We forget. We we loosen, this tight grasping of the breath, and the mind easily floats away. That has to be brought back again and again and again and strengthen our mindfulness. With the help of introspection, which at best sounds the warning that the mind is about to move away. But at least it can.
Stop the chain of thought, and then reintroduce mindfulness on the object which has been lost. Just as we should always be conscious of applying these two, this mindfulness in meditation. Otherwise we waste this precious opportunity where the conditions are right to gain some insight, some control of our minds. You know how hard it is at home. So we’re not actually on holiday.
We’re here to do a job. We’re here to come home happy, to resolve our personal confusion, and to resolve difficult situations in our lives. So if we waste these precious few weeks by gossiping and just letting our minds wander, it’s like throwing of handfuls of diamonds into the ocean. So remember, during the silence, then from the evening until lunchtime, resist the temptation to gossip. Gossip because small words grow into conversations and then we start distracting other people.
So really be careful for your own sake to make it most worthwhile. So now check your posture. Sit comfortably straight on your back. When you feel your body is more or less correct, then focus on the muscle groups and relax the tension in the muscles. Just taking your time, there’s no rush.
Slowly let your back straighten. Sometimes it sort of does it on its own when you have good concentration. You feel your spine lengthening, your head sort of going up. So now, make your mind happy. Can’t meditate with a sad mind, so make it happy.
There are so many good things to rejoice about, especially that we’ve found the the source of all happiness throughout the universe, the bodhicitta, Even if we haven’t developed it, we should be singing with joy in our minds we have found that which we’ve been looking for, for life after life after life, for eons of time. We’ve been seeking this precious jewel. Finally, we’ve discovered the very root of happiness. So with delight, decide that you’re going to meditate for the next half hour strongly and for the benefit of all beings. Do the nine round breathing, focusing upon the purification of mental afflictions in the form of black smoke as you breathe out.
As you breathe in, you breathe in the blissful white light of wisdom and compassion that’s radiating from the hearts of all universal Buddhas. Now let go of the breathing. Bring your mind inside. Feel that the light has totally washed away all the dark smoke. All of the solid characteristics of your body have dissolved into light so you’re like a rainbow.
the seed of awareness at your heart. Experience the stillness of your mind, the underlying clear clear light nature, still and peaceful, undisturbed by thought. And suddenly, the conditions change and we don’t know where the pain, the problems came from. We call it bad luck or just something came out of the blue blue and it all fell apart. We’re very healthy and then we get sick.
So as long as we’re under the control of karma and the afflictions, there’s the only thing that’s definite definite in our life is death. There is no stability that we can maintain in happiness, in health. In our material possessions. Especially, it’s very difficult to practice Dharma, to cultivate the wisdoms of listening, thinking, meditating, and turning against the afflictions, breaking free from the eight worldly dharmas attachment to this life. Somehow we get sucked into the same old games.
We come inspired at the meditation center, but when we go home, the brief gloss is gone. The same old problems reemerge as they will until we reach the direct insight into emptiness. So in order to remove the obstacles to realizing emptiness, we need to purify. And the quickest way to purifying is to generate the bodhicitta. Seeing the karma and afflictions in my mind are not just an obstacle to to my happiness, but they are an obstacle to everybody’s happiness.
They’re preventing me from gaining realizations in this life and therefore spreading happiness amongst my family and friends, the people I meet every day. And the obstacles in my mind are harming all beings because ultimately, they are blocking my attainment of enlightenment. So think for the purpose of others, then I’m now going to do prostrations to the Buddha, very profound practice of purification, overcoming pride. So visualizing the purifying white nectar coming coming from the Buddha’s heart and thoroughly cleansing you as you do the prostrations with strong mindfulness. Don’t forget the mindfulness.
So you don’t have to go like crazy and do many more than your neighbor. Just one prostration with good mindfulness is better than a hundred with wandering mind. So we’ll do the prostrations now. Head slightly bent forward. Relax the various muscle groups around your body.
Then look at your mind and actively establish a positive mind. As Rinpoche said, remembering the incredible fortune of the age of freedoms in the ten endowments, more valuable than mountains of jewels. You have this precious treasure. So think that you’re going to not waste a moment of this opportunity. You’re now going to meditate in order to subdue the uncontrolled excitement and the laxity in order to gain the mental stability that’s necessary to realize emptiness.
So focus your whole attention on the coming and going of the breath. Simply breathing in and out of both nostrils. Just focus on the sensation of the air entering and leaving, but don’t allow your mind to be distracted. Keep your mind on the breathing. Don’t follow any distracting thoughts.
Now let go of the breathing. Bring your awareness inside. Rest at your heart. Feel that your body is made of light. Your mind focused at your heart, experiencing the underlying clear light nature undisturbed by thought.
Now from from your heart, imagine that the blissful light of loving kindness and compassion focused towards all living beings begins to well up and overflow, filling your rainbow body with bliss. Feel the physical sensation of the light spreading throughout your body. Extremely bright. Send beams of light out to all living beings visualized around you, purifying them with suffering and its causes, and bringing every happiness up to enlightenment. Think that every being in the universe has been touched by the blissful energy of your loving kindness and compassion.
And having completed its work, the light returns, absorbing back into your body. And all the beings who are now enlightened melt into light and absorb into you so that your rainbow body remains alone suspended in empty space. And your body melts, contracting towards the heart and disappears into emptiness. All phenomena are empty. All the projections that we put upon them, particularly the projection of true existence.
So think of somebody who you know who’s called John. Now think that person, John, when he was born, there was a baby, but the parents had not yet decided upon a name. So if the first few days, John did not exist, there was nothing that could be indicated to be John. Just a baby called baby x. Your friend John, did he exist on baby x?
Then on the third day, the parents finally decided after much checking out, to label the baby John. From that moment, everybody called the baby John and the child and the youth and the adult was always called John. But the name John is just the conception in people’s minds who know that that is the suitable label to give to that particular physical appearance. From the side of the body and mind of John. There never was, and there isn’t now something that is John.
But, nevertheless, when we think of John, we think John is a definite self existing person who exists within that body. There is something specifically John, a person, possessing that body. Meditate on how John appears to exist from his own side, not as a mere label, but as a definite self existing entity. In that body. Try to observe the object of negation.
Doesn’t John appear to be something more than the mere name? John is not the body, the voice, but something big, something concrete existing in his own right that abides within that body. The person we talk to who recognizes our face, our name. The one with whom we communicate appears strongly to exist within that body, surely. But that appearance is the object of negation because if we try to identify this strongly appearing John on the basis of the body and mind, there’s nothing that stands out to be John.
The body and mind are empty of being John. So it’s by grasping at a truly existing self, truly existing Johns, Marys, all the other people, all the other objects in our environment appear to exist within the basis of designation, and our I-grasping ignorance assents to that appearance as true. And that’s the root of all of our anger and attachment, our pride, our jealousy, and so on. So our mind filled with confusion as to the nature of reality, and our mind bears countless karmic imprints that can bring about suffering beyond our imagination established by following that ignorance. So strong confidence in Buddha as being a person who values and accurately perceived reality and out of great compassion, taught the path to liberation and enlightenment.
Then strongly focusing upon the image of Buddha as you do prostrations. Imagine purifying light coming from his heart, entering your body and especially washing away the I-grasping ignorance and all the mental afflictions and the negative karmas accumulated from that. So do prostrations. So begin by checking your body posture and relaxing all the various muscle groups. Then check the posture of your mind.
Should feel by now that the mind is something which is capable of being molded, transformed, developed from one aspect less favorable into a more favorable aspect consciously through the power of your determination. So first make your mind calm, not running after some unobtainable thing. Not dissatisfied with what you have, but just balanced, accepting the way things are. Then letting go of the outside environment. Think of the great sea of existence, how all beings, no matter what appearance they body, they have feelings just like ourselves.
They have needs. They have problems. Happiness, unhappiness. Even as recently as our previous previous life, perhaps we were in those suffering bodies. Perhaps we were fish at the bottom of the ocean, cold, dark, being eaten by other fish.
Perhaps we were worms beneath the ground. Cows waiting our turn to be slaughtered. Feeling as though the various sufferings of existence are your sufferings. Generate great compassion in your heart. For each individual being caught in his or her personal torment.
They are countless. Our own worries, our own problems are totally insignificant compared to universal suffering. But each of us can do something about the world by following the path, becoming enlightened. We can be there when our past mothers need us. When they open their hearts, we will be ready to provide them with direction.
So think that in order to achieve that ability, I’m now going to meditate. Not allow the excited mind to distract my attention from the object. I cannot waste a second in indulgence in my own worldly dharmas. So with strong determination, focus your mind upon the nine round breathing. Breathing in through the left nostril, and out through the right three times, then in the right and out the left three times, and then in and out of both three times.
Go through each sequence of nine breaths without interruption. Now let go of the breathing, Bring your awareness inside. Rest at your heart. Feel that your body has dissolved into light, and is without obstruction like a rainbow. Your mind fills every part of this clear body With the seed of awareness at your heart, be aware of the underlying nature of your mind.
How when thoughts settle down, the nature is clear and peaceful. Having a luminous quality able to take on the aspect of any object. Focus on the nature of your mind without thought. Now into your heart, feel the wind of loving kindness and compassion arising as blissful white light welling up and flowing over, filling every part of your body with blissful energy, all the way down to your feet, your hands, up to the top of your head. Feel your back straighten as you are filled with this energy.
Hold your head up straight. Imagine you become so bright. Countless beams of light radiate out, touching the hearts of your father, your mother, family and friends, and so on. Filling them with light that purifies all suffering and its causes and brings every happiness up to the bliss of enlightenment. Waves of light pouring out from your heart.
Now the light having completed its job flows back into you, filling you with blissful energy. All the beings meld into light and absorb into you. Then your own rainbow body melts and dissolves into emptiness. First you experience a vision like a shimmering mirage in the desert sands. Which becomes very hazy, like a dust storm.
That grows darker. The sky is filled with dancing sparks of light. Becoming very dark with just a tiny pinpoint of light in the blackness. Then in the dark, there’s a clear white light, like the light of the full moon. It slowly becomes red, And that goes darker and darker.
It becomes completely black. And then in the blackness, a faint trace of light, like the sky before dawn. Hold the clear light vision as long as you can, feeling that this is the appearance of emptiness. Your your own emptiness. Think of your name, and think that the person who you always grasped as being indicated by that name does not exist anywhere.
You are completely empty of the person that you thought your name indicated. Keep your mind still, focused on emptiness. Now slowly, within the emptiness, generate the blissful energy of loving kindness and compassion, which appears as white light. And that takes the form of your body with your mind inside. So think that you are now born from wisdom and compassion.
There is the appearance of your form again. But within this form, there is no self that can be discovered. Your name is just a label given to this appearance of body and mind. The old self existing I that we had grasped at with neurotic, obsessive thoughts is completely nonexistent. So think that there is no hindrance to helping others with every action of body, speech, and mind.
Whatever action you do will be to benefit others. Whatever words you speak will be to please the minds of others. And whatever thoughts you think will be to help others in any way that you can. This is the meaning of your life. This is the purpose of your life.
This is the source of all joy for oneself and for others. It’s so simple. Only our habits prevent us from acting this way. Your posture and just focus on the coming and going of the breath of both breathing in and breathing out. Let your mind settle down.
Now imagine, out in space in front of here, large golden throne decorated with jewels supported by eight white snow lions. Above the throne is a multicolored lotus, and in the center of the lotus are the sun and moon discs. And seated upon the moon is Guru Śākyamūni Buddha. Wearing saffron robes, legs in the vajra position, right hand on his right knee, left hand at his waist with a bowl filled with nectar. His golden body is radiating light of realizations.
Dark blue hair with the Ushinisia protuberance on top. His eyes narrow in meditation, and a peaceful smile on his face. He’s surrounded by an aura of light. So now use the image as your object of concentration, either out in front or you can bring closer towards your nose and contracting down to the size of your thumbnail. And hold uninterrupted concentration using mindfulness and introspection as your aids.
You relax a little but keep your mind virtuous, thinking of the perfect human rebirth. So begin again. Holding the image, even if you just see the outline, that’s enough. Whatever you can establish, hold it without moving your mind around. Don’t even move the object of observation.
If it fades in and out of view, Don’t squeeze too much. Don’t relax too much. Try to find the balance. And just abide there, still. Like tuning into a radio station.
Don’t go too far either way. A good, clear concentration. Remember the motivation that all living beings are dependent upon our success in achieving concentration, which is the basis of wisdom, which destroys the root of all suffering. So we are the elected one to face the dangers and to overcome them in order to bring relief to all of our suffering mothers, So establish the image of Śākyamūni Buddha and hold it clearly, just for five minutes.