Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 48-minute session, Khensur Rinpoche focuses on the first of five faults that obstruct calm abiding — laziness — and the four-step antidote chain that dismantles it: conviction in calm abiding’s value, aspiration, sustained effort, and the blissful mental and physical pliancy that results. A concrete analogy — the lengths one goes to acquire a highly valued object — makes the motivational logic vivid. Rinpoche then addresses the choice of meditation object, recommending the Buddha’s body above all others, and walks through how to shift from examining a picture with the eyes to holding the image in mental consciousness alone, with sense faculties fully withdrawn. He closes with the story of the future Buddha meditating at Nālānda, so absorbed that children prodding him caused no reaction. Suited to practitioners on a structured calm abiding retreat.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 Calm A 1990 06 09.mp3
UUID: cdc28eb9-484a-4a8a-84ff-30af733abfcc
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Calm Abiding Retreat (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1990-06-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.8 minutes
Words: ~2,288
So we should seek to adjust our motivation such that holding others more dear than ourselves and wish to free them from their suffering and to establish them in complete happiness that I am going to eliminate all my various faults and bring to consummation all of my excellent qualities. If I can eliminate all my various faults and bring the consummation all my excellent qualities, then I can fulfill the welfare of all sentient beings by placing them in happiness and eliminating their suffering. And in order to achieve that end, I’m going to create the foundation of both the lesser and the greater vehicle that is the calm abiding which serves as the basis for special insight and going to listen to this teaching in order to the methods for achieving calm abiding and we’ll spend five minutes cultivating bodhicitta. Quoting a verse by Maitreya in which discussing the actual practice of developing calm abiding. And in order to develop calm abiding we must understand what are the various faults, the obstacles to developing the calm abiding and there are said to be five.
These are the conflicting conditions for the development of calm abiding. And there are the methods which eliminate these conflicting conditions which are the antidotes. So we must recognize well these faults and identify what are the antidotes in order to develop calm abiding. The and the extensive path. With respect to the profound path, that is the path which presents the view of emptiness, first the Buddha taught the path and then this was carried on through a lineage of Mañjuśrī, Nāgārjuna, Candrakīrti.
And the graduated path of the vast was first taught by the Buddha and then this lineage passed down through Ārya Maitreya and then to Ārya Asaṇga. And, this as is presented here, in accordance with the deeds of the graduated path is was presented by Ārya Maitreya. In accordance with the presentation of Tsongkhapa in developing calm abiding. The calm abiding is the abidance upon abiding calmly upon a particular object observation. So, are there will be three divisions with respect to this.
There is what is to be done previous to actually abiding on the object, what is to be done at the time of abiding on the object, and what is to be done subsequent to having abided on the object. Division, what is to be the way of proceeding prior to abiding on the object. As was explained this morning and reflecting upon what is to be done as preliminary. In the development of calm abiding there will arise a pliancy of mind and body. That is to say a physical and mental great bliss will arise.
If this bliss arises then one can without any difficulty remain in meditative equipoise and there will be no laziness because we naturally have a liking for bliss and there is no problem with a resistance to engaging in such a meditation. So, in the practice of the development of calm abiding, there are five faults which occur, which are to be overcome. And the first of these five faults is laziness. And it is simply that we don’t like to meditate. We have no particular aspiration to cultivate calm abiding.
It’s a factor of procrastination. I’ll do it tomorrow. You know when we simply will waste the opportunity that we have now. And when somebody says, Oh I’ll think I’ll do it tomorrow. And then tomorrow comes, Well I think I’ll do it tomorrow again.
And simply the work never gets done. And this is the laziness of procrastination. This is one of the greatest faults which has to be overcome. This constant putting off out of laziness. And due to the force of laziness, we simply never accomplish anything.
That whatever action that we that might be worthwhile to practice or to achieve is simply kept putting off and we waste the opportunity, the to have the opportunity to have actually accomplished that and is always kept being put off into the future due to laziness. The laziness is a lack of effort to engage in a particular action. There simply is no desire to achieve or simply a putting off until some other time. So, we have to employ a method to overcome this lack of initiative to seek to practice the development of calm abiding. And the method for the antidote to laziness is exertion or effort.
Exertion is a liking for various spiritual actions and one, one immediately engages in an action scene seeing its skillful quality. As Śāntideva says, exertion is a liking for skillful actions and when seeing it’s the skillful quality of that action one quickly engages in it. So in the development of calm abiding there are five faults which are to be overcome. Amongst these five the first is laziness and the method which directly eliminates laziness is exertion. Is the quality which acts as a method to overcome the fault of laziness.
No. No. I want this turned off. The heater off. So how do we develop exertion?
It is said that if one has, even if one has wisdom and there is no exertion, it’s as if one is a corpse. That this wisdom is of no use to one. So, if without exertion, nothing will be accomplished. So, how do we develop exertion? Exertion is developed in dependence upon aspiration?
Aspiration is the reflecting, I really need to develop that. That’s really a wonderful quality. Am making a striving at the development, seeing the great quality of it and the need to develop it, one strives at it. This is aspiration. How do we develop aspiration and what do we depend upon to develop aspiration?
As was explained previously through developing calm abiding we will generate a blissful pliancy of mind and body, but not only this quality but all of the various qualities of the great vehicle and the lesser vehicle all depend upon the foundation of calm abiding. Without calm abiding there’s no way to develop the various grounds, the various path. All of the qualities both great and small of the vehicles have as their root calm abiding. special insight, it depends upon calm abiding and develop special insight. By developing special insight we can abandon all the afflicted emotions and achieve liberation.
We can go on to achieve Buddhahood. And all of the wonderful accomplishments have as their foundation Calm Abiding. And seeing the qualities of developing calm abiding when develops a desire and I have to achieve that in if I want these other great goals. And when one desires those qualities of calm abiding one will make an effort in practice. So just a simple analogy that in a worldly way that if we to see some article which we thought well that’s really quite useful to have or that’s quite that’s very beneficial, that’s a good one.
And seeing this, seeing its great usefulness, its excellent quality, we’re going to develop a desire to own that article and we’re going to do whatever is necessary to procure it. If we have to make effort and go through various difficulties making money, going working in order to be able to buy it, maybe to go through difficulties to procure it, go through bargaining contracts, We’re going to go through this difficulty seeing the great qualities of that that I need, I want that. So in the development of calm abiding, you know, we go through a series of antidotes. First developing a conviction or as it says here faith in the excellent qualities seen that all that can be accomplished by developing being convinced of the excellence of developing calm abiding. The first is conviction faith and then having developed that conviction in its qualities when one aspires aspires to achieve that end.
Having developed and developing the aspiration one actually exerts oneself in practice and in dependence upon exerting oneself in practice a pliancy of mental and physical bliss will arise. Therefore these four are the antidotes to the first fault of laziness. So if we understand these antidotes well, then we will these four antidotes well we will overcome our laziness with procrastination from practice we will develop a liking a longing to develop calm abiding and will enter into the practice. So this is the preliminary before we actually abide upon the object of meditation. Eliminating the fault of laziness, even so that we actually engage in the practice.
Now that when we actually are abiding on the object of observation there occurs the other faults which are to be eliminated by means of the antidote and the second fault which occurs, the second of the five faults is forgetting the precept. So initially in discussion of the fault of the precept, we have to discuss the basis of the object of observation. What are we to use as a basis for development of calm abiding upon which we are going to rest the mind that we’re going to the mind is going to abide on. We have to identify what will be the object, the basis of development of calm abiding. So according to non-Buddhist tradition they use various objects such as a stone, a piece of wood or a piece of earth.
So within the Buddha taught as far as the objects of observation for the development of calm abiding, taught four types of objects. And if we went into these four types it might confuse you so we won’t go into these four types of objects. We’ll talk about what are the main types of objects which we can make use of as basis for the development of calm abiding. The main objects we can use if one is practicing Tantra then one can use a deity as a base for developing calm abiding. If not then one can use the best object to use is the body of a Buddha.
If we use body of the Buddha as the basis for our meditation, by again and again not forgetting that image, again and again recollecting, then because the Buddha represents the consummation of all excellent qualities, this will help us to develop faith in the Buddha and recalling it, this image again and again and it acts in this way we will have a auxiliary a branch benefit of developing positive potential like kind of a plus. Taking the as an object of meditation the body of a Buddha and recollecting again and again it would have the additional benefit that one would not take rebirth in a bad migration. So for various reasons the body of the Buddha is an excellent object to take as a basis for developing calm abiding and we should understand that calm abiding is not accomplished with the with the eye, the flesh, the eye but is developed in the mind that is to say it’s developed by the mental consciousness. So first we should have an image or a picture of the Buddha and examine it well. The picture should be situated neither such that you would have to look up at it or look down at it, but directly in front of you and look at it well with the eye.
Examine it. I come to be able to understand all its various features. Then we’re going at that point we’re going to cause that aspect that appearance to arise to our mental consciousness. We are no longer going to view it with the eye but we’re going to cause it to appear to our mental consciousness. This image which appears to our mental consciousness is the actual basis of observation upon which we’re going to develop calm abiding.
We’re no longer, it no longer is appearing to the eye, the picture but an image is now appearing to the mental consciousness. This is the basis for cultivating calm abiding. If meditation is really of an excellent quality then nothing will appear to the sense consciousnesses because the meditation is being carried out by the mental consciousnesses. There will be no forms will appear to the eye. No sounds will be heard by ear consciousness.
All of these various sense consciousness are withdrawn. It is as if they were asleep and only there is appearance to the mental consciousness. Even if one were to blow a horn in one’s ear you wouldn’t hear it. Similarly, at the time of sleep they are withdrawn, they’re non operative, and upon waking they again are activated and become manifest. And along with, so at the time of calm abiding all of the coarse consciousnesses such as sense consciousness but additionally such types of coarse conceptions such attachment anger are all pacified.
They’re non operative. That this calm abiding is extremely positive state. It’s a very stable state unmovable. It’s like driving a stake in the earth. It can’t be we can’t shake it.
Is an So, yeah previous prior to the Buddha’s enlightenment in India he was stayed at a place called Nālānda for in which he performed ascetic practices for six years. And he meditated in the forest at this place. And you might have seen pictures of him when he was going through these practices. He became extremely thin. During this time the children who were herding their flocks would come by and they were wondering if he was alive or not and they would yell in his ears stick things in his nose and it would it would it wouldn’t disturb him in the least So, of these meditators would construct a stone wall circling themselves in order to keep these kids out.