Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. “Why is deep concentration not the same as liberation?” — that question anchors this 29.5-minute commentary by Ven Jampa Gendun on meditative stabilization, the second of the three higher trainings. He maps the nine levels of Buddhist cosmology — the desire, form, and formless realms — onto stages of concentration, explaining how the mind naturally moves toward subtler, more peaceful states by recognising the drawbacks of coarser ones. He then draws a sharp distinction: mundane concentration merely suppresses afflictive emotions (a seed of desire, he notes, still fires the moment a chocolate cake appears), whereas supramundane concentration removes those seeds entirely — the difference between temporary peace and actual liberation. He closes with practical guidance on alternating stabilising and analytic meditation within a single session: gather the mind on the breath, investigate an object like compassion until a genuine state arises, then hold that state without further analysis, like a dry sponge absorbing moisture.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 OtE 1992 02 12.mp3
UUID: 51890ea2-6355-4654-bb08-8bb4ed96de06
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Opening the Eye of New Awareness 1991-1992 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1992-02-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 29.5 minutes
Words: ~3,546
Higher training ethics. We said that, okay, building upon a basis of ethics, some degree of ethics, know. On the basis of one’s practice of ethics, the higher training ethics, such as practicing the natural ethics of abandoning the ten unskillful actions. The three physical, four verbal, and three mental unskillful actions. Or taking a natural ethics or subscribing, holding to a training in one of the three levels of prescribed ethics.
The ethics of the lay person or monks or nuns, is to say vows of individual liberation or the vows of the bodhisattva or the vows of secret mantra or tantra. Upon taking that as a basis then we can go on in our training in meditative stabilization. And that’s what we’re looking at presently. The higher training in meditative stabilization. And His Holiness begins the chapter with: “Among the three special trainings, the second is the training in meditative stabilization.”
The mind abiding one pointedly without distraction on any virtuous object is called meditative stabilization. Samādhi, Samādhi. Meditative stabilization. The mind abiding one pointedly without distraction on any virtuous object. It’s called meditative stabilization.
Dependence upon cultivating it, we can, the actual four concentrations, the dhyana, and the four formless meditative absorption are attained. And when its cultivation is complete, it finally becomes the perfection of concentration. So beginning with the way he mentions attainment of meditative stabilization, the attainment of the various concentrations of dhyana as they are in Sanskrit and finally attainment of the absorption. So this brings us, you know we have to partially understand how does Buddhist cosmology set up universe. How does it describe the entire world that we’re living in?
Buddhist cosmology describes our universe in terms of three realms in terms of nine levels. There’s a desire realm which we’re living in right now. There’s a form realm and a formless realm. So the desire realm has six types. There’s a wheel of life.
So that depicts the desire realm. It has six types. There’s the hell realm, hungry ghost, animal, human, demigod and finally the gods or the celestial beings. So within, there’s this realm. We are living within this realm, in the human realm.
And it is attained by various positive and negative types of karma, the actions. So this is one realm, the six types levels in which these types of beings exist. If we separate ourselves from attachment to the desire realm, and by this it is meant if we separate ourselves, if we free ourselves from attachment to the physical sense objects, if we no longer are attached to for example visual forms, the latest movie or seeing beautiful bodies listening to pleasant sounds, smelling nice cushion, tasting great food, having nice soft clothes. If we were able to free ourselves from attachment on the gross level to those five objects, we would move up to another realm. We would move up to the form realm.
The form realm has seventeen divisions. But over, you know we can divide the form realm out of seventeen divisions. But overall there are four main areas and these four main areas are called the four concentration. The four concentrations or the four level of the form realm. If we were to free ourselves from attachment to the objects of pleasure of the form realm, then we could move up to the higher realm, the formless realm.
And there are four main absorption within the formless realm. And both the form and formless realm are attained by what is called non moving karma, non moving action. That is to say by concentration. We can, as a human, we can meditate and we can develop, we can free ourselves from the coarse attachment, from the manifest attachment to the various sense objects and we can mentally, though we have a human body, mentally attain the form realm. And we can free ourselves mentally from those objects of attachment and move up to the formless realm.
So, we can move through these realms mentally. But we can also by doing this we’re creating the karma, non moving karma. It’s called non moving karma because this type of karma can only ripen, it can only come to fruition in these particular form and formless states. It’s non fluctuating. It cannot ripen in a desire realm.
When we die, having created this karma, we will actually be reborn physically in such a state, a form or formless realm. So these form and formless realm are attained to the karma or the action of concentration. They’re characterized as we move up to these nine levels. There’s one level of desire realm. There’s four levels of the form realm, and four levels of the formless realm.
So we have a total of nine levels. And they’re characterized by a lessening of distress. Each one becomes a little more peaceful than the preceding one as we move up. Each one is more subtle. The lower one is more coarse as compared to the upper one.
And this is the way you move up through these various realms by viewing. You know it’s very interesting in this sense that how the mind is induced to move up through these levels of mental concentration. By emphasizing the coarseness, the displeasure, drawbacks of this realm, the mind naturally tends towards what it conceives of as more pleasurable, more subtle, more refined types of experiences. And then last night, Khensur Rinpoche was talking about the reasons established in Buddha nature. And one of the most simple reasons but it’s quite profound is that all sentient beings, whosoever tend away from suffering and move toward happiness.
And that all sentient life has this quality of approach and avoidance. And this is a sign of Buddha nature. The very nature of the mind is that it will tend toward what it conceives of as happiness. And the very nature of the mind is that it will move away from, be repulsed by that which it conceives of as suffering. We don’t have to train ourselves.
We don’t have to make ourselves learn to not like suffering, to move away from suffering, to move toward what we consider happiness. This is by our very nature, our Buddha nature, our innate sanity. And this is what will eventually induce us to achieve Buddhahood if we’re willing to use our understanding, if we’re willing to gain perspective upon our actual experiences. If we’re willing to learn and become aware, to become aware. Then our, we can make use of our innate sanity to help us along the path, to draw us to those more subtle, more refined, more pleasurable, more blissful types of experiences until we’re drawn to the unconditioned state, return towards Buddhahood.
But even within cyclic existence, The way that one induces the higher concentrations which are characterized by a lessening of distress, more peaceful state is by actually contemplating the drawbacks of the lower realm, the drawbacks of the desire realm, the advantages, the bliss of the upper realms. And the mind is naturally drawn to this higher state of concentration. It will naturally move toward that which it conceives of as being more pleasurable. I think this is quite a, I don’t know. I think perhaps there’s a great lesson to be learned from this.
This dynamic quality of the mind such that it is moving toward pleasure away from pain. We don’t have to force ourselves to be able to do this. If we’re simply able to present clearly to our mind the advantages and disadvantages then the seeing is the change. A very active seeing brings change. Not something more that needs to be done.
Perhaps we need to see over and over again because we lose our insight. But the seeing it induces is the change. You know we don’t have to see and then change. Ultimately, you know we’re moving up through these nine levels, but ultimately as from the point of view of Buddhism, none of these nine levels satisfactory. Ultimately none of them are satisfactory.
They all are within, they all are states bounded by ego. They all have their drawbacks. They all do not represent peace. The Dalai Lama goes on to say, when meditative stabilization is divided in terms of its entity, there are two types, mundane and super mundane. So we’re talking about this single pointed concentration upon a virtuous object, meditative stabilization.
And there are two types. There is that which is mundane or worldly and that which is super mundane or trans mundane or transworldly. The mundane meditative concentration, meditative stabilization, they act as an antidote to suppress the manifest afflictive emotion, the distress patterns. By afflictive emotions I mean all the eighty four thousand afflictive emotions in which we all possess to a larger or greater degree. Desire, hatred, spite, miserliness, jealousy.
The natural state of the mind is peace. This is natural nirvana, natural peace. But due to the afflictive emotion, I like the word distress pattern. The natural state of the mind, the peaceful natural state of the mind is lost. There’s a distress within the mind due to the arising of these afflicted emotions.
If we can prevent the arising of afflicted emotions, then the natural peace of the mind is experienced. Now there are two ways that we can do this. We can either do it by suppression or we can remove the afflictive emotions from their very root. Now the difference between a mundane and transmundane meditative stabilization is that a mundane meditative stabilization simply suppresses the manifest arising of the afflictive emotion. Due to the force of concentration, you know what, as long as we’re able to maintain our concentration focused upon a particular object, then there’s no chance for our afflictive emotions to arrive.
States of mind are both manifest and potential or seed form. For example, I perhaps, I probably at this present moment do not have manifest desire in my mind. But if you were to put a piece of chocolate cake in front of me, then desire would arrive. That object would invoke a state of desire, the pattern, the effect of emotion of desire would arrive within my mind. So that shows that though presently I have no desire within my mind, there is this seed of desire within my mind.
If there wasn’t this seed of desire, then there would be no cause for desire to arise. So though presently there is no desire within my mind, I can understand, I can infer that there is this seed of desire within my mind. So if I can attain a concentration such that no object is able to activate, nourish these seeds of the afflictive emotion, then no afflictive emotions will ever arise and my mind will remain at peace. If I can hold my object, my mind to a neutral object or even a virtuous object, that is that any type of object other than one which will invoke, which will activate the seeds of afflictive emotions. If I can hold my mind as long as I can hold my mind to such a type of object single pointedly then no afflictive emotions can arise because there is no object which is able to activate the seeds of the afflictive emotions.
And therefore my mind experiences only peace. And this is what we mean by suppressing the emotion. By suppressing the emotions it simply means to not allow the mind to be distracted toward objects which will activate the seeds of the afflictive emotions and disturb the natural peace of the mind. That is what we mean by suppressing the arising of the afflictive emotions. So this is how, this is why these states are so blissful, peaceful.
Because in these higher concentrations the mind is continually focused, single pointed for eons and eons and eons on an object such that the various afflicted emotions are never activated. Some non-Buddhist traditions have called these states nirvana, liberation. But from the point of view of Buddhism, none of them are liberation. Why? Because eventually the concentration, the power of one’s ability to focus upon an object will wear off.
It will degenerate. Once concentration weakens, then the mind will be distracted. The moment the mind is distracted, a seed of an afflictive emotions will be activated. Upon that seed being activated, an afflictive emotions will become manifest in the mind. And then the natural peace of the mind is lost.
So it’s simply not enough to suppress the arising of manifest afflictive emotions in order to achieve liberation. Even though it’s a very peaceful state, it’s not an eternal state. It’s not a state which can be maintained. It’s not unconditioned, it has its cause. And those causes will eventually deteriorate and therefore the peace is lost.
On the other hand, so that’s the mundane meditative stabilization. A type of stabilization, a type of concentration which is able to bring about a highly peaceful state through the suppression of the arising of afflictive emotions. It’s only done by suppression. On the other hand, the supra mundane meditative stabilization is an antidote to the very afflictive emotions. It has the power to actually remove the seed of the afflictive emotions such that no matter what object we may meet, no afflictive emotions can arise in the mind because the cause is no longer present in the mind.
The very root, the very seed of the afflictive emotion has been removed from the mind. Therefore there’s no possibility of the degeneration of one’s peaceful state. It’s unconditioned. And this is what Buddhism would call actual liberation. Actually liberating the mind from the afflictive emotions by removing the seeds of the afflictive emotions such that they can never return again.
So the Dalai Lama continues on. When meditative stabilization is divided in terms of its entity, there are two types, mundane and super mundane. In order to achieve these, one must initially create calm abiding, śamatha, calm abiding in the mental continuum. So in order to attain either the mundane meditative stabilization or the super mundane meditative stabilization, one must first achieve calm abiding, śamatha. Then one must create special insight, vipassana.
And at that point one has created a meditative stabilization that is a union of calm abiding and special insight. The conqueror’s son Śāntideva, Śāntideva’s engaging in the Bodhisattva’s deeds says, knowing that special insight endowed with calm abiding thoroughly destroys the affliction, one must initially seek calm abiding. It is achieved by those liking non attachment to the world. The reason why calm abiding must be cultivated first is that all the qualities of the three vehicles, three vehicles, the hearer’s vehicle, solitary realizer vehicle, and the bodhisattva vehicle. That all the qualities of the three vehicles are effects of stabilizing and analytic meditation which respectively are actual calm abiding and special insight or similitudes of them.
When calm abiding has been achieved, all analytic meditation as well as virtuous activities have great power because the mind is engaged in its own object of observation without being distracted to anything else. So know generally there are two types of meditation. There’s a whole supermarket of meditation but they can all be classified and subsumed in two general types of meditation. Stabilizing meditation and analytic meditation. So they are all similar to, similar to calm abiding as stabilizing meditation or what we call fixative meditation and analytic meditation or that is a special insight, gaining insight into the object.
In stabilizing meditation, the entity of the object is focused upon. We don’t analyze, we don’t take it apart, we don’t want to penetrate its nature. We simply take the bare object, the bare entity, and we focus upon that without analysis. Stabilizing meditation or fixative meditation. The mere entity of the object is held by the mind.
You know, whatever the object might be, it might be the breath, it might be a visualization, It might be the state of compassion. It might be emptiness. Whatever it might be, we don’t try to penetrate. We don’t try to analyze it to find out its nature. We’re not trying to examine it, investigate it.
We simply are holding it, focusing upon it, stabilizing on it, fixing upon it. So stabilizing meditation is the cultivation of calm abiding. It’s in that category, that direction. In analytic meditation, we’re trying to understand something about the object. We’re investigating, we’re breaking the object into parts.
We want to know its nature, its components. It could be anything. We could analyzing, you can analyze a visual image, you can analyze death, fortune, the chance to grow, emptiness, compassion. We want to understand something about that object. We’re trying to, through analysis, through investigation, create an understanding.
We’re simply not focusing. We’re trying to penetrate, create, divide, investigate. Analytic meditation is in the category of special insight. So practically speaking, in the course of our meditation session, we should seek to alternate between stabilizing and analytic meditation. You know, in whatever, both of these types of meditation, whatever we’re meditating on in the course of a single session.
Because Initially it’s necessary to develop stabilizing meditation. That is to say simply modest concentration. And if we don’t have concentration, then how can we hope to carry on a successful analysis? Penetrate an object, really come to understand it. Our mind is continually being distracted.
Our mind is continually wandering. We have to have some basis of concentration before we can carry on an investigation and analysis. Analytic meditation usually involves some kind of thinking and thinking causes the mind to scatter. It causes dispersal. So initially we want to draw the mind together to a single point.
Having done that, then we can engage in analytic meditation and allow it to scatter. Then we alternate. Then again we bring it into focus. Then again we think about, we analyze, investigate and it scatters again. So continue alternating between these two.
Stabilizing, analyzing, stabilizing, analyzing. And we could begin our session with mindfulness of breathing for example. First by developing a proper motivation and then stabilizing the mind, concentrating the mind on a single point of the breath to bring the mind into focus and integrate all our energy around a single object. Then we can go on to analyze some type of analytic object, whatever it might be. For example, meditate on compassion.
Focusing upon You know how individuals are just like yourself, they want happiness, they don’t want to suffer. How like yourself, they’re in pain going through difficulties. Remembering their great kindness that they’ve shown us in all their various ways. How most of our happiness is very much dependent upon others and they’re hurting. And developing, trying to induce through this analysis, this is thinking, analyzing, investigating, trying to use a key of your own experience and imagination to induce a skillful state of mind.
And then once we achieve that through analysis, when we actually induce some kind of compassion, then cease analysis and stabilize. Fix your mind upon, take that as the focus of your concentration, that state of mind itself. You know there’s a point when investigation, further investigation would be detrimental, would be unproductive. Simply something must put, meditation is the generation of skillful states of mind. The production of skillful states of mind.
Once we’ve induced that skillful state, we want to focus upon it, hold it in front of our mind’s eye. We want to integrate it. You know, the word meditation in Tibetan is gom. Gom means to habituate, to get used to. So, you know, work very hard.
There’s all of these various techniques laid out. How to induce compassion, how to induce awareness about death. All of these very useful skillful states which help us to grow, to develop. So we investigate using this recipe that is presented to us. Using that in terms of our own experience, our own imagination, our own thinking power.
Having done it, we induce a state of mind, a compassionate state of mind, a fear of death, anxiety around death. Thinking how wonderful, unique we are in having Buddha nature, how special an opportunity we have. Gaining insight into emptiness, nothing truly exists. You know there’s some feeling arise, some insight, some state. Then you’re no longer analyzing because you only disperse that state.
You worked hard to get this state to arrive. If you continue to analyze it’s unproductive. You’re simply going to scatter your mind. So having induced the skillful state of mind then focus upon it. That becomes the object of your concentration just like the breath, just like a visual image.
That state of mind. Hold that compassion with the force of your mindfulness. Like a dry sponge absorbing moisture. It becomes part of you. You get used to it.
You become a loving person, a compassionate person, whatever that state is. It becomes your second nature, holding on to it. And then our concentration begins to weaken and wane and so the state is lost and it fades away. Again analyzing, you know, whatever the procedure was.