Training in Higher Discipline & Higher Concentration

Verse 32 starts the discussion of higher ethical discipline. We need to understand Atisha’s presentation of these three higher trainings in terms of approaching them with a bodhichitta motivation. We can understand this verse on ethical discipline in this context. 

(32) If you train yourself well in the three trainings of ethical discipline by living in accord with the vows that are the very nature of engaged bodhichitta and which are a cause for purifying completely your body, speech, and mind, your respect for the three trainings in ethical discipline will increase. 

There are three aspects of ethical self-discipline – we’re talking about the discipline of ourselves, not the ethical discipline of trying to discipline somebody else – and these are discussed specifically in the teachings for a bodhisattva in terms of the far-reaching attitudes or the perfections. We have (1) the ethical discipline to restrain from destructive behavior, which means keeping the vows. Here the emphasis is on keeping the bodhisattva vows, but as Atisha emphasizes, the basis for that is keeping some level of the pratimoksha vows. 

One of the reasons why Atisha puts so much emphasis on the pratimoksha vows, I think, is because of the circumstance that was occurring in Tibet, which prompted his invitation. Remember, at that time, there was a great deal of misunderstanding about Buddhism, particularly about tantra. Many things in the tantra teachings were taken in a very literal fashion, and that led to a great deal of abuse; this was particularly in the realm of killing and inappropriate sexual behavior. 

There’s a discussion of liberating the consciousness to a higher realm, and many people misunderstood that to allow for killing people in the name of helping them from a religious point of view. We take their life, and in this way, we send them to a higher rebirth, but this was greatly abused. Likewise, people were indulging in ritual sexual behavior, thinking that this was what tantra practice was calling for, but the original tantra teachings were never to be taken so literally as this. 

Because the king of western Tibet invited Atisha specifically to clarify these things, Atisha put such an emphasis here on keeping the vows of individual liberation, of not killing and particularly of the vows of abstinence. He stressed that it’s best not to engage in any sexual behavior at all and that this is a proper basis for bodhisattva conduct. I think that his emphasis on this in the text needs to be understood in the historical context of when he wrote this. 

Just because he emphasized this doesn’t mean that his advice is limited to that historical period. It’s something that is valid advice in all situations. In our present day, where there is, likewise, a lot of misunderstanding about tantra, particularly concerning the sexual aspects of it, I think that it’s extremely relevant today as well. It doesn’t mean that everybody has to become a celibate monk and a nun to practice tantra; what’s important is to avoid the extreme of taking things in the tantra teachings literally. 

The “three trainings in higher ethical discipline” are (1) to refrain from negative behavior, which means keeping the vows, and then (2) the discipline of engaging in constructive behavior, which means specifically meditating and practicing the various teachings, and then (3) the discipline involved in actually helping others. 

Atisha says that by “training in these three,” which means “by living in accord with the bodhisattva vows,” and “these are a cause for purifying negativities of our body, speech, and mind,” so we don’t act in negative ways, and by living in this manner, our appreciation for the value of this ethical training will grow and grow. “Respect” here implies that we understand completely the benefits of ethical discipline, we appreciate that we are confident it has these benefits, and we appreciate how it helps us to be able to benefit others. 

In this way, we take this ethical discipline very seriously, which obviously, in those times, people were not doing. 

(33) Through this (will come) the completely purified, full state of enlightenment; for, by exerting yourself in the vows of the bodhisattva vows, you will fully complete the networks needed for total enlightenment. 

By keeping the bodhisattva vows very strictly and following the other types of ethical discipline, we are able to strengthen and “complete building up the two enlightenment-building networks.” These are the networks that we spoke of: the network of positive force from actually helping others, meditating, and so on, and the network of deep awareness of voidness. These are usually called “the two collections of merit and wisdom.” 

The bodhisattva vows, particularly in the set of secondary vows, speak about the various damaging actions that would prevent us from really practicing the six far-reaching attitudes and from helping others. If we avoid things that would damage our discipline, concentration, and development of deep awareness of voidness, then by helping others in different situations, we will be able to build up and strengthen these enlightenment-building networks and complete them, so that we can achieve enlightenment. 

He’s saying indirectly here that putting great effort into keeping the bodhisattva vows is absolutely essential for reaching enlightenment, whether we follow the sutra or tantra path of Mahayana. There are, again, some people who think that we can practice tantra, not only without the pratimoksha vows, the vows for individual liberation, but even without the bodhisattva vows. Atisha is asserting that that’s not the case. 

Five Types of Advanced Awareness

(34) As for the cause that will fully complete these networks having the nature of positive force and deep awareness, all the Buddhas have asserted that it is the development of advanced awareness. 

Here he’s saying that to be able to “complete these networks,” which are the two networks, as he said, of positive force and deep awareness, we need to develop what is called “advanced awareness,” which comes from perfecting higher concentration. Ethical discipline is not enough, as we also need concentration. Now, a byproduct of gaining perfect concentration is gaining the five types of advanced awareness, sometimes referred to as ESP, or extrasensory perception, but that’s just part of it. 

The first type of advanced awareness is extra-physical abilities – to be able to run very, very quickly, fly through the air, walk on water, these sorts of extra-physical abilities. The second one is extrasensory sight, being able to see very far distances that we couldn’t normally see. The third is extrasensory hearing, being able to hear things far away that normally we couldn’t hear. The fourth is knowing other people’s and one’s own past lives. The fifth is knowing others’ thoughts. 

These are not exclusive to Buddhism. Anybody following a non-Buddhist path as well, if they gain perfect concentration, will gain these abilities as a byproduct. In other words, there’s a tremendous amount of information on the side of others, and if we are concentrated enough, we can become sensitive enough to be able to read that information and to know these various things. Therefore, it’s advanced awareness. 

Here, Atisha is saying that the Buddhas have emphasized that this advanced awareness is very important for being able to complete these two networks. How do we understand that? The point is that we’re talking about gaining these five in the context of a bodhichitta motivation. In other words, we want to use these five to benefit others. To build up and strengthen the network of positive force means building up positive force from actually helping others. 

If we can see very, very far away when people are in trouble and need help, or we can hear what’s going on very far away, that enables us to be able to help far more people than if our senses are limited to just being able to perceive what’s in the room. In going to help others, if we can get there very, very quickly with these extra-physical powers and even fly from one mountaintop to another, so we don’t have to go all the way down the valley and all the way back up, and we can walk across very fast streams, which would be very difficult to cross and so on, this would enable us to get there much more quickly to help others. 

Likewise, if we can see through walls and all these sorts of things, we can also be of more help. Similarly, if people are acting in certain ways that are causing problems, if we can understand their past lives, we are also able to understand some of the reasons why they’re acting in a certain way, and it gives us a much better indication of how to help them. This is particularly the case when people are uncommunicative; it’s very important to be able to read their thoughts to know what’s going on to be able to teach and help them properly. 

Although the description of these five types of advanced awareness perhaps reminds us of a bodhisattva being a little bit like Superman or Superwoman – seeing something far away, “There’s trouble!” and then flying through the air to get there to help them – this is not really a fiction. I’ve lived among the greatest Tibetan masters long enough to have personally witnessed examples of this type of advanced awareness; however, I haven’t seen somebody fly through the air. 

With my own teacher, Serkong Rinpoche, with whom I spent nine years living very closely, for example, we were going once to a Buddhist center in Dharamsala, and we were in the car on the way there and, as we approached the center, Rinpoche told the people, “Run quickly into the gompa,” meaning into the temple, “because a candle has fallen over and a fire is starting,” which obviously he couldn’t see from the car way down the road. Of course, the people ran, and it was absolutely true that a candle had fallen and the curtain was on fire.

I’ve seen examples like this. Or in terms of past lives, he wouldn’t speak in terms of specific information about past lives, but he would know, “This person I have the karmic connection from previous lives to be able to help.” Sometimes people would come to him with a problem and he would say, “I don’t have the karmic connection with you to be able to help you, but this other lama does for this specific problem,” and he would send this person to somebody else who, in fact, was able to help them. 

Although I never saw Rinpoche flying or anything like that – he was a very fat, heavy old man and, when he was sitting on a cushion on the ground, he needed help to get up. However, once I was with him, we were sitting next to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and the wind had blown some pages of the text His Holiness was reading onto the floor and Rinpoche jumped up much quicker than I could have jumped up and got the pages and handed them to His Holiness. Obviously, he was able to do many things that, ordinarily, with that type of body, one would not be able to do. 

With these different types of advanced awareness and abilities, we’re able to help others much, much more. This builds up a tremendous amount of positive force, helping to complete that network, and as a result of that strong positive force, allows us to build up the network of deep awareness of voidness, because without that strong positive force, we’re not able to really understand. Atisha goes on to emphasize this with quite a few verses that follow, and I think he’s trying to make a point to his audience that if they really want to help others, they need to practice meditation very seriously and gain perfect concentration. 

Also, I think that the context of where he was teaching also plays a role in his emphasis here, because he’s emphasizing these advanced awarenesses in the context of the bodhisattva conduct and building up of the two networks. At that time in Tibet, there was a lot of practice of magic, black magic and so on. Obviously, people had various powers, but they weren’t using them for great benefit, as they were using them for harming others. Since people were already quite familiar with these types of powers and so on, Atisha was emphasizing that the importance of them is to use them to benefit others and reach enlightenment. 

I think that helps to explain a little bit why Atisha put so much emphasis on this, and we don’t really find that type of emphasis in other texts. We just need to think of the biography of Milarepa, who lived shortly after Atisha, to appreciate a little bit the cultural atmosphere in Tibet that Atisha was encountering and the skillful method that he possessed to be able to teach others using something that was very familiar to them in their experience, and show them how it could be used on the path. 

We can think of a similar type of situation nowadays, not so much with advanced awareness and magic, but in terms of technology. Rather than using technology for destructive purposes, we can use it for beneficial ones with a bodhisattva motivation. We have our own types of advanced awareness because of the technology that allows us to see things that we ordinarily couldn’t see, and hear things we ordinarily couldn’t hear. This has relevance, even if we don’t have any experience or haven’t witnessed these specific types of advanced awareness that come from concentration. 

I’ll just read the next three verses because they emphasize the importance of this advanced awareness for being able to help others. 

(35) Just as a bird without fully developed wings cannot fly in the sky, likewise, lacking the force of advanced awareness, you will be unable to fulfill the aims of limited beings. 

(36) Whatever positive force is had in a day and a night by someone possessing advanced awareness is not had even in a hundred lifetimes by someone lacking advanced awareness. 

(37) Therefore, if you would wish to fully complete, quickly, the networks for total enlightenment, make effort and thereby come to attain advanced awareness. It is not to be had by the lazy. 

A Stilled, Settled Mind

Atisha goes on: 

(38) Someone who has not achieved a stilled, settled mind will not attain advanced awareness. Therefore, repeatedly exert effort to actualize a stilled, settled mind. 

“A stilled, settled mind” is referring to what’s called in Sanskrit shamatha, or in Tibetan zhinay (zhi-gnas), sometimes translated as “calm abiding” or “mental quiescence.” This state of mind is one which is one step beyond having a perfect single-minded concentration. 

Not only is the mind stilled of all mental wandering or dullness and settled single-pointedly on some constructive object – which is literally what zhi (“stilled”) and nay (gnas) (“settled”) mean from the word zhinay, Tibetan for shamatha. In addition to this perfect concentration that’s stilled and settled, there is an exhilarating sensation, an exhilarating state of body and mind that is fit for being able to concentrate on anything. There’s this feeling of exhilaration, of fitness, in addition to the perfect concentration – that’s zhinay or shamatha, that’s the stilled settled mind. 

The advanced awarenesses come as a byproduct of the attainment of that stilled settled mind, so it’s not that we can get them by any other means. It’s by gaining this stilled, settled mind that automatically our mind is so concentrated, so focused, and it’s so fit, it’s so exhilaratingly fit to concentrate that it is able to perceive all these things; for instance, far distant sights and sounds and karmic connections and so on, that normally we would never be able to perceive. 

Six Conditions Conducive for Achieving a Stilled, Settled Mind

(39) However, should the factors for a stilled, settled mind be weak, then even if you have meditated with great effort and even if for thousands of years, you will not attain single-minded concentration. 

In order to attain this stilled and settled state of mind, we need various factors, which are going to support the meditation practice to achieve this. Without the support of those factors, it will be impossible to gain single-minded concentration. What are these factors? 

(40) Therefore, maintain well the factors mentioned in the chapter on A Network for Single-Minded Concentration. Then place your mind on something constructive, namely one of the appropriate objects of focus. 

There are generally six conditions that are conducive for achieving this stilled settled mind. 

The first is being in a conducive place. A conducive place is where food and water are easily obtainable – we’re talking about the place where we do retreat to achieve single-minded concentration. It needs to have an excellent spiritual situation, in other words, it’s been approved and sanctified by our own spiritual teacher or previous masters who have meditated there. 

It has to have an excellent geographic situation, so it’s secluded, quiet, distant from people who upset us; it has a long-distance view; it doesn’t have the sound of running water or the ocean nearby. If there’s water running, some people think, “Oh, it’s so nice to have a fast-moving stream of water next to where we’re meditating,” but that tends to mesmerize us; it tends to hypnotize us and puts us into a daze, so it’s not at all conducive for having a clear mind and concentration. It’s the same with the sound of the ocean. It should be very quiet, without such things. It also needs to have a good climate. All of that is the geographic situation. 

The place should also have the excellent company of friends who are similarly engaged, who are either practicing with us or living nearby. Also, it says we need to have “the items that are required for making a happy bond with the practice.” In other words, we have texts and things there that give us the correct information about the practice. We’ve studied them and understood them, but they’re there for reference, in case we have further questions. However, it’s very important before we practice to have cleared up our questions. All of those are the first of the six conditions, a conducive place. 

The second thing is that we need to have is very little attachment. The biggest distraction is attachment to people, to friends, to loved ones, to food, to clothing, as well as attachment to receiving affection, attachment to comfort, attachment to sleep – these sorts of things. We have to have very little of that; otherwise, it’s very difficult to achieve concentration. 

The third is that we need contentment – contentment with the food, clothing, weather conditions, and so on that we have. The fourth, we have to be rid of the busywork of having many distracting activities, like e-mail and carrying on business and worldly affairs and elaborate cooking and all of that. Alright? No cell phones while we’re in retreat and no television either. 

The fifth is pure ethical self-discipline. Finally, the last is being rid of obsessive, prejudiced thoughts about what we usually consider desirable to do; thoughts like, “I’m somebody that has to listen to music all the time,” or “I have to always consult my astrology chart,” or these sorts of things. “I have to read a novel before I go to sleep,” or listening to music, “I have to have music,” or “I have to have my music.” 

We need these factors that are going to give us the conducive circumstance for gaining a stilled and settled mind. Without them, as Atisha says, “even if we’ve meditated for thousands of years, we’re not going to gain single-minded concentration.” 

The Object of Meditation

When we meditate, Atisha says, “place the mind on something constructive, namely one appropriate object of focus.” In other words, we choose one object and don’t change objects. When he says “something constructive,” he’s not talking about something neutral like the breath. Although we could gain single-minded concentration on the breath, as a bodhisattva practice, we would choose something constructive; for instance, the visualization of a Buddha image. 

If we are focusing on a Buddha, this represents the enlightened stage that we’re aiming to achieve with bodhichitta, and so it helps us very much. At the same time as gaining concentration, we need to reinforce our safe direction toward Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and our bodhichitta, so it’s a very constructive object to focus on. We want to be able to develop single-minded concentration and the stilled and settled mind with mental consciousness, not with sense consciousness, because we want to then apply that mental consciousness with perfect concentration to the understanding of voidness. 

(41a) When a yogi actualizes a stilled, settled mind, he or she attains as well advanced awareness. 

That just sums up: when we gain that shamatha state, we gain these advanced awarenesses.

Additional Instructions for Gaining Concentration on a Visualized Buddha 

Let me say a few words about gaining concentration by focusing on a visualization of a Buddha. When we do this, we need to be familiar with what a Buddha looks like, and this could be based on seeing a painting of a Buddha or a statue. However, when we visualize, we’re not looking at this image with our eyes; rather, we are imagining it with our imagination. Imagination here doesn’t mean that we make up something that is our own invention or fantasy. It’s based on what the standard image of a Buddha looks like, because the body of a Buddha has 32 major and 80 minor physical features, and each has a deep significance, so the form of a Buddha is very standardized. Each of these features represents one or another of the causes for achieving Buddhahood.

When we visualize a Buddha, we’re visualizing a very small figure, about a few centimeters high, three-dimensional, alive, but made of clear, transparent light. We’re not visualizing a painting, we’re not visualizing a statue, we’re not visualizing something solid. But we are visualizing a live Buddha, and not a cartoon Buddha either. We visualize it at about an arm’s length away from us at the level of our mid-brow. Our eyes are neither closed, nor looking in the direction of what we’re visualizing, but rather, our eyes are loosely focused looking down at the floor while we visualize at the level of our forehead. Once we choose the object and the appropriate size and so on, then we don’t change it. We keep it like that.

Anyway, that’s just a little bit of information about how it’s done or what we do if we’ve not heard of that before. Obviously, if we want to actually practice this, we need many further instructions. Actually, it’s quite difficult for most of us in the West, who don’t have so much familiarity with visualization. What’s very important is, in the beginning, to have just very, very short sessions, just a couple of minutes. Don’t try to push yourself to do this for too long, as then there’s the danger of really upsetting the energies in the body by squeezing or trying too hard. One has to be very careful. And don’t worry about all the details; just get a rough image at first. With increased concentration, the details will become clear.