Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute teaching, Geshe Sonam Rinchen continues his detailed commentary on the Perfection of Concentration by recapping the five obstacles to calm abiding, their antidotes, and the nine progressive stages of meditative stability. He explains how mindfulness and introspection combat mental laxity and agitation, describes the six powers that support deepening concentration, and outlines the four types of mental engagement—from initial hearing-based practice through to spontaneous, effortless focus. When practitioners reach the ninth stage and cultivate pliancy, genuine calm abiding arises, conferring a powerful, serviceable mind. Geshe-la then pivots to the Perfection of Wisdom, establishing why understanding emptiness through analysis is essential: misconceptions about how the self and phenomena inherently exist perpetuate cyclic existence, and he introduces the foundational approach of identifying the false appearance of the self before attempting to refute it.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 6PQ.mp3
UUID: 78b8b2dc-0cab-4200-8f4c-9cbc9cee657c
Teacher: Geshe Sonam Rinchen
Collection: The Six Perfect Qualities (Geshe Sonam Rinchen)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.0 minutes
Words: ~4,005
Not applying antidotes when they are needed and applying antidotes when they are not needed. These are both mistakes. When the mind is stable and not affected by sluggishness or agitation, we just need to relax and not apply any antidotes at that point. We went through five faults that can occur. In other words forgetting.
Again, Geshe-la says he’ll go through them again just briefly. Five faults that can occur and eight counteractions to these five faults. These are actually the means for achieving calm abiding, concentration meditation. These are useful for us also where we are now in our meditation even though we are not making an all out effort to achieve calm abiding. Although it’s not possible in our situation to achieve calm abiding quickly, we can apply these different methods, these different techniques.
We can watch and see what the faults are and apply the antidotes. These instructions can be useful to us also at our present stage. Stop now. Maybe it would be good to be able to answer some questions, it seems like our time is up for now. We were talking about how to achieve calm abiding, how to achieve single pointed concentration and the main obstacle to achieving that are these two states of mind: agitation and laxity or sluggishness.
And then the main things, the main factors which enable us to combat those are mindfulness and introspection or watchfulness. There are five things which prevent us from attaining calm abiding. So just to recap those again, when we are about to engage in it, there’s laziness And there were four antidotes to that. So there were four antidotes to combat the the laziness which makes you reluctant to engage in the pursuit of calm abiding. And those four antidotes were interest, and then the wish to achieve joyous effort or perseverance in trying to achieve it, and finally, and the pliancy, the physical and mental well-being that comes from achieving it.
And the second obstacle, the second of those five obstacles to achieving calm abiding is losing the object of concentration. In other words, forgetting it. And the thing which combats that is mindfulness. And while you’re actually holding your object, while you’ve got your mind set on the object, the two problems that can arise at that point are this excitement or agitation and laxity or sluggishness. And the thing that combats that is the watchfulness or introspection.
And then non application of antidotes when agitation or laxity or sluggishness are present is the next fault. Necessary at that time. And then the fifth fault is applying antidotes when there is no need to do so. So to stay in a state of equanimity at that time, in other words, not applying any antidote, refraining from applying an antidote at that time is the way you overcome that fault. There are nine stages of concentration as you get better and better as you improve.
So there are nine stages as it were which can easily be identified. So these nine stages can be identified by somebody who is actually involved in the practice and as he gets better he is able to keep the mind placed on the object for longer and longer periods. The first stage is called setting the mind, and then continuous setting, and then repeated setting, and close setting, and disciplining, pacifying, thoroughly pacifying, making one pointed, and setting in equipoise. So these are just names, right, of the nine stages, but they describe the practitioner’s ability as he improves. And there are six powers or capacities which are connected, which are related to these nine stages of concentration.
These ever enhancing stages of concentration. And they are hearing, thinking, mindfulness, introspection, effort, and familiarity. There are four types of mental engagement or application. If there is anybody who comes here regularly and who hasn’t got them down and they are interested to have them, then we can always make a little list and put them up somewhere. Alright?
So you can find it afterwards. So there are four types of mental application or engagement. There’s just engaging and then interruptedly engaging, uninterruptedly engaging, and spontaneously engaging. So you can see it’s getting better and better. So first of all, as a result of hearing instructions on how to do it, one is able to engage the mind with the object of meditation.
So that’s how one initially starts. By hearing instructions on how to do it, you are able to engage the mind with the object of meditation. And then by thinking about it continuously, then one gains the ability to maintain concentration on the object for longer periods of time. So these are all related to each other. If one really wants to try to cultivate calm abiding, one needs to find out about all these things because they act as one’s guide on how to do the practice.
When we are talking about the six powers, you know the third power was mindfulness. So during the first two types of mental engagement, when you’re engaging the mind with the object and interruptedly engaging the mind with the object, so what’s happening there is you need to apply a great deal of mindfulness in order to make the mind remain on the object at all because one’s mind is constantly trying to dart away as it were. If you are able to go through all these different stages and develop your ability to concentrate in this way, you eventually reach the ninth stage, which is an effortless concentration. In other words, you are able to keep the mind fixed on the object of meditation without making any effort. You don’t need to make any kind of coarse effort to keep the mind there.
It just stays there. You put it there and you have the ability to just keep it there without making any kind of coarse effort. But this is still a state which is related to the desire realm. And so it does not constitute real calm abiding. It’s state of concentration but you haven’t actually achieved calm abiding at that point.
And when you reach that ninth stage and you continue practicing, right, you’ve achieved this ability to engage with the object completely spontaneously without any course effort. You don’t need to push at it. When you’ve reach that stage and then keep doing the practice and familiarizing yourself with what that feels like, you eventually achieve a state of physical and mental pliancy and that is an extremely pleasant state. It’s a pliancy state because you feel very, very easy and light. And The achievement then of calm abiding occurs and that you have achieved mental state of the upper realms.
There are three realms: the desire realm, the form realm and the formless realm. Achieved a mental state which is that of the form realm and it’s no longer a desire, a desire realm state of mind which is much coarser. This is an extremely useful ability to have acquired because you can set your mind on any positive focus and remain with it for as long as you want without any effort being involved. And then when you want to shift to something else, you can shift to something else and it’s easy. It’s easy to do so and again it’s easy to keep your mind there.
So this is extremely pleasant and enjoyable because your mind is has become very serviceable. Since your mind has become so serviceable, it is now a very powerful tool. And if you apply it to developing a strong desire to get out of cyclic existence, if you apply it to trying to cultivate the altruistic attitude or to searching for the correct view for an understanding of reality, It has become a very serviceable, sharp tool for you to work with. Yeah. So and there are all sorts of powers that you can acquire, worldly powers that you can acquire on the basis of such concentration, such ability to concentrate.
But that’s not our main interest. It’s said that if you have all the right conditions, if all the conditions are favorable and you really apply yourself energetically, it’s possible to achieve this state of calm abiding in six months. Yeah. Yeah. A friend of Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey called Jampa Wangdu who was a great meditator in Dharamsala and who’s died in the meantime, he remembers some western person who said to him, Oh, I don’t think it will take me six months.
So we know actually we know who it is. And he’s a very intelligent person. I mean, there’s no doubt about that. He was intelligent. But then after that, he left for America.
So whether we’re not sure whether he did or didn’t achieve Shine, calm abiding. But anyway, he did leave for America. So now if one is able to develop that, as Geshe-la said, we have a very powerful tool to work with and the main direction that we need to take then is to apply this concentration to emptiness. So that in relation to the understanding of emptiness, you have calm abiding which takes that emptiness as its object and you have penetrative insight meditation which takes emptiness as its object. So there are two things.
You have concentration meditation taking emptiness as its object and penetrative insight which is a kind of analytical meditation taking emptiness as its object. So we haven’t got time really to talk anymore about the development of concentration. So we have to make do with that and say that we finished with the perfection of concentration and are now going on to the perfection of wisdom. Yeah. So when we talk about the about view, which is often equated with wisdom.
With wisdom, the expression view is often used in Buddhism, right view. So you can have correct conventional view or worldly right view, and then you can have transworldly or super mundane right view. So we can make this this distinction. So when we’re talking about wisdom, right, we can make a basic division into worldly wisdom and transworldly wisdom or super mundane wisdom. And when we talk about worldly correct view or correct conventional, correct conventional view, what we’re talking about is an understanding of the law of causation and things like that, right?
The understanding that cause and effect actually have a relationship, certainty with respect to that. And when we talk about transworldly or supramundane correct view, then we’re talking about understanding of emptiness or understanding of the ultimate mode of existence of all phenomena. So when we talk about special insight, it doesn’t always mean an understanding of emptiness. It’s not necessarily an understanding of emptiness and an understanding of emptiness doesn’t necessarily have to be special insight. So in order to develop special insight into emptiness, you need calm abiding, taking emptiness as its object.
And in order to be able to develop calm abiding, taking emptiness as the object, one has to understand what emptiness is. And we have to look for wisdom. We have to try and cultivate the wisdom which understands the actual mode of existence of the person and of other phenomena. If we fail to identify the actual way that we ourselves and all other phenomena exist, if we fail to identify this, and even if we have cultivated a sincere wish to get out of cyclic existence, even if we have developed the altruistic attitude that wishes to seek enlightenment for for others benefit for the sake of others. We won’t be able to free ourselves.
We won’t be able to free ourselves from cyclic existence because we’ll not be in a position to cut the root of that which holds us within cyclic existence. In other words, our misconception about how things exist, which we call the conception of the self. And it’s impossible for clairvoyant powers and so on and all kinds of worldly wisdoms to cut through the root of that misconception. So it’s essential for us to come to an understanding of how things actually exist. The root of cyclic existence, the root of the state that we find ourselves in is ignorance.
And that ignorance is a very special kind of ignorance in this context. It’s a misconception regarding how we exist. Idea that the person exists inherently or intrinsically in and of itself. So that the person exists in this intrinsic way. And unless one is able to to gain an understanding that the person doesn’t exist in this way, one can’t combat one can’t combat this misconception.
So how does it work? The state that we find ourselves in is one beset by problems and suffering and difficulties. And when we look where these difficulties come from, when we look beyond their immediate causes and conditions, when we look beyond that we find that these difficulties and problems come from negative actions which we have performed in the past. And those negative actions have sprung from negative emotions and attitudes. So these negative actions have been caused by negative emotions and attitudes.
And those negative emotions and attitudes root in a basic misconception. Conception. So what’s happening is that there’s basic confusion. And the ignorance that we’re talking about is a misconception about how things exist. In fact, it’s just the opposite.
This conception that we have, this wrong conception that we have, apprehends just the opposite of the way things are. And the only way that you can overcome this misconception, this misconception about how we ourselves and how everything around us exists, the only way to overcome that is by familiarizing oneself with its opposite. So when we’re trying to train ourselves to generate an insight into how things actually exist, we begin by examining the person and train ourselves to see the person as it really is, as one really is, and then one looks at other phenomena apart from the person. So it’s usual usual for us to begin by looking at four points. Looking at four points with respect to establishing the non inherent existence of the person.
So the first is to establish what it is that you’re trying to negate. Establishing the object of negation. In other words, you have to find out what it is you’re trying to disprove the existence of. So it’s very important for us not to over negate, for us to establish properly what it is we are trying to negate. And there is a self that appears to us which doesn’t exist at all, which doesn’t actually exist at all, but which we think exists.
And it’s this self, the way that self appears to us, that we are trying to disprove the existence of. So just imagine now that somebody is praising you very highly, or somebody is criticizing you very strongly, or somebody’s just done something extremely nice for you, or somebody’s just done something very nasty to you. So just think of that kind of situation. So we have an ongoing conception of the self, conception of I. But at that kind of moment, at that kind of time, the I rears up in a very solid way.
It appears in a very very solid way at that time. At such a time, we don’t at all think of the self or the I as something which is attributed to a basis of designation, which is attributed to a basis of designation by mind which is like labeled on to a certain basis of designation. But we see the I, the self, as something very solid, something intrinsically existent. We have to see how it appears at such a moment when it seems to exist very solidly in and of itself. Right?
It doesn’t seem to exist at all as something attributed to a basis of designation. But it seems to exist as something intrinsic, something that exists in and of itself. So there is a completely valid self because we know there is and we function and other people can relate to us. There is no doubt that there is a self. But the question is, is there such a self?
Is there a self of the kind that appears to us at such a moment? And what we have to do, we have to allow that kind of self to appear to our minds quite clearly first before we even try to look and see whether it does or does not exist. We have to identify what it is that we’re going to look for. What it is we’re going to see whether or not it exists. And so we have to look for opportunities.
We have to look for opportunities to identify that very solid appearance. So this self, the way it appears at such a moment, do you understand what I’m talking about? Geshe-la says. And do you think that it exists or do you think it doesn’t doesn’t exist? So it’s really important for us not to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Right? Not to refute the valid self along with this very solid looking self that appears at such moments. And so it’s really important to identify the self as it appears at such a time. So unfortunately, we can’t spend too much time talking about it, but this is the most essential part of the whole process of trying to understand how things actually exist. We first of all have to see how they normally appear to us because there’s something wrong with how they normally appear to us.
In the olden days in Tibet when people had plenty of time, the Lama would explain about the object of refutation and then he’d make everybody go away and try to identify, try to find out what he had been talking about. So from their own experience. So it would take some time and they’d try to think about what it really was that he was referring to. So we know that there is a self. Are aware of that.
There is no doubt that the self exists. But actually, it exists in a certain way. It exists as an attribution to a basis of designation. In other words, you have the body mind combination, which can also be called the five aggregates, but it boils down to body and mind. And you have this body mind combination, and the self is something labeled onto that.
It’s an attribution to that combination of body and mind. And if we’re content with the self in those terms, we can establish somebody who walks about, who creates actions, who experiences results, who eats their supper and so on. But the wrong conception of this self, this conception which we have all the time, which is all the time at work even at a subliminal level. So it’s all the time at work sees the I not in that way, sees the self not in that way but as something intrinsically existent, as something existent in and of itself. So this wrong conception grasps or clings to the self as being solidly existent, as being intrinsically or inherently existent.
I mean actually it doesn’t exist at all, and you can disprove its existence, but nevertheless, it appears to us. It appears to exist. So the point is that we have to convince convince ourselves of its non existence. It’s not that it first exists and then we prove it non existent. It never has existed.
It doesn’t exist at all but it seems to exist in this way to us and so we have to convince ourselves of its non existence. Identify what it is that we’re trying to prove non existent, if we fail to identify that it’s like shooting an arrow in the dark and without setting the target there properly. So if we say that the self doesn’t exist and these are the reasons why it doesn’t exist and if you don’t know what it is that what kind of self it is that you’re trying to refute, what kind of self you’re trying to refute then the whole point of the exercise is lost. And it’s not enough just to keep on repeating to yourself it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist. It’s, I mean even that that is quite a positive exercise in some ways because our clinging to the idea we have of the self is so strong that even that can act as a small agent to weaken that tight hold we have.
The first thing we have to do is to imagine that if it existed, how it would have to be. So we first think if it existed, how would it be? And then when we establish non existence, its non existence, then we are actually getting somewhere. But we have to establish it to ourselves. We have to convince ourselves of its absence.
So the first thing that you do, the first of these four points when you’re trying to penetrate to an understanding of reality with respect to the person is establishing what it is you’re refuting, what it is you’re proving doesn’t exist. And the second thing that you have to establish is that it could exist only in one of two ways. That there are only two possibilities. There are only two possibilities. So you have to do quite a bit of reading first.
You have to read about what the object of negation is, right? And try to get a thorough intellectual understanding of what is being said. And then after that, you have to look and see how that tallies with your own experience. So you look to see at what times the self appears in the way that it has been described. Because we’re not always conscious of the self in that strong way, right?
I mean, we always think of the self, but it doesn’t appear so clearly all the time. So appears. We have to take our opportunity when it does appear clearly and try and identify the feeling that one has connected with that appearance. So in the texts which describe the self that one is trying to prove non existent. It always often uses words like true existent or inherently existent and so on.
But actually we’ve used different words now because we’ve talked about something existing in and of itself or seem to exist very solidly or rearing up. We’ve talked it in terms like that. And what you have to do is search your own experience to see whether the self does appear to you in this way at times. Whether it does very clearly appear in this way at times. And then you’ll be able to identify what is meant by the object of refutation.
So that’s how you begin. Actually, for the main part, everything appears to us in the wrong way. Right? Almost everything. We never actually see things the way they are.
Everything appears in this intrinsically existent, solid way to us. There’s hardly ever a moment when we’re actually don’t see things as attributed by name and concept. We don’t see things as attributed by name and concept to within their basis of designation. Existing from their own side. There isn’t any other object of negation.
It’s the way things normally appear to us which is the object of negation. The way things normally appear to us. But sometimes it’s more easy to spot that wrong appearance. So then if if the self did exist the way it seems to exist in this solid way that it normally appears to us and especially the way it appears to us when there’s some crisis going seemingly solid at such a time. So if it existed in that way, then it would have to be either inseparably one with the