Stilling the Mind: Shamatha Teachings from Dudjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence

220 Pages·2011·7.37 MB·English

by  B. Alan Wallace

S T I L L I N G
T H E M I N D
SHAMATHA TEACHINGS
FROM DÜDJOM LINGPA’S
VAJRA ESSENCE
B. A L A N W A L L A C E
Düdjom Lingpa (1835-1904)
Drawing by Winfield Klein
Stilling the M in d
SHAMATHA TEACHINGS
FROM DÜDJOM LINGPA’S
VAJRA ESSENCE
B. Alan Wallace
Edited by Brian Model
Á
Boston • Wisdom Publications
Wisdom Publications
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© 2011 B. Alan Wallace
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wallace, B. Alan.
Stilling the mind : shamatha teachings from Dudjom Lingp^'s Vajra essensc/ B. Alan Wallace
, edited by Brian Hodel.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-86171-690-6 (alk. paper)
1. Samatha (Buddhism) 2. Attention—Religious aspects—Buddhism. I. Hodel, Brian. II. Title.
BQ7805.W355 2011
294.3'4435—dc23
2011022674
ISBN 978-0-86171-690-6
eBook ISBN 978-0-86171-649-4
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6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover design by Phil Pascuzzo. Drawing by Winfield Klein. Interior design by LC. Set in
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CONTENTS
Preface vii
1. INTRODUCTION 1
Dudjom Lingpa and the Vajra Essence 4
The Vision of Dudjom Lingpa 18
Teacher and Assembly in Dialogue 21
2. THE QUESTIONS OF
FACULTY OF WISDOM 25
The Appearance of Teachers 28
3. THE QUESTIONS OF
GREAT BOUNDLESS EMPTINESS 35
The Swift Path—The Great Perfection 36
Qualifications of a Student of the Great Perfection 42
Difficulties Inherent in Other Vehicles 48
The Time to Practice Vajrayana 54
Bodhichitta 55
STILLING TH E H IN D
VI
4. TAKING THE MIND AS THE PATH
The Primacy of Mind
The Emptiness of Mind
Minds Essential Nature
The Source of Appearances
The Fruits of Practice
5. THE EXPLICIT INSTRUCTIONS
Psychophysical Obstructions
Settling the Mind in Its Natural State
Nyam—Signs of Meditative Experience
Signs of Progress
Nyam Emanating from Different Psychophysical Constitutions
Accomplishing the Practice
6. ACCOMPLISHING SHAMATHA
7. PITFALLS
Hazards in the Later Stages of Shamatha Practice
The Role and Significance of Shamatha
Experiencing the Substrate Consciousness
Deeper Possibilities of Shamatha Practice
Notes
Glossary
Index
About the Author
Students of Tibetan Buddhism in the West have been extremely for­
tunate in recent decades to receive teachings from great lamas who
were trained in Tibet before the Chinese Communist occupation.
These superb teachers include the Dalai Lama, the Sixteenth Karmapa,
Diidjom Rinpoche, Sakya Trizin Rinpoche, and many other great masters.
There has also been a gradual increase in the number of texts from this tra­
dition available in Western languages, as more and more students have
learned the art of translation. As a result, we are now seeing a significant
number of Westerners who have themselves become qualified teachers of
Tibetan Buddhism, as well as a younger generation of Tibetan lamas who
were educated in India and other regions of the Tibetan diaspora.
Despite these exceptionally favorable circumstances, it remains diffi­
cult for us to properly contextualize the teachings we receive and to put
them into practice effectively. Tibetan teachers, as wise, experienced, and
enthusiastic as they often are, and Western students—many of them will­
ing to make great sacrifices to practice Dharma—are still, culturally speak­
ing, worlds apart. Keep in mind that Tibetan Buddhism began its
development in the eighth century and is itself an offshoot of Indian
Buddhism, which began with Shakyamuni Buddha around 500 B.C.E. The
distinctive qualities of these traditional Asian cultures are quite different
from those of the modern world in which we live today. It took roughly
four hundred years for Indian Buddhism to morph into Tibetan Buddhism.
STILLING T HE MIND_________________________________________________
VIII
Now the infusion of Tibetan Buddhism into todays global setting—the
first globalization of Buddhism in its entire 2,500-year history—is taking
place at a breathtaking pace.
The Buddhist texts and commentaries presented to people today were
initially geared for the lives, and especially the psyches, of ancient, Asian
students of Dharma. The cultural context of a second-century Indian or
even a nineteenth-century Tibetan has very little in common with our glob­
alized world of jet planes, cell phones, and the internet. Certainly we can
gain a great deal from reading such timeless classics as Shantideva's Guide to
the Bodhisattva Way oj Lije or Patriil Rinpoche's Words of My Perfect Teacher.
Great human and universal truths are expressed there that apply to all
human cultures. At the level of particulars, however, Shantideva and Patral
Rinpoche were speaking primarily to students with views, values, and
lifestyles radically different from ours.
Therefore, as a Western teacher of Dharma who has had the great good
fortune, over more than forty years, to study with a number of eminent
Tibetan Buddhist teachers, I have tried to mold my commentary on the
Vajra Essence to the Western psyche. That, after all, is what I myself had to
do in order to gain some understanding of Tibetan Buddhism. I have
addressed a number of issues that often cause confusion among Western stu­
dents, ranging from terminology (with terms sometimes defined differently
in the context of different traditions and teachings), to the significance of
specific techniques within important sequences of meditation practices. It
is my hope that as a Westerner with much in common with other Western
Buddhists, I will be able to provide a bridge between worlds. I am, after all,
someone who grew up mostly in southern California, went to high school,
dreamed of becoming a wildlife biologist, played the piano, and—after
being a monk for fourteen years—reentered Western society pursuing inter­
ests in both science and religion. I am fluent in Tibetan but am also fasci­
nated by quantum cosmology, the cognitive sciences, and the wonders of
modem technology.
The text presented here, the Vajra Essence by Dtidjom Lingpa, a nineteenth-
century master of the Nyingma order of Tibetan Buddhism, is known as the
Nelug Rangjung in Tibetan, meaning "the natural emergence of the nature of
PREFACE
IX
existence."1 This is an ideal teaching in which to unravel some of the com­
mon misunderstandings of Tibetan Buddhism, since it is a sweeping practice
that can take one from the basics all the way to enlightenment in a single
lifetime. The present volume explains the initial section on sbamatha, or med­
itative quiescence, about nine percent of the entire Vajra Essence root text.
Shamatha is presented in the Vajra Essence as a foundational practice on
the Dzogchen path. Dzogchen, often translated as "the Great Perfection,"
is the highest of the nine vehicles (yanas) in the Nyingma tradition of
Tibetan Buddhism. Classically speaking, after achieving shamatha, the yogi
will use his or her newly acquired powers of concentration to practice
insight into the nature of emptiness (vipashyana), followed by the Dzogchen
practices of tregcho (breakthrough) and togal (direct crossing-over). These
four practices comprise the essential path to enlightenment from the
Nyingma point of view. The practice of Dzogchen brings one into direct
contact with reality, unmediated by the individual personality or society.
Shamatha, in its various presentations, is used to make the mind pliant
and serviceable for the more advanced practices. Shamatha is not found
only in Buddhism. This practice of refining attention skills exists in reli­
gious contexts as distinct as Hinduism, Taoism, early Christianity, and the
Sufi schools of Islam. Within Tibetan Buddhism, shamatha practice maps on
to the nine stages of attentional development wherein thoughts gradually
subside as concentrative power is increased to the point at which one can
effortlessly maintain single-pointed focus on a chosen object for at least
four hours. The accomplishment of shamatha is accompanied by a power­
ful experience of bliss, luminosity, and stillness.
Shamatha requires more careful incubation than most other kinds of
meditation. You can practice tonglen (taking on the suffering of others and
giving them your happiness) very well while you are watching the news.
Loving-kindness and compassion and the rest of the four immeasurables
can be practiced down on "Main Street." Vipashyana you can cultivate any­
where. In fact, many other practices can be done under varying circum­
stances. If you wish to take shamatha all the way to its ground, however, it
requires a supportive, serene environment, good diet, proper exercise, and
very few preoccupations. The necessary internal conditions are minimal
S T I LLING TNE MIND
X
desires, few activities and concerns, contentment, pure ethical discipline,
and freedom from obsessive, compulsive thinking. It is my feeling that the
achievement of shamatha is so rare today because those circumstances are
so rare. It is difficult to find a conducive environment in which to practice
at length and without interference—even more so to have that and access
to suitable spiritual friends for support and guidance. Therefore, if the
causes are difficult to bring together, the result—shamatha—is also neces­
sarily rare. 1 present a detailed guide to the general practice of shamatha in
my earlier book, The Attention Revolution (Wisdom, 2006).
Dudjom Lingpa was a lay practitioner, married, and the father of eight
renowned sons, including Jigmé Tenpai Nyima, the Third Dodrupchen Rin-
poche, who was widely revered by lamas of all the Tibetan Buddhist orders.
During the course of his life, Dudjom Lingpa performed many miracles,
and he reached the highest levels of realization of tantra as well as the Great
Perfection. Thirteen of his disciples attained the rainbow body—dissolution
into light at death—and one thousand became vidyadhara tantric masters
through gaining insight into the essential nature of awareness. In short, he
was one of the most realized and acclaimed Tibetan lamas of his time.
The Vajxa Essence was essentially "downloaded" from the dharmakaya, the
buddha mind that is essentially coterminous with the ultimate ground of
reality, and brought into our world in 1862, when Dudjom Lingpa was
twenty-seven years old. He received it in a vision as a mind terma} However,
while it was optimal for him to receive it in 1862, only about thirteen years
later did the time come for it to be made public. It is clear from the open­
ing that this text is not scholastic in nature but is intended for those who
are dedicated to practice.
In the initial section on shamatha, the Vajra Essence has the practitioner
take the mind as the path, using the specific approach of taking appearances
and awareness as the path, also known as settling the mind in its natural state. In brief,
this consists of observing all arising mental phenomena without grasping on
to them. Your thoughts, emotions, images, and so forth are observed closely
with mindfulness, but you do not encourage, discourage, or involve your­
self in any way with the arising mental phenomena. The aim at this stage
is to settle the mind in the substrate consciousness (alayavijňana)—the