ten stages to shamatha

8/13/2019 Ten Stages to Shamatha

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B. Alan Wallace. All rights reserved.

The Path of !amathaB. Alan Wallace

www.alanwallace.org

The Nine Steps to Attentional Balance

1. Directed attention

What is achieved: One is able to direct the attention to the chosen object The power by which that is achieved: Learning the instructions What problems persist: There is no attentional continuity on the object Attentional imbalances: Coarse excitation The type of mental engagement: Focused The quality of the experience: Movement The flow of involuntary thought is like a cascading waterfall2. Continuous attention

What is achieved: Attentional continuity on the chosen object up to a minute The power by which that is achieved: Thinking about the practice What problems persist: Most of the time the attention is not on the object Attentional imbalances: Coarse excitation The type of mental engagement: Focused The quality of the experience: Movement The flow of involuntary thought is like a cascading waterfall3. Resurgent attention What is achieved: Swift recovery of distracted attention, mostly on the object The power by which that is achieved: Mindfulness What problems persist: One still forgets the object entirely for brief periods Attentional imbalances: Coarse excitation The type of mental engagement: Interrupted The quality of the experience: Movement The flow of involuntary thought is like a cascading waterfall4. Close attention

What is achieved: One no longer completely forgets the chosen object The power by which that is achieved: Mindfulness, which is now strong What problems persist: Some degree of complacency concerning sam!dhi Attentional imbalances: Coarse laxity and medium excitation The type of mental engagement: Interrupted The quality of the experience: Achievement Involuntary thoughts are like river quickly flowing through a gorge


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5. Tamed attention

What is achieved: One takes satisfaction in sam!dhi The power by which that is achieved: Introspection What problems persist: Some resistance to sam!dhi Attentional imbalances: Medium laxity and medium excitation The type of mental engagement: Interrupted The quality of the experience: Achievement Involuntary thoughts are like river quickly flowing through a gorge6. Pacified attention

What is achieved: No resistance to training the attention The power by which that is achieved: Introspection What problems persist: Desire, depression, lethargy, and drowsiness Attentional imbalances: Medium laxity and subtle excitation The type of mental engagement: Interrupted The quality of the experience: Achievement Involuntary thoughts are like a river slowly flowing through a valley7. Fully pacified attention

What is achieved: Pacification of attachment, melancholy, and lethargy The power by which that is achieved: Enthusiasm What problems persist: Subtle imbalances of the attention, swiftly rectified Attentional imbalances: Subtle laxity and excitation The type of mental engagement: Interrupted The quality of the experience: Familiarity Involuntary thoughts are like a river slowly flowing through a valley8. Single-pointed attention

What is achieved: Sam!dhiis long sustained without any excitation or laxity The power by which that is achieved: Enthusiasm What problems persist: It still takes effort to ward off excitation and laxity Attentional imbalances: Latent impulses for subtle excitation and laxity The type of mental engagement: Uninterrupted The quality of the experience: Stillness The conceptually discursive mind is calm like an ocean unmoved by waves9. Attentional balance What is achieved: Flawless sam!dhiis long sustained effortlessly The power by which that is achieved: Familiarity What problems persist: Attentional imbalances may recur in the future Attentional imbalances: The causes of those imbalances are still latent The type of mental engagement: Effortless The quality of the experience: Perfection


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The conceptually discursive mind is still like Mount Meru, King of Mountains Coarse excitation: The attention completely disengages from the meditative object.

Medium excitation: Involuntary thoughts occupy the center of attention, while the

meditative object is displaced to the periphery. Subtle excitation: The meditative

object remains at the center of attention, but involuntary thoughts emerge at theperiphery of attention.

Coarse laxity: The attention mostly disengages from the object due to insufficientvividness. Medium laxity: The object appears, but not with much vividness. Subtle

laxity: The object appears vividly, but the attention is slightly slack.

The terms for the nine attentional states are listed as a set of nine verbs in the Tibetanversion of the Mah!"#nyat! S#tra, which is considered to be a M"lasarv!stiv!daredaction parallel to the P!liMah!suata Sutta. This list of nine verbs is likely thesource for the nine attentional states as a developmental stage model for #amatha asit's found in the Yog!c!ra commentarial literature. The P!li version of the

Mah!suata Sutta lists only four of these verbs, corresponding to the first, second,

eighth, and ninth terms in the M"lasarv!stiv!da list. Cf. Skilling, Peter. Mah!s"tras:Great Discourses of the Buddha, Volume II. (Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1997), p.381.

The Achievement of !amatha

You experience a sense of heaviness and numbness on the top of the head, whichsignals freedom from mental dysfunction and the achievement of mental pliancy and

mental fitness.

Vital energies that cause physical pliancy then course through the body. When thoseenergies have pervasively coursed through all parts of the body, you are freed of

physical dysfunction and physical pliancy arises, which is the remedy for physicaldysfunction. Once these saturate the entire body, there is an experience as if you were

filled with the power of this dynamic energy.

When physical pliancy initially arises, due to the power of the vital energies a greatsense of bliss arises in the body, and in dependence upon that an extraordinary degree

of bliss also arises in the mind.

Once the rapturous pleasure of the mind has disappeared, the attention is sustainedfirmly upon the meditative object; and you achieve "amatha that is freed from theturbulence caused by great pleasure.

State-effects of !amatha

Arhat N!gasena[Milindapaha(pp. 299-300)]: The uninterrupted bhava$ga,which has a radiance that exists whether or not it is obscured, manifests indreamless sleep and at death.

Therav!da Abhidhamma Pikita [Kath!vatthu(615)]: the bhava$ga cittais thevery last moment of a persons life. With the achievement of the first dhy!na, one

accesses the bhavanga(ground of becoming), a naturally pure, unencumbered,

luminous state of consciousness. It manifests when awareness is withdrawn from


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the physical senses and when the activities of the mind, such as discursive

thoughts and images, have subsided. This happens naturally when one falls intodreamless sleep and in the last moment of ones life.

Buddhaghosa (The Path of Purification):o With the accomplishment of access concentration to the first dhy!na: the

hindrances eventually become suppressed, the defilements subside, themind becomes concentrated with access concentration, and the counterpart

sign arises.

M!t"ce#a (): Those who follow your Dharmaeven if they do not

achieve the actual state of dhy!naturn away from mundane existence, whileunder the steady gaze of the eyes of M!ra.

$rya Asa%ga (Third Stage of Yoga in the %r!vakabh#mi): The entirecontinuum and flow of your attention, directed single-pointedly and internally

focused in the #amatha on the mind, should sequentially be signless, devoid of

ideation, and calm. When you achieve serenity of the mind in this way, signs,ideation, and secondary mental afflictions may appear, manifest, or become the

object, because of forgetfulness or the fault of lack of habituation. Do not fall

immediately under the influence of the faults that you have previously observed;

but be without mindfulness and without mental engagement. That is to say, due tothe absence of mindfulness and of mental engagement, when that object is

dissolved and removed, the mind is placed in the absence of appearances.

Vasubandhu (Louis de La Valle Poussin, Abhidharmako!abh"#yam, Englishtrans. Leo M. Pruden, Vol. IV, p. 1231): In the first dhy!na the five senseconsciousnesses are absent in a person who has entered into contemplation.

The Vajra Essence:o [In this way] the rope of mindfulness and firmly maintained attention is

dissolved by the power of meditative experiences, until finally the

ordinary mind of an ordinary being disappears, as it were. Consequently,

compulsive thinking subsides, and roving thoughts vanish into the space

of awareness. You then slip into the vacuity of the substrate, in which self,others, and objects disappear. By clinging to the experiences of vacuity

and luminosity while looking inward, the appearances of self, others, and

objects vanish. This is the substrate consciousness. Some teachers say that

the substrate to which you descend is freedom from conceptual elaborationor the one taste, but others say it is ethically neutral. Whatever they call it,

in truth you have come to the essential nature (of the mind). (The second

and third of the four stages of Mah!mudr!practice, the first being single-pointedness, and the fourth being non-meditation.)

o When you fall asleep, all objective appearances of waking reality,including the physical world, the beings who inhabit it, and all the objects

that appear to the five senses, dissolve into the vacuity of the substrate,

which is of the nature of space, and they emerge from that domain.

o Entering that state corresponds to states such as fainting, abiding inmeditative absorption, entering a trance induced by dhy!na, becoming


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engulfed by deep sleep in the substrate (in which appearances have

dissolved into the space of awareness), and reaching the point of death, inwhich appearances have vanished. That is called the true substrate.

o

The venerable Domang Gyatrul Rinpoche (Naked Awareness): the stage of theyoga of single-pointedness is as follows: the first stage of single-pointedness

occurs with the accomplishment of #amatha, wherein one single-pointedly attendsto ones own awareness, which is primordially unceasing and luminous.

The Third Karmapa,Rangjung Dorj (The Great Instructions) associates thesmall stage of the yoga of single-pointedness with the Mah!yana Path of

Accumulation, the first of the five paths culminating in perfect enlightenment.

The Lamp of Mah!mudr!by Tsel Natsok Rangdrl: Single-pointedness, thefirst yoga of Mah!mudr!, has three levels: small, medium and great. Single-

pointedness, for the most part, consists of #amatha and the gradual progressionthrough the stages of #amatha with support, without support, and finally to the

#amatha that delights the tath!gatas. During that process, grasping gradually

diminishes.

Karma Chakm (Naked Awareness): Up until single-pointedness, primordialconsciousness that realizes the path has not arisen, so that is not genuinemeditative equipoise. Thus, as subsequent appearances do not appear as illusions,

there is no genuine post-meditative state.

Mah!mudr!: The Ocean of Definitive Meaningby the Ninth Karmapa, WangchukDorj: How then should one seek to realize #amatha? It is highly praiseworthy

for someone to achieve #amatha at the threshold to the first dhy!na [within the

form realm], as stated before. Failing that, one would do well to realize a single-pointed concentration in the desire realm.

The Vajra Essence: Know that among unrefined people in this degenerate era,very few appear to achieve more than fleeting stability.

Tsongkhapa (TheGreat Exposition of the Stages of the Path): Therefore, the#amatha that serves as the basis for vipa#y!na by which one achieves the !rya


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paths of all stream-enterers and once-returnersis the threshold to the first

dhy!na.

Tsongkhapa (TheMedium Exposition of the Stages of the Path):o By placing the attention in the absence of mindfulness and mental

engagement as before, like bubbles emerging from water, any ideation that

arises cannot be prolonged in great diffusion, but naturally subsides. Thenby practicing as before, without intentionally inhibiting them, experientialawareness and the sense of ongoing bliss do not bear observation; rather,like peeling bark, they naturally subside and are purified as soon as theyarise. Bliss and experiential awareness then become subtle.

o At that time, while in meditative equipoise no appearances of your ownbody and so on arise, and there is a sense as if the mind has become

indivisible with space. When rising from that state, there is a sense as if

the body is suddenly coming into being.

o Finally, when you settle in meditative equipoise, only the aspects of thesheer awareness, luminosity, and vivid, mental bliss appear, without theappearance of the signs of visual form, sound, and so on.

o All sam!dhisprior to the achievement of the sam!dhiof the threshold [tothe first dhy!na] are single-pointed attention of the desire realm. So

judging by the great treatises, there seem to be very few who achieve even

#amatha.

o All Mah!y!na and H$nay!na contemplatives must accomplish thatsam"dhi; and among Mah!y!nists, all Mantray!na and P!ramit!y!nacontemplatives must also accomplish that %amatha. So this %amatha isimportant as the basis for proceeding along all contemplative paths.

o If the previously explained %amatha is accomplished, which is included inthe plane of the threshold to the first dhy!na, even without achievingeither the dhy!na above that or formless %amatha, by cultivating vipa%yan!

on that basis it is possible to achieve liberation that frees one from all thefetters of sa$s"ra.

Vidy!dhara Ddjom Lingpa (Commentary to The Sharp Vajra of ConsciousAwareness Tantra): Cut through your false assumptions by inseparably devotingyourself to a sublime spiritual friend who knows how to teach the essential points of

this path correctly. Even if you lack such good fortune, it is indispensible that you,

without falling into indolence, properly seek out and familiarize yourself with the

practical instructions of the vidy!dharas of the past who have achieved siddhis byway of this path.

Trait-effects of !amatha

The occurrence of afflictive thoughts and emotions such as hatred is feeble and ofbrief duration.

For the most part, the five obscurations(1) sensual craving, (2) malice, (3) laxityand dullness, (4) excitation and anxiety, and (5) uncertaintydo not arise.

The sense of attentional clarity is so great that you feel that you could count the atomsof the pillars and walls of your house.


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Due to deep attentional stability, you feel as if your sleep was suffused with sam!dhi,and many pure dream appearances take place.

When the attention is settled inwardly, meditative equipoise and physical and mentalpliancy arise very swiftly.

When you rise from meditative equipoise, you still possess some degree of physicaland mental pliancy.

Your attention is highly focused throughout all your daily activities. When you are inactive, the mind slips into a space-like state of awareness. You experience an unprecedented fitness of body and mind, such that you are

naturally inclined toward virtue.

Due to bodily fitness, there is no feeling of physical heaviness or discomfort, thespine becomes straight like a golden pillar, and the body feels blissful as if it were

bathed with warm milk.

Due to mental fitness, you are now fully in control of the mind, so you are virtuallyfree of sadness and grief and continuously experience a state of wellbeing.

The fitness of the body and mind is coarse at first, but then becomes subtle, which issuperior, for you are now perfectly prepared for more advanced levels of

contemplative training.

Prerequisites for achieving %amatha: A supportive environment

o food, clothing and so on are easily obtained, i.e. with no problemo you are not disturbed by people, carnivorous animals and so ono the location is pleasant, that is, it is not inhabited by enemies, etc.o the land is good, that is, it does not make you illo you have good companions, i.e. their ethical discipline and views are

similar to your own

o a location having few people around during the daytime and little noise atnight

Having few desires Contentment Having few activities Pure ethical discipline Dispensing with rumination involving desire and so on

AtasLamp for the Path to Enlightenment:

Just as a bird with undeveloped wingsCannot fly in the sky,Those without the power of extrasensory perception

Cannot work for the good of living beings. (vs. 35)

The merit gained in a single day

By someone with extrasensory perception

Cannot be gained even in a hundred lifetimes


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By one without extrasensory perception. (vs. 36)

Without the achievement of "amathaExtrasensory perception will not arise.

Therefore make repeated effort

To accomplish "amatha. (vs. 38)

As long as the conditions for "amathaare incomplete,Sam!dhiwill not be accomplishedEven if you meditate diligentlyFor a thousand years. (vs. 39)

When a contemplative has achieved "amathaExtrasensory perception will also be realized.But if one does not cultivate the Perfection of Wisdom,

Ones obscurations will not come to an end. (vs. 41)

The achievement of "amatha is indispensable for attaining the following stages of theBuddhist path to liberation and enlightenment

The union of "amathaand vipa"yan!into the nature of identitylessness (an!tman) The state of Stream-Entry on the 'r!vakas path to liberation, thus becoming a

'r!vaka-!rya

Complete and irreversible freedom from any and all mental afflictions The attainment of Liberation (nirv!&a), thereby becoming a 'r!vaka Arhat The achievement of bodhicitta, thereby becoming a bodhisattva and entering the

Mah!y!na path of accumulation

The union of "amathaand vipa"yan!into the nature of emptiness, thereby achievingthe Mah!y!na path of seeing and becoming an $rya-bodhisattva

The achievement of the Six Perfections The attainment of perfect enlightenment (samyaksambodhi), thereby becoming a

buddha

From the Biography of Shabkar Rinpoche:

The distance covered by a great ship

Pulled on land by a hundred men for a hundred days

Can be covered in a day when it is put to sea

In the same way, a single day of meditation

Performed with real stability of mindBrings more progress than a hundred days

Practicing development and completion stages

Before stability of mind has been attained.

ten stages to shamatha

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