LPA48: Nine Stages to Shamatha; Non-conceptual Meditation

Reliance on a Qualified Spiritual Mentor

To review it quickly — Tsongkhapa says that we have the basis for being able to practice: we have the excellent, precious human rebirth; we’ve met with the teachings; we have teachers; and we have the intelligence and ability to discern what’s to be adopted and what we need to get rid of. We need to engage ourselves in the teachings. For that we have to rely on a teacher who’s qualified: who knows what are the states of mind to develop, which are the ones to get rid of; not add anything, not getting rid of anything; and knowing their proper order. That teacher needs to have gained certainty about all this from having been led through those stages himself or herself, based on the great classics, through relying on their own qualified spiritual master.

The Motivating Mental Framework

The main thing to start with in our practice is the motivating mental framework, and for this there are the graded levels of lam-rim. The initial level is turning away from our major concern being this lifetime and having our focus be on future lives and ensuring that we have continuing precious human rebirths. On the intermediate level, to overcome all types of samsaric rebirths and gain liberation from that. And, on the advanced level, in order to help everybody else to do that, to aim for enlightenment with a bodhichitta aim based on love and compassion.

How To Meditate

All of these mental frameworks, motivating mental frameworks, we need to actually build up as a beneficial habit in an uncontrived way, not just an intellectual understanding, which means we have to actually really feel them. To do that we need to meditate, and meditate means to repeat over and over and over again, not in a mechanical way, but to digest and integrate it so that we really feel these motivating mental frameworks and have them as our major state of mind.

In order to meditate we need to know what the causes are for developing each of these states of mind, what do they rest on, what are the stages before, what are all the different aspects of it. We need to, between sessions, build up a lot of positive force, do a lot of purification, and read various texts of the Buddha that explain these states in more detail. We need to understand what is helpful for developing these states, what’s harmful for them, what do we focus on when we are actually trying to build them up, and what is the way in which the mind relates to that focal object. We have to know, as well, what will be the benefit of gaining this state of mind and what will it help us to get rid of. With all these various factors we’ll be able to develop these states of mind, these motivations, with a great deal of practice. We need to maintain them throughout the day.

The Ethical Self-discipline of Keeping Vows

Then if we want to enter into the tantra, we need to first of all reaffirm that the gateway for entering any of the Buddhist vehicles of mind is ethical discipline of keeping the vows — the pratimoksha vows of individual liberation for all the vehicles of tantra, and the bodhisattva vows for Mahayana, and the tantric vows for the two highest classes of tantra. We went through the vows and how to restore them if they become weakened. Then we need to receive an empowerment. For receiving an empowerment, again the vows are crucial, and it is necessary to have at least some level of pratimoksha vow (at least as a householder but best is as a fully ordained monk or nun). 

The Proper Order of the Generation and Complete Stages of Anuttarayoga Tantra

Then we need to, on the basis of that empowerment, practice the two stages: generation stage and the complete stage. On the generation stage we work with visualization, imagining that we already have the body of a Buddha that we will achieve, and imagining the process of getting to the subtlest level of mind in order to then have the non-conceptual cognition of voidness and, through the energy of that mind, to generate that in the form of a Buddha-figure. This is in analogy to death, bardo, and rebirth, something that will ripen into our ability to actually generate these things with our subtle energy-system that will then act as a cause for generating them as a Buddha. We’ve gone through that in great detail.

How To Visualize in Tantra Practice

Then we also followed Tsongkhapa’s excellent discussion of how to visualize, and in that he spoke about how, for most of us, the main thing is to first visualize the whole figure roughly if we’re visualizing ourselves as a Buddha-figure. The same thing if we’re visualizing ourselves as the Buddha-figure together with all the various other figures in the mandala palace (we’re not just the central figure; we’re the whole thing). Once we get a rough image or feeling going, then we label me on top of that — that’s what’s known as the divine pride — and the more concentration we have, the more clarity and detail will come, and we start filling in the detail by focusing on one feature at a time. As we progress in our ability to visualize, it’s important not to drop what has become clear already; if we are able to visualize ourselves as a central figure and then we expand to the other figures, we maintain that image of the central figure.

Then we spoke about how to develop concentration. We are near the end of that discussion. We spoke about what are the conditions that are conducive for gaining shamatha, a stilled and settled state of mind, which is on the basis of gaining absorbed concentration. It’s not just perfect absorbed concentration but, in addition to that, a sense of fitness, physical and mental fitness, that we’re able to concentrate on anything for any length of time.

We spoke of the deterrents to concentration — laziness, forgetting the instructions or losing the object of focus, interruptions due to mental flightiness or mental dullness, not applying the opponents to them, and not stopping applying of the opponents when they’re no longer necessary. We went through the discussion of the various levels of mental flightiness and mental dullness and what are the composing factors that we use to fight against them.

Then we spoke last time about the nine stages of settling the mind. If you recall in our discussion, what we were working with was primarily overcoming the mental dullness and flightiness of mind. I mean, there are the earlier stages — overcoming forgetting the teachings and laziness, etc. — but the real detail comes in overcoming this flightiness of mind and mental dullness. Last time I explained this scheme, which I think is very helpful, that helps us to recognize what are the issues involved here with concentration, in the problems to it.

The defining characteristics of the mind, you recall, are appearance-making, cognizing, and the word merely that. In other words, mental activity has the arising or generating of a mental hologram (whether it’s in a visualization or just in our normal perception), cognition of that (which is the same as making that mental hologram, just described from a different point of view), and merely or just that (without a separate me doing it or a separate mind as an instrument doing it). When we speak of what we would need in concentration: When we talk about mental clarity, that has to do with the appearance-making. Mental placement has to do with the cognizing of it, how the mind cognizes it, stays there. This mere deals with the voidness of the three spheres of the person who’s meditating on it, the meditation, and the object of meditation; none of them exist in impossible ways. That in correspondence to these three aspects of mental activity, we’re going to need to work on the mental clarity, the mental placement, and the understanding of voidness.

When there’s a fault in the mental clarity, in generating the image, that’s a fault of mental dullness. When there’s a fault in the mental placement, staying on the object, that’s a problem of mental flightiness. When there’s a problem concerning understanding of the voidness of the three spheres, or the three circles, this is grasping for truly established existence or a feeling of dualism, duality, in the meditation, of me and the meditation.

In order to overcome that dullness in which we’re not actually generating the mental hologram — if you recall, there were three aspects to that that we need (this is particularly relevant in the tantra meditations): 

• One is an audio category (sgra-spyi). Audio category has to do… Doesn’t necessarily have to be audio, but the words of the recitation; it can also have to do with the actual appearance, what the visualization looks like. 

• Then there needs to be the meaning category (don-spyi). The meaning category is what all of that signifies, the actual meaning of the words, not just have the words going in your head and not just have the visualization, but what each of the parts of the visualization signify — to be aware of that. 

• Then a mental factor (sems-byung) has to be with it, whether it’s love or discriminating awareness of voidness or compassion or whatever. That needs to be there as well. 

We need to be able to generate all of that. If we’re not generating it, that’s a problem of mental dullness, a fault in the appearance-making aspect of mental activity (it’s not giving rise to these things). If we are not able to stay focused on it, then we have a problem of mental flightiness (we’re not cognizing this). If in the process of all of this we’re meditating in a dualistic way, then there’s the problem concerning this factor of mental activity being merely appearance-making and cognizing and no separate me.

Those I thought were very important points from last time, so I repeated them.

We went through the nine stages of settling the mind, and what we are up to now are the six powers (stobs-drug) and four types of attention (yid-byed bzhi) that are used for gaining these nine stages. It’s a little bit complicated. Not really that complicated, but one needs to have a scheme — and a written scheme helps (it’s on the website) — and then actually know what to apply at each stage.

1. The first stage — to repeat — was setting the mind (sems ’jog-pa). We’re setting the mind on the object of focus. We’re merely able to set or place our attention on the object of focus, but we’re unable to maintain it. 

In order to set our mind on the object, we have to apply the first power, and that’s the power of listening to the instructions (thos-pa’i stobs). We have to hear what the instructions are (or read it), know what the Buddha-figure looks like, know what the state of mind is that we’re trying to generate and all the different factors concerning meditation that Tsongkhapa explained earlier in the text.

2. The second stage is called setting with some continuity (rgyun-du ’jog-pa). Here we’re able to maintain our mental hold on the object with some continuity but only for a short time before losing it. It takes us some time before we recognize that we’ve lost the object and before we can reestablish our focus. This is the stage that most of us stay on for quite a long time. 

For this we have to rely on the power of thinking about the instructions (bsam-pa’i stobs). You think about what the instructions are, and then you’ll go back to the object of focus.

These first two stages use the first type of attention, which is called painstaking attention (bsgrims-te ’jug-pa’i yid-byed). Attention (yid-la byed-pa), by the way, is the word… literally the Tibetan means “to take to mind,” you take it to mind, you take it to consciousness, you pay attention. This is paying attention in a painstaking way, in which we use great control and force to take the object of focus to mind. It’s a squeezing. Painstaking, the word in Tibetan, also has the connotation of “squeezing.” You really have to squeeze your attention to, in the first place, to just get the visualization going; and in the second place, if we can think about the teachings, remember them, then we are going to be able to, with that painstaking attention, focus on it. Obviously here we have to overcome the problems of laziness and the problems of forgetting, losing the object — either forget the instructions, we forget about the object, or we simply just lose the object. OK? 

I’m speaking a little bit quickly perhaps. Do you follow?

3. The third stage is called resetting (glan-du ’jog-pa). Here we’re able to recognize as soon as we’ve lost our mental hold on the object, and we’re able to reset or restore our focus immediately. That’s pretty advanced if we’re able to do that.

4. Then the fourth stage is closely setting (nye-bar ’jog-pa). Here we don’t lose our mental hold on the object, but because subtle mental flightiness of an undercurrent of thought and middling dullness (it’s not in sharp focus) are strong dangers and can still occur, we need to maintain their opponents very strongly. 

Here we need to rely on the power of mindfulness (dran-pa’i stobs). Mindfulness is the mental glue. If we’re able to stay on the object — that’s stage three, resetting — we stay on the object, so we’re using that, and if we lose it we’re immediately able to come back. 

The type of attention we’re using is called restoring attention (chad-cing ’jug-pa’i yid-byed), to restore the attention taking that object to mind. It is not that first one, in which we’re really pushing and struggling very hard to bring it back. Now we recognize as soon as our focus has left, and we just restore it immediately. We’re working with that mental hold, that mindfulness, the glue. That’s the case as well with the fourth stage, in which we need to maintain that… We’re not losing the object, but because there’s an undercurrent of thought that’s going on and it is not quite sharp in focus, we have to really hold on tightly. We’re working with that mental glue. And when we talk about the restoring attention here, what we’re restoring is, from that undercurrent of thought that’s going on while we have our main focus on the object, getting rid of that and restore just pure paying attention to the object and holding it.

OK. Those are the third and fourth stages.

5. The fifth stage is called taming (dul-bar byed-pa). Here we no longer experience gross flightiness or the subtle flightiness of an undercurrent of thought, and we don’t have gross or middling dullness. (Gross dullness — completely lose it, not able to generate anything. Middling dullness is it’s not in sharp focus.) However, because we’ve overstrained to concentrate and have sunk too deeply inwards, we’ve relaxed the appearance-producing factor giving rise to the appearance of the object of focus. Consequently, we experience subtle dullness. We need to refresh and uplift the mental hold by remembering the benefits of gaining a stilled and settled state of mind. Before we were holding on too tightly; because we were holding on too tightly and correcting, restoring things, then we’ve sunk a little bit too deeply, it says, too deeply inwards.

What does that mean? It says, “As a result of that, we’ve relaxed the appearance-producing factor giving rise to the appearance of the object of focus.” We’re being too much of a policeman. This is the problem here. Although we’re holding on tightly, and we’re always restoring and trying to correct the thing — and we’re not experiencing undercurrent of thought, we’re not experiencing it being out of focus, and so on — it’s not fresh. That’s the problem of subtle dullness. 

How would that be? Can you imagine what that would be like? 

Participant: It’s like concentrating too much on the technique and too little on the object of meditation.

Dr. Berzin: In a sense, yes. What he’s saying is that we’re putting too much emphasis on the technique, and we become a little bit lax in the object of meditation, so it’s not fresh. That’s another way of saying we’ve been too strongly the policeman.

Participant: It sounds a bit as if we are maybe stressing the presence of the object a bit too much, and then because of that, the clarity is not there as much. Like giving a bit too much weight to the thing being there.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Exactly. We’re putting too much emphasis on the… We’ve been putting all our emphasis on the placement (on staying on the object) and correcting, and so what we’re losing a bit here is the meaning. It’s in points like this that the subtle differences that I made here of the audio category, the meaning category, and the mental factor are important. It’s not fresh each moment, so the meaning isn’t quite there, or the meaning isn’t fresh. Maybe we have the image OK, but the meaning isn’t there or the feeling isn’t there. The mental factor isn’t fresh; that’s become a bit stale.

That’s the taming one. That’s the fifth stage. 

6. The sixth stage is stilling (zhi-bar byed-pa). Here there’s no longer the great danger of subtle mental dullness. Nevertheless, in uplifting the mind, we’ve become too excited and the mental hold became too tight. Consequently, we experience the subtlest flightiness of mind, which is itchiness to leave the object of focus. We need strong alertness to detect this and to relax our mental hold slightly. In getting things fresh in each moment in overcoming the subtlest dullness, we press too hard, and so there’s a slight itchiness, an itchiness to leave the object. We don’t actually leave the object, and we don’t actually have an undercurrent of thought. 

For both of these stages [stages five and six], we have to rely on the power of alertness (shes-bzhin-gyi stobs). Remember, alertness was the alarm system. Of course, you need alertness throughout and mindfulness throughout, but the alertness is especially emphasized here because we really need the alarm to detect… I mean, we use detection. But we need, with detection, the alarm system to go off when there’s this subtlest dullness and subtlest flightiness of mind. They’re very hard to recognize, and it’s very easy to just not correct it. To work with these stages, we rely on that power of alertness very strongly, and again we continue using this restoring attention to repair the focus, repair the meditation.

7. Then the seventh stage is complete stilling (rnam-pa zhi-bar byed-pa). Here although the danger of subtle flightiness or subtlest dullness is minimal; we still need to exert effort to rid ourselves of them completely. There’s a gradation of getting rid of it. 

Up to that seventh stage we’re still using the restoring attention.

8. The eighth stage is single-pointedness (rtse-cig-tu byed-pa). Here by just relying on a slight effort to apply mental glue at the beginning of the session — the mindfulness — we’re able to sustain our concentration uninterruptedly throughout the session without experiencing any level of flightiness or dullness. That means that OK, you just start the meditation and you’re able to go through the whole thing. 

For this we rely on, for the seventh and eighth stages, we rely on the power of joyful perseverance (brtson-’grus-kyi stobs). You have to persevere. On the seventh stage we haven’t got rid of the subtlest obstacles completely, so we need to persevere and continue. That’s the main thing. Then just on the eighth stage we’re able to start, set the state of mind, and then it goes. And so again we have to apply perseverance. 

For that eighth stage we use uninterrupted attention (chad-pa med-par ’jug-pa’i yid-byed). That’s the third kind of attention. Painstaking attention, restoring attention, and now we use uninterrupted attention: we can focus on the object without interruption.

9. Then the ninth stage, absorbed setting (mnyam-par ’jog-pa). Here we’re able to effortlessly maintain concentration, free of any interruptions, throughout the entire session. This is the attainment of absorbed concentration, samadhi. You don’t have to just really “Rrrr” and start the thing; you’re able to just do the whole session. 

For that we rely on the power of complete familiarity (yongs-su ’dris-pa’i stobs), and we use spontaneous attention (lhun-gyi ’grub-pa’i yid-byed); that’s the type of attention that we can maintain our focus on the object effortlessly.

That’s a little bit complicated, to put the six powers and the four types of attention together with the nine stages; nevertheless, if we familiarize ourselves with all of that, then it can be very helpful in our progress. What we need to recognize of course is just what’s going on with our meditation. We know best. It’s not something that we can ask somebody else to check for us. We could describe what’s going on to somebody else, to a teacher for example, and they could advise us, but what is best is that we are able to detect what’s going on ourselves and know ourselves what things to apply.

That’s why before doing any type of retreat situation — by retreat I mean a long-term isolated type of meditation practice — we know all the instructions beforehand. The instructions are not merely in terms of what we are meditating on. Let’s say if you’re doing a lam-rim retreat on the stages of the path, or you’re doing a tantra retreat: It’s not just getting all the details of the visualization and when you ring the bell, these sort of ritualistic things. But what we need, in addition to those types of instructions, are complete familiarity with these instructions on how to meditate, which was what Tsongkhapa was saying earlier on — to know what is it that we focus on, how the mind takes it, etc., what supports it, and what are all the mental factors that are involved with that state of mind — and we have all these instructions well studied and digested on how to gain concentration and how to deal with the various problems that come up in meditation and the faults that come up. If we don’t know how to deal with it, you’re going to have a problem. OK? 

Any questions on that before we leave this topic of concentration and go on?

Participant: More of a comment. I think also these nine levels of concentration very much again reiterate the point that at first it’s most important to keep the connection to the object, to focus on the mental hold.

Dr. Berzin: Right. What Christian is saying is that the nine stages are emphasizing that what is very important is to keep the mental hold on the object and not so much the clarity. No. It emphasizes all of that. But what you’re saying goes back to the other point, which is that the mindfulness is the main thing that we work with. Mindfulness is to keep the hold, and to keep the hold both on generating the image and staying there. In other words, if we keep the hold on it, we’re generating it (you can’t keep a hold on nothing). The emphasis there is on the hold. If we have the hold, then the mind stays there and it’s generating it. 

As you say, as Tsongkhapa said, the clarity… Tsongkhapa didn’t say this, but all my teachers have said this, that as you stay there, the more you stay, the clarity — the focus — will come. It’s a function of concentration. What does clarity mean? It’s not just that it’s in focus. It means that it’s actually generated. That’s the hologram-producing aspect. 

That’s the main thing. Hold on. And as you’re holding on — you’re generating it, because that’s what you’re holding on to. The alertness is there. If you are able to hold on, that means that you have the alertness to — you have the detection to detect when there’s a fault and the alertness, which is the alarm system, which will then bring into action one of these four types of attention, depending on what stage we’re at. 

That mindfulness, that holding on — the mental glue — remember, is the same word as remembering. What you don’t want is forgetting, losing either the generating of the object or the staying there. Remember, generating the object, staying there, cognizing it — those are the two aspects of mental activity: clarity and awareness (generating the hologram and cognizing it). This is why if you’re able to maintain the hold, you’re generating it. Maintaining the hold is to cognize it. Does that make sense? Good.

Naturally if you’re working with the hold, what happens is you’re holding too tight. That’s the problem in the beginning. OK? If you loosen it, then you tend to loosen it a little bit too much, and you have to get it just right. Although the instructions are emphasizing a fairly subtle level of holding on too tight, this is a big problem in the beginning as well, because it happens on a gross level. We push too hard. We’re really squeezing. Remember, we had this painstaking attention. Painstaking is the same word as to squeeze. If you squeeze too hard, especially on a gross level, then it’s a disturbance of the winds in the body; you get what the Tibetans call lung (rlung). This is something that happens very, very frequently for people who are meditating in the beginning during the retreat. They’re trying too hard. They’re squeezing too hard. They’re not relaxed at all. Too much the policeman. It’s like squeezing a balloon: the energy gets very, very… let’s say it pops out here and there and here and there, and you feel very nervous, very tense, back starts to hurt, muscles around your shoulders hurt, and you get pain in the chest, and it’s very uncomfortable, and you’re nervous. That’s what’s called lung in Tibetan.

For that — I think we explained this earlier — what is recommended is a long-distance view. Relax if you can. And what I found very helpful are certain things in diet, and this will vary with different people, but for me eating whole grain helps very much with that. I wonder if tsampa helps, if that’s what the Tibetan use.

Participant: Maybe that’s why they eat it so much.

Dr. Berzin: Maybe that’s why. They eat it because that’s what grows in Tibet. But usually in a retreat this is what Tibetans have. Because you take a sack of this roasted barley grain, which is the tsampa (rtsam-pa), and you can keep it for a very, very long time if the insects don’t get to it. You just add tea usually to that to make the tsampa if you want to make it in a very plain way. You could also just add water, which is even more plain.

OK. Anything else about concentration and meditation?

Participant: This bit you mentioned last time: His Holiness told you that the most important thing is to get the hold.

Dr. Berzin: Right, that’s what I just said. The most important thing, His Holiness emphasized, was the mental hold. That’s the mindfulness, the mental glue. That’s what you emphasize in the practice. OK? Good. 

Then let’s go on. That actually completes Tsongkhapa’s discussion of the generation stage. 

Now Tsongkhapa goes on (I’ll read the text):

According to earlier (masters), the complete stage was famed as being twofold: the non-profound complete stage and the profound complete stage. The first of these appears (in their literature) to be constituted of meditations on the energy-channels, energy-winds, creative energy-drops, and so forth. As (that is so, their practices) are to be sought in their individual guideline instructions. The latter 

That’s referring to the profound complete stage.

appears as consisting of meditations on voidness. Whether or not that twofold (scheme) works for the complete stage (and whether or not voidness meditation is exclusive to that stage) needs to be investigated. But no matter which way it turns out to be, (this twofold scheme) is like what is practiced on the occasion of the complete stage.

OK. That, by the way, is the extent of what Tsongkhapa says about the complete stage. After that he goes, for the rest of the text, into a long discussion on voidness.

But what is Tsongkhapa referring to here? This is a very major difference here between Tsongkhapa’s reform and everything that came before him. As I have repeatedly said about Tsongkhapa, he was very, very radical, revolutionary, and was able to, through his insights, make reformulations of a tremendous amount of material in the Tibetan Buddhist teachings. 

What does it mean when they say that only the profound complete stage is meditation on voidness? Does that mean that before that there’s no meditation on voidness according to the earlier masters? (Earlier meaning the Sakya, Kagyu, and Nyingma — and Kadampa, the earlier Kadampas, for that matter as well.) What does it mean?

If we take it to mean what Tsongkhapa means by voidness meditation, then this is an absurd statement, that voidness meditation is the main thing on the second part, the advanced part, of the complete stage. We need to understand the presentation of voidness that we have in the earlier schools (all the other schools besides Tsongkhapa). For that we have this expression voidness beyond words, beyond concepts. What does that mean? 

That is referring to non-conceptual cognition of voidness. If we think of voidness as Tsongkhapa does, as the mere negation of impossible ways of existing or truly established existence or… There’s so many synonyms that Tsongkhapa uses — not just Tsongkhapa — that appear in Prasangika. Let’s just leave it very simple: absence of true existence, total absence of that. This is what Tsongkhapa says. And in Shantideva — Tsongkhapa and the Gelugpa interpretation of that is that when you understand the voidness of voidness, then there is nothing conceptual which is left, and that automatically you’re able to get, not so easily automatically, but you’ll get the non-conceptual cognition of voidness. Whether it’s conceptual or non-conceptual cognition of voidness, it is the absence of truly established existence, a negation phenomenon (dgag-pa) negating the known phenomenon. 

By the way, can you follow this? Otherwise, we may need to have German translation. If you don’t follow, please say so.

According to all the schools, all the teachers, before Tsongkhapa (and the non-Gelugpas afterwards as well will maintain this position), if we’re thinking in terms of conceptual cognition, a negation phenomenon — “No such thing as truly established existence” — of course before it’s non-conceptual it’s conceptual, and so you have to get beyond any type of conceptual cognition. They always identify what Tsongkhapa calls this negation of truly established existence, that that’s a mental construct (it’s a concept), and you have to go beyond that. It’s very interesting if you can imagine this formulation. There’s true existence, there’s the absence of true existence, there’s both, and there’s neither. These are the four extremes. All of them are conceptual. They say that you need to go beyond that in order to gain the non-conceptual cognition, that all of these four are formulated in terms of words and concepts. And the non-conceptual cognition of voidness is beyond words and beyond concepts. It’s a nondenumerable — is the technical term — nondenumerable ultimate phenomenon (rnam-grangs ma-yin-pa’i don-dam) or deepest truth. Nondenumerable means that it can’t be de-numerated or enumerated in words. Before that, it’s denumerable; it can be put into words.

What does it mean put into words — beyond words, beyond concepts?

Participant: Could another way of stating it be that these are ways of breaking it down? Putting into words, breaking it down.

Dr. Berzin: Breaking what down? 

Participant: The concept of the voidness and then what you are working towards, getting beyond these various stages of the voidness. The four things that you just enumerated [the four extremes] — these are breaking it down, in a way.

Dr. Berzin: What she’s saying is that — and it’s very interesting — she’s saying that when we talk about the four extremes here (true existence, negation of true existence, both, or neither), that would be a way of breaking down a thing which is beyond that. What you’re saying is that that’s looking at parts rather than the whole. I don’t think that that’s quite what it’s talking about. We don’t want to deal with the parts, only the whole? I don’t think it’s like that.

Participant: When you’re describing the words that you’re…

Dr. Berzin: The words. What do words imply?

Participant: Because you began it by saying… I don’t remember your exact words, but you began it by saying something like “not describable by words.”

Dr. Berzin: What I said: it’s beyond words, beyond concepts. What does beyond words and beyond concepts mean? It’s not that it’s an undifferentiated whole, because you give a word to the whole as well.

Participant: It reminds me of the situation in science where you have the functioning of nature and then you have a lot of models or descriptions about it. Some people, for example, think that mathematics is a language of nature. I don’t think it’s justifiable. It’s a language for making models about nature.

Dr. Berzin: OK. Very good. Now we’re getting much closer. What he’s saying is that many scientists think that laws of science and mathematics and so on are actually what is in nature. But what you’re saying is that they are simply models to try to help explain nature. Yes. 

This is a difference that we need to make between — words refer to conventional objects, but conventional objects don’t correspond to words. What does that mean? If I say “table” or I say “red,” red refers to the color of your coat, your jacket, but what is red? On the side of the spectrum of light, there’s no box with walls around it that corresponds to red. Reality doesn’t exist in boxes like words would imply. Like you’re saying about science: The universe doesn’t exist in numbers. What is one? That’s a very interesting metaphysical question. What is one? What is three? What is any number? What are laws? They refer to a certain phenomenon as a way of describing it, but they don’t exist on the side of the object.

When these earlier masters are saying that voidness is beyond words, beyond concepts, what they’re saying is that voidness isn’t something in a box — as the word void of truly established existence would imply, that there’s some box, some thing, a thing called voidness. If you think about it, this is just another way of saying exactly what the Gelugpa interpretation of Shantideva is. If you’ve understood the voidness of voidness, that there’s no box around voidness, then you get to non-conceptual cognition. The earlier schools would say, “Voidness of voidness — that’s just another box, of the voidness of voidness of the voidness of voidness of voidness of voidness. You have to get beyond all of that.” Really, they’re not in disagreement if you think very carefully about what they’re referring to. 

What they’re saying here in terms of tantra is not just the non-conceptual cognition of voidness but the non-conceptual cognition of voidness with the clear-light level of mental activity, with the clear-light mind. There are some schools that say you can attain that in sutra. Some schools say it only is with tantra. Here Tsongkhapa is referring to the formulation that it’s only in tantra that you really get voidness beyond words, beyond concepts. When they say that the profound complete stage is the one that teaches about voidness — not that it teaches about, but it is the attainment of voidness, the understanding of voidness — it’s that this is the stage at which you gain the non-conceptual cognition of voidness with clear-light mind, which is then beyond words and beyond concepts. Everything before that is with the conceptual cognition of voidness. 

Tsongkhapa says, “Yes, this is like (meaning it’s the same as) what you find on the complete stage.” Because the complete stage, if you divide it into the five stages that Nagarjuna divides it into, or however you want to divide it into, the first part of it is, before the pathway mind of seeing — it’s before non-conceptual cognition — you’re working with the energy channels and the winds and so on as a way of getting down to the clear-light mind. It is the first stage of the complete stage. The second part of it is when you actually get to the clear-light mind and the understanding of voidness.

Participant: Just for clarification: Is the word non-conceptual cognition defined differently in tantra?

Dr. Berzin: Is non-conceptual cognition defined differently in tantra? It’s not defined differently; it’s just that it is achieved in a different way. It’s not that you are staying on the same level of mind as the conceptual mind and just not having the conceptual mind arise. You are going beneath the level of the conceptual mind so that it’s impossible for it to arise, because the conceptual mind doesn’t exist on the level of clear-light mind.

Participant: My question’s a bit the other way. Would they say everything that’s not the clear-light mind is still, in a way, conceptual?

Dr. Berzin: Everything that’s not the clear-light mind is conceptual? Definitely. Well, no. Now you get… Now this gets very interesting. Is it conceptual or not…

Participant: According to tantric terminology.

Dr. Berzin: According to tantric terminology, there are levels of conceptual mind. We have three levels of conceptual mind. I didn’t think to go into this, but it’s nice that you brought it up. There are three levels of conceptual cognition. Pardon me, but I’ve forgotten the terminology that I came up with for it.

There is what we normally call conceptual cognition, which would be our personal type of conceptual cognition. What would personal type of conceptual cognition be? What I’ve learned with language — what the word hope and what the word fear, what the word table… These concepts are from words. I’ve learned it in this lifetime; it’s a personal thing, individual thing. My concept of what a beautiful-looking person is could be different from your concept of what a beautiful-looking person is. My conceptual cognition on which I label somebody good looking is individual. Also, remember what’s also there with conceptual cognition is memories. That’s individual.

Normally that is what we think of in sutra when we think of conceptual minds, conceptual cognition, and what you try to quiet in many types of meditation, especially when you are working with overcoming mental wandering (these thoughts, this voice that goes on in your head). OK. There are also obviously other concepts of how do you sit and how do you meditate and things like that. That’s a different thing, but that’s also individual.

Participant: Subjective.

Dr. Berzin: Subjective.

Then we have what I would call — and I forget my exact terminology, so excuse me (now we get into only what’s described in anuttarayoga tantra) — the eighty impersonal subtle conceptual minds (rang-bzhin kun-rtog brgyad-cu). Whether we call them preconceptual or what, I don’t really know. But it is something that everybody has. It’s really very difficult to get a clear grasp of what they are, and I can’t say that my understanding or my explanation is absolutely correct. But just having thought about it for a long time, this is the general idea. It’s a concept of, for instance… Because if you look at it, it would be things like kissing, sucking — what a baby does, something which is an instinctive thing — pain, unhappiness, these types of things. That there’s a certain concept, very subtle concept, of how do you express happy or unhappy or desire. There’s a concept that if I desire something, I’m going to go and take it. Or a concept of eating, that — well, how do I eat? I take this thing and I put it in my mouth or put it into something. These are impersonal types of concepts of how to do things, of how to express things and so on, and they’re differentiated into three groups according to how strong the movement of energy is underlying them.

Participant: Is it things that are generally agreed upon by most human beings?

Dr. Berzin: Are these things that are generally agreed upon by most human beings? It’s not as though somebody said, “To show affection, I’m going to hug.” What can we do to show affection? 

Participant: But it’s a general concept?

Dr. Berzin: Is it a general concept? It’s something which is shared by everybody sort of as an instinctive part of… not just being a human.

Participant: But a shared concept.

Dr. Berzin: But it’s a general, shared… I call it impersonal. 

Participant: It’s almost on an animal level.

Dr. Berzin: It’s on an animal… We would call it on an animal level. 

Participant: It’s general.

Dr. Berzin: A general thing. Fear. What is your concept of what you do with fear? You freeze, or you run away. 

Participant: It’s impersonal, it’s instinct — what our biology makes us do.

Dr. Berzin: It’s like an instinctive thing. In a sense, what biology makes us do. I mean, these are the things that I’m trying to play with to try to understand this list of eighty. It’s not so easy, but that’s the general idea that I at least get about it.

Then there is the subtlest conceptual mind, and these are, the conceptual mind… This is difficult here. We have… they’re often called the white appearance, red appearance, and black appearance. That’s because this is — in a sense, you’d have to say visual, but it’s not with your eyes, but this is sort of what they somehow appear like when you have these. From my understanding, and this you don’t find in the text, but my understanding of it is that coming out of the clear-light mind… I mean, what these things are involved with is making appearance. These are the appearance-making subtlest conceptual minds. 

For this you have what’s called threshold (nyer-thob). That’s the black appearance. Threshold is literally near attainment. It’s a threshold; it’s nearly the clear-light mind. It’s sort of coming out of it. Appearance-making is coming out of clear-light mind.

Then you have light diffusion (mched-pa). (The red appearance is sometimes translated as increase.) It’s like the appearance-making is diffusing out. 

And then the white appearance is literally appear (snang-ba). It’s like appearance congealing, and so it’s congealing. 

This is what’s making the hologram.

You have the clear-light mind in appearance like the false dawn, this deep blue, without the white of moonlight, the red of sunlight, or the black of darkness, complete darkness. Then in terms of appearance arising, there’s threshold (coming out), light diffusion, and light congealing, and you have an appearance. 

Then there’s the discussion: Is this, all these, with an appearance of truly established existence or with all appearances? But in general, when you speak on a sutra level of non-conceptual cognition, that level is still there.

To answer your question about clear-light mind: According to anuttarayoga tantra, anything other than clear-light mind would be conceptual. Whether it would be considered conceptual on the sutra level? No. But on the tantra level, yes — on the anuttarayoga tantra level — it would be considered conceptual. 

The word conceptual has several meanings. When we want to get rid of all conceptual minds, we could understand it in a very limited way, which Tsongkhapa accuses the other schools of doing. Actually, he accuses them more in terms of conceptual mind, even the personal individual conceptual mind. I mean, this comes up. He says you don’t want to get rid of all of those because bodhichitta, etc., is conceptual, because it’s a concept of enlightenment (you can’t possibly know enlightenment non-conceptually until you’ve attained it; otherwise, it’s just through a category of enlightenment). But if you think of quieting conceptual mind just in terms of quieting the voice in your head, and if you do that you’ve gotten down to the clear-light mind — forget it, because there are these much more subtle levels of concept that are there.

Does that make any sense, what I’ve explained?

Participant: I think it’s helped more, actually, to understand these different levels.

Dr. Berzin: Right. These different levels. In the visualization that you do in the generation stage, and what actually you’ll experience in the complete stage, is the deconstruction of these appearances of truly established existence. This is why Tsongkhapa says that all these appearances are appearances of truly established existence that we’re talking about, that these different levels of conceptual mind will produce an appearance of truly established existence.

This becomes a very interesting problem. How do you define conceptual and non-conceptual? If you define conceptual as starting with threshold mind, this subtlest level, then… Well, no. That’s not exactly what I wanted to say. 

There are several ways in which you could take this: 

• Tsongkhapa says that whether it is conceptual or non-conceptual cognition — talking on a sutra level — it’s with an appearance of truly established existence, because non-conceptual means “not with categories.” This personal level in sutra still is with an appearance of truly established existence. In other words, when I look at you it seems as though you’re a truly established thing with a line around you separating you from the wall. There’s an appearance of truly established existence, whether it’s conceptual or non-conceptual, on this gross level.

• Non-Gelugpa schools say that what we call non-conceptual on a sutra level is without an appearance of truly established existence. 

What are they referring to? I don’t know — I’m bringing in too many things, this is getting too complicated. But unless you start to get complicated and look at all their assertions, you don’t really get the subtlety of all these arguments. 

Non-conceptual. We can mean by non-conceptual this tantra level, anuttarayoga tantra level, of just the clear-light mind, and we would consider everything else conceptual. Or we can consider the boundary between conceptual and non-conceptual in terms of whether you have these personal concepts or you are free of those personal concepts (not necessarily free forever, but that you don’t have them in your cognition). We can draw a division in terms of whether there’s an appearance of truly established existence or not. You could say that whether it’s conceptual or non-conceptual, there’s an appearance of truly established existence if you’re speaking just on a sutra level. If you’re speaking on a tantra level, you’d have to say that both conceptual and non-conceptual is with an appearance of truly established existence.

You can have another way of interpreting it, which is — according to Gelugpa, Gelug tradition — I see a conventional object with… Let me try that sentence again. In terms of non-conceptual sense cognition, we see conventional objects. I see a glass. According to non-Gelugpa we do not see a glass — a glass is conceptual — I see a colored shape. If I hold this thing in my hand, there’s a physical sensation. If I go like that [tapping glass], there’s a sound. What’s a glass? A glass is a concept, which is a conceptual construct imputed onto all this information from the different senses, which is a reasonable position. If I see a glass… I mean, that would be conceptual, and that’s making it into a truly established thing, a truly existent thing. We don’t see it. It’s a concept. That’s non-Gelugpa. 

Gelugpa says, “You see the glass. Don’t be ridiculous. That’s non-conceptual, but still it has an appearance of truly established existence.” 

In other words, now I’ve totally confused you with too much information. But the point that I want to make is that what we mean by conceptual and non-conceptual can be explained in many, many different ways according to all these different schools and according to what level you’re speaking on. In order to not get confused in the discussion of… 

We’ll have a discussion here. Tsongkhapa is going to criticize various views, call them a wrong understanding of voidness. Usually what happens is when they point out what they call a wrong — when any of these authors, whether it’s Tsongkhapa or the people who criticized Tsongkhapa — they point out what they consider an incorrect position, usually what they’re doing is interpreting something that the other authors say but using different definitions, speaking on a different level.

Here Tsongkhapa says: You have to investigate what are they talking about when they say that the second stage of the complete stage — that’s where you have the meditations on voidness. If we understand this as the negation of truly established existence, this is absurd. If you understand it the way that it was intended, which was the clear-light mind’s non-conceptual cognition of voidness, and that’s what they’re talking about, then it does make sense. I think Tsongkhapa recognizes this when he says that “And this is like what you had, that type of division scheme. Whether it’s a valid division scheme, meaning a valid way of labeling and describing the division, that has to be investigated. But nevertheless, it is describing what is done on the complete stage.” 

You work with the energy-channels and winds to get down to the subtlest level of mind, and then you get the non-conceptual cognition of voidness with that, whether we describe that as being beyond words and concepts or you describe it from Tsongkhapa’s point of view of as the absence of truly established existence. Absence of truly established existence — voidness — refers to something. Is there something out there that corresponds to it called voidness in a box? No. Something inside things that you can find called its voidness? No.

Participant: Because voidness is a lack of…

Dr. Berzin: Voidness is a lack of — and the others would say, “But a lack of is a concept.”

Participant: A bit like space. It’s there, but it contains.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Space is there but it contains. 

Participant: It doesn’t contain.

Dr. Berzin: It doesn’t contain; it’s not… Let’s not get into the discussion of space. That’s very difficult.

Participant: But that’s what you’re saying. Voidness…

Dr. Berzin: Voidness is an absence. 

What all of this is pointing to, at least part of our discussion here about voidness beyond words beyond concepts, going beyond words, beyond concepts, has to do, I think — this is my opinion, my experience — with relaxing. It’s the same thing that we had in the discussion of concentration. How do you go beyond words and beyond concepts? In a sense, you need to relax. 

The discussion of voidness, meditation on voidness, is initially conceptual. You have to cut off any belief in truly established existence and any appearance-making of truly established existence. It has to be based and generated on a line of reasoning. Tsongkhapa makes this very clear in the next paragraphs. It’s not just “It doesn’t exist,” but generated with a force of reason. But then you have to relax that — relax it doesn’t mean to lose it — to go beyond the words, beyond the concepts. 

I think when they talk about beyond words and beyond concepts, you can understand that in a philosophical sense. But I think you can also understand that in terms of meditation method, that we’re negating, we’re negating, negating, and then eventually you understand it; you’re able to generate it spontaneously — as it says with the concentration, these stages — effortlessly. First you have to establish it. Remember, the eighth stage: you had to establish that mindfulness in the beginning. Ninth stage: you didn’t even have to establish it; it was just spontaneous.

What’s Tsongkhapa’s explanation of bare cognition (mngon-sum, bare cognition, straightforward cognition)? He doesn’t call it bare cognition. Remember, in the non-Gelug schools you had inferential understanding of something based on a line of reasoning (that’s conceptual) and you had bare cognition. Bare cognition was always non-conceptual. Non-conceptual can be seeing; it can also be with the mind, understanding. 

According to Gelugpa — it’s no longer described as bare cognition; it’s described as straightforward cognition. Straightforward means that it’s not relying on the power of the line of reasoning. It can be either conceptual or non-conceptual. 

When you do the meditation on voidness, first you have to generate it with a line of reasoning. But when you get to this straightforward cognition, you’re no longer generating it through the line of reasoning, where you just have to start with — like the eighth stage of concentration — you just start. You just remember, very briefly, the line of reasoning, and then bam! you have it. It could be conceptual; it could be non-conceptual. Then eventually, what we call the unlabored (rtsol-med) stage, whether it’s bodhichitta or the understanding of voidness or whatever. It’s like the ninth stage of concentration: you just generate it; you don’t have to set it up to start with. This I think is what it means by relaxing, because there’s still the understanding of the line of reasoning.

Participant: Just a yes/no question really. Straightforward cognition and bare cognition — is this just two different terms that you use in English?

Dr. Berzin: Right. Bare cognition and straightforward cognition are just two different ways of translating the same term. They use the same term in Sanskrit and Tibetan. They define it differently. Because they define it differently, I translate it differently, just to emphasize the difference. Otherwise, it’s too confusing. Bare in English means that it’s without something, so it’s without concept. Straightforward means that it just goes directly to the object without relying on a line of reasoning.

Participant: We need to stop soon.

Dr. Berzin: OK. I think that’s enough for today. Let’s end with the dedication, and we’ll continue this discussion next time.

Whatever positive force, whatever understanding has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.