Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with Tsongkhapa’s verse that even bodhicitta cannot cut saṃsāra’s root without realizing emptiness, Geshe Pema Tsering maps in this 45-minute session how renunciation, bodhicitta, and emptiness each contribute to liberation and full enlightenment. He explains emptiness as the direct antidote to grasping at inherent existence, steers between the extremes of absolute existence and nihilism, and identifies rejoicing in others’ virtue and generating bodhicitta intention as merit-building practices that clear the ignorance blocking insight. The session then tracks mental states two through seven of calm abiding in sequence: from holding the object for roughly one mala of Om Mani Padme Hum at stage two, through the peak of memory at stage four and the peak of self-watcher at stages five and six, to stage seven where subtle dullness and excitement can no longer break concentration but still require perseverance to fully abandon. Intended for practitioners actively working through the nine stages.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13 CAR 2002 10 08.mp3
UUID: d8e323a1-4cd0-4758-b0d0-a8e271c95b84
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Calm Abiding Retreat (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-10-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.9 minutes
Words: ~3,041
So Geshe-la gave us a quote from Tsongkhapa again, Lama Tsongkhapa, Even though you experience renunciation and cultivate bodhicitta, without the wisdom from realising emptiness, cannot cut off saṃsāra at the root, so you should strive to understand relativity. So when talk relativity, what they’re actually talking about is trying to understand emptiness. It’s literally translated the way things are, trying to understand the way things are. So this is a synonym with understanding emptiness. Because even if we have bodhicitta, even if we have this wish to attain enlightenment, if we don’t develop this mind understanding emptiness or realise emptiness directly, then we can’t cut at the root of saṃsāra, we can’t cut at the root of our clinging.
Understanding emptiness is in direct opposition to grasping at true existence, and it’s this grasping at true existence that causes us to be in saṃsāra. So in order to use the direct antidote to grasping at true existence, then we have to understand emptiness. So unless we have an understanding of emptiness, we can’t achieve either liberation or the final enlightenment. With an understanding of emptiness, we can achieve both of these. But without it, we can’t achieve either.
If we have bodhicitta, then we can we can achieve the final enlightenment. Without bodhicitta, we can’t achieve the final enlightenment, but we can achieve nirvana. So and if we have renunciation, renunciation can lead us to achieving both nirvana and the final enlightenment. So therefore, if we have all three, we can achieve both liberation and the final enlightenment. And but because sorry.
But because in order to achieve both of those, because we can’t achieve either of these without a mind realizing emptiness, then we really have to cultivate this mind of a mind that realizes emptiness. We need to have all three of these if we want to achieve things. But the way we usually go go about generating these three is, first of all, to generate renunciation, and then we need to generate bodhicitta mind, and then we try and realize emptiness. But in fact, in order to achieve liberation, we only need to realize emptiness and have renunciation even though we don’t usually generate this first. Because if we generate bodhicitta first, then that puts us on the higher half.
So, in order to reach the final destination, the final goal, we actually need to achieve bodhicitta. We need to generate bodhicitta. But in order to reach the final goal, we need to realised emptiness before we get to the final goal. So this realisation of emptiness is understanding that things don’t possess the extreme of existence. Things don’t exist, which is actually called an extreme view.
So we have to realise that. And then once we’ve realised that, in combination with bodhicitta, we can go on to achieve the final goal, which is enlightenment. So in order for us to achieve emptiness, we need to do a lot of analytical meditation. We need to again and again use analysis to look at the way things are and try and come to the understanding that they don’t exist the way we think they do, and repeatedly put our mind to this. And then once we’ve done this, then the understanding of emptiness arises.
So even though we may not be able to have a direct understanding of emptiness now by using many of the different methods that are employed in analytical meditation, for example, the ones that say there are no external objects or that the external objects exist in a different way, we go through all these different types of meditations and teachings. By applying these different types of meditations and teachings, even though we may not get a direct realisation of emptiness immediately, we familiarise ourselves with it enough that in the end this understanding of emptiness arises. So we have to understand that there are two extremes. There is the extreme of thinking that things exist, and there is the extreme of thinking that things don’t exist. So in order to get rid of the first extreme of thinking that things exist, we have to try and meditate on ourselves and try and find self, and that’s very difficult to find.
And to get rid of the extreme that things don’t exist, we can just look and there’s things there. So we can’t say that things don’t exist because we can see them. Therefore, have to try and not fall into these two extremes of thought. So if we understand that things exist, they just don’t exist in the way that we think they do, the way that they seem to exist. So but we have to make sure that we realize that they do exist, and we have to make sure that we realize that they don’t exist inherently.
And if we get both of these in our head, then we get somewhat of an understanding of what emptiness is. So it may be very it’s very difficult to get an understanding of emptiness. To achieve an insight into emptiness, it’s very difficult. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of analytical meditation, a lot of merit, a lot of all these different conditions in order for us to achieve this. But we can get an understanding through our analytical meditations of what it may be like.
And if we can get an understanding of what it may be like, then we’ve got something to focus on. So in order to generate merit, can help us to understand emptiness, we should try and do two practices. The first practice is to rejoice in the merits of all beings, that includes ourselves and other and Buddhas and bodhisattvas and everything good that someone does. We should rejoice in that, we should think positively of it and feel happy that they have done it. The other one is to try and get in our mind the thought that we should become enlightened for the sake of all sentient beings, or the bodhicitta mind.
So if we can get these two thoughts in our mind, then we are generating huge amounts of merit, and this can help us to get rid of enough ignorance, to have an understanding of emptiness, because it’s the ignorance that’s obscuring our minds from an understanding of emptiness. So if we take as an objective meditation all these good things that all the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas and the foe destroyers, the arhats and even sentient beings, all the good things that people do, if we take this as with the Buddha’s virtues, in the same way that they have done these practices and they have achieved these things and they are doing everything for the benefit of all beings, may I quickly attain enlightenment? This becomes a powerful force of meditation, and by doing this meditation we get more merit, which can help us become a Buddha quicker. So it works in a circle in this way, it keeps giving us merit to keep going. So using these collections of merit of all of these people as a thing to rely on, as a focus for our meditation, and there if we think, in the same way as they have done this, may I attain Buddhahood, and if we are focusing on this and thinking how good it is and rejoicing in this, then that becomes and then at the same time thinking, may I achieve Buddhahood very, very quickly, then this becomes a very powerful force for us to actually achieve this Buddhahood.
Sorry. I made a mistake. It wasn’t in general that we should meditate on this. It isn’t in general that we should meditate on right now that we should meditate on this. So we are up to the second mind fixing, which is called fixation with some continuity.
And in this case, we can fix our mind on an object and we can actually keep it on that object for a little bit. In the first instance, in the first mental state, we could only keep our mind on the object for a few moments and then it quickly be distracted. In this case we can actually fix our mind on the object for a little while. And it says that this little while that they’re talking about is about the time that it takes to do one mala of the Om Mani Padme Hum mantra. But it says that we should remember that Tibetans do that really fast.
So at this stage also, sometimes our thoughts can be peaceful and not annoy us, sometimes our thoughts can come up and disturb our meditations. But what we actually get an insight into at this stage of meditation practice is what it feels like to have your thoughts take a rest. We get an experience of how it is not to have thoughts going through your head all the time. At this time, we also develop the power of reflection. So at this stage, we actually spending more time being distracted from the first and second mental settings.
We are actually spending more time being distracted from the object than we are being able to concentrate on the object. Therefore we have to apply a mental process which is called forced fixation or painstaking attention to continually bring our thoughts back to the object. Hopefully at this stage then being able to place our time being placed on the object will grow longer and longer. Okay. So then we move on to the mental state, which is called patch like setting or patchy fixation.
This likens to the patches on our clothes, that are in bigger spots. What actually happens here is that we can actually make our mind fix on the object for a longer time and when it loses the object we can instantly see that it’s been lost and put our mind back on the object instantly. So at this stage the time we spend actually focusing on the object becomes longer than the time that we’re not focusing on the object, whereas in the previous two it was longer that we weren’t focusing on the object. And at this stage also we developed the power of memory. Okay, so the next stage we go on to is the fourth stage, which is called closed setting or good fixation.
And what’s happening in this stage is that we’ve developed our memories to such an extent that it becomes impossible for us to lose concentration on the object. In the previous two, mind kept flicking off the object and becoming distracted. In this situation, our memory is so strong that it doesn’t actually lose the object at all. But what happens that we have to concentrate on now is that subtle dullness and agitation or excitement can come pretty powerfully, so we have to keep focusing on those and apply the antidotes to those. Okay, so when these two pitfalls of agitation or excitement and dullness come along, we have to remember to rely on their antidotes, which was self watcher and memory, to try and get rid of those and concentrate completely on the object.
So at this stage, in the fourth mental placement or the fourth mental state, our mind develops the power of memory to its peak. It becomes like a person in their prime. So when we have this really strong memory there is no way for us to lose focus on the object and we can concentrate really well on the object. It doesn’t improve from there on in terms of our memory. Our memory has reached its peak and continues to stay at its peak into the further or the higher mental state.
So the next state is the fifth state, which is called controlled setting. And it actually has, in the Tibetan word, the word for discipline. So it’s got this idea of being able to discipline your mind. It says that when we’re in the fourth state, because our mind was concentrating so much, we actually end up with a knot in our mind. And because of this knot in our mind, is a really good chance that subtle dullness will come along.
A great danger of this. But that is opposed by the fact that in this state, in the fifth state, also develop the power of self knowledge, like the watcher becomes very strong. So even though there is this danger of subtle dullness, because we can see it immediately, then we should be able to control it. We also at this stage experience the thought that what we are actually doing is single pointed concentration. And once we have this thought and think of the qualities of single point of concentration, our mind becomes buoyed, we get a happy feeling, which helps us to persevere.
The difference between this state, which is the fifth state, and the previous two, that is the third and the fourth, is that in the third and the fourth state there was a danger that the grosser forms of dullness and agitation or dullness and excitement could come along. And in this state there is no chance that these forms of these two may come along. And so the next state, which is the sixth state, which is called pacification or becoming pacified. We said our mind was buoyed in the fifth state, we got a good feeling because we were thinking about the qualities of single pointed concentration. What can actually happen in the sixth state is that we get a bit too excited and we suffer from subtle excitement.
There is a big danger of suffering from subtle excitement because we’re a bit excited about what we’re doing. So we have to our self watcher even more at this stage. What also actually happens is once we have seen the faults of what subtle excitement can do to our meditation, then we realise the need to stop them immediately. So these two things happen in this state. And how we tell the difference between this sixth state and the fifth state is that in the fifth state there was a danger that subtle dullness may come along, but in the sixth state there is no danger that subtle dullness may come along.
And then also the thing we have to remember about the sixth state pacification and the fifth state controlled setting or discipline is that both of these are where we develop the power of self watcher to its greatest capacity. So because we have developed the power of the self watcher to its greatest capacity in the fifth and sixth sixth states, and before that, because we developed the power of memory to its greatest capacity. When we move on to the next state, which is the seventh state, which is called becoming very pacified, is very little chance. It’s very difficult for even the subtle forms of excitement or dullness to come into our concentration at this stage. It’s difficult for them to happen, it’s still possible.
And so, because we’ve developed in the previous stages these powers of the self watcher and memory to their greatest capacity. When we move on to the seventh state, this one becoming very pacified, we don’t actually have to rely on them as much. What we have to rely on now is our power of perseverance. It’s the same word that sometimes gets translated as enthusiastic effort. So we have to rely on this power of perseverance because once we have this power of perseverance, we can see the faults of both dullness and agitation, even in their subtlest form, and we get the idea that we have to get rid of them and we’ll do whatever we can to get rid of them.
And this thought that we’ll do whatever we can to get rid of them is what they mean by the power of perseverance. Okay. So at this stage, is not really a danger that this subtle excitement or dullness will come into our mind stream, but we have to work, still put in a bit of effort to completely get rid of them all, to abandon them all, so that not only is there no danger that they’ll come, but they will cease to exist in our meditations. So we have to get up to this stage, and this is still when we’re on the seventh mental setting. So what’s happening here is that although dullness and excitement can still come into our mental continuum, they can’t actually cut our concentration.
So we have to get rid of completely abandoning them. But At this stage they’ve lost a lot of their power because we have developed this power so that they can’t actually cut our concentration, but they can still come along. So we have to work here to completely abandon them. Whereas in the previous mental settings they could actually cut into our concentration, here they can’t, but they’re still there. So we have to make efforts to get rid of them.
Okay. So from the third mental setting up to this mental setting, which is the seventh, the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, in all of those mental settings we should be applying the mental process of repeated attention or interrupted attention. Because even though we may have some concentration and some single point of concentration, there is still the danger that we can lose this single point of concentration. So we have to keep repeating our attention, placing our attention back on the object, even though it gets cut. So that the mental process that goes all the way from the third mental setting up until this one.