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ver the last few years, in fact during the period I’ve
been at Madhyamaloka, I have been thinking more and more about the importance
of Order members’ meditation. It is our meditation, in the end, which informs
and shapes the movement. The way we
practice is, in the end, how we are. And
how we are, in the end, determines the whole character of the movement.
There is something very particular about
meditation. Meditation gives us an
experience. We can actually contact
something real in meditation. Meditation
gives us a strong experience of reality.
At least, it should do so at times.
Perhaps it gives us that experience at times when we meditate
intensively. Perhaps it happens when we
allow plenty of space around our meditation. Or perhaps it’s when we simply
value meditation highly and are very mindful of it. I think this is how it should be – that at
least from time to time, that our meditation should give us a strong experience. It shouldn’t just keep us in a kind of nice
gentle mood all the time – all balanced, all sorted out. That isn’t real, that doesn’t go very
deep. No, now and again, our meditation
should be giving us a bit of a spiritual nudge, even a bit of a spiritual
jolt. If it is the case that our
meditation does not give us a strong experience, at least now and again, it may
be that we do not do very much of it, or it may be that we do not take
meditation very seriously as a spiritual practice.
One of the things we were discussing at Madhyamaloka
last week was the question as to whether we in the movement take meditation
very seriously. I think it is reasonable
to say that these days there is less intensive meditation going on than there
used to be in the days when Bhante was around all the time. We often used to do sesshins, we often used
to do meditation retreats. Nearly
everyone used to do those annual month long solitary retreats. On the whole, people used to meditate more
than they do now. Of course I am
generalising, of course there is Vajraloka, there is Taraloka and Guhyaloka,
and there are two Order members now doing long retreats. Though, I have to say, that is two out of
791. Of course, the developments which
have taken place in the last decade, in the fields of Study, and Right
Livelihood, and in the ordination process, have been crucial ones. They are what we needed to do. But in some respects I feel the pendulum may
have swung rather too far away from direct spiritual practice.
Of course, the Order has grown – grown in numbers. But we have also grown in years. Abhaya came up to me yesterday to remind me
that this year he and I, and one or two others, celebrate the 25th
annniversary of our ordination. There
must be lots of Order members pushing 15 and 20. There are now many senior members of the
Order, men and women who have thought much about the Dharma, who have meditated
regularly, and at times meditated deeply.
People who have continued to go for Refuge through many difficult
circumstances, who have acquired insight through all this Dharma activity. We should rejoice in all that practice, in
the collective foundation that represents.
And it is a good thing for each of us individually,
because all of us are going to have to face old age and death. The crazy young men and women who made the
movement happen in the seventies are now at least fifty; they are perhaps even
going on sixty. Yes, all of us, unless
we die young, will have to face old age and death. All of us are going to have to face
reality. So we should start doing so
sooner, rather than when it is too late.
It is very auspicious that all of us have been able to
make a start on this. We are very lucky
to have found the Dharma.
So I think this is a good time for more of us,
especially the more senior among us, to take seriously the fact of our
impermanance, and to take refuge in meditation as a source of the wisdom which
we need to face it. We are all fairly
well prepared in study and ethical practice, and presumably we’re filling in
any gaps in these areas as we go on. So
I’m asking you to consider giving more priority to the practice of
meditation. Consider spending more time
on retreat, that is on meditation retreats, and on solitary retreats which are
spent in meditation. Consider giving
more time to your personal practice.
Please think in terms of gaining wisdom, gaining a perspective on human
existence which will make you a resource for others, and which will allow you
to be happy whatever happens to you, whatever circumstances arise in your old
age. Create in yourself a counterweight
to the human tendency to slide into an impatient, unwise and crotchety old age,
or a flabby, silly old age, one in which your wisdom does not shine through,
because it simply isn’t there. Now is
the time; now is the time to meditate, because time is running out.
I said just now that I felt the pendulum of our
collective practice may have swung too far away from meditation. And I have
been saying how I think it could, and should, start to swing back in that direction,
and how we could, and should, contribute
to that swing. I think our doing so
would create more of a unity in our spiritual practice overall. Dharma study and all that implies, spiritual
friendship and all that implies, meditation and all that implies – all
need forging together into some kind of new sythesis. Of these three, there seems currently to be a
lack in the dimension of meditation.
Of course, I do not think the issue is one simply of
meditating more. It’s not just quantity,
there is also quality. Meditating more is something we all need to do, I
suspect, but we also need to think
about it more, understand it more. In a way,
we understand meditation very well.
I think the FWBO generally has an excellent understanding of the nature
and role of meditation, and a good reputation for teaching it. But there is more, there really is. There really is further to go. We need to articulate better the deeper
aspects of the Dharma.
What we need to articulate better are our realisations of the Dharma. Now at some point each of us has realised the
Dharma. We’ve each realised the truth to some extent – or we would not be
here. Our insights may be spelt with a
small ‘i’, but still they have
brought us to the stage of effective going for Refuge. Since then we may sometimes have lapsed, our
going for Refuge may have slipped at times,
but at least once in our lives, something happened which we cannot
forget. There was some kind of insight
which in our best moments we can remember – and which we can recapture,
if we make sufficient effort.
It is important that we recognise our realisations,
that we remember them, even that we write them down, and that we reflect
further on them. Because in terms of the
spiritual life, we are our realisations.
Our realisations are where we are at, they are what changes us. We act in accordance with our
realisation. We are going for Refuge in accordance
with our realisation.
Essentially, it is this realisation which was
recognised by our preceptor at ordination.
It was seen, it was witnessed by someone who we also recognise as one
who has realised, witnessed by someone who himself clearly goes for Refuge to
the Buddha and to his Practice of realisation.
It is when our realisation is recognised, and when our determination is
recognised to act on that realisation, act for the benefit of all beings
– it is then that we enter the Order, and then that we receive our
sadhana. That’s one reason why sadhanas
are so important. The sadhana begins at
that crucial point. Because what is also
recognised is our connection with the Buddha; and our connection with the
Buddha appearing in a particular form.
And meditating on this particular Buddha form, or
Bodhisattva form, keeps alive the karmic weight of the ordination. In
retrospect, our ordination was the most important juncture in our life. It was a weighty karma which gave us a whole
new life. So the Sadhana recapitulates
and symbolises our having been seen to go for Refuge to the Buddha, and having
been seen to take responsibility for eventually becoming a Buddha.
This is why we are enjoined to practice the sadhana
every day. I’m going to say more about
that a bit later on. In the meantime
I’ve got a few points about sadhana in general.
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n the whole, we don’t talk much about sadhana in
general. We don’t talk a lot about
sadhana anyway. I’m not sure it’s so
much because of lack of opportunity or the right people to talk to. I don’t think we really know very well how to discuss sadhana, what to talk
about, what language to use. I think
that’s a vital issue. But anyway, when
we do talk, we generally talk about particular
sadhanas. I do the Padmasambhava
sadhana. You do the Tara sadhana. They do the Ksitigarbha sadhana or the
Manjughosa or the Avalokitesvara sadhanas.
I’ve often been on sadhana kula retreats, which is where we probably do
most of our talking about particular sadhanas – though, of course, the
main emphasis of these retreats is on actual meditation. I’ve attended, and even occasionally led,
quite a number of retreats on Tara, Manjughosa, Vajrasattva and
Avalokitesvara. But as you know, in
recent years I’ve started to lead a regular retreat on the theme of what the
sadhanas have in common.
This isn’t at all because I want to discourage the kula
retreats – of course I want to see Order members practising meditation,
and particularly sadhana, and this is a very good way to practice. However I do think we need to come to a
better collective understanding of what we are doing when we practice sadhana,
whatever sadhana we happen to practice.
Dharmacaris and Dharmacharinis need to examine these
questions, because our tradition of practice has a special way of looking at
them. The visualisation practices we
have been given originally arose within a context of so-called ‘Tantric’
Buddhism. However, that is not the
context in which we practise them now.
We do them in the context of a more universal form of Buddhist practice,
a more open tradition of practice, a tradition which questions existing tradition,
one which tries to see what is essential.
I think it is very important that we take this context
on board, for quite a few different reasons.
One reason is that it is quite easy to harbour a romantic view of
visualisation practice. There is something
of a temptation to cling on to an idea that, really, behind it all, we are
actually practising within a ‘traditional’ framework – traditional, that is, in
the sense of a particular
tradition. We may harbour the fond
feeling that we are, secretly,
Nyingmapas, or Kagutpas, or in any case Tibetan, Buddhists. After all, most of our teacher’s teachers
were, so surely, in some sense, we are too.
Well, of course there is a connection of some kind. However as an Order we do not take on the
framework of Tantra. Our visualisation
practices are not Vajrayana practices.
They are just Buddhist practices.
When we practice sadhana we are imagining the Buddha. We are making a connection with the
Buddha. But the way we do that is simply
how it happens to be at the time. We
simply connect with the Buddha, and take things on from there. In our communication with the Buddha we do
not carry with us the intellectual baggage of the Vajrayana. Even though Vajrayana ideas may be
interesting, and may be useful, it is not considered that they are necessary
for that communication to take place.
As a movement, we are developing a critique of Triyana
Buddhism which is likely to be important for the future of Buddhist
practice. Once upon a time the Mahayana
arose as a response to the monastic and scholarly preoccupations of the
Hinayana. Later on, the Vajrayana arose
as a response to the monastic and scholarly preoccupations of the
Mayahana. Nowadays it seems that the
present day Tibetan schools, representing the Vajrayana, have monastic and
scholarly preoccupations which will eventually need to be gone beyond. I’m not saying that the FWBO has all the answers, I wouldn’t dare say such a thing, but at
least it is asking these questions seriously, and trying out some answers. Buddhism is coming out of a stagnant period;
it is due for another renaissance. I am quite sure that the FWBO is playing an
important part in that. These are obviously
very early days, but they are very creative ones. We are creating a new way of practising
sadhana. We are going back to the
essentials of practice, and taking our practice from there. So this is why we
need to think more about what it is that we are all of us doing in
visualisation meditation.
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ne thing that all our sadhanas
have in common, whatever their particular form, is the blue sky. The blue sky is something very profound. The form of the Buddha or the Bodhisattva
manifests out of this, out of our symbolic imagination of sunyata, our
imagination of the ultimate view of reality.
So immediately, we have a meditation within a meditation, a meditation
on form and reality, rupa and sunyata.
The beauty of the ideal form of the ideal man on the one hand; and on
the other, the truth of that form’s real nature, a nature which cannot be
described. The truth of things is that
they are impermanent and have no substantial existence. Or one can say that the manner of their
existence is deeply mysterious. You just
cannot get at the way things exist. You
just cannot understand it – not as you are now, anyway – so all is
mysterious, all is void, all is sunyata, the open dimension of things,
ineffable, beyond description.
So when we imagine the boundless
space of the blue sky, we meditate on this.
The image of the Buddha and the blue space of the void are quite
inseparable, they are of exactly the same stuff. There is no difference. The image is sunyata, and sunyata is nothing
else but image. So we meditate on this,
and all this implies, and it implies quite a lot. It implies Enlightenment.
So as the image of Enlightenment
manifests out of the voidness, we take him as the ideal object for reflection
on rupa and sunyata. We know we have created this form ourselves. It has come
out of our relatively impoverished imagination. So it is quite clear that this
object is entirely conditioned. And yes,
our ability to visualise is imperfect.
Perhaps we hardly perceive anything at all when we visualise. Yet we are
doing something when we sincerely
make the attempt. Something is arising in dependence on our sincere efforts. And that something, however imperfect it may be, is what we call
the visualised image. Its imperfection is actually quite irrelevant. What is relevant is the fact that we are
creating it out of sunyata. And that it
stands in the place of the Enlightened One, the Buddha.
Formally, one does this
reflection on the nature of form and the nature of potentiality at the
beginning, and at the end, of the visualisation part of the sadhana. Of course, it helps if we do it at other
times, to. But at the point when we
start to imagine the Buddha appearing out of the blue sky, we have a special
opportunity to reflect on how form arises out of emptiness. And then, when the Buddha dissolves back into
the blue sky, we have a special opportunity to reflect on how emptiness is no
other than form. Often the sunyata
mantra is recited at this point, to mark the transition.
It is very interesting to
reflect on the nature of form; for after all, what is a form? You can say that there is visual form that
you see, there is aural form that you hear, there is tangible form when you
touch. There is also the form of an idea or a feeling. Because feelings do have a kind of form, a
kind of shape. So does an idea – though these forms are not visual. An idea might spark off a visual image in the
mind, but that image is not the idea itself.
We are talking about the form of the actual idea. That is quite indescribable in visual terms,
yet it does have a form. It is so
interesting that these forms, which engage our attention all the time, are so
often beyond verbal description. For
example, you can say a perfume has a form. I can very clearly imagine the
perfume of a rose. I can easily imagine
the smell of frying onions, too. These
odours have a form, but I can’t describe
what kind of form they have. Its rather
similar with the form of the Buddha. We
can only attempt to paint, in our mind, the Buddha’s form. That is not only because we are not
especially adept at visualisation. There
is another very important limitation, which is that we are not enlightened.
When we try to imagine the form of the Buddha, in terms of a visual image, an
icon of colour and light, that is of course only a tiny part of how a Buddha
really is. It is even a tiny part of how
we would actually experience the Buddha if he were actually present. So we shouldn’t expect too much, not
yet. There is, for example, that element
of atmosphere, or presence. The Buddha
Vibe. How is one to imagine the form of
an atmosphere? Sure, each person has an
atmosphere, which is quite distinct and recognisable. It has some kind of form, it has some kind of
outline, it has certain definite characteristics which can be recognised. But this rupa, this form, can’t be adequately
described. So when you ‘visualise,’ you
don’t have to think of form just in terms of shapes in space. It is useful also to think of indiscribable
shapes in the mind, to imagine impressions, vibrations, which don’t translate
in the usual visual terms.
Reflection on the
nature of form may seem a kind of abstract thing to do. But it only seems abstract because we are so
lacking in faith and imagination. This
is definitely not something
abstract! It is of the essence of
reality. You can’t get more real. All dharmas really are sunyata. The fact that we often dismiss the point and
pass on makes no difference whatsoever.
I think that an attitude that ‘this is just abstract’ can sometimes
betray our emotional resistance to the Buddha.
It perhaps shows us that in order to engage with sadhana, we need to
open ourselves up a little bit. Perhaps
we need to drop our habitual armour, and simply recognise that we don’t really
know what the ‘mind’ is, and we don’t really know what ‘things’ are
either. When meeting a Buddha, it’s an
opportunity to recognise that you are completely ignorant of who you are, and
who he is. When a Buddha comes near to
us, when we call him to us with his mantra, it will surely help the communication
get off the ground if we relax that rigid pose we have of knowing all about
reality, thank you very much.
We can do this
reflection in our practice, every day.
But it might also do to prepare ourselves more thoroughly, to do some
background work: to consider the whole background of what we are doing in
visualisation.
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e should start
with the Imagination, because the essential key to sadhana is to realise that
our imagination is at play everywhere, and all the time. The act of imagination
does not necessarily take place on some exalted plane. It is a faculty which we all use in every
moment of our existence. It is
continually at work in all the various different worlds we inhabit. We know that it is active in our waking
life. But it’s also there in our dreams,
in our meditation – in our distractions from meditation, too. It is even said to operate in after death
experience.
The Bardo Thodol
refers to the six bardos of waking, dreaming, meditating, the moment of death,
the after death state, and rebirth. Of
these, we are most familiar with waking, dreaming, and meditating, more or less
in that order. We obviously know the
waking state best. That is our
normality. But how would we characterise
it? Perhaps we would say that the basic
experience is one of consciousness.
Because what happens while we are awake is that we see, we hear, we
smell and taste, we touch, and we cognise mental things. We experience the six sense
consciousnesses; so we might say, therefore, that the six sense consciousnesses
are what characterise waking life.
However, sense consciousness is
not unique to waking life. In dreams,
too, we see, we hear, we experience touches.
We also remember and plan in detail.
We are driven by strong feelings and emotions. So when we see the extent to which
consciousness also takes place in dreams, it is rather difficult to pin down
what is special about the waking state.
We all view our waking lives as the most real and significant part of
our existence. Yet at the time that it
happens, a dream is completely real to us; it is as real as waking life. So all we can really say is that the waking
state is the one with which we most associate ourselves. It is here that we have the most power to intervene,
to exercise our will, to be responsible, to respond rather than react.
I am not arguing that dreaming
is more real, or more important, than being awake, or vice versa. We are exploring the activity of the
imagination, and the point is that we spend long periods of actual, vivid,
sensuous life in a world that works completely differently to that of waking
existence.
The point is very significant,
because sadhana meditation, too, can become a vivid, real experience. So to draw out this significance, it is very
helpful to watch dreams. Occasionally, even, to make a practice of recording
them. This brings more attention on to one’s dream life; it brings more
attention on to one’s mental life generally.
So that we tend to notice much more the continual play of images arising
in the mind.
Since the waking state is no
different as an experience, maybe it would be interesting to treat your waking
experience as though it were a dream.
Try imagining that you’re dreaming, that this is a dream. It has an interesting effect. It can make you more self-aware, bring you
into the present more. It’s just a
trick, of course. You could just
practice mindfulness in the ordinary way and the effect is the same. Life
becomes more vivid; you become more aware of the continual activity of the six
senses – the eyes and the ears and the mind. You perceive, with the eyes and ears, more
what is actually there, without allowing the mind habitually to add or subtract
information. By practising mindfulness
of our senses, we come to perceive our sensations more as they really are. We
then come closer to the real workings of the mind and the emotions.
This is liberating. It is liberating to be alive to the
spontaneous movement of the mind. It is
liberating to notice our thoughts as they arise, liberating to observe the mind
at play.
The mind is playing with all its
stored-up memories. In most of our
mental activity, whether we are thinking, reflecting or planning, we use stored
memories of previous sense impressions.
All the sights we’ve seen, the sounds we’ve heard, the ideas we’ve
had. (Our experience, that’s what we
call it.) These sense memories serve as
a kind of clip-art for the imaginative process.
After all, impressions are all we have to work with. Our thought processes can only have sense memories to work
with. All our data is, at some point or another, received through the
senses. If I am thinking about
something, for example thinking about what I am going to say to you, I weigh
and measure its meaning by subtly arranging and rearranging clips from my
former experience. And what I am saying
will make sense to you largely to the extent that you can fit it all together
meaningfully in your own mind. And to do
that, you use your own set of former
experiences as you have them stored in your
memory. If we think about what we could
be doing next week, we take sense memories and put them together in a kind of
picture of what this or that different activity might be like. It’s the same when we consider how we feel
about someone else – it’s the same sort of process of match-and-compare. We do it even if we have never met someone
– we just use guesswork to picture them, still using images and feelings
created by previous sense impressions.
From the various scraps of available information, we surmise that they
are probably rather like this, or like that.
The five physical senses of
seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching, all work through the sixth
sense, the mind sense. You and I see
each other. But our physical eyes are
just receptors for coloured light. They see nothing. The information comes alive when it is
processed by our brain and interpreted by our mind. Really, all our sensing
takes place in the mind. Our sense
world is an interpretation by our mind.
To grasp this point is important in developing our view of what happens
when we do sadhana meditation.
It is useful as an exercise when starting the sadhana,
or indeed any meditation practice, to experience the activity of the senses in
the moment that it happens. So for a
while, instead of withdrawing from the senses, we can just sit loose to the
habit of interpreting what manifests through them, so that we ‘just see’, ‘just
hear’, and ‘just experience.’ It is
easier said than done, but just trying to do it trains us in a useful approach
to the practice. To the extent we can do
it, we bypass the problem of hindrances and distractions, because these are
seen as further sense objects to be incorporated into the meditation. That process of incorporation knits the mind
together and empowers the imagination.
In this approach it isn’t that we ‘let go’ of sense experiences. It is more like we let them ‘come and go’ within a spacious awareness.
This is also, of course, not just an ‘approach’, but
an important meditation practice in its own right. It is
also something we can do when we are not formally meditating. Because generally, in the way just outlined,
it is good Dharma practice, an aspect of mindfulness, to live more in the
senses. The attempt to live more in the senses is aimed at seeing, and then
breaking out of, our habitual way of employing the senses. What we eventually transcend is our covering
over of the real world with a veil of assumptions about it.
Because we normally approach
meditation through sense-withdrawal, it is easy to start viewing the senses as
pertaining to a lower form of
consciousness. But this is by no means
necessarily the case. The important
shift we are trying to make is not so much to get out of the senses, but to
transcend our habitual attachment to
sense experience. It is this attachment
which keeps us in a distracted state.
Withdrawal from the senses in meditation – as when we close our
eyes, and focus our attention away from sounds and ideas – is just a particular
method of temporarily achieving this transcendence of attachment. In dhyana we temporarily transcend the
kāmaloka. But the kāmaloka is
not the realm of the senses, but the
realm of sense desire. It is the realm in which our relationship
to the senses has been distorted through the influence of negative
emotions. The emotions which we
habitually generate towards the objects in our world tend to fix the way we
experience those objects, until the whole process congeals and sets our world
in particular, narrow forms. It is this
habitual sense-desire which prevents our imagination from taking wings. In the rūpaloka, the realm of purified
form which we can enter in meditation, I would say the senses still
operate. It is just that they operate in
a very different way, in a more visionary way, purified as they are from the
hindrance of attachment to sense experience.
Sense experience in itself is
quite pure and undistorted. You can explore this continually through the
practice of mindfulness. By simply
looking at the colours and forms surrounding you. By simply listening to the weather, to the
engine of a car driving by. Whether you
are in the country or the city, you can listen to all the different sounds
which take place inside the building you are in, and to all those generated
inside your body. The contrast between
the sounds which are actually happening, and those which we assume are
happening, can be very surprising.
We have been exploring our experience of the senses in
waking consciousness, and just now we took a little diversion into the
experience of subtle senses in meditation.
Yet it is just the same situation when we are dreaming. All kinds of sights, sounds, smells, touches, ideas, and memories also arise in
dreams. In dreams we experience a whole world, just as we do when
awake. There is a very strong experience
of ‘me’, a subject; this subject experiences all kinds of objects ‘out there’;
and, in the relation between these two, arise all kinds of complex emotions and
thoughts. In dreams, the
physical senses are not actually operating, even though they appear to do
so. All experience takes place within
the mind-sense. In dreams, all our
experience is centred around a kind of mental body. But in this mental body we still have
experiences of sights and sounds which are just as real as those we encounter
in this so-called physical body. In fact we
find that in all the worlds we inhabit, whether awake or asleep, or meditating,
alive – and even, they say, in the after death state – the same thing
occurs: the mind creates a sense world.
An experienced subject somehow perceives objects. There is an experience of a body, a location,
and an experience of a world bounded by time and space.
What though is this ‘world’, and
where do its forms come from – why do we perceive the particular forms that we do?
In the forms we individually experience, and in the different worlds we
inhabit, people really are astonishingly different from one another. The way I perceive such and such a person can
be radically different from the way you experience them. What I like for breakfast will certainly be
perceived differently by me and by you.
What I find pleasant, you may find disgusting, and vice versa. There is a rough outline experience of the
world which everyone agrees that they share.
There are finer, more exclusive worlds which are shared between
like-minded friends. But even then, my
world is never completely the same as your world, and yours is never quite the
same as mine. Even though there are many
experiences which we more or less share, we never fully share them. Each experience is always different for
everyone. So again, what are these
different worlds of experience – where do their forms come from? Why do we, individually, perceive the
particular forms that we do?
According to the Yogacara way of
viewing reality, the forms which populate our personal world, with all their
pleasant and painful aspects, are seeded by the contents of the Alayavijnana or Store Consciousness.
This is the granary of all our past sense impressions and deeds, all the activities
of our mind amassed over the entire course of beginningless time. The notion of the Alaya is simply a
model. It does not profess to describe
absolute reality. However, it does profess to describe the way we
actually experience ourselves. This is
where we store all our sense memories.
This is how our karma stimulates and stirs up those sense memories. This is how everything we experience takes
place in a mysterious medium that we call ‘mind’.
So if we can
understand how we are continually creating the world that we inhabit, and can
see how our world is actually a story we tell to ouselves and which we
illustrate using pre-existing sense memories – if we can see all that,
then how can we say that we do not visualise?
We visualise everything. We
imagine everything. We visualise in the
world of waking; we visualise what we might have for dinner, and what it might
be like to meet someone. We imagine our
spiritual teacher. We even imagine one
another. Of course we imagine one
another whilst practising the Metta Bhavana – but even when we meet face to
face, actually, we still imagine one another.
It still takes an act of imagination to see, to any extent at all, who
someone else is. We even imagine
ourselves. That is what we are.
Everyone visualises all the
time; our lives are a visualisation. So
no-one cannot meaningfully say that they do not, or that they cannot,
visualise. If anyone has a problem, it is that they find difficulty in
visualising specifically in meditation. And clearly that has to do with the way in
which we view the meditation practice.
We need to wake up to the endless play of our imagination, and realise
that this is what is employed in meditation. The constant activity of our mind
consciousness needs to be brought into the rest of our spiritual life, linked
to our spiritual purpose, our going for Refuge.
When we do this, we begin to imagine the state of Enlightenment and the
embodiments of Enlightenment. We begin
to imagine the Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas, and the enlightened Teachers.
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think we find that to imagine a Buddha or
Bodhisattva is somehow more demanding than imagining an ordinary person. Well, of course we do not understand the
Buddha. Being enlightened, he lies
outside our normal range of experience.
So we start in the sadhana practice by creating a kind of bridge. We create whatever image we can of the
Buddha, we locate some kind of impression of him in our mind, using whatever
images we already have available to us.
We usually use the standard iconography – Sword and Book for
Manjughosa, White Snowy radiance for Vajrasattva, Red Sunset radiance for
Amitabha, etc. In employing such
imagery we should remember that this is only our crude attempt to make a bridge
to the Buddha. We have to make some attempt. The sincerity of this attempt makes it
possible for the real Buddha, the Enlightened consciousness itself, to come to
inhabit, so to speak, the world we have created in our imagination.
We know that the image we create
is known as the samayasattva, and
that the arising actual Buddha is called the jnanasattva. Once we have worked our imagination, and established
the visualised world of the sadhana, there is the possibility of an even
greater expansion of the imagination – an expansion into Enlightenment. But from the unenlightened viewpoint
where we stand now, we cannot extend the imagination very much further. All we can do now is richly to imagine the
Buddha, and to be open to the potential unfoldment of the Enlightened consciousness. Indeed, I think it is important not to think that we can make contact
with the real Buddha by the sheer power of our imagination. The truth is that we can only pray, have
faith, and be receptive. Our sraddha marks our side of the samaya or the connection we make with
the Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva himself
has his own side of the samaya: he or she undertakes to bestow their
Enlightened qualities in response to our faith.
It’s time now to conclude with a
few points as to how to practice a sadhana.
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e are all told, ‘do your sadhana every day.’ But what
are we to do if we don’t feel very well prepared for meditation? How can we
expect to do our sadhana effectively? We
might think that we need to do some more basic practice. After all, there is that principle of Regular
Steps: that any more advanced stage can proceed only on the basis of the less
advanced. It seems to make sense,
that. But then another problem arises. If I take the time to do some Mindfulness of
Breathing, when will I ever find time to do the sadhana?
There are a couple of points here. First, the obvious one. In the end, the
crucial factor may simply be the amount of time we allot to meditation. Most people cannot really develop their
sadhana with just one meditation session a day.
Two is more realistic as a minimum – or at the very least we should add
a few extra sessions throughout the week, perhaps at weekends or on some
evenings. The point is not just that we
need to maintain sufficient shamatha in order to concentrate and be receptive
in the visualisation practice. It is
also a matter of our involvement in
the practice. Spending a little extra
time on meditation will naturally cause us to reflect more on the sadhana, and
think just a little less about the thousand other things in our lives. Distraction and dissipation of energy is
probably the main cause of our losing the feeling of connection with the
Sadhana.
The second point has to do with the nature of sadhana
itself: it is that we tend to think of sadhana strictly as the meditation
practice which focuses on the Buddha or Bodhisattva to whom we were introduced
at ordination. But the term can also be
used in a broader sense. Sadhana (with a
capital ‘s,’ let’s say) can be said to consist of our entire practice in all its aspects, which centres
around the Bodhisattva. Our Sadhana then
is a complete body of practices, which forms a kind of mandala with the
Bodhisattva at the centre. Each aspect of the mandala contributes in some way
to the experience of the Bodhisattva in our mind. It keeps the Bodhisattva alive for us. It keeps the Sadhana alive. So the metta bhavana can do that, the
mindfulness of breathing can do that, the six element practice can do that, and
so can the whole way we behave, and all the views which we hold. All of these keep alive our Sadhana, in the
sense of the totality of our spiritual practice.
But that totality centres upon the Bodhisattva with
whom we have our special connection, and so it is very important that we do
their special practice, the particular visualisation practice. Because the most important thing about a
mandala is what is at the centre. The
mandala originally came about because of that central figure. So when we practice the sadhana of the
Bodhisattva, that is the sadhana with a small ‘s,’ practice their visualisation
and mantra recitation, we do so within a sense that we are developing and
enriching the larger Sadhana – that is, the whole collection of spiritual
practices which bring out the qualities of the Bodhisattva who we are trying to
emulate. Their compassion is developed through the visualisation and through
the metta-bhavana. Their wisdom is developed through the visualisation and
Dharma study. Their skilful means is
developed through the visualisation and through the precepts. So this is the inner mandala of our tutelary
Buddha or Bodhisattva, the Enlightened being with whom we have a special
connection, who protects and blesses us with his or her influence.
I don’t have much time to speak about the dynamics of
the mandala of our Sadhana, how much time should be spent on samatha, how much
on vipassana, how much on the visualisation and mantra recitation. I have said a bit somewhere in my other
talks. But you can work it out if you
just remember that the whole needs to add up to a complete mandala, and that at
the centre of that mandala should be placed the Buddha. Once they are in
residence, we need to make regular visits.
It’s very much like kalyanamitrata.
We need to keep the friendship alive.
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here is much more detail that can
be gone into. I have done that to some extent in my talks on visualisation,
which are available to read. I am also
writing a book which will go into these areas in a lot more depth and detail. I’m doing this, for the reasons I stated earlier
– because I believe that Order members’ meditation is one of the most
important aspects of our movement.
Because it is our meditation, in the end, which will shape the movement. The way we practice is, in the end, how we
are, and how we are, determines the whole character of the movement. I would
like to see us bring more meaning into what we do as Order members, and to
bring into more vivid life those forty or fifty daily minutes in the shrine
room. So let me finish by repeating the
three exhortations with which I began this talk.
1) At least from time to time, your meditation should be
giving you a strong experience of reality.
So please make sure this is happening.
2) Each of us has to face death, and probably old age
too. We have all made a good start in
life, and in spiritual life. So please
take the opportunity to deepen your practice in the years you have left. For many of the older Order members, now is
the time to meditate. Don’t give
yourselves any cause for regret in the future.
Remember that in the end, happiness is dependent on spiritual
development. So please value the
practice of meditation.
3) Finally, do try to understand more clearly what your
meditation is about. Understand your
sadhana, reflect on it, and use it as a means to gaining wisdom.
[62 mins]