Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 42-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche unpacks meditative concentration as the gateway to liberation. He details the five weaknesses of an undisciplined mind and their eight antidotes, using vivid metaphors — the mind stable as an object on a shelf, yet capable of being directed like servants following orders. He positions concentration within the three trainings, explaining how it overcomes gross mental obscurations while wisdom — realization of emptiness — addresses subtle ones like attachment and ego-grasping. The path to liberation, he stresses, is a journey the mind walks, powered by renunciation: the fierce determination to escape suffering that drives practitioners to alternate between accumulating merit through generosity and morality, and accumulating wisdom through meditation on selflessness. A closing Q&A clarifies the five faults of concentration and suitable meditation objects.
Metadata check: No issues detected.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1994-03-17 – 6B – KR.mp3
UUID: cb9436e0-ab9c-4632-8188-1775037f667d
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Tenets
Date: 1994-03-17
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,497
Single pointedly concentrated on the topics of one’s training. And that’s the reason then we next have the training on meditative meditative concentration. So when the mind is not with the training of meditative concentration then it has all the weaknesses such as being flickering, wandering here and there, and other forms and in brief the lack of meditative concentrate in brief a mind lacking meditative concentration has five major forms, five major weaknesses and these five major faults need to be overcome through eight opponents, and it is through one’s training in overcoming the five major through the eight means that eventually one comes to the perfection of attaining meditative concentration. Once one attains meditative concentration then one’s mind can remain stable on a given object or in profound meditation or equipoise for as long as one wants to. It would be as stable as if let’s say if we pick up an object, that candle stand or an object, if we pick it up and let on, if we put it on another location, the object would remain there, unmoved.
It would stay there on the spot where it was put. Similarly the mind which has achieved meditative concentration would remain unflickering, stable, always there. But also it has the quality when it is used, employed to think about other topics then it it very intensely without any scattering and thinking and any weaknesses full concentratively remain thinking on the other topics. It would be like for example if in the old days if one has a number of servants then the servants would go wherever the owner asked the servants to go. For example if one servant is sent over there to do certain work the servant would straight away go there and accomplish the ordered task and if another servant is sent on this side or whatever was meant to do the servant would straight away go.
Like that a mind with meditative concentrating power would be employable to think about whatever topic it is used to. For example, if it is employed to think about impermanence it will remain fully thinking on impermanence without any lack of vigor and with distraction, scattering, thinking, none of those fully thinking only of impermanence. Whereas if the mind with meditative concentrative power is employed to think about emptiness it would remain thinking about emptiness only. So such a powerful fully volume into one volume stable and concentrated would be the quality of meditative concentration that while being having the stability it as well can be used and employed in whatever virtues reflection and meditative concentration it can be used. And in brief, if a practitioner has such meditative concentration power of the mind where the person can remain focused on a given topic for as long as months, years and still not be distracted even a moment then it means one has achieved the perfection in meditative concentration and training.
And that briefly would be a description about the second training, the training on meditative concentration. What Je Tsongkhapa writes in his songs of experience where the line says meditative concentration is like a king overruling all states of mind. If it is placed it remains stable like Mount Meru, the king of mountains. If it is employed it engages in all virtuous activities. So in accordance to such instructions it is true that meditative concentration has such quality of being able to perform those two tasks.
And on top of that, as a function it is through the meditative concentration power one as well avoids all gross wrong engagement of the mind. Or to paraphrase, it is through meditative concentration power one avoids having one’s mind doing unnecessary and disruptive things. So that is the function one can achieve through meditative concentration concentration training. Training. Gross misdeeds of the mind, but the subtle misdeeds of the mind needs to be overcome through other method and that’s why we have the next training, the training on wisdom.
Regarding the subtle misdeeds of the mind it would mean attachment, anger, pride, ignorance, and principally all other can be tracked down to the ignorance and regarding ignorance it means ego grasping or grasping to misconceived self or identity or ego. For example, although what that means is what that means is, let’s say, although things do not truly exist, but ignorance mistakenly thinks that things truly exist. So in that way it grasps onto identity or ego or self as truly existing. So in and that’s how ignorance is. Therefore one now needs to apply the wisdom realizing selflessness in order to overcome the ego grasping, the self grasping, the ignorance.
And the way how one does that is one needs to have in one’s power of the mind the meditative concentration but it is through with the additional force of wisdom realizing selflessness that one overcomes self grasping or ego grasping. Why that is so is meditative concentration which is as well synonymous with calm abiding by itself. All it does is it makes the mind remain focused on a given topic or a focused object but it does not do any analysis. A mind of a calm abiding or meditative concentration is not an analyzing mind. So the analysis part is done by the wisdom.
In this way, therefore, through the wisdom additional wisdom part then one does power analysis on the selflessness reality about phenomena and self and so forth. And through that way one comes to direct clear and unmistaken realization of selflessness. And that is the wisdom. If one has achieved that then that is the perfection in the training of wisdom. By the levels of the path, it would mean there are five levels of the path, meaning path to liberation.
For and the five are the path of accumulation of multitudes of merits, path of preparation, path of seeing, path of meditative familiarization, and path of no-more-training and here these five paths need to be looked in the context of the lower vehicle Hīnayāna path because the specific exponents of the next two tenets of higher discourse groups they both belong to the lower vehicle Hīnayāna path so in that context we have to refer the five paths within the lower vehicle system of liberation. Now amongst the five, the path of multitudes means or path of multitude of merits, it means whenever as a trainee, as a practitioner, whenever one has developed morality and meditative concentration based on definite exit, based on renunciation, then that actually is the actually is where one has reached the first part amongst the five and the part of multitudes multitudes of of merits. Merits. So here, although we can make distinction between a trainee entering for the first time on the first path as being of two types, one of sharp faculty and one of blunt faculty, but let’s briefly make it general without going into those two specifics because even in the lower vehicle system there are specification of a trainee being classified into those two in the initial entrance into the path.
And now there needs to be clarification and that is on the first part when one arrives it means that one mainly has developed the qualities of morality and meditative concentration based on renunciation or definite exit, but as well one does have attained certain level of wisdom. So in even on the first part, a practitioner would have certain levels of having trained on the pre trainings. Example, if there isn’t any cars around and one does have to go somewhere then one has to go by foot. And in that case one needs both foot functioning and strong enough because if one has one foot not functioning, either it is what’s called crippled or whatever, then one would not be able to go well and would not reach the destination. So one needs to have both the feet well.
And as well one does have to actually make the effort of stepping the step one and then the next and then one and the next if one does not make the effort to walk or step ahead then one would not be walking and would therefore not reach the destination so in the example here, we find that part as well is necessary. So in this way if we have developed within our mind continuity continuum the three trainings based on the having developed renunciation or definite exit then we have attained the path but we then have to move ahead although we have developed the path we now need to make the journey ahead towards towards liberation. Here, when traveling on the path, it is not our body which does the traveling because it doesn’t. So body cannot do the stepping and traveling. So it is our mind which needs to do the traveling.
So the mind needs to be improved in making higher ascend. And that in sense, we can say that the mind has to make the steps ahead on the path. Means to As make this step by one’s mind in traveling on the path higher and higher to liberation, the main ingredient and the main means one needs is the strength of renunciation, the strength of definite exit, because it is through the strength of definitely wanting to exit out of saṃsāra, out of suffering that one really mentally would make effort in higher practices and would go the stepping over, but that becomes possible. For example, if one does not have that strong wish to go to Melbourne, maybe one can go ahead, but one might be camping on the halfway. So here, the thought definitely wanting to exit from some saṃsāra or suffering is the strength one needs in order to make the stepping ahead on the path to liberation.
Because in the actual process of in the actual procedure of training towards liberation, how it happens is it is through the force, the strength of this thought of definite exit that one engages into the method aspects of the path such as doing generosity, morality, patience and so forth, meaning the diligence and meditation concentration and then it is as well through the strength of this thought of definite exit one engages into the training of wisdom analyzing selflessness the wisdom on emptiness topic. So in this way, in either case, it is through that strength as a practitioner as a moving force that one engages into the two necessary aspect of the path and those two can be said as the two steps one takes on the path, complementing one another and both steps are based on the strength of the thought of definite exit and in the and in reference to the two types of accumulation through the practice of the first type generosity, morality and so forth, one accumulates the merits and it is through the training on the wisdom analyzing selflessness that one accumulates the transcendent wisdom accumulation so in that way one needs to do practice on both.
In the actual meditators in the actual meditators case of how that is done is occasionally one through the strength of definite exit engages into practices of morality, generosity and so forth, and then occasionally one goes into profound meditation on selflessness or what is called the equipoise state, the deep or profound meditation state. And again occasionally one spends time out of that profound meditation on selflessness to engage engage into practices of generosity and so forth. And in that way, although alternative but still complementing one another as a two necessary combined practice. One does the practice on both and through that way one makes the step ahead. Now in translation it might need clarification for some new people.
What is meant by accumulation of merit is to be interpretively can be explained as doing practices which makes one acquire the necessary ingredient contribution towards one’s liberation. And accumulation of transcendent wisdom in a sense means which one makes sorry, makes the one acquires the necessary ingredient contribution to attain the visible form body of an enlightened being. And whereas the accumulation of transcendent wisdom is the practices through which one acquires the necessary ingredient material which contribute directly to one’s future attaining of wisdom truth body state of enlightened being. Because it’s explained to attain enlightenment one needs both these ingredients, both these courses in that sense. So we’ll stop here for the evening.
And if you have any questions, we’ll have few minutes for that. So the the five fivefold faults are forgetting the instructions, laziness, over application, non application, and sinking and scattering put into one. Sorry. Sinking and scattering. Sinking.
Sinking and scattering. So first amongst the eight means to overcome those five folds although these can be found listed but still to get some additional instruction on them. Now first means is the power of aspiration, which is interpretively normally translated as well as ‘faith’, but it actually means aspiration or zeal and it is the first what’s called means, second is faith, Third is intent or intention. And fourth is the diligence. So these are the first four.
And then the next four are the mindfulness which is in meaning not losing the object of concentration and then the next is introspection or the inspecting mind and it checks whether the mind is in right state of concentration and making sure that it doesn’t fall into sinking and scattering. And then the third is to stop applying the effort to apply the means and then the fourth is which is eight is in the case while the concentration is going alright it is not proper to apply the means. So one maintains equanimity, meaning non effort. Yeah. So they are they.
The first part of the question, what object would be the best for meditative concentration? Well, it is considered to have emptiness as the object of meditative concentration is the best. But then in most people’s cases firstly one needs to have an understanding of emptiness and then keep it. If one does not have the understanding then even though it may be considered the best object but it would be unsuitable for time being so it would be a different case. Now what are the alternatives?
Well in place of emptiness then one can have, say, a Buddha image. That can be okay. It is still momentarily disintegrating that mind being single pointedly focused and remaining as long as one wants in months and years. But although it is momentarily disintegrating but the continuity stays therefore there’s no fault or inconsistency about it being non-functioning. So it remains continuously disintegrating.
And an example can be, since the start of this evening session, we are still on the same cushion sitting. So the continuity has remained, although it has been momentarily disintegrated. Yeah. Thank you.