Notes from a lecture by Bokar Rinpoche

We are engaged in so much busyness; school, work, family.  The way we live there are so many distractions.  We engage in so many futile actions, and in the end they've added up to nothing except for mor causes for confusion, more causes for suffering.

How have we spent our life so far?  Persuing goals, ambitions, engaged in projects.  There is no end to the things people regard as being important.  They have no end.  Only when death comes, but until that moment, there is no end to this desire for accomplishment of some kind.

We have not gotten past our notion, our illusion of importance.  It's like waves, constantly in a state of movement, busyness, restlessness, constant restlessness.

We think that nothing is enough.  In a state of agitation, we fixate on our family and friends as real, with attachment.  And then there is the sense of how real are those we dislike, for whom we have resentment.  No matter how close we are it is still impermanant, changing.

Like birds landing on a tree top together, and then dispersing, we are together for a very short time, so it makes sense to live in harmony, unconditional friendship.

The reason we are busy is essentially in persuit of material things.  We have this strongly ingrained habit of dissatisfaction.  When we have a hundred we want a thousand; when we have a thousand we want ten thousand; when we have ten thousand we want a hundred thousand, and so it goes.

If we leave it up to our habit of dissatisfaction, there is simply no end to our desire.  Because there is desire, dissatisfaction, in the absence of contentment, there is no end.

Ask the question: 'Do we really need what we are persuing?'
'Is it worth it?'

All we really need is enough food, shelter, enough clothing.
As far as our real needs are concerned, that's all.  Not recognizing the richness, the freedom of simplicity, we indulge without thought for consequences.  We feed the habit of dissatisfaction, and this is how we spend our lives.

We use so little of what is saved, accumulated, collected.
And after all this labor, all this toil, somebody else takes it away.

Accumulating like bees, busy like ants, we disperse like the birds.  Birds, ants, bees.

When is reality pleasant?

What do we really need?  What do we really want?

What we need is happiness and harmony of mind, but our actions and attitudes have been contrary to what our deepest desire and needs are.

Given our habitual patterns of mind, even if we have some intellectual understanding, we are not simply able to let go of everything.  Although there is nothing permanant or reliable about worldly material indulgences of all kinds, we are not able to free ourselves, instantly.

But as practitioners of the Buddhist path, this should have some effect by way of providing happiness and harmony of mind.  

We should make the effort to give ourselves a little bit of freedom of mind.  This we should be able to do.

Nothing is permanant, and along with that we experience different kinds of sufferings.
Why?

Because of unwholesome and negative karmas of the past, conflicting emotions, attachment, anger, jealousy, pride, ignorance- because of these conflicting emotional tendencies of the mind, because of not having understood one's mind, not knowing one's mind.

If we are really to become free from suffering, we must become free from karmic patterns.  If we are really to become free from karmic patterns, we must be free from conflicting emotions.  And if we are to become free from conflicting emotions, we must know our mind, the essentially pure, unstained nature of our mind- only then can we become liberated from the others.

In order for us to become liberated from suffering, we have to learn to understand our mind, and in order for us to learn to understand our own mind we have to practice meditation, to familiarize ourselves with our own mind.

Right now, we have all kinds of distractions, conflict.  To pacify our mind, to understand our mind, we have to meditate.

We have to understand that the root of suffering is not knowing our own mind.

Meditation, or familiarization with the qualities of our mind is the key to bringing happiness and harmony to mind, but- in the context we are in now, there is a greater need, a crucial need for meditation.

In the advanced society we live in, we are trying to raise ourselves by machinery, inanimate objects.  We human beings, of flesh, feelings, emotions, mind, consciousness, when we try to keep up with machines, we lose.  

Animate beings can't keep up this burdon of pressures of mind.  We have the ridiculous idea of trying to compete with machines.

Because of suffering, now more than ever we need to meditate, understanding that we need to work with our own mind, and then doing meditation practice.

Approach it as a beginner, or in accordance with one's level, then carry it out on a daily basis.

Meditation, of the body, simply is to allow the body to rest naturally at ease.  Allow the body to settle on its own accord.

Meditation of the breath is to allow it to have a natural pacing, not trying to hurry it up or slow it down.

And the natural placing of the mind is not trying to do something about it, allowing the mind to rest naturally, at ease.  Don't try to do anything with it.  Allow unimpeded, basic awareness to occur.

Usually we are not present.

Allow the mind to familiarize itself.  Let the mind rest so that the natural unimpeded awareness is occuring.

Meditation is neither complicated, nor difficult, if understood properly.

When you sit this way, trying to maintain the basic awareness of the mind, it's very much possible that thoughts will occur.  Thoughts by themselves are not a problem, nor an obstacle to meditation, as many people have the notion they are.

If you get distracted and follow thoughts, you have made a problem out of thoughts.  Thoughts are not a problem, you have made a problem out of thoughts.  

If you resist thoughts, you have made a problem out of thoughts.  
Simply thoughts occuring is not a problem when there is awareness.

When there aren't other thoughts to support the first thought, thought simply dissappears.

As long as there's mindfulness, thoughts are not a problem.
When there is no mindfulness, then thoughts become a problem.

Like a flag pole, there's always a chance of the wind blowing and the flag fluttering, but make sure the pole is strongly placed in the ground.

When there is mindfulness, let thoughts occur.  Thoughts don't distract the mind when there is mindfulness.

The key is simply maintaining undistracted awareness.

With the body and breath, the more natural they are the better, and the less you try to do something about them the better it is.

But one needs to understand, there are all kinds of sidetracks.  There is more in the name of meditation available that has nothing to do with meditation.
Or else the instructions are misunderstood, or we make personal interpretations.

Thoughts are not a problem, trying to block thoughts, or having notions or ideas about, for example, emptiness, thinking about emptiness, or being in a state of dullness, tiredness, a dull, slothful state, because there are no gross distractions to meditation, one might think, 'this must be the meditative state'- neither of these are meditation.

These are possible sidetracks one can fall into.

To meditate simply means to familiarize yourself with that outlook of mind.

Then there are complementary activities that enhance meditation; being mindful of activities of body, speech and mind; diminishing negativities of body, speech and mind; taking up wholesome activities of body, speech and mind; generating good heartedness; refreshing one's mind; and gaining a deeper understanding by receiving further instruction, explanations from authentic teachers, so that one has a renewed perspective, strength, and inspiration to nurture the same understanding.

This is the foundation of all practices of meditation.  
This is the essence of all practices of meditation.

In Vajrayana, meditation is presented in the form of Dieties, Buddhas; color, gesture, attributes, making these details the object of one's awareness, one's attention, familiarizing one's self with forms, attributes, qualities of enlightened ones, with mantra.  

The methods are vast in number, profound in effect.  Having the attention on the form of the diety, on the mantra, mind resting in basic awareness, this is the approach of meditation.

In the same way as the Buddha of Medicine, one can also do Avalokiteshvara, the stainless buddhafield of Amitaba, seeing all beings as dieties.  This is cultivating pure outlook, using the potential of mind as the method of practice.

The basic meditation is the undistracted awareness of mind. The vast and profound skillful means, form of diety, sound of mantra, due to aptitides, propensities of beings, there is the variety.

The basic purpose of all meditation practice, all of the dieties, when the mind is on any of the details, at that time mind is self-liberated from conflicting emotions.   At that time a thought cannot be happening simultaneously.  
No negative karma accumulated, it is immediately beneficial.

One has a more peaceful, harmonious mind.  There is liberation from the usual preoccupation with conflicting emotions, and no negative karma  is created.  

Then, through familiarization, we continue to sow the positive seeds toward greater awareness of one's mind.

In conclusion, I have offered these instructions, explanations on how to relate to Buddhist practice in a practical way.  It is my hope that you will retain some of the points I have given, and more than retain, I hope you will familiarize yourself with what you are able to retain, because I know that if you do it, it will be of practical benefit to your life.  You will be a personal witness to the benefit.

(dedication)