Shamatha Meditation: Training The Mind

“The process of undoing bewilderment is based on stabilizing and strengthening our mind,” says Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. “Shamatha meditation is how we do that.”

We sometimes forget\r\nhow the Buddhist teachings came into being. We forget why the Buddha left his\r\nfather’s palace. Dissatisfied with maintaining an illusion, he wanted to\r\nunderstand his life—and life itself.

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Just like the Buddha,\r\nmost of us would like to discover some basic truth about our life. But are we\r\nreally capable of knowing what’s going on? This is a question that relates to\r\nthe most profound truth of the Buddhist teachings. The Buddha’s answer is,\r\n“Yes, ultimately we are. But we need to go on a journey of meditation to find\r\nout, because essentially we are in a state of bewilderment.” Why are we\r\nbewildered? Because we don’t understand how our mind works.

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The process of undoing\r\nbewilderment is based on cultivating the ability to become familiar with,\r\nstabilize, and strengthen our mind. Being aware and observant of what’s\r\nhappening in our mind gives us an opportunity to see a more profound level of\r\ntruth all the time. In the practice of meditation, we learn to zoom back and\r\nget a bigger perspective, rather than always thinking so small.

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The Buddha understood\r\nthat if we want to go on any kind of journey—not just a spiritual one but also\r\na secular one, such as studying or doing business—we need a mind that is\r\nworkable. We need a mind that we can rely on. That’s the notion of training the\r\nmind, of making the mind workable so it can do whatever it needs to do.

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Shamatha, or\r\nmindfulness, meditation is how we make this mind more stable, more useful. From\r\nthis point of view, shamatha is not purely a Buddhist practice; it’s a practice\r\nthat anyone can do. It doesn’t tie in with a particular spiritual tradition. If\r\nwe want to undo bewilderment, we’re going to have to be responsible for\r\nlearning what our own mind is and how it works, no matter what beliefs we hold.

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The wordshamathain\r\nSanskrit (Tib.:shi-ne) means “peacefully abiding.” Peacefully\r\nabiding describes the mind as it naturally is. The word “peace” tells the whole\r\nstory. The human mind is by nature joyous, calm and very clear. In shamatha\r\nmeditation we aren’t creating a peaceful state—we’re letting our mind be as it\r\nis to begin with. This doesn’t mean that we’re peacefully ignoring things. It\r\nmeans that the mind is able to be with itself without constantly leaving.

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In meditation we learn\r\nhow to calmly abide: we learn how to let ourselves just be here peacefully. If\r\nwe can remember what the word “shamatha” means, we can always use it as a\r\nreference point in our practice. We can say, “What is this meditation that I’m\r\ndoing? It is shamatha—calmly, peacefully abiding.”

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At the same time we\r\nbegin to see that our mind isn’t always abiding calmly or peacefully. Perhaps\r\nit’s abiding irritatingly, angrily, jealously. Seeing all of this is how we\r\nbegin to untangle our bewilderment.

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Meditation is a very\r\npersonal practice. Just like the Buddha, we can approach it by way of valid\r\ncognition: “What is truly valid? What is the truth of my experience?” We begin\r\nto realize what we don’t know, and we become curious.

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In doing so we\r\nleapfrog from question to answer, with each new answer leading to a new\r\nquestion. And if we persist we begin to experience another truth that the\r\nBuddha also discovered: in every situation there is the continuum of the truth.\r\nEach answer is followed naturally by the next question. It’s seamless.

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With this kind of\r\npractice and inquisitiveness, the Buddha learned to look at the landscape of\r\nlife in a clear, unbiased way. When he began to teach, he was just reporting\r\nhis observations: “This is what I see. This is the truth about how things are.”\r\nHe wasn’t presenting any particular viewpoint. He wasn’t preaching dogma; he\r\nwas pointing out reality. We forget this. For example, most people would say\r\nthat one of the key teachings in Buddhism is karma. But the Buddha did not\r\ncreate karma; the Buddha just saw it and acknowledged it. Saying that karma is\r\na Buddhist belief is like saying that Buddhists believe water is wet. And if\r\nyou’re a Buddhist, you must also believe that fire is hot!

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In meditation, what\r\nwe’re doing is looking at our experience and at the world intelligently. The\r\nBuddha said that this is how we learn to look at any situation and understand\r\nits truth, its true message, its reality. This is what a Buddha does—and we are\r\nall capable of being Buddhas, whether or not we are Buddhists. We all have the\r\nability to realize our naturally peaceful minds where there is no confusion. We\r\ncan use the natural clarity of our mind to focus on anything we want. But first\r\nwe have to tame our minds through shamatha meditation.

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Perhaps we associate\r\nmeditation with spirituality because when we experience a moment of peacefully\r\nabiding, it seems so far-out. Our mind is no longer drifting, thinking about a\r\nmillion things. The sun comes up or a beautiful breeze comes along—and all of a\r\nsudden we feel the breeze and we are completely in tune. We think, “That’s a\r\nvery spiritual experience! It’s a religious experience! At least worth a poem,\r\nor a letter home.” Yet all that’s happening is that for a moment we are in tune\r\nwith our mind. Our mind is present and harmonious. Before, we were so busy and\r\nbewildered that we didn’t even notice the breeze. Our mind couldn’t even stay\r\nput long enough to watch the sun to come up, which takes two-and-a-half\r\nminutes. Now we can keep it in one place long enough to acknowledge and\r\nappreciate our surroundings. Now we are really here. In fact, this is ordinary.\r\nWe can bring the mind under our own power. We can train it to be useful and\r\nworkable.

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This is the not just\r\nthe point of being Buddhist, it’s the point of being human.

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Sakyong\r\nMipham Rinpoche – Lion’s Roar