Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khensur Rinpoche opens with the image that body must stand apart from crowds and mind apart from concepts, tracing conceptual proliferation to one root: no felt awareness of death. In this 49-minute talk he works through the five faults and eight antidotes drawn from Maitreya’s Differentiating the Middle and the Extreme. Laziness — the first fault — gets four antidotes: thinking about the bliss and physical lightness calm abiding produces, then faith, interest, and effort, illustrated by a business analogy of working day and night for guaranteed profit. He maps how the object should match one’s affliction — ugliness of form for attachment, loving kindness for hatred, dependent arising for close-mindedness — before closing on how to imprint a Buddha image deeply enough in mental consciousness that it holds steady with eyes shut.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 CA 1994 06.mp3
UUID: 02481b17-83be-4774-b96b-773bff0135a9
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Calm Abiding Retreat (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1994 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 49.5 minutes
Words: ~3,143
There is the expression the body has to be at a distance and mind has to be at a distance. And the two means that the body has to be at a distance from gatherings and material distractions and the mind has to be at a distance from concepts, conceptions, concepts. What that means is let’s look normally at ordinary people’s case — there are too many concepts, too many thinking and ideas happening all the time. For example when one sits one is thinking about that issue or other issue, one is thinking what that person is going to talk to me about, what he or she is thinking about me and what they are planning to do and so forth. In this way there are too many concepts going all the time in the mind of ordinary people’s case.
Now if that is happening then mind is not at clear state to remain abiding on what the mind has to be abiding on, has to be focused on as a practitioner on the practice which one needs to concentrate and try to integrate with one’s mind. So from that point this requirement is important that one must have one’s mind at distance from concepts. The reason why there is so many concepts happening in the mind of ordinary people’s case is because there is no awareness of impermanence of this life. And in that way, put scripturally, there’s no awareness of impermanence there’s no awareness of death and impermanence because when this awareness is absent, then one thinks one is going to live forever next year ten years down the track and for many years and when that happens then one start planning everything on the basis and assumption that one is going to last for that long and in the process one then start thinking about how to cater for one’s dear ones and relatives and friends and how to be to be revengeful and hurting and disruptive to those one doesn’t like so called enemies. So there are so many concepts happening at the same time.
So here in the interpretation it is necessary to see concept not necessarily covering all concepts but more referring to disruptive concepts. Because then there is a danger of thinking that all even the good concepts are unnecessary and that might go into a nothingness viewpoint — so disruptive concepts. Now then we can see due to lack of awareness of death and impermanence that too many concepts appear to mind. If that’s the case then we need to apply the awareness of death and impermanence and through that way we need to be able to terminate and check the concepts arising in our mind. So these cover the six requirements for attaining calm abiding.
If one has these six requirements complete then it is no doubt one certainly will attain excellent calm abiding. Now that part we can say becomes the preparatory part preceding the actual practice to attain calm abiding. Now regarding the actual way how to go about with practicing calm abiding, in there the instructions we can say of course originally were taught by Buddha and these instructions were later on further clarified by Ārya Maitreya in his works such as Differentiating the Middle and the Extreme and the Uttaratantra, the Sublime Continuum and others. And it’s from there where the instructions mainly come from. The instruction of how to overcome the five faults and apply the eight antidotes and through that way how to achieve calm abiding. So it would be good to write the actual quote from the text Differentiating the Middle and the Extreme where the line originally says — by overcoming the five faults and applying the eight antidotes, it becomes possible.
Amongst the five faults which hinder a person from attaining calm abiding the first is laziness and this would happen in the way firstly in the beginning when one is to meditate on calm abiding there is disinterest, not wanting to meditate on the topic of calm abiding. And later on, even if one does overcome that, it is possible in the course of actual meditation one may not like to prolong or go ahead with the meditation still so there is no endurance with one’s meditation on calm abiding. And also along with that in the course of actual meditation it is possible that one may think — even if I do it I don’t think I am able to, I don’t think I will be able to achieve this, it is beyond me. So in this way there is a putting down of oneself by oneself. So in that way, these are the three ways how laziness would come about and they are inclusive to the first fault, the laziness.
Now it may be good to explain the five faults along with the eight antidotes which are means to overcome them. Now regarding the first fault which is laziness, and which would come in the form of firstly not having interest to do the meditation, secondly not wanting to endure or carry on it, and thirdly thinking I’m not able to do that. Now that is laziness, the first fault, and because the reason that this fault is a major hindrance for the calm abiding meditation there are four antidotes applied against it itself. Now as a measure against laziness, one needs to think about the good outcome of the calm abiding perfection, and in that one needs to think how generally all the excellent qualities one would attain either in the great vehicle path or in the lower vehicle path — as for how overcoming of all sufferings and attaining of all happiness, liberation, omniscience, they all are possible only through the foundational requirement of calm abiding — that it would make one think, oh, if calm abiding can produce so many excellent results in all of them, then I definitely will engage in trying to achieve it.
So it is possible by thinking about it and its excellent qualities there will be interest generated to overcome laziness. To put it into example, we can look at a business person who when seeing the possible huge profit would then have no problem at all working day and night and sacrificing all the time and energy and not minding about all the hardships involved because the business person sees the huge profit going to come by. So that’s exactly similar here it would work and that is how from one point one applies one measure against laziness. From one point one thinks how it is through calm abiding when one achieves it that there is incredible special pliancy — or ecstasy in the good sense — or bliss on a physical level one attains. For example, how that happens is when one has attained calm abiding then one’s body feels so light as if it is as light as cotton wool.
Not only that, one’s body feeling so light also has the capability to fly up into space at will and that’s a little bit of the latter part there — and as well the body has that blissful capability that by remaining sitting on one cushion meditating how long there will be no tiredness or weariness at all. It will be all bliss. So one on one hand thinks about how calm abiding brings bliss and pliancy on a physical level as well, and on the other how even on a mental level that when one has achieved calm abiding there is enormous incredible peace one attains all the time on one’s mind. So that’s another way of looking at it and through that way to generate interest in wanting to do the practice of calm abiding. Now when one looks at the qualities of calm abiding in that way and how it has the what’s called possible outcome of bringing pliancy, of bringing bliss both in body and mind, one then has faith.
And out of faith there will be interest — wanting to be interested in wanting to do the calm abiding achievement practice. Regarding faith here, it is more understood as a respect, a kind of thinking that it is an excellent thing to go for. So then there will be interest, and out of interest there will be effort, the actual effort one would put for it. So in that way we can say these points when put in a series of a list: first there is pliancy and bliss, and then faith, interest, and effort.
Of course here in the list of the antidotes against laziness we find there are four things but the main antidote or measure against laziness is the effort, diligence, the joyous effort, joyous wanting to put joyfulness or wanting to work, the diligence, the effort. Although that is the main antidote, but that is not possible without firstly having the preceding three requirements. So we can look that in order to have effort one needs to have interest. To have interest one needs to have faith or feeling good about the thing. And to have faith one needs to think about the qualities of pliancy, qualities of bliss that would be achieved through calm abiding both on mental and physical basis.
Okay. Laziness would be overcome. When that happens then one comes to the actual meditation on calm abiding. Regarding how one does actual meditation on calm abiding, well it is done where one lets one’s mind focused on one particular object of focus and that’s how one has to go ahead with the calm abiding meditation. Therefore when one does the actual meditation of having the mind focused on a given object of focus then the next fault would come about, that is the fault of forgetting the instruction.
Now regarding instruction, of course, generally any teachings and utterances by a lama, a teacher is an instruction. Why it is an instruction is because by its nature it is beneficial and it is cause for bringing about happiness. But here instruction has the context meaning as referring to the instructions about the focused object. So focused object actually is literal meaning, but we can have alternative just object. So here the instruction means instruction about the object and when put into the meaning what it means is in meditating on the object if one loses the object out of one’s concentration, then that means one has forgotten the instructions.
So you wrote down all those lists about the faults and the laziness and the four antidotes? So pliancy is the first. Second is the faith seeing that I must have it by seeing its qualities. And then out of faith there would come about interest thinking I must somehow achieve it. And out of interest would come the effort, the diligence.
Now regarding the object of calm abiding, it could be just about any object because calm abiding as a practice was not an exclusive practice to Buddhists. In the classical periods it was a practice also found being done by non-Buddhists in the classical period so to speak. And in their case when it comes to keeping the object of calm abiding they would have random objects such as a small piece of rock or a piece of wood and so forth. Whereas in the case of Buddhists, in the context of the sūtra discourse system, Buddha Śākyamūni very skillfully recommends that the object preferably has to be an image of a Buddha, an image of an enlightened being, where by keeping such an object one meditates on calm abiding by single-pointedly concentrating on that object. By way of saying, our recommendation is the object can also be other Buddhas — Chenrezig, Mañjuśrī — or any of the Bodhisattvas.
So in brief it can be any of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and that is fine. In the teachings of Mahāmudrā, the great seal, the object kept as a focus is mind, whereby concentrating on one’s mind and thinking about what it is and how it is and so forth the calm abiding is achieved and that is an instruction explained in that method. In Guru Puja practice the object is emptiness whereby having the mind placed single-pointedly on emptiness one tries to achieve calm abiding. In the secret mantra which is the tantric part, the object of calm abiding is meditating oneself as the deity and then achieving calm abiding through that way and that is the instruction of achieving calm abiding explained in that system. But then Buddha Śākyamūni in other cases recommends alternative methods in accordance with what is most suitable to a particular trainee — the word for disciple, a particular trainee.
For example, for someone with a problem of intense attachment, the instruction on calm abiding explains to keep ugliness of form as an object and through that way meditating achieve calm abiding. And for someone who has the problem of intense hatred there is the recommendation to keep loving kindness as an object of calm abiding and through that way achieve it. And for someone who has a problem of intense close-mindedness — the alternative description for ignorance — the recommendation is that one keeps dependent arising reasoning as an object of calm abiding and through that way achieve calm abiding. And in that way we can see it is a very skillful instruction catering for a particular case of a particular need of a person. Well so in this way against specific problems of attachment, hatred, and close-mindedness there are specific instructions of having specific objects — ugliness of form, loving kindness, and reasoning or dependent arising respectively.
Now that is the instruction given. If one does that, then not only in this life one achieves calm abiding by applying what is suitable to one’s need, but also there are secondary afterlife benefits such as someone who meditates on ugliness of form. Such a person by thorough familiarization — because the word for meditation is familiarization — by thorough familiarization of non-attachment through meditation on ugliness of form in the next life will have less tendency to be lustful and with attachment and so forth. Similarly someone who has meditated in this life on loving kindness not only achieves calm abiding in this life but also as a contributing factor to calm abiding achievement, also in the next life has less tendency to be hateful and so forth. And similarly in the case of the dependent arising practitioner, in that case not only is there a less chance of intense close-mindedness arising in the next life, even if they do arise there will be more possibility of overcoming it quickly.
So therefore these secondary benefits one as well achieves. In this way, exclusive to the teaching of Buddhist acuity, we find there are other side benefits, so many of them in the recommendation of the objects for calm abiding meditation. That’s as briefly explained, but as well if we look at a particular case — say if one keeps a Buddha or image of a Buddha, image of an enlightened being, as an object of one’s calm abiding meditation — not only does it contribute to the achieving of calm abiding itself, the side benefit is that because an enlightened being is an entity of the consummation of all excellent qualities, all achievements of excellent qualities, and free of all faults. And also it is the consummation or embodiment of all benefits such that by having consistently kept such an image or entity in one’s mind there is continuous accumulation of merits in this life and also if one somehow in this life happens to die in the course of not meditating and so forth, then there is the benefit that while dying one’s mind would still be with direct recollection or awareness of Buddha and in that way there is the benefit of not falling down to a lower rebirth.
This is based on interpreting the concept that the preceding mind prior to death determines to a certain degree the next rebirth state. So it is impossible to have a state of mind in the state of awareness of Buddha resulting in lower rebirth. So in that way we can say, yeah, there are all these extra benefits and this would be a reason we can see how there’s so much skillfulness involved in the Buddha’s instructions even as to choosing the object of calm abiding. Now with regard to the actual way how to go about with the meditation on the object of calm abiding, let’s say if it is an image of a Buddha, the first thing important is to have a good look at the Buddha’s image. If it is say a painting or a statue of a Buddha, place it on or look at it on whatever platform it is — say presumably on an altar — and look at all the details: how the eyes are, how the ears are, how the face and so forth, that it should be such a thorough look that later if one closes, shuts one’s eyes the image still appears very clearly in one’s mind and then it would be a right beginning.
Of course here it must be made clear that it is not the eyes, the senses, with which calm abiding is to be achieved. Instead calm abiding is achieved on the mental continuum, on the mental consciousness. So although the looking part is necessary, after all the image must be established or registered — to borrow the term — established in the mental consciousness. For example, we can see how that happens in the case of even normal relatable experiences of watching television — that if the images are exciting images on the screen, then after having a good look at it, later when we go back to our own rooms, even by closing the eyes or being engaged in looking at other things, the image still appears so clearly in our mind.
And it appears again and again. Why that happens is it indicates that one must have had a strong good look on the screen, on the images. And that’s how it happened. And how one had a strong good look at the images on the screen would have happened such that not only when one sees, one has so much excitement, even making spontaneous remark — oh, this is good, it’s very good — and so forth.
And that’s how it happens. Now in our case, even as practitioners, it’s quite difficult that the image of Buddha appears to our mind that strongly. It doesn’t happen. If we think about all the excellent qualities of the Buddha, the enlightened being, and as well on