Shamatha and Vipashyana

Shamatha and Vipashyana All these points we have been discussing are relevant for understanding mahamudra meditation. Mahamudra meditation has two basic stages: the practices for attaining shamatha and the practices for attaining vipashyana. Shamatha is a serenely stilled...

Examining the Essential Nature of the Settled Mind The second (main section) is the exceptionally perceptive state of vipashyana. Have the essential points of your body posture be as before; but, in this case, as your way of gazing is extremely important, direct your eyes,...

Required Initiations The text continues with the actual subject matter, which is divided into the discussion of the generation stage and the complete stage. These are the ways to meditate so as to build up these various practices as beneficial habits of the mind. For these six...

The methods for cultivating boon experiences and stable realizations is divided into two sections: The methods for cultivating boon experiencesThe methods for cultivating stable realizations. Prayer to Cultivate Boon Experiences Properly Verse 20 is a prayer to be able to...

Preliminaries for Shamatha Meditation The text continues with a full discussion of the sutra tradition of mahamudra, And so for this (sutra tradition of mahamudra), out of the two methods, namely seeking a meditative state on top of having gained a correct view (of voidness)...

Mahamudra Meditation on the Conventional Nature of Mind The mahamudra realization is never "Just live naturally like an animal. Just see and hear, and have no thoughts." That is not it at all. Furthermore, even if we are able, through the initial mahamudra methods, to...

Engaging in Enlightening Conduct  Once we take the bodhisattva vows, which are the essence of developing this engaged level of bodhichitta, we need to actually practice what’s called “enlightening conduct,” bodhisattva conduct. This is actually what bodhisattva vows...

Questions about the Clear Light Mind If the clear light mind is not influenced by causes and circumstances and it's not independently existing, then by what is it influenced? When we speak of clear light mind as being an unaffected or unconditioned phenomenon, we need to...

Training in Higher Discriminating Awareness  Removing the Obscurations to Liberation and Enlightenment The discussion of training in higher discriminating awareness starts with the second half of verse 41:  (41b) However, if you have failed to apply yourself to...

Going Beyond a Settled Mind: Vipashyana Once you have gained a stilled and settled state of mind of shamatha, one that is held with great flexibility of mind and exhilaration and ecstasy, just to have this by itself, this single-pointedness of a stilled and settled state of...