Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 49-minute session, Khensur Rinpoche uses an irrigation-channel image — once unblocked, water flows on its own — to explain the shift at the eighth mental abiding. He covers the seventh and eighth abidings: at the seventh, the monk in the traditional drawing no longer holds the rope or hook; at the eighth, a single initial effort launches hours of uninterrupted single-pointed placement. He maps five of the six powers to their abidings and distinguishes three modes of engagement — forcible, interrupted, and uninterrupted. The session then pivots to motivation: the kindness of all sentient beings, why only a Buddha can truly benefit others, and a verse from Vasubandhu’s Compendium of Knowledge on why Dharma practice must rest on genuine rather than haphazard understanding. Suited to practitioners working through the nine-abiding system.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 Calm A 1990 06 11.mp3
UUID: 9fc2cda5-3647-4fab-94de-70c9213b3c25
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Calm Abiding Retreat (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1990-06-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 49.1 minutes
Words: ~2,613
Maitreya and Shamatha. If you remember that at the fourth mental abiding, due to the full capacity of mindfulness having been developed, the object — the mind is completely being subdued. The mind no longer strays outside to an external object. And due to this, there is the possibility of the mind becoming depressed inward. Out of this arises the danger of subtle laxity.
Now, subtle laxity therefore can occur at the fifth mental abiding. Now, what is the quality of subtle laxity? The object is seen clearly. There’s no darkness. That is to say, there is clarity and there are the factors of clarity and stability.
The mind is abiding steadily on the object. The object is being seen clearly. There is clarity and stability. But there is no intensity to the clarity. There is no intensity to the clarity.
And for calm abiding, we must have all three of these factors. We must have clarity, stability, and there must be an intensity to the clarity. So we’re now up to the explanation of the seventh mental abiding. Due to the full development of the antidotes to excitement and laxity — that is, mindfulness and awareness — it would be very difficult for there to arise either of these two faults excitement or laxity.
But there is still the possibility of their arising and this would be a fault if they were to arise. If they were to arise, it would simply be necessary to make more effort in the meditation with respect to the object. Simply more exertion in meditation would eliminate this fault. It’s almost sure that laxity would not arise and probably excitement will not arise. But we can’t say for sure that it’s not going to arise at the seventh mental abiding.
Therefore, if you look at your drawing, you can see that the elephant is almost completely clean. He’s being very respectful to the monk. He’s been humbled. So, and then the eighth mental abiding. At the seventh, it was almost sure that laxity could not arise.
And there was a slight possibility of subtle excitement arising. But now at the eighth mental abiding, neither one of these can possibly arise. The mind has achieved single-minded placement upon its object. Yes. So we have arrived at the eighth mental abiding, making one pointed.
At this time, there is not the possibility of the arising of the faults of excitement or laxity. And upon entering into our meditation, there is the only — there is only the necessity to examine one’s mind state and to recall the power of mindfulness awareness as an initial — as the initial effort to cause to arise mindfulness and awareness, then one simply engages in meditation subsequent to that and can abide single pointedly on the object of meditation uninterruptedly for five or six days all day. There is only one thing which is necessary and this is this initial effort to bring to force one’s mindfulness and awareness. It’s just like if when you do recitations or you’re reciting a text, for example, some people do the six session yoga prayer. They simply have to bring to mind that they’re going to recite this text.
There’s an initial effort at the very beginning and then it flows automatically. They can, while they’re reciting it, can do all kinds of other things. They can busy themselves with other activities and it just flows on by itself. It just takes this initial effort to begin the flow. Opening some irrigation channels.
Like the channels are already there. We just have to unblock the opening and the water automatically flows and then we can block that up or it can be led to another channel and we unblock that and water just automatically flows down that channel. It’s just a matter of the initial opening and then the water flows automatically. So with respect to the mental engagements which are being made use of, we’ve explained that the first two mental abidings are accompanied by forcible engagement, that we have to force the mind, as it were, to engage in the object. From the third through the seventh mental abidings, these five mental abidings are accompanied by interrupted engagement.
So what we mean by interrupted engagement is the manner in which the meditation proceeds, the way in which the meditation is engaged in. That through these five mental abidings, from time to time, the faults of either excitement or laxity arise. And therefore there is a gap between the former part of the meditation and the latter part of the meditation. There’s an interference in the stream, the flow of the meditation. When meditation is proceeding and then an obstacle arises, that obstacle is eliminated.
Again, we continue with our meditation. Again, an obstacle arises. That obstacle is eliminated. We proceed with our meditation in this way. So there is this way of engaging in which there are interrupted parts to the process of this meditation.
We call this interrupted engagement. On the other hand, at the eighth mental abiding, we simply make the initial effort and proceed through our meditation without any obstacles. Since there are no faults arising during the course of our meditation, there are no obstacles and our meditation is engaged in without any interruption. For example, if we meditated for one hour from the very beginning to the end there would be no interruption and therefore this is the manner of engaging in this way of meditating and we call that uninterrupted engagement. Engagement.
Up to the eighth mental abiding we have made use of three types of mental engagements. And we still have one more to go. So with respect to the six powers, the first abiding is attained through the power of hearing, the second by the power of thinking, and the third and fourth abiding by the power of mindfulness. These are the first three powers. So at this point, the mindfulness has been brought to full potency.
And then over the course of the fifth and sixth mental abidings there is the possibility for laxity and excitement to arise and this must be examined for and it is the power of awareness which does this examining process. During the course of the fifth and sixth mental abidings, there is the possibility for laxity or excitement to arise. And it is by means of awareness, examining, acting as a spy, whereby when either of these faults are seen to arise, they can be immediately eliminated. Therefore, a stable awareness is extremely beneficial in the cultivation of calm abiding. So it is over the fifth and sixth abidings that awareness comes to full potency.
And then at the seventh abiding, if you notice in the drawing, the monk is no longer holding the rope or the hook. That is to say, mindfulness and awareness no longer need to be actively developed. So he’s really enjoying himself now. At this time, the excitement and laxity have been eliminated. We simply — the awareness and mindfulness have been brought to full potency.
And if there is any danger of a fault, we simply have to make more effort in our meditation. And then at the eighth mental abiding with no danger whatsoever of laxity or excitement, it is only necessary to make an initial effort and to proceed single pointedly throughout our meditation. And therefore, the seventh and eighth mental abidings are achieved through the power of effort. So we’ve completed — so if we’ve completed five of the six powers, the power of hearing, thinking, mindfulness, awareness, and effort. If you notice that in the drawing, at the seventh mental abiding, the elephant is going first. But in the eighth, the monk is going first.
That’s it. This is showing the different degrees with respect to having control of the mind. We’re gonna hold you in suspense. We still have one more power, one more mental abiding, and one more engagement, and we’ll do that tomorrow. We’re not going to complete it today.
We’ll complete it tomorrow. So you’ve all been meditating very well. Meditating on our parents and have showed us the same kindness as, for example, the mother of this life has shown us kindness. And though they all want happiness and do not want to suffer, they do not know how to bring themselves happiness and how to abandon their suffering and they’re in a miserable condition. So we have attained this wonderful opportunity in the form of this precious human life.
We have clear minds. We can understand the ways of practicing and ways to abandon our suffering. So at this time we have a chance to take hold of the great meaning of life. If we were not to take this essence of our life, then it would all gone to waste. And bringing the meaning to our life by returning the great kindness that others have shown us.
And how can we return their kindness? This would be extremely difficult from the point of view of simply trying to feed them all or clothe them all and trying to serve their temporal needs. We have to think of it in terms of a deeper way. The finest way that we can return the kindness which has been shown to us is to bring them a stable type of happiness which is completely divorced of suffering. And but we have to question, can I — do I actually have the ability to bring this in fact about?
And if I don’t, then who does? And the being which has this capacity to establish beings in the happiness that they’re seeking and eliminate their suffering completely is a Buddha. And so what are we to do in such a situation? That in order to fulfill this great purpose of seeking to benefit others, we have to eliminate our various faults and through practice bring to consummation all our various excellent qualities. That is to say, we have to become a Buddha ourselves.
And having done this, then we can do as the Buddha himself has done, that is begin to establish beings in happiness and completely eliminate their problems. If we were to reflect, well, how does the Buddha go about this? How does the Buddha establish sentient beings in a happiness in which there is no suffering? A Buddha knows the attitudes, the dispositions of each and every sentient being. That is to say, he knows exactly what would be a benefit, what activities, what this particular person needs in their particular situation.
And he knows them like he knows the palm of his hand. In our situation, it is such that our caring is limited to a very few around us, to helping a very few around us. And even when they are suffering it’s difficult for us to know how to actually help them. But Buddha’s love extends to all beings equally, to thousands and thousands of sentient beings. And knowing how to help each one of them in particular, their particular dispositions, knowing what would be of benefit to them in particular. And he does this through the teaching of the Dharma to these infinite number of beings and in this way he establishes them in happiness, divorced of suffering.
And how is it that he’s able to know all of this, all of the dispositions? It’s because he’s eliminated all his faults. That is, amongst these faults, the fault of unknowingness. And having eliminated the unknowing quality, then he understands each and every person’s attitudes and dispositions. In the sense that this attitude of the caring of the Buddha is compared to that of a mother for her only child, this quality of caring.
That if the child is in some way suffering, is troubled, then the mother simply cannot neglect the child. She cannot remain passive to the child’s needs. If the child is sick she is going to wonder what types of medicine, if child should go to a doctor. She cannot remain passive to the suffering of her own child. She can’t sleep, she can’t eat, and this all is aroused out of her great caring for a child.
Yes. And in the same way the Buddha is likened to a mother and we as to her children. And his caring is said to be thousands of times greater than the caring of a mother for her only child. And what is the difference — in what degree, how does this difference in degrees of caring come about? In the case of the mother it is simply the natural concern which has arisen toward her only child in this one situation.
But the Buddha has, over hundreds of lifetimes, purposely cultivated through meditation, a caring, and brought it to complete consummation, the possibility, the potency of the power of caring. And if we were to do the same by eliminating all our various faults, then we too, and bringing to consummation all our excellent qualities, would attain Buddhahood. And we too would have the same ability. That is the ability to emanate hundreds and thousands of manifestations which are able to teach numberless sentient beings. And by means of these teachings bring about their establishment in the bliss of liberation from cyclic existence, to establish them on the grounds of the bodhisattva paths, and finally to achieve Buddhahood.
In order to actually achieve this end for myself, that in order to attain Buddhahood, in order to establish all of these sentient beings in happiness and eliminate all of the suffering, I must eliminate all my various faults and bring to consummation all of my excellent qualities. And in order to bring that about, for that purpose, I must understand the foundations, the root of the great vehicle, which is found in practices of calm abiding and the special insight. And therefore, developing the motivation to listen to this present teachings in order to understand the methods of calm abiding and special insight in order to put them into practice to achieve this noble end. And therefore we’re going to cultivate this motivation for five minutes. So, Vasubandhu in his Compendium of Knowledge, sets out a verse which describes the way of practice.
Speaking of the order of practice of the Dharma. So and he says, why is it that we’re practicing the Buddhadharma? And it — we practice in order to eliminate our problems of body and mind, our sufferings, our various fears — the unwanted. So when we can — if we were each of us to consider what it is we don’t want — all our various difficulties and fears, we could understand this. I’d said there’s almost not one moment goes by that we don’t experience some difficulty, that we have difficulties of our body and mind, we have troubles from others, we go through birth, aging, disease and death.
And when we begin to recognize the negative qualities of these various experiences, these difficulties, we develop an anxiety toward them and we develop the thought to strive to be liberated from these problems. He has said that the way in which we can eliminate these difficulties is through the practice of Dharma. And it goes on to say that in order to actually practice the Dharma, we must understand the Dharma and not just understand it haphazardly, but understand it well. If we simply go about our practice through a haphazard understanding of Dharma, we’re not going to be able to eliminate our problems. But if we understand it in an unerring