The Dalai Lama – Essential Writings Session 5 – Chapter 3 - Meditation

The Dalai Lama – Essential Writings Session 5 – Chapter 3 - Meditation 1. General Introductions 2. Summary of Key Points in Dalai Lama’s words as selected by editor Forsthoefel in the form of paraphrase. 3. Buddha’s Garden - Peggy McDonagh 3. Break 4. Candled Meditation 5. Small Group Discussion

Paraphrased Selections - Forsthoefel Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • Editor’s thoughts: • Meditation is the pinnacle of Buddhist Practice. • Meditation is where theory meets practice. • Meditation rewires the circuitry of our perceiving. • Meditation is to see things as they are. • Seeing rightly leads to compassion.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • The main cause of a happy life is within. • Meditation can be compatible with every type of belief. • World peace begins in a peaceful heart. • You must cultivate a compassionate mind – that is the source of happiness in your life. • The root of Buddhist practice is transformation of the mind.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • Elimination of defective qualities and the improvement of its positive qualities. • We must deliberately take a stand to reverse these tendencies and replace them with new habits. • Meditation is the process whereby we gain control over the mind and guide it in a more virtuous direction.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • Afflictions – such as attachment, hatred, pride, greed, and so forth – are mental states that cause us to behave in ways that bring about all our unhappiness and suffering. • The state beyond such negative emotions and thoughts, beyond all sorrow, is called nirvana. • For the final stage of our journey we need to uproot our afflictions altogether.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • The fundamental inborn mind of clear light … makes enlightenment possible. • This is also called the Buddha nature. It exists at the root of all conciousness. • This diamond mind is the basis of all spiritual development. • Water may be extemely dirty, yet its nature remains clear. Similarly … the basic mind … is good without beginning or end.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • The Buddha nature is in each of us. • The Buddha nature is not itself the Buddha state, which is the end of illusion. • Shantideva says this of awakening: • It is the sublime nectar • To destroy sovereign death, • The inexhaustible treasure • To eliminate the misery of the world.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • Death does not wait for us to tidy up our lives. It strikes unannounced. • Meditation on death gives us a type of restlessness. Our minds automatically take an interest in spiritual matters. • Death is something very natural. Death is not an ending. We do not need to fear it. • We Buddhists believe the deepest and most healing experiences can occur when we are dying.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • We can bring about changes to our attitudes by using different thought processes. • The mind is something that can definitely be transformed, and meditation is means to transform it. • There are 2 stages in meditation: • Analyzing – to consider an issue – like an object, situation or attitude, • Stabilizing – to settle the mind on that issue.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • We can cultivate virtues such as patience and tolerance by contemplating the qualities that constitute patience, the peace of mind it generates in us, the harmonious environment created as a result of it, the respect it engenders in others. • The process of taming the mind is a lengthy one. • The final goal of practicing calm abiding meditation is to actualize special insight.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • Compassion represents the emotion, the heart, and the application of analytic meditation applies the intellect. • The real test is if our disturbing emotions are reduced. • The whole purpose of meditation is to lessen the deluded afflictions of our mind and eventually eradicate them from their very roots … eventually gaining an understanding of reality.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • When dealing with illnesses, one may not alleviate the real physical pain and suffering, but may be able to help others who go through the same experience. • Meditating on this “give and take” can definitely protect from additional mental suffering and pain. • Suffering may be received not as a burden but as a path to empathy with others.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • We often confuse the actions of a person with the actual person. This habit leads us to conclude that because of a particular action or statement, a person is our enemy. Yet people are neutral. • Enemies are teachers of inner strength, courage and determination. • Consider this “enemy”. Just as we cannot get angry at fire because it burns … we should not get angry at someone expressing their nature.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • We ourselves sometimes engage in bad behaviour, do we not? Still, most of us do not think we are completely bad. We should look on others the same way. • In our meditation we must work at cultivating the attitude that “just as I myself have the desire to be happy and overcome suffering, so do all others”. We should repeat this thought as we meditate and as we go about our lives, until it sinks deep into our awreness.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • Forgiveness is something like an end result, or product of patience or tolerance. • We must start to consider how to keep our hearts open towards those we would envy. • The seed of compassion will grow if you plant it in fertile soil, a consciousness moistened with love. When you have watered your mind in love, you can begin to meditate upon compassion. Compassion, here, is simply the wish that all sentient beings be free of suffering.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • I think this mental practice is to look at things in a holistic way, to see that there are many events involved. • We should ensure that whatever we do, we maintain some effect or influence from our meditation so that it directs our actions as we live our everyday lives. • In its developed form, mindfulness also brings about a highly refined sensitivity to everything that happens … in one’s immediate vicinity and in one’s mind.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • True compassion has the intensity and spontaneity of a loving mother caring for her suffering baby. Throughout the day, such a mother’s concern for her child affects all her thoughts and actions. This is the attitude we are working to cultivate toward each and every being. When we experience this, we have generated “great compassion”.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • It would be impossible to count all the people involved in providing us with a simple slice of bread. • Through this train of thought we come to recognize how dependent we are on others for all we enjoy in life. • We must work at developing this recognition as we go about our lives after our morning meditation sessions.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • The observer needs a range of skills, carefully honed through repetition and training, and applied in a rigorous and disciplined manner. • Through constant habituation, the mind learns to improve the quality of whatever faculty is being applied, whether it is attention, reasoning, or imagination. The understanding is that through such prolonged and regular practice, the ability to perform the exercise will become almost second nature.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • For people who have the problem of self-hatred … they should concentrate on the positive aspects of existence. • By reflecting upon these opportunities and potentials, one will be able to increase one’s sense of worth and confidence. • The fundamental teaching of Buddha is that we should view others as being more important than we are.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • Mere understanding of selflessness is not sufficient to defeat the disturbing emotions. • From the point of view of your personal well being, you must cultivate a compassionate mind – that is the source of happiness in your life. • In order to develop special insight you must first develop a calmly abiding mind.

Paraphrased Selections – The Dalai Lama From Chapter 3 – Meditation The Vehicle of Change • When you have understood the wisdom realizing emptiness, that alone will not become a powerful antidote to ignorance if it is not supported by other practices such as giving, ethics, patience, and so forth. • It is the way of the wise to sacrifice one for the benefit of the majority and it is the way of the foolish to sacrifice the majority on behalf of just one single individual.

Buddha’s Gardens Places of Tranquility Silence Peace Equanimity Hope Kindness

Meditation places

Buddha Art Hope Tranquil The Journey Beauty

The silence continues alwaysteaching Silently observing Aware Awake

Buddha dreams Mystical…..serene….noble…..powerful

Buddha’s teachings

The Dalai Lama – Essential Writings Meditation – The Vehicle of Change Break Candled Meditation Small Group Discussion

The Dalai Lama – Essential Writings Session 5 – Chapter 3 - Meditation