and purely, then we take it in and apply dirt? We accumulate the dirt of expectations and need to recognize the dirt and get rid of it? Answer: Yes. Question: The dirt is from our circumstances? Answer: No, only from our mind. Once mental clarity and mental stability come together and stay within the meditating mind, not only does the mind experience the full force of knowing without thinking, but the full force of really knowing. This only happens with single-point focus and perfect harmony of mental stability and mental clarity. It does not happen with human concepts of words and language. In Shamata meditation, practice looking closely into the nature of an object. Try to detect or discover what really makes up the nature of a rose. Try to detect what makes that object a rose. Go beyond your concept of glass to ask what makes this particular object a glass. See if you can find anything to make that object a glass. Question: Isn’t there a moment in time when a glass is a glass because it is holding water and functioning as a glass? Answer: To the user, yes. From the side of the object, there is nothing that determines it’s a glass. This, we don’t usually see. Question: What about genetic material that determines whether an embryo becomes a fish or a frog? Answer: Stick to glass or flower. The object doesn’t see itself as a glass or flower, and we see it as a glass or a flower only through our concept of glass or flower. Question: So we need to let go of form and function and name? Answer: Let go of all these things. That doesn’t mean we deny the conventional reality of a glass. We apply the conventional reality. We see this object as existing as a glass purely from our own designation. Does the object really exist as a glass from the side of the object? No. It exists as a glass purely from our own designation, from our side. This is important to understand. Do we see the glass existing as a glass because of the way we name it, or does this object exist as a glass within itself? Does it exist as a glass on its own, without you, by its own nature? Is it a glass because of how we name it, how we want to perceive it exists? Or is it a glass from its own nature? Usually, when we see an object, we see it because we named it, and we think it exists on its own. When it appears, we believe that "glassness" exists. We believe "glassness" has an intrinsic existence. What I’m trying to tell you is about knowing something without thinking. When we take away our concepts of "glass," it is hard to know as a glass. We are constantly, aggressively distinguishing glass from non-glass, flower from non-flower. Question: When you carry this "really knowing" over into life, do you have the ability to know without labels? Answer: Yes, you can function without labels outside of meditation. Source: South Carolina Dharma Group Contact: Claudia Smith Brinson Phone: 803-799-4901 E-mail: csbrin@infi.net |