Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khensur Rinpoche opens this 48-minute session by walking through the traditional nine mental abidings painting image by image — the monk chasing a black elephant (the mind, its natural whiteness hidden by afflictive emotions) led astray by a monkey (excitement), armed with a rope of mindfulness and a hook of introspective awareness. He covers the first four of the nine abidings — setting, continuous setting, resetting, and close setting — showing how the balance of mindfulness and effort shifts at each stage, with fire representing exertion, a rabbit symbolising emerging laxity, and a growing white patch on the elephant marking the mind coming under control. He then identifies the five sensual objects that fuel attachment, illustrated with a vivid comparison of ignorance and attachment to a Sikh king and Indira Gandhi. The session closes with a doctrinal summary: calm abiding alone produces upper-realm rebirth; conjoined with renunciation or bodhicitta, it becomes a path to liberation or Buddhahood.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 Calm A 1990 06 10.mp3
UUID: f7f988de-da03-4cf6-9c86-4399640aff6c
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Calm Abiding Retreat (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1990-06-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.8 minutes
Words: ~2,301
So what’s he doing? He’s holding in one hand, he’s holding a rope. In the other hand, he’s holding a hook. The rope symbolizes mindfulness and the hook symbolizes that attentive awareness — introspection. The elephant symbolizes the mind.
So he isn’t — he can’t catch the elephant presently by using his rope and hook and therefore the elephant is running wild. And the monkey is excitement and if you notice the monkey is by means of rope is leading the elephant of the mind. That this is due to the force of attachment that this excitement can lead the elephant anywhere it wants. It’s running wild. This is the quality of the monkey — it’s always jumping about.
It never settles down and it is leading the mind on a merry chase. So the excitement is running away with the mind, going very quickly. And you notice that the elephant is black. This is a, that is to say outer covering is black where in fact the elephant is white just like our mind is in its nature white but it is covered over with the afflictive emotions so that blackness represents the covering of afflictive emotions and various unskillful actions. So the monk is running very quickly after now.
But he can’t catch them as yet. So then around the bend, he’s proceeding on to the second mental abiding. To this point his rope and his hook are of no use to him. The mind is still ahead of him, lost. And at this point, we have to make use of forceful means to try to apprehend the elephant.
If we don’t make use of forceful means the elephant is always going to be lost. We’re making use of the first of the four mental engagements — that of forceful engagement. And you notice the fire that represents great exertion. Like it’s a great conflagration. We have to make great effort at this point and this denotes that we have to engage the object very forcefully and that we have to consider the object again and again very forcefully in order to close in on it.
And if you notice the elephant and the monkey at the second level have a little bit white. There’s a white spot beginning to appear. That means that they’re getting a little bit tired. They’re becoming somewhat subdued that due to this forceful way of engaging, considering again and again the object, then we’re able to remain fixed upon the object of meditation for a short time. So proceeding onward around that bend, again there’s the great fire denoting that we still have to make a great deal of exertion.
And then finally we arrive at the third mental abiding. And this, the third mental abiding which is called resetting. And here the rope of mindfulness has caught onto the elephant of the mind. It’s caught the elephant of the mind. And what we mean by resetting is that if we remember on the second mental level, mental abiding, that we were able to remain fixed upon the object for the length of recitation of one rosary.
But mostly we have lost the object. Most of the time is spent not upon the object. We have lost the object. Here we become — we know when we lose the object and we’re able to return to the object. We’re able to quickly once the object is lost to quickly become aware of that and return the mind back to the object.
We reset the mind on the object and therefore this third mental abiding is called resetting. So, at this point, at the third level, we have generated a very strong mindfulness and this is symbolized by the rope of mindfulness which is now tied around the elephant of the mind and with this and therefore mindfulness is holding the mind. The mind cannot become lost again that is to say the object cannot be lost and we are in control of the mind. So, this is accompanied by the power of mindfulness due to the force of which the mind does not become lost. That is to say the mind abides upon the object of meditation.
And there’s an increase in the — there now appears a rabbit and all three of them there’s an increase in the white area which is now shown. This shows that there is a decrease in the forcefulness of the afflictive emotions of the various discursive thoughts which have been occurring which distract the mind which cause the mind to go out to other objects and now the mind is being is coming under control. Rabbit. Rabbit. So the rabbit symbolizes laxity.
In general there has been laxity previous to this, but now the laxity is of a great force therefore it’s now symbolized. Then the, proceeding further along the path, we come to the fourth mental abiding close setting and it is at this point that the power of mindfulness has come to — that we have a complete power of mindfulness. It’s fully developed, fully developed powerful power of mindfulness. This is like when someone reaches the age of twenty five, this is like the peak of their bodily power — at this they’ve achieved the peak of their bodily power at this age. And likewise at the fourth mental abiding the peak of mindfulness has been accomplished and therefore the elephant, the mind, can never get away.
It’s always being tied by the rope of mindfulness. So this is the fourth mental abiding of close setting. So among these six powers, it is due to the power of mindfulness which at this stage has become extremely strong that the mind is no longer able to stray to external objects. So because of the complete, the ability of mindfulness has been brought to completion, the mind can no longer stray to external objects that is to say that the mind is continually fixed upon the object of meditation. And we’ve eliminated the faults of, for example, laziness and the forgetting the precept, the latter by means of mindfulness.
But now due to the force, there now arises the fault of excitement. This is the third and this is the fourth mental abiding and here due to the force of the increased strength of mindfulness which is symbolized by the rope, the mind is no longer lost. At this point the force of mindfulness has been brought to completion. The power of mindfulness has been brought to completion. And at these two levels the factor of laxity begins to become manifest and symbolized by the rabbits at the third and fourth. And the elephant is securely tied by the rope. And the mind is becoming whiter.
There is a decrease in the discursiveness within the mind. And the monkey again is excitement and it’s becoming a little bit lighter — that means the discursive quality of excitement is decreasing and as you know there’s still fire which means that we still have to make a great exertion. So if you notice there’s some additional drawings along the way. These represent the — because we have attachment of the desire realm which induces excitement and the basis for the production of attachment are the various objects, sensual objects and that is to say sight, sounds, smells, tastes and objects of touch. And these are what these objects symbolize — the various objects which produce attachment.
This is a mirror which represents form. And these cymbals represent sound. And this conch shell holds perfume — smell. And the fruit is food — flavor. And I think that’s like a ribbon which represents something that we wear, objects of touch.
So we develop attachments with respect to each of these sensual objects. The first at the bottom of this ribbon, you know this symbolizes clothing for example. This would be objects of touch that we like to be next to, we like to have smooth things next to our skin and we become attached to the softness of fabrics and things like this. The second was food symbolized by the fruit and the different flavors and we attach to delicious flavors. Smells, you know, we apply perfumes to our body because we’re attached to pleasant odors. Symbols, sounds, you know, Austrians, they like rock and roll music.
They’re very attached to it. So it’s an essential object for them. And then the topmost is a round thing with a mirror. Just simply visual objects, colors and various beautiful shapes and whatnot. In dependence upon these, we develop attachment.
So due to the influence of attachment, the mind is lost to an external object. And this is by the force of attachment. But in general, the root of cyclic existence is ignorance. Due to the force of ignorance, due to the influence of ignorance, we create karma by which we create cyclic existence. Though we say that ignorance and karma are the root of cyclic existence, attachment is such that because of its — it is extremely powerful.
It has great potency, it’s a great, it’s very strong that due to the force of attachment we take rebirth within cyclic existence. These two by themselves, ignorance and karma, would not force us to take rebirth, but it’s the additional power of attachment that forces us to take rebirth in cyclic existence. By way of analogy, previously in India there were kings and then the king’s minister, prime minister. Between these two, the King and his minister, the one who had the greatest power was of course the King — and like the Sikh kings, the Sikh kings, you know, with the beards? The turbans.
And the Prime Minister was, we say it was Indira Gandhi. Between these Sikh kings and the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, it was Indira Gandhi who had the power that whatever was to be done, she was in control, that she called the shots between the two. Of course, the kings had some power in a limited circle of influence, but in general, it was Indira Gandhi who had the control. So, the king is like ignorance and attachment or desire is like Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Gandhi.
So by desire, we mean the desire for the object, the essential objects of desire. Upon the attainment of calm abiding, there is no longer manifest attachment for the objects of sensual desire of the desire realm. Though this attachment has not been eliminated from the root, it is no longer manifest. At this point there is no longer the afflicted desire of the desire realm. It is the nature of calm abiding.
We haven’t talked about mental levels, just talking in general. Carrying on from yeah. Upon the attainment of calm abiding there is no longer manifest desire of the desire realm. afflictive emotions of the desire realm are no longer manifest.
And due to this entity of the calm abiding, one will take rebirth in the realm — and of the three realms in the upper realm. One will no longer, one will not take rebirth in the desire realm, but one will generate the afflictive emotions of the upper realm, but not of the desire realm. Taking due to the absence of the desire of the desire realm, the afflictive emotions of the desire realm, one takes rebirth as a celestial being of the upper realms and in such a place is extremely happy. There’s no suffering — it’s a wonderful place to exist with wonderful companions around you. But if we conjoin our calm abiding with renunciation, love and compassion, then the entity of calm abiding will transform into a path leading to liberation from cyclic existence.
So there are two possibilities with respect to the types of calm abiding. That if our calm abiding is accompanied by renunciation, the correct view, then it serves as a means to achieve liberation. And still further if it’s accompanied by progressing along the paths of the great vehicle, accompanied by the awakening heart, its entity serves as a means to achieve Buddhahood. On the other hand, if calm abiding is not accompanied with either, with any of these two, then it will without any of these other factors of renunciation, view or awakening heart, then it will serve as, its entity will serve as a means to be reborn as a celestial being in a higher realm. So we’ve completed the we’ve gone through the, we’ve completed the first explanation of the first four of the nine mental abidings and the first that by means of hearing one initially places the mind upon the object.
The mind is initially fixed upon the object therefore setting of the mind. And then by the power of thinking again and again, taking the mind to mind, considering the object again and again, by that power the one attains continuous setting of the mind. And these two must be forcibly engaged in. The mind must be forcibly fixed upon the object. Therefore it is accompanied by forcible engagement.
Then because we’ve considered the object again and again our mindfulness, the power of mindfulness has increased whereby the powerful mindfulness is such that we are able to return to the object quickly. Therefore we do not lose the object. Now we lose the object but we return to it quickly and we reset the mind and then upon when our mindfulness is completely, mindfulness is complete then we do not lose the object and we have achieved close setting. And then we’re going to meditate on this for a while. So consider we’re going to meditate on these four mental abidings contemplating four mental abidings that we’ve just gone through.