Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute session, Geshe Sonam Rinchen concludes his teaching on the six perfections by focusing on concentration and wisdom, the fifth and sixth perfections. He explains that calm abiding and insight meditation become Buddhist practices when linked with taking refuge and the aspiration for liberation. The core of the talk addresses the practical prerequisites and conditions needed to develop calm abiding: a quiet physical environment free of distraction, a mind free of excessive desire, contentment with what you have, and pure ethical conduct. He walks through the mental obstacles and antidotes—laziness countered by developing interest in the benefits of concentration, which generates perseverance and eventually pliancy. Geshe Rinchen details how to choose a meditation object suited to your temperament by observing which emotions arise most readily, then covers the mechanics of calm abiding practice itself: using mindfulness to hold the object without forgetting it, and introspection to detect the two main obstacles, laxity and agitation, with specific remedies for each. The teaching is grounded in lived advice rather than abstract theory, pitched at practitioners seeking practical instruction.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 6PQ.mp3
UUID: d5630b36-5aee-4aa5-9efe-53b96eb413db
Teacher: Geshe Sonam Rinchen
Collection: The Six Perfect Qualities (Geshe Sonam Rinchen)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.4 minutes
Words: ~3,651
So then also, there’s joyous effort which includes all wholesome actions and joyous effort which works for the benefit of others. So we have three kinds of joyous effort here. The armor like and then joyous effort which is involved in wholesome activities which includes all wholesome activities and that is anything like trying to purify one’s negative imprints of negative actions and restraining from unwholesome unwholesome conduct, from unwholesome ways of behaving and any kind of activity which is designed to create positive energy and so on. So there are many different kinds of wholesome activities like this. Then there’s the joyous effort which works for others benefit, and that means engaging in the four ways of ripening or maturing others with delight.
So delighting in implementing these four ways of maturing others, and that is to give what is needed, to practice generosity. That’s the first one. And then to speak in a way which is interesting and appealing to others, and then to explain the teachings, in other words to give spiritual instruction, and then to live accordingly. So you have to live out what practice what you preach. So these different ways of practicing joyous perseverance are very important, and we need to cultivate some more of this.
Now we’re left with two perfections. The first is concentration and the second is wisdom. So the fifth and sixth perfections. So both calm abiding and certain forms of wisdom. So calm abiding which belongs to concentration, to the practice of concentration.
And insight which belongs to wisdom which is connected with wisdom. Both of these are common to both Buddhists and non Buddhists, the practice of these. Associated with taking refuge, when the practice of calm abiding and insight meditation are associated with the taking of refuge, then they become Buddhist practices. And if they’re associated with a sincere and spontaneous, a sincere wish, a sincere and continuous wish to get free from cyclic existence, then they become causes for attaining liberation. We will talk about concentration a little.
Of all, we we are going to talk about the achievement of calm abiding, which belongs to concentration. I mean it’s one aspect of concentration. And in order to be able to develop calm abiding, one needs certain prerequisites. One of the main things is that one needs to have food and clothing. Yeah.
One needs to be able to get these So you need to have food and clothing available, and you need to be in a healthy place, in a place where you’re not going to get sick. And you need to be in a good or wholesome location where there aren’t any bandits or wild animals that are going to attack you. And it should be a place which is not busy and where there’s not a lot going on around you. So if you make an attempt to develop calm abiding in a place like that, your chances of success are better. So now that’s your actual physical environment and then now your mental state.
So you need to be yeah. So you need to have few desires. In other words, if you want very good clothes and food and lots of good clothes and food, then that’s not a suitable state of mind for developing calm abiding. And along with few desires, you need a sense of contentment. You need to be content with what you have, to feel that what you’ve got will do.
And you need good ethics, so you need to abide by some form of moral conduct like restraint from the ten unwholesome actions that we described before. At least that and maybe other kinds of ethical behavior as well. If you are keeping pure ethics, then you won’t have any sense of regret, your mind won’t be disturbed by regret or guilt. If you are free from regret and guilt, it gives you a sense of serenity which is perfect for developing calm abiding. So in short, your body, physically, you should be away from hustle and bustle.
And the mind should be free of the hustle and bustle of many thoughts. With those conditions, you set about trying to achieve calm abiding. So the main thing, you begin So the main thing which acts as an obstacle before one actually begins is laziness. So the things which counteract that Now that kind of laziness which prevents you actually from getting on with it. The things which help you to overcome that are mindfulness hang on.
I wrote these down because I knew I wouldn’t remember them. Faith or interest? Interest, aspiration, exertion and pliancy are the four things which help you to overcome that laziness. So the best antidote to laziness is the feeling of pliancy or workability, serviceability of body and mind that you experience as a result of calm abiding. So that feeling is a very good feeling and that overcomes any laziness about engaging in calm abiding practice.
So that actually is the best antidote of all to the laziness. But in order to achieve that, because I mean that only is going to come later, but it’s the best antidote to the reluctance to engage in calm abiding because it’s such a good feeling. So once you have that then you are no longer reluctant to engage in calm abiding practice. But in order to experience that feeling of total serviceability, physical and mental serviceability or workability, pliancy. One first needs to have perseverance.
One needs perseverance in the practice. And in order to develop that perseverance, you first of all need a wish develop concentration. You need to have the wish to generate the wish, or the desire to develop concentration. And that wish doesn’t just come of its own accord. It needs to be created.
Mean that wish needs to be formed through an interest and through an appreciation of the qualities of achieving concentration or calm abiding. So once you understand the benefits, the good qualities, what it’s going to bring you, you know, how beneficial it is to achieve concentration, then you have a wish to achieve it. So that wish springs from seeing the good qualities, the qualities of benefits, advantages of generating concentration. So you need to develop an interest in calm abiding and concentration. You need to develop an interest in it first.
And why is it so interesting? Because with a basis of calm abiding, with a basis of that, one can develop special insight into the ultimate nature of phenomena. On the basis of that calm abiding, one can develop special insight into the ultimate nature, the final mode of existence of all phenomena. In other words, one can develop insight into reality. And then one can overcome the root of cyclic existence which is a basic misconception we have, a basic form of ignorance or a misconception we have about how things exist.
So that’s the most important reason why one would want to develop calm abiding. So that’s the strongest reason for being interested in it and for having a wish to develop it. But then also on the basis of calm abiding you can develop all sorts of magical powers, clairvoyances and abilities of that kind. And all those things like flying around, levitating and flying through the sky, and things like that come because of that tremendous pliancy, physical and mental pliancy that is achieved when calm abiding has been generated. And so that’s how it works.
First of all, you develop an interest in it by seeing the advantages of developing it and then that interest leads to a strong wish to develop it. Because it is a strong wish, then one is prepared to persevere in the development and then that perseverance leads to the pliancy, to that very blissful feeling which is complete pliancy, physical and mental pliancy. That pliancy itself is the complete antidote to any reluctance or laziness to engage in calm abiding. So now we are all interested in developing calm abiding. And the next thing is that calm abiding is developed in relation to an object, right?
So you need to have a mental object. So what do you choose as your mental object when you are trying to develop calm abiding? You have to identify clearly what your object is because that’s what your mind is going to rest on while you are developing calm abiding. Koala bear. Oh I see.
Is suggesting that maybe a koala bear would be a very pleasing object for developing calm abiding. But it might turn out a little difficult because when he moves our mind would be moving too. There are many different kinds of objects which one can choose. Yeah. So it’s important to look at yourself, to look at your own mind, because depending on what we’ve been accustomed to in the past, there are certain things that we should or shouldn’t take as our objects of meditation.
If we’ve been people who in past lives have had a habit of strong desire or attachment or hatred, anger, aggression, There are certain signs that we can see in the present. Like if we look at our own personality, we can see that certain emotions come very, very easily. Right? And the very fact that they come so easily and consistently, you know, certain emotions rather than other emotions, that these emotions predominate and come very easily and consistently can act as a sign or a pointer that we were very familiar with those emotions in past lives. So they come quite instinctively and easily and it means that we had great familiarity with those in past lives.
And so depending on what kind of person you are, what kind of disposition you have, there are objects of meditation which are suitable for you than maybe for other people. So we can tell for example if it’s a very small thing. If it’s a small attractive thing but we generate a very strong attachment to it and that attachment lasts for a long time. Know that it’s strong and it comes the attachment to it arises very easily and lasts for a long time. It’s a clear sign that in the past if we tend to behave in this way often, it’s a clear sign that in the past we were very accustomed to this emotion, that we were accustomed to attachment and that we did nothing to counteract it.
And then for example, if you are somebody who even for valuable things, even for things which are really attractive, are very attractive and valuable, if you don’t quickly generate attachment to them and if your attachment isn’t lasting, doesn’t last very long, I mean if it’s not strong and lasting and it doesn’t arise spontaneously and quickly, then that means that you were not into a whole pattern of attachment and desire in your past life or lives. It’s probable if such a really valuable object or very, very beautiful object if you do just generate a little attachment for it. If it’s not something really strong and fundamental but there is some attachment there, it probably means that weren’t that you were able to see the defects of attachment in a past life and did something to combat attachment at that point. So if one looks carefully to see how one responds to different things like both on the anger and aggression side and on the desire, lust, attachment side. If one looks to see what one’s responses are, one will be able to make an assessment of what one was into in the past.
And it’s important to meditate on things which act as a counter action to the emotion which is uppermost or strongest predominant. For example, if one finds that desire and attachment and lust are uppermost, if those are the emotions which predominate, then one can do calm abiding on the ugliness or unpleasantness of things. The aggression and anger syndrome is foremost, is predominant, then it can be done on love. So he’s just making an inquiry. So again, Rinpoche says then, If you have pride, then you should meditate on the diversity of phenomena.
Know, if you just think about how many different things there are in the world or even in your own body. Right? And how many things there are that you don’t know about, that you don’t understand. You should just meditate on the diversity of phenomena. And as an antidote to ignorance or confusion, it’s usual to choose emptiness as the subject.
And for people who have very, very busy minds, right, who are always thinking different thoughts, it seems to be non stop busyness. For people like that, it’s very useful to do meditation on the breath. So it’s But even if you can’t achieve calm abiding, thinking about them, meditating on them can be extremely useful for counteracting those particular negative states of mind. So it is possible to achieve calm abiding on these different areas, these different kinds of objects. But most of us don’t actually have time to achieve calm abiding because it is quite an intensive practice.
It demands that one set aside a quite a long chunk of time and does nothing else during that time. So for most of us that isn’t really very practical. However, if we use these different topics for our meditation they can help us. They can give us a lot of help in overcoming our negative states of mind and whatever emotions or attitudes are predominant. So when we are actually engaging in calm abiding meditation our biggest problem is forgetting our object.
So whatever it is that we have chosen as an object our tendency is to forget it. And in order to overcome that, one needs mindfulness. Mindfulness mindfulness or remembering is only developed in relation to something which one has already familiarized oneself with. So you can’t remember something which you don’t know. Right?
So it has to be something which you already have experienced or become familiar with and then you can remember it. So this remembering or mindfulness can only be developed in relation to something which you already know. Whatever it is that we choose as our object and many times people choose an image of the Buddha and something that they’ve actually been able to look at and familiarize themselves with and then they take as a mental picture. So that’s very very common to use something like that for the development of calm abiding. So whatever it is, you have to first of all familiarize yourself with it sufficiently.
So whatever object it is that you’re going to choose, if it’s something like a representation of Buddha or representation of some other deity. You need to have a good look at that representation. And then once you’ve looked at it, you know maybe repeatedly you’ll need to look at it, once you’ve familiarized yourself with it, then you have to evoke a mental image of it. And then the point is that don’t alter the image during the practice. You’re going to keep that same mental image all the time while you’re practicing calm abiding, while you’re trying to develop calm abiding.
So you need to familiarize yourself with it thoroughly first. And the object is to try and keep it in mind all the time without losing it. Object in mind without forgetting it. And you have to make an effort not to let the mind go to any other object. You mustn’t think about anything else.
You must just concentrate on that and keep it there without forgetting it. So that’s what’s meant by not forgetting it. So memory here or mindfulness is allowing a familiar image to arise in the mind and then holding the mind on it without forgetting it and not allowing the mind to run to anything else. So that’s what’s meant by mindfulness. And then you need introspection.
You need introspection which allows you to see what’s going on. You need to watch while you are holding the mind on the object without forgetting it. You need to watch to see what’s going on. You know what’s happening. So this introspection is a counter action to two things which can occur when you are doing calm abiding meditation.
The two states can occur: excitement and laxity. A sort of looseness or laxity. It’s kind of sluggishness. So both of those need to be counteracted. But first of all they need to be spotted and it’s the introspection or the watchfulness that spots these.
So what is one trying to attain in concentration or calm abiding? One’s trying to achieve the ability to keep the mind set on one particular thing, to keep the mind set or placed on one particular thing without wavering, and at the same time one is trying to achieve clarity. So it’s a combination of steady placement and clarity. And the thing which damages, which is detrimental to clarity, to the achievement of clarity is laxity or sluggishness, looseness. And the thing which prevents steady placement of the mind is excitement.
This is why excitement and laxity are the main obstacles to achieving concentration. And the two factors which facilitate the achievement of concentration are mindfulness and introspection or watchfulness. We should know about this because it’s very important. So what’s happening is that the mind is placed on the object and it’s that mindfulness which holds mind, the consciousness, which holds attention on the object. It is the mindfulness which holds the attention on the object without letting forgetfulness creep in and then the introspection watches to see whether that mindfulness is at the right intensity or whether it’s decreasing.
And the watchfulness or introspection is looking to see whether things are going right. And if there is something going wrong, it has to see, it has to look to see what’s going wrong. It has to identify what’s going wrong and then it’s necessary to take immediate action. If one doesn’t make any effort to correct whatever is going wrong immediately, that is a fault. To correct that fault of not applying the proper antidote, one needs to apply the proper antidote.
So one needs the intention, the intention which makes one apply the antidote. One needs the intention to apply the antidote, which is just like a magnet which can move iron. So a strong magnet, can make a piece of iron move and in the same way you need the intention which is going to make you apply the antidote to whatever fault has crept in. So we need the intention to apply the appropriate antidote and if the fault which has occurred is laxity, if there is looseness in relation to our object of meditation, then we need to tighten our concentration. We need to tighten our concentration, make it more intense.
Yeah. And if you find that even then you are not achieving clarity, right? Because when laxity or looseness has occurred then the clarity has diminished. So first of all you notice that you are not getting your object clearly and then your watchfulness helps you to understand that the reason why you haven’t got clarity is because there is laxity present. And then you try to apply the antidote to that by tightening your concentration, by making your concentration more intense.
And if you still fail to achieve clarity at that point, you don’t necessarily need get up from your meditation. You don’t need to get up and end your meditation there. But what you can do is let go of your object for a moment. You think of something else for a moment. Something which is going to brighten up your mind a bit.
So you can think about the advantages of doing concentration meditation or know the preciousness of human life or something to cheer yourself up a little bit to make your mind feel brighter. And then when you’re feeling less sluggish then you return to your object of meditation. You evoke the image of your object again and concentrate the mind on it. And if things are going really badly and you still feel this sort of sluggishness and you are still not achieving clarity, then you have to actually end your meditation session and go outside and take a little walk and just try to clear your mind. And when you find that your mind is excited, when your mind is excited or agitated which is the other fault that can occur, then you need to relax your concentration on the object a little.
So if you aren’t effective when you loosen the intensity of your concentration, if that isn’t an effective way of overcoming the agitation that you are feeling, then you need to think of things that are going to bring you down a little bit like thinking about impermanence, thinking about the nature of cyclic existence with all its problems and suffering and so on. Something which is going to bring you down a little bit. And the same thing applies as soon as you feel less agitated then you evoke your object of meditation again and begin to concentrate on it again. And if you still haven’t been successful in overcoming agitation then you end the meditation session and you know do something else. So if we are able to achieve a state where the mind is not influenced by either agitation or laxity where the mind is not influenced by sluggishness or by agitation, then if you keep applying antidotes, that too is an error.
So not applying antidotes when they are needed is an error and applying them when they are not needed is also an error.