This is a continuation of H. H. Dalai Lama from “Meditation” (Chapter 8 of “The Dalai Lama: A Policy of Kindness”) The first part contained instructions on meditation with an external object. This section includes meditation on the mind itself, and a final post covers a brief question and answer period with the Dalai Lama.
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Another type of meditation involves looking at the mind itself. Try to leave your mind vividly in a natural state, without thinking of what happened in the past or of what you are planning for the future, without generating any conceptuality. Where does it seem that your consciousness is? Is it with the eyes or where is it? Most likely you have a sense that it is associated with the eyes since we derive most of our awareness of the world through vision. This is due to having relied too much on our sense consciousness. However the existence of a separate mental consciousness can be ascertained; for example, when attention is diverted by sound, that which appears to the eye consciousness is not noticed. This indicates that a separate mental consciousness is paying more attention to sound heard by the ear consciousness than to the perceptions of the eye consciousness.
With persistent practice, consciousness may eventually be perceived or felt as an entity of mere luminosity and knowing, to which anything is capable of appearing and which, when appropriate conditions arise, can be generated in the image of whatsoever object. As long as the mind does not encounter the external circumstance of conceptuality, it will abide empty without anything appearing in it, like clear water. Its very entity is that of mere experience. Let the mind flow of its own accord without conceptual overlay. Let the mind rest in its natural state, and observe it. In the beginning, when you are not used to this practice, it is quite difficult, but in time the mind appears like clear water. Then, stay with the unfabricated mind without allowing conceptions to be generated. In realizing this nature of the mind, we have for the first time located the object of observation of this internal type of meditation.
The best time for practicing this form of meditation is in the morning, in a quiet place, when the mind is very clear and alert. It helps not to have eaten to much the night before nor to sleep too much; this makes the mind lighter and sharper the next morning. Gradually the mind will become more and more stable; mindfulness and memory will become clearer.
See if this practice makes your mind more alert throughout the day. As a temporary benefit your thoughts will be tranquil. As your memory improves, gradually you can develop a kind of special perception and understanding, which is due to an increase of mindfulness. As a long term benefit, because your mind has become more alert and sharp, you can utilize it in whatever field you want.
If you are able to do a little meditation daily, withdrawing this scattered mind on one object inside, it is very helpful. The conceptuality that runs on thinking of good things, bad things, and so forth and so on will get a rest. It provides a little vacation just to set a bit in non- conceptuality and have a rest.
There is yet another method of meditation which enables on to discern the ultimate natural of phenomena. This type of mediation involves analytical introspection. Generally, phenomena are divided into two types: the mental and physical aggregates — or phenomena that are used by the I — and the I that uses them. To determine the nature of this I, let us use an example. When we say John is coming, there is some person who is the one designated by the name John. Is this name designated to his body? It is not. Is it designated to his mind? If it were designated to his mind, we could not speak of John’s mind. Mind and body are things used by the person. It almost seems that there is an I separate from mind and body. For instance, when we think, “Oh, my lousy body!” or “My lousy mind!”, to our own innate mode of appearance the mind itself is not the I, right? Now, what John is there who is not his mind or body? You also should apply this to yourself, to your own sense of I — where is this I in terms of mind and body?
When my body is sick, though my body is not I, due to the body’s being sick it can be posited that I am sick. In fact, for the sake of the well-being and pleasure of the I, it sometimes even becomes necessary to cut off part of the body. Although the body is not the I, there is a relationship between the two: the pain of the body can serve as the pain of the I. Similarly, when the eye consciousness sees something it appears to the mind that the I perceives it.
What is the nature of the I? How does it appear to you? When you do not fabricate or create any artificial concept in your mind, does it seem that your I has an identity separate from your mind and body? But if you search for it, can you find it? For instances, someone accuses you, “You stole this.” or “You ruined such and such,” and you feel, “I didn’t do that.” At that time, how does the I appear? Does it appear as if solid? Does some solid, steady, and strong thing appear to your mind when you think or say, “I didn’t do that?”
This seemingly solid, concrete, independent, self-instituting I under its own power that appears at such a time actually does not exist at all, and this specific non-existence is what is meant by selflessness. In the absence of analysis and investigation, a mere I as in, “I want such and such,” or “I am going to do such and such,” is asserted as valid, but the non-existence of an independent or self-powered I constitutes the selflessness of the person. This selflessness is that is found when one searches analytically to try to find the I.
Such non-inherent existence of the I is an ultimate truth, a final truth. The I that appears to a non-analytical conventional awareness is the dependently arisen I that serves as the basis of the conventions of action, agent and so forth; it is a conventional truth. In analyzing the mode of subsistence or that status of the I, it is clear that although it appears to exist inherently, it does not, much like an illusion.
That is how the ultimate nature of the I — emptiness — is analyzed. Just as the I has this nature, so all other phenomena that are used by the I are empty of inherent existence. When analyzed, they cannot be found at all, but without analysis and investigation, they do exist. Their nature is the same as the I.
The conventional existence of the I as well as of pleasure and pain make it necessary to generate compassion and altruism, and because the ultimate nature of all phenomena is this emptiness of inherent existence, it is also necessary to cultivate wisdom. When these two aspects — compassion and wisdom — are practiced in union, wisdom grows more profound, and the sense of duality diminishes. Due to the mind’s dwelling in the meaning of emptiness, dualistic appearance becomes lighter, and at the same time the mind itself becomes more subtle. As the mind grows even more subtle, reaching the subtlest level, it is eventually transformed into the most basic mind, the fundamental innate mind of clear light, which at once realizes and is of one taste with emptiness in meditative equipoise without any dualistic appearance at all, mixed with emptiness. Within all having this one taste, anything and everything can appear; this is known as “All in one taste, one taste in all.”
These are a few of the types of meditation practiced in the Tibetan tradition. Of course there are many other techniques such as mantra and so forth. Perhaps now we could have some discussion. Click here for Meditation Q & A with H. H. Dalai Lama.