Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A shepherd scanning a hillside for both present and missing sheep simultaneously is Geshe Pema Tsering’s image for how Mahāmudrā practitioners hold the mind and its object as a single substance — a central analogy in this 34-minute calm abiding retreat session. He first consolidates the two core antidotes: sharpen clarity to cut dullness, anchor steadiness to cut excitement. He then introduces the nine ascending levels of calm abiding, noting that the first stage often feels like an explosion of new thoughts — not because thoughts have multiplied but because sitting still reveals how many were already there. A Q&A addresses whether bliss arising from a holy object counts as distraction, how to sequence antidotes when dullness tips into excitement, and how a partial mental image of a meditation object gradually resolves into a vivid whole through sustained clarity and stability.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 11 CAR 2002 10 06.mp3
UUID: 054acfc1-220a-4da4-94e8-424933d1ee91
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Calm Abiding Retreat (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-10-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 34.5 minutes
Words: ~2,120
So So after that, the way that we’re actually holding it, if we are holding tight, holding the image tight in our minds, then the way we are holding it cuts at any dullness that may come up. And if we stop ourselves from being distracted, this can cut at any excitement that may come up. So therefore, when we’re meditating, we should be concentrating on these two aspects: the steadiness and the clarity. So for example, if a dullness comes up, then we should be focusing on the aspect of clarity. We should be making sure that our image is clear and this cuts away at any dullness that may be arising in our mind.
From the other point of view, if any excitement comes up, if we concentrate on our steadfastness, the steadfastness of our meditation, we need to do this in order to cut at any excitement that may come up in our mind. If we do this, then we can develop calm abiding. If we don’t do this and we sit there pretending to develop calm abiding or meditative concentration, then whatever we do, if we’re not using these two aspects, whatever we do can’t become a cause or can’t become calm abiding itself, it just becomes a cause for pretending. Generally, when we talk about calm abiding meditation, the two main points are that we have clarity and that we have stability. These are the two main aspects that we need to concentrate on in order to develop calm abiding.
So in this way, it was explained earlier in detail of the different things that we have to do when we come across problems in our meditation. In brief, whichever dullness and excitement come up, however much dullness and excitement come up, then we have to immediately, using our self-knower, apply the antidotes to these and apply whichever antidotes will be the most powerful to rid ourselves of these problems or to stop them. So when the excitement comes up, then we need to concentrate on the steadiness of the object and try and stop our mind from wandering to these things and let our mind relax a little bit. When this dullness comes up, then we need to concentrate on the clarity of the image and make sure there is clarity to the image and vividness to the image, and therefore tighten our mind, to tighten itself, I guess, in order to make sure that the image is clear. So this is the process there.
So if we keep doing this, then we develop single pointed meditation on object that we are trying to meditate on. And not only is it single pointed, but it has the three aspects of steadiness, clarity and vividness. Once we’ve done this, then this is what we should be protecting — these three things we should be protecting in order to develop calm abiding. So if we’re doing this calm abiding meditation according to the Mahāmudrā tradition, then we are told that we should meditate in a way that does not differentiate between the object and the object possessor, that being the mind that’s seeing the object and the object itself. They’re the same substance.
And this is said to be the same as when a shepherd is going up onto the hill and he’s trying to gather all his sheep together to go back down to the village and he sees the sheep that are there and the sheep that are missing at the same time. It’s not like he separately has to look for the sheep that are missing and the sheep that are there he sees them both at the same time when he’s looking at the sheep. So in this way, when we are looking at our mind, we notice our mind and the object at the same time, but that they have the same essence. So it also talks about in the Mahāmudrā that there is two different ways we can deal with thoughts that arise in our mind when we’re doing this meditation. The first one is that if we look at the substance of the thoughts and realise that these thoughts are the same substance as our mind, then they naturally recede And the other way is to actually apply an antidote to those thoughts and to calm them down.
So you have two different ways of dealing with thoughts that come up according to the Mahāmudrā tradition. So now we’ve found out all the things that we need to avoid and the eight mental applications that we can use in order to avoid these things, we can now move on to the actual generation of calm abiding. And this is divided into nine different levels that we need to go through in order to achieve calm abiding. So in order to be able to meditate on calm abiding, we need to experience these nine levels.
And in order to experience these nine levels, we need to know what they are. So they are in ascending order. The first one is fixing the mind, the second one is fixation with some continuity, then the third one is patchy fixation, fourth one is good fixation, the fifth one is becoming disciplined. The sixth one is called becoming pacified. The seventh one is called becoming very pacified.
The eighth one is called becoming single pointed. And the ninth one is absorption. So the first of these nine is called fixing the mind, and this actually comes about by the first of the six powers that we need in order to achieve calm abiding. And this power is actually the power of listening to the instructions of our teacher. So after listening to the instructions of our teacher and knowing what to do, we then start focusing our mind on this object.
But we don’t just focus our mind on the object and leave it there because at this stage we very quickly lose our concentration on the object. So what happens is after losing it we have to place concentration on the object again and again and again. And even though we keep losing it, we just have to keep trying to put our mind back on the object. So at this stage, we actually get to get an understanding of what it’s like to lose our concentration through excitement and dullness. We get an understanding of what that process is about because it’s happening so often.
And it may also seem to us that we are having more thoughts than we ever had before, because our thoughts keep coming and coming and coming. So this sensation that we’re actually having more thoughts than we used to have before isn’t actually true because we’re having the same amount of thoughts. It’s just that we can now recognise exactly how many thoughts we actually have. Because usually when we’re going here and there or doing work or doing something else, then we don’t realise how much we actually think and how many thoughts we actually have. But we’re actually sitting down and watching our mind, then we begin to realise this.
So this is kind of what we’re trying to do at the moment, is keep bringing our mind back to the object even though we can’t make our mind abide on the object for very long. This is a really good preparation for a really good preliminary practice that can lead into developing calm abiding. So if we can keep trying to do this at the moment, then this will be the most beneficial for us. Oh, good. As usual.
And we’ll leave it here if anyone has any more questions from today. How do I answer? Right. If you have questions, say yes. Just wondered whether the pleasant sensation, particularly if you have a holy object, that one experiences whether that’s a distraction.
The pleasant sensation from focusing on a holy object. The a sense of yeah. Yeah. A sense of happiness and lightness object, you know, focusing on the object. Yeah.
And then And that that that that pleasant feeling that arises, is is that a distraction. Okay. So he said, no. When we’re actually concentrating on an object and it gives us a sense of bliss or happiness, then this can actually be beneficial to us because it can uplift us and make us want to keep meditating. So it can be beneficial and it’s actually virtuous to have that reaction to to a holy object.
When it becomes a distraction is when we move our concentration from that object onto something else. It’s something that’s pleasant outside that object Okay, so it’s not possible for excitement and dullness to be in the mind at the same time, because they’re actually separate minds and we can only have one mind at a time. But what can actually happen is that by the power or the velocity of dullness, agitation comes about. So once you’ve become dull, then you’re more susceptible to agitation. So these sorts of I was saying wanting to go to the beach and lie in the sun that’s a sense of excitement.
Even though what led into the excitement was dullness, that is still an excitement, even if its cause was dullness. So if you’re starting to fall asleep and you lapse into excitement, which is the one that you treat first? So he said, If you get tired and then the mind that goes to the ocean has come up, then the thing that you have to deal with first is the mind that wants to go to the ocean, because that’s the one that’s in your mind at that time. You have apply the antidotes to excitement, and then when you get back to the dull stage, then you apply the antidotes to the dullness. Hi.
So you have to definitely do the preparations if you’re serious about going to do this retreat seriously. But the preparations aren’t the normal preparations that we talk about in terms of preliminaries. Said they’re not practising, are they? He said, Yes, they’re practising and creating merit. But what what we’re talking about is not reciting mantras or things like that, which are other normal preliminary practices.
This is making sure that you’re going to a place where there’s no wild animals and stuff like that, and that you have food. Yeah. Yeah. You’re meditating and like you get the food for like a part. Like food has many parts not just and stuff.
Yeah. Or do you try and get it like that? Uh-huh. Like, load or something. Alright.
Okay. She said if you start by concentrating on the hand or the outline that you can see, and then if you keep concentrating on that, then the rest of the image will come into focus. And by the time that you’ve reached Calm Abiding, you’ll have a clear, vivid image of the whole picture. I see. So, like, if you get, like, just the eyes in one session, like, the next session you go and, like, continue from the eyes or something?
So if you concentrate on that bit that you have, and you try and concentrate on the clarity and the stability of that bit, then you keep trying to focus on those two things, clarity and stability. After that, naturally, rest of the image will come into focus. If you develop really good clarity and stability, then the rest of the image will come into your mind as well. Yeah, he said, no, it’s for any object. It’s not just for the Buddha.
So even if people are using the letter A or if they’re using a rock, anything that they’re using, if they get one aspect of it, and then that has clarity and stability. Then the rest of the object will come into focus. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay.
What? Is that a choice? I’m going to. You I thought you said I’m not I thought you said I’m going to cook it up here. I’m gonna go down and cook it and bring it up.
I’m go down and it and bring it because I’m gonna do it before I said, yeah. Alright. Yeah. Got a more. Yeah.
Okay. And the realty smells what I’m Yeah. Yeah. But he’s eating tonight, definitely. Yeah.
So three sets. That’ll make enough. Very good. Cool. Excellent.
Thank you. You just, like, just on the back of your nose. And then eventually Yes. In between. No.
No. You get, like, a little puff of smoke and or just a little fuzzy white patch that could just manifest itself.