Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khensur Rinpoche uses a memorable image in this 49-minute session to explain why calm abiding and special insight must both be present: seeing a painting by night requires a lamp that is both bright and steady, because wisdom alone — without a stabilized mind — cannot clearly illuminate emptiness. He begins by defining calm abiding as the mind resting unshakeably on its chosen object, likening it to a mountain, and describes the mental and physical bliss that arises when this stability is fully developed. He then establishes the sequence endorsed by Śāntideva and Tsongkhapa: cultivate calm abiding first, special insight second. The session closes with practical guidance on retreat conditions — an isolated, quiet site with clean water and a few companions of similar outlook — and stresses the importance of studying the method thoroughly before entering practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 Calm A 1990 06 08.mp3
UUID: 57724993-399b-4c23-b156-1e36f469afb8
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Calm Abiding Retreat (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1990-06-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 49.7 minutes
Words: ~2,439
So, begin with adjusting our motivation. I must, for the sake of myself and all sentient beings eliminate all my various faults and bring to consummation all my excellent qualities. That is to say I must attain Buddhahood. Can you hear me okay? Yeah.
Okay. I’ll speak louder. Having eliminated all our various faults, having brought to consummation all our excellent qualities, we will not only ourselves be benefited, but we will be able to free all sentient beings from the torture of their suffering and to place them in complete happiness. And towards that end, in order to achieve that goal, developing the kind hearted attitude as a motivation that now I am going to practice a method of meditation in order to begin to subdue my mind so that it no longer goes to various external objects. But, I will be able to bring my mind properly to the object of my meditation in order to cultivate it properly.
And therefore, for the next five minutes, cultivating the awakening heart as the motivation for this practice of calm abiding. The prayers on side one, beginning in left hand, upper side. Generosity, ethics, patience, effort, meditative concentration, and wisdom, calm abiding is included within the perfection of meditative concentration. When we discuss discuss meditative concentration, we’re concerning ourselves with calm abiding. And what do we mean by calm abiding?
In Sanskrit, what do we mean by calm abiding? First, the word calm. It is that the pacification or the elimination, that is to say the calming of the various afflictions, negative qualities or disturbing qualities within the mind. The various destructive qualities in the mind are pacified or calmed. And then the word abiding.
This means that whatever we seek to cultivate, whatever we wish to meditate upon, that the mind is able to abide single pointedly on that object. It will rest upon that object. It will remain upon that object. It will not be distracted outside away from that object. And all that this is all the constructive qualities in the mind can be cultivated in this way that the mind will remain single pointedly at rest or abiding upon that object.
Therefore, the word calm abiding. So, the calm abiding is equated with meditative stabilization, the stabilizing quality of the mind. And what we mean is just as in the case where we if we were to place an article, it would remain wherever we placed it with exactly at that place without without moving. And likewise with the mind. Wherever we place the mind, it will remain on the object without moving away.
In this way we liken the mind to a mountain, unshakable, unmovable from that. It simply remains exactly where we put it. So, this is the quality of the mind remaining on its object abiding. Wherever we direct the mind to whatever object in our meditation, that mind will abide upon that object whatsoever the object might be. If we direct the mind toward emptiness then the mind will abide exactly on emptiness, directly on emptiness, only on emptiness, exactly on emptiness.
It will not stray from any other object other than emptiness. And likewise for the various objects that we can direct the mind toward. Whether it’s impermanence, the awakening heart, selflessness, whatever we meditate on, we direct the mind toward that object and it will remain fixed upon an object without wavering from it. Wherever we direct the mind, the mind will abide at that place. For example, directing it at emptiness.
In setting the mind in meditative equipoise, we can remain in that state with no difficulty whatsoever. In fact, we will experience bliss. There is no dissatisfaction no matter how long we might remain in that state. We can remain in meditative equipoise for one week, for two weeks, three weeks, even a month, and we will abide in that blissfully with no dissatisfaction whatsoever. By means of meditative calm abiding, the mind will be able to remain upon its object blissfully.
In dependence upon the mental bliss, the body will also experience, we will experience a physical bliss. And there will be no hardship, discomfort of the body whatsoever. That however long we might remain on that object, that we will experience only mental and physical bliss. That we have developed this flexibility, both the serviceability of mind and body with respect to abiding on any object for as long as we wish. So this is the way the great masters practice.
They are able to abide on the object without any distraction whatsoever and abide in a meditative So meditative concentration, calm abiding is extremely important. It is beneficial to both the body and the mind. It is the cause for all the development of all excellent qualities. In fact it is the root of all excellent qualities. But in dependence upon calm abiding, one can rid the mind of all of the negative factors within it, of the destructive, unwholesome factors, and we can develop all the constructive wholesome aspects of the mind, the purity of the mind.
In combination, in dependence upon calm abiding, one can develop special insight. And these two coupled together, calm abiding and special by means of these two coupled together, calm abiding and special insight, we can eliminate from the very root the afflictive emotions and this being the ignorance which grasps at true existence which causes us to undergo again and again birth, aging, disease and death and therefore we can achieve liberation and ultimately Buddhahood. The hearers who achieve liberation by the abandoning of the afflictive emotions, if they did not have calm abiding there would be no way that they could attain this great achievement. And because there would be no way to abandon the afflictive emotions. Likewise with the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas, without this quality of calm abiding there would be no way they could achieve their great goals.
That they could not achieve the various excellent qualities of the grounds and paths. These vast qualities which depend upon calm abiding. They could not bring to consummation all their excellent qualities if they did not possess calm abiding. Within the great vehicle there are thousands of types of meditative stabilizations and none of these could arise without having without depending because they all depend upon calm abiding. If we just say it briefly, then all of the excellent qualities, all of the paths and grounds of the lesser vehicle and the greater vehicle, all depend upon calm abiding.
Some people question whether we need both of these factors of calm abiding and special insight. Would it be sufficient just to have one and not both? But in fact, in order to understand the ultimate nature of reality, that is to say emptiness, we need both of these in order to gain that realization. In general, we can say that there are those who have not attained calm abiding but have a realization of emptiness. But still without the special insight which depends upon calm abiding, there is no clarity with respect to that realization and there is no force and therefore one is unable to eliminate the afflictive emotions.
So if we explain this by way of analogy and this analogy is taken from is a traditional analogy when there wasn’t any electricity that we have now. If it was night in a dark room and we wanted to look at a painting, what would we need to be able to see that painting clearly? Obviously we would need some kind of lamp or say a butter lamp for example. These oil lamps on the altar. If the lamp was not bright, then we would not be able to see the painting clearly.
And then again, even though the lamp might be bright, but still if the flame of the lamp was blown blown about by the wind flickering back and forth, then if it wasn’t steady, we still could not see the painting clearly. So in order to see the painting clearly, what do we need? We need both of these factors. We need the bright light of the lamp but also the lamp, the flame of the lamp must be steady. And if we end it then for combination with both of these factors, we can easily see the painting clearly.
So in explaining the meaning of this analogy, the lamp is in which the which has a steady flame due to the absence of wind is compared to calm abiding. That is, just as here the wind, the wind energies, when they blow within our mind, when they are moving within our mind, cause the rising of thoughts. The thinking process is carried away and the object is not able to be seen clearly due to this constant movement of the mind. Due to this discursive thinking with calm abiding there’s an absence of discursive thinking. It’s just like the steady flame in which there is no wind.
Likewise the mind is able to abide steadily on its object due to the absence of the wind energies giving rise to discursive thought. So just as in the case with the with the flame of the lamp, in order to steady the flame, we cover over the flame. And this prevents the wind from causing the flame to flutter. Likewise, in order to stabilize the mind we use calm abiding as a method of steadying the mind causing it not to be moved about by the winds of discursive So, the meditative stabilization is compared with the steady flame of the lamp due to the absence of the wind giving rise to discursive thinking. The, to go further with the analogy, the brightness of the lamp is special insight.
That is to say wisdom. Wisdom which is able to examine various objects. It is the wisdom illuminates the object. With only one of these, by this illumination we are able to see the object. But without both of these we would not be able to see the object clearly.
We must have both a steady mind and a luminous mind. A steady flame and a bright flame. By means of this combination of these two, calm abiding and special insight, we are able to see clearly the ultimate nature of reality which is extremely subtle. This is the this we can see well exactly the nature of any object that we are examining. It is for this reason that in order to see emptiness in its ultimate mode of existence, the final quality of emptiness is necessary to have both of these calm abiding and special insight.
Practice, which of these two comes first? We need both of these but are they developed simultaneously or do we first achieve calm abiding and then special insight or first to achieve special insight and then calm abiding. Realize emptiness. Without the realization of emptiness there is no way to achieve the realization liberation. In order to have the to realize well the in its ultimate mode emptiness, we must have special insight.
So these are extreme these extremely great qualities both of these calm abiding and special insight. And in developing these two, some first develop special insight, a few, some first develop special insight and then go on to develop calm abiding. Some develop both simultaneously but in accordance with the instructions of the great Master Śāntideva, first we are to develop calm abiding and subsequently develop special insight and this is also the thought of Je Tsongkhapa and the great Indian masters. Śāntideva says that in dependence upon calm abiding, the special insight which depends upon calm abiding, one will be able to uproot the afflictive emotions.
Therefore it is necessary first to develop calm abiding. In the same way that you know if we question well how does one go about cultivating calm abiding? In the same way that the in understanding the precious quality of calm abiding, we should understand that in order to arrive at this result of such a precious result, the causes must be accordingly excellent. And therefore we have to create in our practice those excellent causes which bring about this excellent end. So beginning with the how do we actually go about practicing calm abiding.
We begin with the place in itself where we’re going to cultivate the room, actual site where we’re going to practice. It should be an isolated place, a quiet place where there isn’t a great deal of commotion sounds. Place. There should be a nice breeze. There shouldn’t be the danger of wild animals.
It should have good water. Additionally, we should be food and drink should be easily obtainable, and it may be difficult for one to abide alone, completely alone. So one should have some companions one, two, or three, or four companions who have the same outlook, same attitudes as oneself. Nor should it be a place where many people congregate and it’s and they make it noisy. So these are we’ve explained is in terms of the external conditions, but what kind of internal conditions do we need to cultivate calm abiding?
We should try to keep a pure ethics abandoning various negative actions of body, speech and mind. And also we should try to cease various types of discursive thinking which will arise. Various types of superstitions, various dwelling on fantasies about the future and remember remembrances of the past. Additionally, we should should have instructions on the actual way of cultivating calm abiding. Now we shouldn’t simply go about this haphazardly but we should know the detailed methods laid out on how to cultivate calm abiding.
What we do first, what we do second, what we do third, what are the various faults, what qualities we should after that what do we do, what qualities should we have at this point, what qualities should we have at the next point. Understand the instructions, studying them prior to actually going into the place of meditation. So if if we were to arrive at our place of meditation without understanding what we’re going to do, you know when we get there we if we haven’t prepared ourselves we’re going to get there and say, Oh now what should I do? And we want we have to know the way meditation or we simply won’t develop calm abiding. We will be unable to develop meditative stabilizations even if we have the text.
We won’t be able to understand them well. We will gain no realizations. So