Grasping the Mind That Has Not Been Grasped

T his morning we saw that, based upon the practical experience of the teachers of our tradition, the practice of tranquility meditation has been divided into different sets of instructions, which are designed to enable students gradually to enhance their practice. Within the first category, grasping it, which here refers to the mind when it has not been grasped, the first set of instructions relies upon a conceptual focus, and the first section of those instructions includes techniques that make use of an external focus for support. The use of an external focus is further divided into two in this text: the use of an impure, which means mundane, support and the use of a pure, which means sacred, support. The first of these, the use of a mundane support, is also divided into two, the use of a gross or coarse mundane support and the use of a fine or subtle mundane support.

Within all of these subdivisions the first technique is grasping the mind when it has not yet been grasped, using a conceptual focus that is an external coarse mundane support. This technique involves simply directing your attention to whatever you naturally see in front of you. It could be a column or a wall; whatever it is, you simply rest your mind on the visual experience of that object of visual perception. The idea is to maintain a bare perception or experience of the object. You do not think about it or consider it in anyway. This technique is presented first because it is the easiest.

The second technique is getting hold of the mind using a subtle or fine support. Here, rather than simply looking at whatever happens to be in front of you, you select an object that is physically small and place it in front of you, using this neutral but physically small object as a smaller or more concentrated focus for the mind. Because the object is smaller, one needs to pay some attention to exactly what focusing the mind on the object does and does not mean. Your effort is put into not losing track of the object’s presence in front of you, which means you do not forget it or become distracted to something other than the object. However, you also do not try to force your mind to rest on the object with tension, nor do you analyze the object or consider

its color, its shape, its identity, and so on. You simply hold your mind to the bare visual experience of the object. In order to do this, your mind must not be held too tightly. You have to allow your mind to settle on the object. It is a process of relaxing the mind into the bare perception of the object, not of forcing the mind into such a perception. Now, these two techniques—using a coarse or gross support and using a fine or subtle support—are both called “using an impure support,” because the supports are neutral; they are not sacred or special in anyway. The next technique taught is a variation of the preceding techniques, but it introduces the aspect of sacredness. This is done in order to make use of the force of your faith as a power in meditation and in order to allow the meditation simultaneously to serve the purpose of the accumulation of merit. Specifically, because it is taught in many sutras that recollection of the Buddha’s form brings many benefits and is therefore an important technique of tranquility meditation, the main practice of focusing on a supermundane or sacred support is to direct your attention to an image of the Buddha, which you have placed in front of you within your line of vision.

What all three of these techniques have in common is that they tether the mind to an external support of some kind. The reason that techniques sharing this common element are presented in the beginning is that we have the habit of directing or turning our minds outward. Therefore, these techniques are easier and more natural for us as beginners. The next technique is a further development, which does not involve directing the mind outward, but directing the mind inward. It is called grasping the mind using an internal focus. Here the internal focus is not an object that is physically present to be physically seen but something that you visualize within your body. The technique is to visualize in the center of your body at the level of your heart a small eight-petaled lotus flower. Resting on top of the center or calyx of that flower you visualize one of several things, and you have a choice here. One suggestion is to visualize your yidam or the deity on which you meditate. If you are used to visualizing a yidam and find that easy and inspiring, then you may do so. Alternatively, you may visualize your root guru or any lineage guru. If you feel that those visualizations are too demanding because of the details involved in their appearances, then you may visualize a small but brilliant sphere of light resting on top of the center of the lotus flower. In this case, it is still recommended that you think that, while the sphere of light appears in that form, it is in essence either your root guru or your yidam. In this practice you maintain your visualization as best you can, focusing your mind on it as one-pointedly as possible, so that you do not forget it or lose track of it. Because this meditation involves an internally directed focusing of the mind, it further develops the mind’s ability to bring the mind to rest, the cultivation of which was begun in the preceding techniques. At this point, four methods have been presented. Three of them are focused on an external object, and one is focused on an internal visualization or imagined object, but all four of these techniques have in common that they involve grasping the mind through tethering it to some conceptual focus or another. The second category of tranquility meditation techniques is grasping the mind without focus, holding the mind in a state free of conceptual focus. The technique presented here makes use of the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space. The aspect of the five elements which is significant here is the distinction among them between coarse and subtle. It is held that the element earth is the coarsest; water is more subtle than earth; fire more subtle than water; air more subtle than fire; and space, which is held in this context to be nothing whatsoever, the subtlest. Now, there are different ways this technique has been taught. Sometimes it involves a process of dissolving or collapsing into oneself, and sometimes it involves a process of expanding and dissolving outwardly. Here it is presented as a process of expanding outwardly. When you begin the technique, you think or imagine that you are present within the mandala of earth. “Within” here means that you adopt the center of the mandala of earth as your perspective, but you do not imagine your physical body as being present physically within the mandala. You simply feel that you are within it. To say that the mandala of earth is to be visualized as a cube is misleading. It is a square with three dimensions, that has some thickness, but it is not completely symmetrical like a symmetrical cube.11 It is visualized as being made of yellow light. So you visualize yourself as being in the midst of this truncated cube of yellow light, which is the mandala of earth, as though you were, for example, inside a room. You think that outside that is the mandala of water, which is a quite thick disc of white light. (Rinpoche did not say this, but it is kind of like a hockey puck. He gave me permission to say this, just so you get the dimensions right.) So, just as the earth mandala is your dwelling, so to speak, the water mandala is the dwelling or the container for the earth mandala, and is also seen as being more subtle than it. In the same way, outside of and containing the water mandala is the fire mandala: a triangle of red light, again having thickness so that it can contain the water mandala. Then finally outside of and containing the fire mandala is the mandala of wind: a semicircle of green light, also having thickness so that it can contain the fire mandala. In the context of this meditation the mandala of space, which is the container for wind or air, is thought of as empty space, as not having any kind of shape or form. So you visualize all of that, and once it has been visualized, you then think that the mandala of earth, which is the innermost part of the visualization and the basis of your perspective, dissolves outward into the mandala of water. Then in the same way, the mandala of water dissolves outward into the subtler mandala of fire. Then, the mandala of fire dissolves outward into the even subtler mandala of wind, which finally dissolves outward into the utterly subtle mandala of space. At that point, you simply allow your mind to rest in the absence of focus of any kind but without distraction. At this point the text mentions that, when you do these practices, and in particular the last mentioned one, as a result of working with your mind in these ways you may start seeing things or hearing things. If you do, understand such experiences to be simply a result of working with your mind and beyond that as having no significance one way or another. Do not regard them as a sign of anything special in a good way or a sign of anything special in a bad way. It does not mean that you are attaining anything in particular, but it also does not mean that you have done something wrong; it cannot hurt you. This is mentioned, because, when we have a new experience and especially when practicing meditation, we tend to react in one of two ways: we either value the experience and, therefore, naturally crave its repetition, or we fear the experience and want to be rid of it. It is important, therefore, to understand that seeing or hearing these things is in itself neither good nor bad. It has no more value or significance than a dream or any other kind of hallucination. You will not have great visions or receive prophecies because of these experiences, nor can these things you see and hear hurt you in any way. So far, two methods of grasping the mind have been presented: grasping the mind with a conceptual focus and grasping the mind without conceptual focus. Now a third is presented, which is grasping the mind using the breathing. Here what is intended by breathing is the specific way of breathing, called vase breathing. It is called vase breathing because you use a part of your body to hold or contain the breath the way a vase contains something. However, you should be aware that there are two quite different practices called vase breathing, and the differences between them are significant. There is the vase breathing practice associated with chandali or tumo meditation and there is the vase breathing practice associated with the mahamudra tranquility meditation. Here we are concerned only with the latter. They are quite different. When you practice vase breathing as part of the chandali or tumo practice, because your intention in that practice is to generate physical heat and bliss, the vase breathing needs to be quite intense and energetic. Here, you are simply using vase breathing as a way to grasp your mind. So therefore, it is much more relaxed. The physical posture, as well, does not need to be as strict or as tense as in the chandali practice. You maintain the proper meditation posture of the seven dharmas of Vairochana, but beyond that there is no additional tightening up or tensing of the body.

The first thing you do when you practice vase breathing is called the cleansing or removal of stale air. Again, this is done differently depending upon what type of vase breathing you are about to practice. Here what is presented is how to cleanse or remove the stale air at the beginning of a session of mahamudra-style vase breathing. When you do it for the chandali or tumo practice, you have to do lots of stuff with your arms and hands. Here you will not be required to do that. You simply first block off or close your right nostril and then breathe out. Try to breathe out completely through your left nostril once very gently. Then you breathe out a second time, again just through the left nostril, but this time more forcefully. Then you breathe out a third and last time through the left nostril, very forcefully, completely emptying out your lungs. Then you block or close your left nostril and do exactly the same thing. You breathe out through the right nostril very gently, and then with a medium intensity, and then completely emptying your lungs. Then you rest both your hands on top of your knees and you do it a third time, but this time through both nostrils at once. So there are nine breaths that are expelled in sets of three, each set consisting of a gentle exhalation, a medium exhalation, and a forceful or vigorous exhalation.

The significance of this exercise is the same as that found in the iconography of the many deities who have three faces. Many deities have, for example, a blue central face, a white right face, and a red left face, representing what in the impure state is experienced as the three principal kleshas or mental afflictions.12 Here, because of their correspondence to a place and therefore to nostrils and breathing, you are cleansing or removing these mental afflictions by using the breathing to do so. So as you perform these exhalations the first three times—having closed the right nostril and breathing out three times through the left nostril—you simply think that you are breathing out and removing from your system all attachment. Then, as you breathe out three times on the right side—having closed the left nostril—you simply think that you are breathing out and removing from your system all aversion. And then finally, when you breathe out three times through both nostrils at once, you think that you are breathing out or removing from your system all apathy and bewilderment. Now, the reason why the first of each of these three sets of out breaths is gentle, the second medium, and the third forceful is that, when you breathe out the first time through your left nostril—using the first of the three sets as an example—you think that through breathing out gently you are clearing out the coarsest and, therefore, most easily removed attachment. When you breathe out a second time more forcefully, you think that as you are breathing out with medium force you are removing medium level attachment. And then finally, when you breathe out through your left nostril very forcefully, you think that you are clearing out or removing from your system the subtlest and, therefore, most difficult to remove attachment. In general, in buddhadharma, it is taught that a coarse klesha requires only a weak or gentle remedy. A klesha of middling strength that is more deeply entrenched than a coarse klesha requires a stronger remedy, while the subtlest and most deeply entrenched klesha will require the strongest remedy. In fact, you only eradicate the subtlest kleshas when you achieve the vajra-like samadhi,13 which is the strongest remedial force. That notwithstanding, here, when you do this preparation for the practice of vase breathing, as you do the breaths you think that the corresponding kleshas have been cleared out of your system.

After removing the stale air in this way, you begin the main practice of vase breathing, which is to hold the breath. Now, there are different ways this can be done. There is what is called upper vase breath, which is holding the breath in the chest, and lower vase breath, which is holding the breath in the abdomen or belly. There is also holding the breath outside and holding the breath inside. Here, it is holding the breath inside, not outside, and it is holding the breath as a lower vase breath in the belly or abdomen, not as an upper vase breath in the chest. So all you have to do is to inhale quite slowly and gently and then, after you have inhaled, simply retain the breath that you have inhaled in your belly. When the vase breathing practice is done in the context of chandali, and therefore done in a forceful manner, there are lots of additional things you have to do. For example, you have to contract the Kegel muscle to bring the lower breath up, and you have to force the breath that is brought in down, and so on.14 Here you do not have to do any of that. Do not worry about bringing lower air up or forcing upper air down. Simply hold the air for a comfortable period in your belly, and, while holding the air, simply rest your mind in a natural and gentle way on the feeling of clear empty space that is associated with holding the breath. Remember, you are holding the breath simply in order to hold your mind; therefore, do not use any force or make any attempt to prolong the periods of breath retention. As soon as you feel uncomfortable, breathe out gently, and then breathe in again, also gently. After doing this vase breathing several times in a session, you may practice the second part of this technique of resting the mind on the breathing, which is called resting the mind on inhalation, retention, and exhalation. Usually when we breathe, we breathe in and, as soon as we have finished breathing in, we immediately start breathing out. And as soon as we have finished breathing out, we start breathing in again. There is never any space or gap in between the in-breath and the out-breath. Now, many different ways of focusing the mind on the breathing have been taught. For example, in the hinayana abhidharma there are counting the breath, consideration of the breath, analysis of the breath, following the breath, resting the mind on the breath, and so forth. There are basically six methods taught in the abhidharma. But here we have something different from any of those. This is called gentle threefold breathing. It is called gentle because there is no particular attempt to manipulate the breathing, except that instead of breathing in and then immediately breathing out, after breathing in, you wait before you breathe out. Now this is different from the vase breathing in that here the duration of the inhalation, of the retention, and of the exhalation should all be equal, three equal periods within each complete breath.

In doing this, some people combine the phases of the breath with the mental repetition of the three mantra syllables: OM AH HUM (HUNG)— OM coordinated with the in-breath, AH with the retention of the breath, and HUM (HUNG) with the out-breath. But what is most important here is simply to recollect, as they occur, the inhalation, retention, and exhalation, so that, while you are inhaling, you are aware that you are doing so; while you are retaining the breath, you are aware that you are doing so; and while you are exhaling, you are aware that you are doing so. In the beginning, it is recommended that beginners start with doing, for example, twenty-one of these breaths as a series, and it is important to practice with enough mindfulness so that, while you breathe in, and so forth, you maintain an awareness of what part of the breathing process you are in. So those two techniques, the vase breathing and the threefold gentle breathing, make up what is called holding or grasping the mind through breathing. The purpose of all three of these groups of techniques—grasping the mind with a focus, grasping the mind without focus, and grasping the mind through the breathing—is to develop a state in which the mind comes naturally to rest. But this state of natural rest needs to be free of torpor and dullness. Natural rest here does not mean a state of mental vacuity, a state of mental dullness, the absence of perception or awareness. After all, the basis of the practice of meditation is the cultivation of mindfulness and alertness. Therefore, in our text and in many other texts of guidance in meditation, words like limpid clarity, glaring brilliance, and so on, are used. The use of these words indicates that, as much as the mind’s coming to rest is the goal of tranquility meditation, that rest must never become a state of dullness or a state of mental vacuity or darkness. As you will see later, when you read through and study this book, it talks about this a great deal. One of its clearest statements on this subject is that the ideal state of tranquility is one in which the mind becomes as restful or calm as an ocean or lake without waves. But it goes on to say, “I do not mean a lake at night; I mean a lake during the day.” By this the author is saying that if you cultivate a state of stillness in which there is no mental clarity, no lucidity, in which the mind’s natural capacity for lucidity and cognition has been suppressed through the eradication of thought, there will be no benefit, even if [such a dull state of tranquility] is continued diligently for a long time.

What is needed is a state of tranquility like a calm lake or ocean during the daytime, in which the stillness of the mind is conjoined with or accompanied by a vigorous force of alertness. This means that some effort has to be placed in fostering and nurturing mindfulness and alertness. The relaxation of mind cannot be allowed to diminish the force or vigor of your alertness, because, if the mind remains vigorously alert in this way, it will be capable of applying itself to further practice; but if it becomes devoid of vigorous awareness, it will not. To return to our outline, you will remember that the presentation of tranquility meditation in our text is divided into the general technique or general point and the specific techniques or specific methods. You will remember further that the specific methods were divided into grasping the mind when it has not been grasped, stabilizing it once it has been grasped, and progressing when it has been stabilized. So today we have completed the general technique and the first of the three sections of specific techniques. I am, therefore, going to stop with the instruction for today, and, as it seems to be pleasing to many of you, I will now meditate with you for a few minutes. [[[Thrangu Rinpoche]] and students dedicate the merit.]